nd advising them to remove
from the position which they then occupied; as from its exposed
situation, without great vigilance and alertness, they must
necessarily fall a prey to the savages.

When the express arrived at the cabin of Walter Kelly, twelve miles
below the falls, Capt. John Field of Culpepper (who had been in active
service during the French war, and was then engaged in making
surveys,) was there with a young Scotchman and a negro woman. Kelly
with great prudence, directly sent his family to Greenbrier, under the
care of a younger brother. But Capt. Field, considering the
apprehension as groundless, determined on remaining with Kelly, who
from prudential motives did not wish to subject himself to observation
by mingling with others.[1] Left with no persons but the Scotchman
and negro, they were not long permitted to doubt the reality of those
dangers, of which they had been forewarned by Capt Stuart.

[122] Very soon after Kelly's family had left the cabin, and while yet
within hearing of it, a party of Indians approached, unperceived, near
to Kelly and Field, who were engaged in drawing leather from a tan
trough in the yard. The first intimation which Field had of their
approach was the discharge of several guns and the fall of Kelly. He
then ran briskly towards the house to get possession of a gun, but
recollecting that it was unloaded, he changed his course, and sprang
into a cornfield which screened him from the observation of the
Indians; who, supposing that he had taken shelter in the cabin, rushed
immediately into it. Here they found the Scotchman and the negro
woman, the latter of whom they killed; and making prisoner of the
young man, returned and scalped Kelly.

When Kelly's family reached the Greenbrier settlement, they mentioned
their fears for the fate of those whom they had left on the Kenhawa,
not doubting but that the guns which they heard soon after leaving the
house, had been discharged at them by Indians. Capt. Stuart, with a
promptitude which must ever command admiration, exerted himself
effectually to raise a volunteer corps, and proceed to the scene of
action, with the view of ascertaining whether the Indians had been
there; and if they had, and he could meet with them, to endeavor to
punish them for the outrage, and thus prevent the repetition of
similar deeds of violence.

They had not however gone far, before they were met by Capt. Field,
whose appearance of itself fully told t