The books of the old annalists
are filled with tales of disaster and retribution, of horrible suffering
and of fierce prowess. Countless stories are told of heroic fight and
panic rout; of midnight assault on lonely cabins, and ambush of
heavy-laden immigrant scows; of the deaths of brave men and cowards, and
the dreadful butchery of women and children; of bloody raid and
revengeful counter stroke. Sometimes a band of painted marauders would
kill family after family, without suffering any loss, would capture boat
after boat without effective resistance from the immigrants, paralyzed
by panic fright, and would finally escape unmolested, or beat off with
ease a possibly larger party of pursuers, who happened to be ill led, or
to be men with little training in wilderness warfare.
At other times all this might be reversed. A cabin might be defended
with such maddened courage by some stout rifleman, fighting for his
cowering wife and children, that a score of savages would recoil
baffled, leaving many of their number dead. A boat's crew of resolute
men might beat back, with heavy loss, an over-eager onslaught of Indians
in canoes, or push their slow, unwieldy craft from shore under a rain of
rifle-balls, while the wounded oarsmen strained at the bloody handles of
the sweeps, and the men who did not row gave shot for shot, firing at
the flame tongues in the dark woods.
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