The adventure of Louis Gist was indeed a singular one. He had set his pole in the sandy bottom to help push the ark off, and he and Merrick and Kenton were pushing hard together when a bullet from one of their Indian assailants ashore broke the setting-pole between his hands, and, penetrating his deerskin jacket, struck a rib, which it also broke. But the lead was deflected, and passing half round his body beneath the skin, lodged there as a little blue lump against a rib on the other side!
The breaking of the pole and the shock caused him to pitch overboard; and, as he
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was but an indifferent swimmer, he would probably have drowned then and there had it not been for a strong eddy of the current at the foot of Letart’s Island. This eddy swept him round with it like a bit of flotsam, and lodged him in shallower water, amid clots of foam and driftwood.
Here his knees touched bottom and he got his head up. He thought himself mortally wounded, for the shock of the bullet directly over his heart had been heavy. Moreover, he was in great pain and bleeding considerably, and in this predicament he seemed partially or wholly to have lost consciousness.
When at length he came to himself, he had a confused impression that there had been a terrible battle, that the ark had been taken, and all his late companions killed.
By this time it had grown dusk, and he heard, or thought that he heard, the Indians on the other side of the island. The ark
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had already passed down the rapids and was out of sight; but Gist fancied that the redskins had towed it round to the Virginia side of the island.
After awhile he crawled out to the water on the Ohio side of the island, and made his way through the brushwood up to the head of it. Here he lay all night, in great misery; but early the next morning he saw a skiff with four men coming down the river, and was able to attract their attention.
They took him with them as far as the settlement at the mouth of the Scioto, where a pioneer surgeon laid open the little blue lump on his rib with a hunting-knife, and extracted the Indian bullet.
Three or four weeks later he was able to work his passage back up the river on a Wheeling flatboat, and told the people at home that the ark was captured by the Indians, and that to the best of his knowledge
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and belief, he, of all her crew, was the sole survivor.
Such endings of the early efforts of commerce and travel on the Ohio were of too frequent occurrence to render the tale incredible; and, although some had their doubts, most of the settlers believed that Gist’s account was but too likely to be true.
Thus far no such overwhelming disaster had befallen the little pioneer settlement at Fish Creek.
In very truth there were sorrow and mourning at every cabin, and especially in those of the Royce and Ayer families. To Milly Ayer and Mary Royce the year 1803 bade fair to be the saddest of their young lives.
But the stout ark all the while was floating bravely on—past the mouth of the Kanawha, where, in 1749, the ambitious Céleron buried his leaden plates, asserting the claim of France to the entire Ohio
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Valley; past Point Pleasant, where, in 1774, General Lewis and his rangers fought a fierce, indecisive battle all day with the famous Shawnee chief, Cornstalk, and his braves; past the mouth of the Big Sandy, near which a gigantic railroad bridge now spans the broad river; past the Scioto mouth, where Portsmouth, Ohio, then showed only a few scattered cabins; and so onward till, after nine days, they had come to that little town on the beautiful bluffs now known the world over as Cincinnati.
Cincinnati is said to have been christened Losantiville, in 1788, by the first schoolmaster of that region, one John Filson, whom the Indians subsequently scalped. From the depths of his classical erudition Filson manufactured the name to fit the location, namely: L for Licking River, os for mouth of the same, anti for opposite, and ville for town—The-town-opposite-the-mouth-of-the-Licking.
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It was customary for arks’ crews to have a “liberty day” at the embryo metropolis, but on this occasion Marion Royce dissuaded his fellows from stopping there longer than was necessary to make sure that there was no trace in the town of Jimmy Claiborne. They tied up for the night to the Kentucky bank, a little below where Covington now stands, and the next day floated down to the mouth of Big Bone Creek.
The Ohio was still rising, the current waxing stronger and more rapid each day. Thus far the ark had tied up only by night, but her young captain had a particular reason for stopping at this point.
During his previous visits to New Orleans Marion had met many odd characters along the levees, among others a certain French doctor and savant, named Buchat, who was vastly interested in the natural history of the New World, and after an odd fashion of his own was incessantly
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questioning the hunters and boatmen who came down the great river. The latter generally considered him crack-brained; but Marion understood him better, and liked the vivacious old gentleman.
Dr. Buchat had heard of the huge skeletons of mastodons (then called mammoths) which had been found by the settlers in the Ohio Valley, and was very curious concerning the localities where they were discovered. Marion Royce, who had once ascended Big Bone Creek for game, gave the old Frenchman such information as he was able concerning the size of the thighbones, vertebræ and skulls which he had seen in the basin of the Lick.
Marion’s account so fired the enthusiasm of the collector that he offered the young man a thousand francs if he would unearth a skeleton of one of these huge creatures and fetch it down the river on his next trip.
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A thousand francs—about two hundred dollars—was a sum not to be despised in those days of small means, especially by a young pioneer who was contemplating a home of his own in the near future. Marion had determined to win this, if it could be done without jeopardy to the ark and cargo.
Big Bone Creek is but a very small affluent of the Ohio, little more than a brook, in fact. It enters from the Kentucky shore through a fringe of willows, between low, sugar-loaf hills, then densely wooded by lofty sycamore and walnut. At low water boats could ascend this creek; but now the rising current set back into the mouth of it for a distance of fully two miles.
Wood-wise and wary, the young ark’s captain tied up to the Kentucky shore, two miles above the creek mouth, and sent Kenton round about through the woods to
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reconnoiter the lick. For, as it was a place frequented by deer and elk, it had come also to be a place of ambush for the stealthy redskins.
Kenton came upon the ashes of a campfire, two or three days old, on one of the hills overlooking the lick, and concluded that Indians had recently been watching there. The presence of a large herd of deer about the springs, however, convinced him that they had gone away.
Very early the next morning, therefore, the ark dropped down to the creek mouth and was poled up through the slack water for a distance of nearly two miles. But to guard against surprise, it was moored out in the stream, instead of being tied to the bank, by driving down three setting-poles, so as to give forty feet of open water all around it.
Shadwell Lincoln, with seven of the crew, including young Moses Ayer and
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Lewis Hoyt, was left in charge. Marion himself, with the others, set off for the lick, provided with axes and a shovel. From where the ark lay they had not far from two miles to go, through the forest and over hills.
Big Bone Creek is peculiar in that it comes almost wholly from five or six copious sulphur and saline springs, which issue from the earth in the marshy basin above mentioned.
When the first white hunters came here in 1729 the whole marsh bristled with enormous white bones—hence the name. Naturalists and collectors have now carried off everything in sight; but those who have patience to excavate the marsh are able occasionally to unearth bones of amazing magnitude.
In 1803, however, it was still possible to find partly buried skeletons intact, or nearly so. Marion Royce and his arksmen
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had not long to search for one, and were soon busy at their strange task.
The Royce and Ayer family traditions have it that the arksmen dug out a huge mammoth skeleton here, and were occupied until May 3 hauling it down to the ark on bob-sleds, which they constructed for the purpose. Many of the great molar teeth and numbers of the small bones were missing from this and all other skeletons found here; but, by overhauling several different skeletons, they were able to make up these deficiencies in part.
Like the deer, elk and buffalo, the mastodon was a constitutionally salt-hungry herbivore. Great numbers of them, venturing into the soft marsh about these saline springs, were “mired” and perished miserably, either from hunger or the attacks of the carnivora.
For centuries the numerous “licks” of this Western wilderness were veritable death
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traps for the larger game. Not only were the heavy buffalo and heavier mastodon bogged in the treacherous salt sloughs, but the deer and elk were constantly preyed on by panthers, wolves, and Indian hunters that had learned to ambush these localities.
The mouth of the Big Bone was now near to being a trap for the ark. An immense raft of driftwood had set into it from the rising current of the Ohio outside. For a mile below where the ark lay the creek was rilled by it, and so dense was the pack that it became a question whether the crew would be able to force a passage through it to the open river.
Otherwise, that part of the crew left aboard were passing dull days, particularly the two boys, Moses and Lewis; for Captain Royce had left strict orders with Shadwell Lincoln that while he was absent at the lick the men must remain closely aboard, and be constantly on guard against
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a surprise by Indian war parties, a precaution necessary from the exposed position of the ark in the narrow creek.
But the weather had now turned warm, and the lagoon, overhung by great trees, was like a hothouse. A flock of buzzards hung about them, often alighting among the poultry on the roof of the ark. Hawks and a pair of eagles also troubled them, and by night a large owl paid them visits.
Moses and Lewis longed to go ashore and hunt, but true to his orders Lincoln would not allow it. A little sport offered, shooting turkey gobblers, numbers of which, allured by the plaintive “yeapings” of the turkeys aboard the ark, appeared on the creek bank. One ambitious young gobbler flew out to them of his own accord, and began “strutting” on the roof.
The morning before the captain and his party returned with their sled-loads of bones a more exciting incident occurred,
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which well illustrates the perils that beset the daily life of the pioneers.
A little after daybreak, while still most of the crew were asleep, another turkey-cock was heard gobbling in the woods a little way back from the creek bank. First Moses, then Lewis, rifle in hand, sat watching behind the plank bulwarks. There was rivalry between them as to which should first catch sight of these wild visitors.
For some time they heard the bird gobbling at intervals of a few minutes; but this particular turkey-cock appeared to be wary and disinclined to show himself.
Then, at length, Moses noted an odd circumstance, and drew suddenly down to cover of the planking.
“Lay up, Lew!” said he. “I believe that’s a redskin!”
Gobbling like a turkey in the woods, to lure the white settlers near enough for a
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shot, was a common stratagem with the Indians in those days—one that cost more than one pioneer his scalp. Some of the savages were adepts at imitating all the notes of the wild turkey, from the plaintive “yeap-yeap, yop-yop” of the hens, to the noisy, defiant gobble of the big, bronze-breasted, red-wattled turkey-cocks.
The human ear could detect nothing wrong with this call; perhaps the ear of a turkey is keener, for what Moses Ayer had noted was that their own turkeys were not responding as usual to this early caller.
But Lewis believed it was a turkey, so many had come out in sight there. The two boys argued it for some time, and meantime the gobbling continued at intervals, apparently about a gun-shot back from the creek.
Not only Charles Hoyt, but Merrick and Wistar Royce, Marion’s brother, who had now appeared from their bunks,
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thought that it was probably a turkey. Lewis declared that he would go ashore to shoot it, but Lincoln forbade it, although he, too, believed it to be a bird.
Moses still insisted that it was a skulking Indian trying to pick up a scalp, and the discussion and banter waxed so hot at length that the boy determined, privately, to prove himself in the right.
He seemed to retire to his bunk, as if for another nap, but made his way astern, past the horses. Here he let out the painter line that held the skiff sufficiently to allow him to reach the bank in it, and then, watching his chance, while the others were washing up and preparing breakfast, effected a landing unobserved, but on the bank opposite where he had heard the turkey gobble.
Concealing himself in the laurel boughs, he carefully reprimed his rifle and lay quiet till he had heard the turkey again. Thereupon, feeling tolerably certain that the
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Indian—if it were one—had not seen him land, he made a wide detour through the forest and crossed the creek at a point where the stream was shallow, half a mile above where the ark lay. From here he worked his way cautiously down the other bank, crawling from one thicket to another, with a stealth which even an Indian might have envied.
But now the youthful woodsman was at a disadvantage. The “gobbling” of the suppositious turkey-cock had ceased. With that to guide him he could easily have located the “gobbler.” For the first time he felt afraid. Either the Indian had sighted him, and was waiting for him to come nearer, or else had grown tired of the effort and gone away.
For half an hour or more the boy lay still in the brush, watching and listening, not daring to stir a twig. He was already within two hundred yards of where the ark
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lay, but young cane, vines and other brush made thick cover all along the bank.
Fortune favored him at length, otherwise he would not have dared to make another move. Down the bank, almost opposite the ark, a pair of redbirds suddenly began making a fuss, as they do when their nests are disturbed; a catbird also uttered its low, squalling note. Some enemy was disturbing the birds there, and with a good notion that it might be the Indian, Moses now crept slowly nearer.
All the while he could hear plainly the voices of the men on the ark and smell the smoke of their morning pipes. Lewis and Charles Hoyt were talking and laughing. He heard the latter say that he—Moses—had got the sulks and gone to his bunk!
The redbirds continued scolding. He could see them flying about over a laurel clump, and crawling still nearer, he presently detected a slight movement of the
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canes near an old heap of driftwood, within a few yards of the creek water and not more than a hundred feet distant. Keeping his eyes fixed on the spot, he presently saw a feathered scalp-lock rise slowly there—for a peep at the ark!
The sight sent a curious thrill along the boy’s nerves, and for some moments he lay very quiet. Then, plucking up his courage, he looked yet again to his priming and crawled a little nearer. He could see the Indian more clearly now, and distinguished his ear, shoulder and tawny right arm, with its dull brass armlet. Eager, but silent as a crouching panther, the Indian was watching the ark and listening to the voices of the men.
Moses, too, could discern as well as hear them, and it made his heart beat quickly to see Charles Hoyt walk unconcernedly aft, his head and shoulders fully exposed above the planking of the bulwarks;
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for he knew now that the lurking savage, unable to lure any of the arksmen ashore, had crawled down to the bank with the intention of shooting at least one of the whites, then making his escape.
“Come, help water the horses!” he heard Hoyt call out; and then Lewis and Merrick lounged aft, an easy mark for the concealed savage, who was hardly more than twenty yards away.
This feeling of suspense and apprehension for his companions changed to something akin to horror when he saw Wistar Royce swing himself up by a stanchion to the roof of the ark and move about, feeding and watering the poultry in their cages up there. Surely the Indian could not hope for a fairer mark!
Apparently the latter thought so himself, for the boy saw him raise the long barrel of a rifle into view and slide it slowly across a log of the drift heap.
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For some seconds Moses had been holding his own rifle in readiness to shoot. It was his first experience stalking an Indian, however, and he felt not a little afraid. If he missed his aim, the redskin would no doubt return the shot on the instant, or else rush upon him with knife and tomahawk before he could reload.
But the sight of the savage making ready to fire at Wistar served to renew his courage, and he cautiously cocked his rifle.
At so little a distance, however, the savage heard the click of the hammer. He glanced suddenly in Moses’ direction. Their eyes met as the boy fired. Through the smoke he saw the Indian leap to his feet with a frightful whoop, and dropping his own empty rifle, he darted back through the underbrush to escape. But he immediately perceived that the savage was down, writhing about and making distressful sounds. But even these movements wholly
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ceased before Moses had his rifle reloaded, for his bullet had entered near the Indian’s right armpit and passed completely through his body.
Meanwhile the shot had produced a considerable commotion on the ark. The crew seized their guns to repel an attack. Moses’ absence was immediately discovered, however, and seeing the skiff at the other bank, the men at once concluded that he had gone ashore to shoot the turkey. Shadwell Lincoln hailed him by name, and fearing lest the arksmen might fire on him in the brush, Moses was constrained to answer.
“Come aboard, you young scamp!” shouted Lincoln. Bidding Wistar and Lewis haul the skiff round, he went ashore after Moses himself, being minded to give the boy a “wigging” for disobeying orders. “Come aboard, you scamp!” he shouted again. “Did you not hear me tell you not to go ashore after that gobbler?”
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“HERE’S YOUR TURKEY GOBBLER!”
But Moses, who had by this time possessed himself of the Indian’s rifle, knife and feather-bedecked head-dress, stepped proudly out of the brush in full view of them all, and holding up his trophies, said, “Here’s your turkey gobbler!”