When, on their way home, they came near to Pricket's fort, they bound
Mrs. Morgan to a bush, and went in quest of a horse for her to
ride, leaving her child with her. She succeeded in untying with
her teeth, the bands which confined her, and wandered the balance of
that day and part of the next before she came in sight of the fort.
Here she was kindly treated and in a few days sent home. Some men
going out from Pricket's fort some short time after, found at the
spot where Mrs. Morgan had [176] been left by the Indians, a fine
mare stabbed to the heart.--Exasperated at the escape of Mrs.
Morgan, they had no doubt vented their rage on the animal which they
had destined to bear her weight.

In the last of April, a party of about twenty Indians came to the
neighborhoods of Hacker's creek and the West Fork. At this time the
inhabitants of those neighborhoods had removed to West's fort, on the
creek, and to Richards' fort on the river; and leaving the women and
children in them during the day, under the protection of a few men,
the others were in the habit of performing the usual labors of their
farms in companies, so as to preserve them from attacks of the
Indians. A company of men, being thus engaged, the first week of May,
in a field, now owned by Minter Bailey, on Hacker's creek, and being a
good deal dispersed in various occupations, some fencing, others
clearing, and a few ploughing, they were unexpectedly fired upon by
the Indians, and Thomas Hughes and Jonathan Lowther shot down: the
others being incautiously without arms fled for safety. Two of the
company, having the Indians rather between them and West's fort, ran
directly to Richards', as well for their own security as to give the
alarm there. But they had been already apprized that the enemy was at
hand. Isaac Washburn, who had been to mill on Hacker's creek the day
before, on his return to Richards' fort and near to where Clement's
mill now stands, was shot from his horse, tomahawked and scalped. The
finding of his body, thus cruelly mangled, had given them the alarm,
and they were already on their guard, before the two men from Hacker's
creek arrived with the intelligence of what had been done there. The
Indians then left the neighborhood without effecting more havoc; and
the whites were too weak to go in pursuit, and molest them.

The determination of the Shawanees to revenge the death of their
Sachem, had hitherto been productive of no very serious consequen