a word in condemnation of the still worse deeds that followed
it.[25] The next day he again led out his men and attacked another party
of Shawnees, who had been trading near Pittsburg, killed one and wounded
two others, one of the whites being also hurt.[26]

Among the men who were with Cresap at this time was a young Virginian,
who afterwards played a brilliant part in the history of the west, who
was for ten years the leader of the bold spirits of Kentucky, and who
rendered the whole United States signal and effective service by one of
his deeds in the Revolutionary war. This was George Rogers Clark, then
twenty-one years old.[27] He was of good family, and had been fairly
well educated, as education went in colonial days; but from his
childhood he had been passionately fond of the wild roving life of the
woods. He was a great hunter; and, like so many other young colonial
gentlemen of good birth and bringing up, and adventurous temper, he
followed the hazardous profession of a backwoods surveyor. With chain
and compass, as well as axe and rifle, he penetrated the far places of
the wilderness, the lonely, dangerous regions where every weak man
inevitably succumbed to the manifold perils encountered, but where the
strong and far-seeing were able to lay the foundations of fame and
fortune. He possessed high daring, unflinching courage, passions which
he could not control, and a frame fitted to stand any strain of fatigue
or hardship. He was a square-built, thick-set man, with high broad
forehead, sandy hair, and unquailing blue eyes that looked out from
under heavy, shaggy brows.[28]

Clark had taken part with Cresap in his assault upon the second party of
Shawnees. On the following day the whole band of whites prepared to
march off and attack Logan's camp at Yellow Creek, some fifty miles
distant. After going some miles they began to feel ashamed of their
mission; calling a halt, they discussed the fact that the camp they were
preparing to attack, consisted exclusively of friendly Indians, and
mainly of women and children; and forthwith abandoned their proposed
trip and returned home. They were true borderers--brave, self-reliant,
loyal to their friends, and good-hearted when their worst instincts were
not suddenly aroused; but the sight of bloodshed maddened them as if
they had been so many wolves. Wrongs stirred to the depths their moody
tempers, and filled them with a brutal longing for indiscriminate
revenge. Whe