This she did; but the Indians
chopped a hole in the stout planks with their tomahawks, and tried to
crawl through. The woman, however, stood to one side and struck at the
head of each as it appeared, maiming or killing the first two or three.
Enraged at being thus baffled by a woman, two of the Indians clambered
on the roof of the cabin, and prepared to drop down the wide chimney;
for at night the fire in such a cabin was allowed to smoulder, the coals
being kept alive in the ashes. But Mrs. Merrill seized a feather-bed
and, tearing it open, threw it on the embers; the flame and stifling
smoke leaped up the chimney, and in a moment both Indians came down,
blinded and half smothered, and were killed by the big resolute woman
before they could recover themselves. No further attempt was made to
molest the cabin or its inmates.
One of the incidents which became most widely noised along the borders
was the escape of the two Johnson boys, in the fall of 1788. Their
father was one of the restless pioneers along the upper Ohio who were
always striving to take up claims across the river, heedless of the
Indian treaties. The two boys, John and Henry, were at the time thirteen
and eleven years old respectively.
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