, the Americans tomahawked the savages, one after
another, before the eyes of the British.

Then Clark sent to the fort a peremptory summons to surrender, adding,
that "his men were eager to avenge the murder of their relatives and
friends and would welcome an excuse to storm the fort." To the British,
it seemed a choice between surrender and massacre. They had seen the
bloody vengeance wreaked upon their Indian allies, and they had every
reason to believe that they would be dealt with in the same manner,
since it was they who had set the Indians on. Clark was himself, of
course, in desperate straits, without means for carrying on a successful
siege, but the British were far from suspecting this, and at ten o'clock
on the morning of February 25, 1779, marched out and stacked arms, while
Clark fired a salute of thirteen guns in honor of the colonies, from
whose possession the Northwest was never again to pass.

For eight years longer, Clark devoted his life to protecting the border
from British and Indian invasion. The war over, he returned to Kentucky,
and took up his abode in a little log cabin on the Ohio near Louisville.
He was without means, and a horrible accident marred his last years,
for, while alone in his cabin, he was stricken with paralysis, and fell
with one of his legs in the old-fashioned fire-place. There was no one
to draw him out of danger, and before the pain brought him partially to
his senses, his leg was so badly burned that it had to be amputated.
There were no anaesthetics in those days, but while the leg was being
removed, a fife and drum corps played its hardest at the bedside, and
the doughty old warrior kept time to the music with his fingers.

He lived for ten years thereafter, though his paralysis never left him.
He felt keenly the ingratitude of the Republic which he had served so
well, and which yet, in his old age, abandoned him to want, and the
story is told that, when the state of Virginia sent him a sword of
honor, he thrust it into the ground and broke it with his crutch.

"I gave Virginia a sword when she needed one," he said; "but now, when I
need bread, she sends me a toy!"

* * * * *

In the settlement of the country north of the Ohio, one man, a veteran
of the Revolution, was foremost. His name was Rufus Putnam, and he was a
cousin of that Israel Putnam, some of whose exploits we will soon
relate. He has been well called the "Father of Ohio,"