the woods and hills to which he had always been accustomed,
late in the fall of 1795, he took his canoe, rifle, traps, and blanket,
with no one to accompany him, leaving even his faithful dog in the
garrison with his family. As he was going into a dangerous neighborhood,
he was fearful lest the voice of his dog might betray him. With a daring
and intrepidity which few men possess, he pushed his canoe up the Sciota
river a distance of fifteen or twenty miles, into the Indian country,
amidst their best hunting-grounds for the bear and the beaver, where no
white man had dared to venture. These two were the main object of his
pursuit, and the hills of Brush creek were said to abound in bear, and the
small streams that fell into the Sciota were well suited to the haunts of
the beaver.

The spot chosen for his winter's residence was within twenty-five or
thirty miles of the Indian town of Chillicothe, but as they seldom go far
to hunt in the winter, he had little to fear from their interruption. For
ten or twelve weeks he trapped and hunted in this solitary region
unmolested; luxuriating on the roasted tails of the beaver, and drinking
the oil of the bear, an article of diet which is considered by the
children of the forest as giving health to the body, with strength and
activity to the limbs. His success had equalled his most sanguine
expectations, and the winter passed away so quietly and so pleasantly,
that he was hardly aware of its progress. About the middle of February, he
began to make up the peltry he had captured into packages, and to load his
canoe with the proceeds of his winter's hunt, which for safety had been
secreted in the willows, a few miles below the little bark hut in which he
had lived. The day before that which he had fixed on for his departure, as
he was returning to his camp, just at evening, Fleehart's acute ear caught
the report of a rifle in the direction of the Indian towns, but at so
remote a distance, that none but a backwoodsman could have distinguished
the sound. This hastened his preparations for decamping. Nevertheless he
slept quietly, but rose the following morning before the dawn; cooked and
ate his last meal in the little hut to which he had become quite
attached.

[Illustration: FLEEHART SHOOTING THE INDIAN.]

The sun had just risen, while he was sitting on the trunk of a fallen
tree, examining the priming and lock of his gun, casually casting a look
up the river bank, he saw an Indian