the canoe and lie down; three
Indians then got in, while the fourth started to swim the stolen horses
across the river.

Fortunately for the captured boy three of the settlers had chosen this
day to return to the abandoned clearing and look after the loose stock.
They reached the place shortly after the Indians, and just in time to
hear the report of the rifle when the hog was shot. The owner of the
hogs, instead of suspecting that there were Indians near by, jumped to
the conclusion that a Kentucky boat had landed, and that the immigrants
were shooting his hogs--for the people who drifted down the Ohio in
boats were not, when hungry, over-scrupulous concerning the right to
stray live stock. Running forward, the three men had almost reached the
river, when they heard the loud snorting of one of the horses as it was
forced into the water. As they came out on the bank they saw the canoe,
with three Indians in it, and in the bottom four rifles, the dead hog,
and young Wetzel stretched at full length; the Indian in the stern was
just pushing off from the shore with his paddle; the fourth Indian was
swimming the horses a few yards from shore. Immediately the foremost
white man threw up his rifle and shot the paddler dead; and a second
later one of his companions coming up, killed in like fashion the Indian
in the bow of the canoe. The third Indian, stunned by the sudden
onslaught, sat as if numb, never so much as lifting one of the rifles
that lay at his feet, and in a minute he too was shot and fell over the
side of the canoe, but grasped the gunwale with one hand, keeping
himself afloat. Young Wetzel, in the bottom of the canoe, would have
shared the same fate, had he not cried out that he was white and a
prisoner; whereupon they bade him knock loose the Indian's hand from the
side of the canoe. This he did, and the Indian sank. The current carried
the canoe on a rocky spit of land, and Wetzel jumped out and waded
ashore, while the little craft spun off and again drifted towards
midstream. One of the men on shore now fired at the only remaining
Indian, who was still swimming his horse for the opposite bank. The
bullet splashed the water on his naked skin, whereat he slipped off his
horse, swam to the empty canoe, and got into it. Unhurt he reached the
farther shore, where he leaped out and caught the horse as it swam to
land, mounted it, rifle in hand, turned to yell defiance at his foes,
and then vanished in the forest-s