Adventure, December 3, 1920 — page 102: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

92 west of the mountains. Wal, I can’t stick here swapping talk. I’ve got to push on and git that powder. Curse the luck!” “The Greenwoods have no powder to spare. He has less than half a pound.” “Black devils in a pipe! Howard’s Creek will have to go to making bows and arrers!”’ “T’ve brought twenty pounds of powder and ten of lead from Salem,” I added. ‘‘Howard’s ’ Creek is welcome to it after I’ve outfitted my- self.” “Hooray! Twenty pounds! % That ends that cussed trip. Wal, I declare if there won’t be some rare killings! Now I'll hustle right back along with you. I’ve felt all the time that some one would be gitting hair that belonged to me if £ come off the creek. Ten pounds of lead! Seven hundred little pills! That’ll let Runner, Hacker, Scott’n me strike for the Ohio, where we can catch some of them red devils as they beat back home. They’ll be keerless and we oughter nail quite a few.” “Crabtree isn’t going with you?” “Ike ain’t got no stummick for a reg’lar stand-up fight. He’ll hang round the creek and kill when he catches a red along.” “He'll get no powder from my stock to use around the creek,” I declared. Hughes eyed me moodily. “What odds where they’re killed so long as they’re rubbed out?” he harshly demanded. “Women and children are the odds,” I re- torted. ‘‘Crabtree kills friendly Indians. Even young Cousin, who hates reds as much as any man alive, won’t make a kill in asettlement unless the Indians are attacking it.” “That’s the one weak spot in Cousin,” re- gretted Hughes. “He’s a good hater. But he’d have a bigger count for that little sister of his if hed take them wherever he finds them. It’s all foolishness to pick and choose your spot for killing a red skunk. And this friendly Injun talk makes me sick! Never was a time but what half the Shawnees and other tribes was loafing ’round the settlements, pretending to be friends, while t’other half was using the tomahawk and scalping-knife. “That sort of medicine won’t do forme. No, siree! Injuns are a pest, just like wolves and painters, only worse. They must be wiped out. That’s my belief and I make it my business to wipe them out. Few men that’s got more’n me.’ It’s a waste of time to talk with a bloody- minded man. Hughes’ brother was killed by the Indians. As for that, there was hardly a settler in Virginia who had not lost some dear friend or relative. When the history of the country is written, it will surprize the coming generations to read the many names having opposite them, “Killed by the Indians.” I was sorry I had met Hughes. His company grated on me. It was impossible to think of Adventure Patsy Dale with the fellow’s cruel babble ring- -ing in my ears. I remained silent and he garrulously recounted some of his many ex- ploits, and with gusto decribed how he had trapped various victims. It was his one am- bition of life. He cared nothing for land. Offer him all of Colonel Washington’s thirty- odd thousand acres on the Ohio and Great Kanawha as a gift, and-he would have none of them unless they contained red men to slaughter. He had laid down a red path and it was his destiny to follow it. I had no love for Shawnee or Mingo, but my mind held room for something besides schemes for blood- letting. And yet it was well for me that I had met Hughes the Indian-hater, and doubly well that I had brought powder and lead so that he had turned back with me. We were riding down the western slope and about clear of the moun- tains, I trying to thank my own thoughts and he talking, talking, his words dripping blood, when ahead in the trace I spied something on the ground that caused me to exclaim aloud. It was a brightly beaded moccasin, very small, and strangely familiar even at a distance, Hughes saw it and stared at it through half- closed lids. I leaped from my horse and started forward to pick it up. “Don’t touch it;” yelled Hughes. back! Come back!” I heard him and understood his words, and yet I continued advancing while I mechanically endeavored to guess his reason for stopping me. “Jump, you fool!” he yelled as I stretched out my hand to pick up the moccasin. And his horse was almost upon me and covering me with dirt as he pivoted and slid into the bushes, his hindquarters hitting me and hurling me over, half a dozen feet beyond the little moc- casin. I landed on my head and shoulders with the crack of a rifle echoing in my dazed ears. Instinct sent me rolling out of the trace and into the bushes. By the time I gained my knees and had cleared the dirt from my eyes “Come Hughes was working rapidly up the right- — hand slope. His horse stood at the edge of the bushes, rubbing noses with my animal. I kept under cover of the growth and halted abreast of the moccasin. There was a furrow within a few inches of its embroided toe. I broke a branch and pawed the moccasin toward me and picked it up and went back to the horses. Then I took time to examine my prize. It was one of the pair I had given to Patsy Dale. She must have carried it carelessly to drop it in the trace without discovering her loss. I slipped it into my hunting-shirt and sat down to wait for Hughes. It was fully an hour before he came back. “Couldn’t git a crack at him,” he growled, his face grim and sullen. “But you was a fool EOPMIC OOO KS (C@)