Adventure Magazine Cover — page 99: what you’re looking at

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

The Battle of the Kettles himself to his task. Sometimes he feared that he was about to lose his senses al- together, and might lie down and make no further effort to save himself. As evening drew on, he was aware that he was in the vicinity of Bullitt’s Lick. Hie came across a dim trail that had been made by hunters and nutting parties, and recognized two or three familiar landmarks. But he had reached the extreme limit of his strength; he was utterly spent. He could no longer raise himself on his hands, and only by the most gigantic ex- ertions, which brought sweat streaming from every pore, could he pull himself forward a foot or two, snake-like, his whole body on the ground. He was suffering the tortures of Tophet from his bodily in- juries; he was almost insane with thirst, having found no water since early morning; for three days and a half he had not tasted food, his last light lunch having been eaten about noon on the day of his scout up the river. * He had reached the head of a gentle slope which, he believed, led down into the de- pression in which the Lick was situated. The sight of smoke in the air confirmed him in his belief. But there was not another ounce of energy left in his wasted frame— he had moved his last inch; and he lay with his sunken eyes straining eagerly toward the goal which his body could not reach. As night came on he could see many of the hundred fires that blazed in the salt furnaces at the Lick. It was a beautiful sight. He fancied even that he could see men passing to and fro in front of the fires about their work—most of them friends of hic, practically all of them acquaintances. The nearest furnace was not half a mile away; but to a man on the verge of death from starvation and exhaustion, it might as well have been a thousand. Suddenly he heard the footfalls of a horse approaching from the direction of the Lick. He was able to prop himself on one elbow and raise his head a little to listen. Now he could distinguish the outlines of the horse and its rider. They were about to pass some twenty yards to the left of him. As the rider drew near, Crist tried to shout; but the best that his flaccid lungs could utter was only a feeble, childish cry. Weak as it was, the horseman heard it. He *If this were fiction, one might sneer at it; but the nar- rative of Henry Crist’s marvelous journey is an integral part of ee annals of Kentucky and can not be gainsaid. 97 reined in his steed and appeared to listen’ upon which Crist again uttered a small treble cry of ‘“‘Help!”’ To his bitter consternation the man hastily wheeled his horse and galloped back toward the Lick. Crist could not imagine why, unless he had mistaken the call for an Indian subterfuge. The wanderer then for the first time fell into utter despair. He broke down and sobbed weakly like a child. After such a fearful journey as his, to die actually within sight of shelter and food and friends seemed the last dregs of the bitterest cup that Fate could offer to his lips. He wished that he had fallen in the battle. Better to die fighting gloriously than to endure three days of such hellish torture and then perish, after all, like a crushed insect. WHILE he lay thus disheartened, the horseman, a negro slave, had ridden into the settlement, yelling that the Indians were in the woods. Upon being questioned he could only reply that somebody—‘‘sounded lak a little boy’’— called to him—‘“makin’ lak he weak and trimbly—” and had said something he did not understand. Believing that it was an Indian ruse, he had fled. The white men, thoroughly familiar with the cowardice and superstition of the negroes, were inclined to doubt whether he had heard a human voice at all; but a dozen of them finally decided to investigate the story, and so accompanied the negro back to the woods. When they reached what he thought to be the spot, he whispered huskily that the noise had ‘‘sounded lak it was right over yonder.”” Crist meanwhile as they ap- proached had recognized the voices of several of his friends, including one who was of some prominence in the settlement. To this man he raised a thin, piping call— “John Durbin! John Durbin!” “That’s no Injun,” said one of the group. ‘Sounds like a child!”’ thought another. “Or a man, near death!” said Durbin solemnly. The party hurried in the direction of the voice and, by the light of the torches and tin lanterns which they carried, discovered on the ground a something that might have Bh - once beenaman. But what frightful ravage it had suffered! DOOK C© inn