The Trail Hunters

This dime novel by Edward S. Ellis, The Trail-Hunters; or, Monowano, the Shawnee Spy, follows frontier scouts Peter Jenkins and Dick Dingle in 1794 Kentucky. Jenkins, hiding in an oak tree to evade Indians, is fired upon repeatedly by Dingle, who deliberately misses to test Jenkins' courage and eventually reveals himself. The men are seasoned trail-hunters working reconnaissance on Shawnee movements in the Sciota Valley. They discuss recent Shawnee violence in Tennessee—burning houses and destroying flatboats—and are recruited by Captain Bill Whitley to join a hundred-man expedition to counter these raids. The narrative combines frontier adventure with military reconnaissance, featuring period dialogue depicting frontier attitudes toward Native American conflict during the era preceding Wayne's Treaty (1795).