big war party of a hundred warriors or
over would come prepared for a stroke against some good-sized village or
fort; but, as a rule, the Indians came in small bands, numbering from a
couple to a dozen or score of individuals. Entirely unencumbered by
baggage or by impediments of any kind, such a band lurked through the
woods, leaving no trail, camping wherever night happened to overtake it,
and travelling whithersoever it wished. The ravages committed by these
skulking parties of murderous braves were monotonous in their horror.
All along the frontier the people on the outlying farms were ever in
danger, and there was risk for the small hamlets and block-houses. In
their essentials the attacks were alike: the stealthy approach, the
sudden rush, with its accompaniment of yelling war-whoops, the butchery
of men, women, and children, and the hasty flight with whatever
prisoners were for the moment spared, before the armed neighbors could
gather for rescue and revenge.

In most cases there was no record of the outrage; it was not put into
any book; and, save among the survivors, all remembrance of it vanished
as the logs of the forsaken cabin rotted and crumbled.

Incidents of the War on the Frontier.

Yet tradition, or some chance written record kept alive the memory of
some of these incidents, and a few such are worth reciting, if only to
show what this warfare of savage and settler really was. Most of the
tales deal merely with some piece of unavenged butchery.

In 1785, on June 29th, the house of a settler named Scott, in Washington
County, Virginia, was attacked. The Indians, thirteen in number, burst
in the door just as the family were going to bed. Scott was shot; his
wife was seized and held motionless, while all her four children were
tomahawked, and their throats cut, the blood spouting over her clothes.
The Indians loaded themselves with plunder, and, taking with them the
wretched woman, moved off, and travelled all night. Next morning each
man took his share and nine of the party went down to steal horses on
the Clinch. The remaining four roamed off through the woods, and ten
days later the woman succeeded in making her escape. For a month she
wandered alone in the forest, living on the young cane and sassafras,
until, spent and haggard with the horror and the hardship, she at last
reached a small frontier settlement.

At about the same time three girls, sisters, walking together near
Wheeling Creek,