work
tomorrow, but if any warrior attempts to run away, I will kill him with
my own hand."

This night the warriors ferried the Ohio, above the camp, by means of
seventy-eight rafts. They worked hard, and formed for battle at
daybreak.

"We will make a line behind the Long Knives," ordered Cornstalk, "and
drive them forward like bullocks into the two rivers."

Most of the Virginians were asleep in their tents, when, before
sunrise, two of their hunters, seeking deer for breakfast, found the
Indian army, already in battle array, and covering, as one of the
hunters excitedly reported, "four acres of ground."

But these Virginians were no fools. Of the eleven hundred here,
wellnigh every man had been a buckskin borderer, deadly with rifle,
tomahawk and knife, and up to all Indian tricks. They were fairly
drilled, too, as militia. A number of the officers had fought under
Major George Washington, when on the fatal Braddock's Field, in 1755,
the American Rangers had tried to save the day from the French, and
from Pontiac's whooping warriors.

They all had marched for five weeks across one hundred and sixty miles
of trackless mountain country, driving their pack-horses and their
herds of beef cattle; now they rallied briskly to save their lives. It
was nip and tuck.

From before sunrise until sunset raged the great battle of Point
Pleasant, or the Big Kanawha. It was the first pitched battle between
simon-pure Americans--but the Revolution was near and after this the
Americans were to do their own fighting.

The lines were over a mile long, rarely more than twenty yards apart,
frequently less than six yards apart, and sometimes mingling. The
armies were equal.

Both sides fought Indian fashion, from behind trees and brush. Rifle
met rifle, tomahawk met tomahawk, knife met knife. The air was filled
with whoops and cheers. Able chiefs faced able chiefs--on the white
American side there were leaders who soon became more famous in the
Revolution and in the history of the new nation.

It was a long-famous battle. A ballad written upon it was frequently
sung, on the frontier:

Let us mind the tenth day of October,
Seventy-four, which caused woe;
The Indian savages they did cover
The pleasant banks of the O-hi-o.

The battle beginning in the morning,
Throughout the day it lashed sore,
Till the evening shades they were returning
Upon the banks of the O-hi-o.

Seven score lay dead and