; they admired him for his dexterity and prowess, and
they loved him for his straightforward honesty, and his noble loyalty to
his friends. One of these old pioneer hunters has left on record[21] the
statement that he deemed "Logan the best specimen of humanity he ever
met with, either white or red." Such was Logan before the evil days came
upon him.

Early in the spring the outlying settlers began again to suffer from the
deeds of straggling Indians. Horses were stolen, one or two murders were
committed, the inhabitants of the more lonely cabins fled to the forts,
and the backwoodsmen began to threaten fierce vengeance. On April 16th,
three traders in the employ of a man named Butler were attacked by some
of the outlaw Cherokees, one killed, another wounded, and their goods
plundered. Immediately after this Conolly issued an open letter,
commanding the backwoodsmen to hold themselves in readiness to repel any
attack by the Indians, as the Shawnees were hostile. Such a letter from
Lord Dunmore's lieutenant amounted to a declaration of war, and there
were sure to be plenty of backwoodsmen who would put a very liberal
interpretation upon the order given them to repel an attack. Its effects
were seen instantly. All the borderers prepared for war. Cresap was near
Wheeling at the time, with a band of hunters and scouts, fearless men,
who had adopted many of the ways of the redskins, in addition to their
method of fighting. As soon as they received Conolly's letter they
proceeded to declare war in the regular Indian style, calling a council,
planting the war-post, and going through other savage ceremonies,[22]
and eagerly waited for a chance to attack their foes.

Unfortunately the first stroke fell on friendly Indians. The trader,
Butler, spoken of above, in order to recover some of the peltries of
which he had been robbed by the Cherokees, had sent a canoe with two
friendly Shawnees towards the place of the massacre. On the 27th Cresap
and his followers ambushed these men near Captina, and killed and
scalped them. Some of the better backwoodsmen strongly protested against
this outrage;[23] but the mass of them were excited and angered by the
rumor of Indian hostilities, and the brutal and disorderly side of
frontier character was for the moment uppermost. They threatened to kill
whoever interfered with them, cursing the "damned traders" as being
worse than the Indians,[24] while Cresap boasted of the murder, and
never said