The Wyandot pioneer. (Upper Sandusky, Ohio) 1853-1868, 1854-07-20

ing their paths, that they all collected and
fled across the great stream of Kentucky.
But he followed them over, and ever on
their hunting grounds. So they fled
again and passed over the Green river.
He passed it too and never CROSSED it
again. Still the Indians were SO appalled,
by hearing of the braves slain in the for
est and at their camp fires, by an arm of
some avenging spirit, that they never
dreamed of conflict. The silent hun
ter never lost the trail. Then they once
more burned their wigwams and went
away forever from that country. And
when the last of the shawnees, had launch
ed his canoe upon the Ohio, Bill Smith
rose from under the bushes on the shore,
and fired on the little bark.
Revenge was his monomania. When
he buried his wife and children rash and
bloody resolution fixed itself on his mind.
1t became madness. He never spoke to
man, but silently and remorsely haunted
the trail of the Shawnees to slay every
one that came within the range of his far
famed rifle. Then after the Indian tribe
had gone he retired mute and alone, to
the most inaccessible part of the Green
River Hills.
There, in shady dell, remote from
the habitations of men he built himself a
hut, where in solitary quietude he passed
the remainder of his days. He hunted
to supply himself with food and skins to
exchange for powder and shot, which an
old man at an out settlement down on the
Green River was accustomed to supply
him with. His life was protracted to the
age Of eighty eight.
One day the old man at the settlement
was heard to say that something must
have happened to the silent hunter, for he
had not come as usual to fill his shot bag
and powder pouch. Bidding no one to
follow him he went out to Green River
Mountains, and when he came back,
though many questioned him, he said
nothing of what he had seen or where he
had been. From that day however, no
man saw the silent hunter. No one heard
of his fate, but it became dim tradition
in tic country that his spirit was still
amonc- the mountains of Green River
Not many however, Webber, the natural
list hunter, started with companion in
search Of game among the Green Riyc,r
Hills. After wandering many days among
their solitudes, the came to the dwelling
of an old trapper, living along with his
dogs-a hermit of the forest, full of It's
traditions and familiar with all the spots
they haunted. He said that near that
place underan old black oak, lay the grave
of mighty hnnter. He had been mys-
terious inhabitant of these mountains, and
his resting bed was marked by stone
He had chosen it himself years before he
died. 1t was near spring of which he
had drank, and an old man buried him,
though no one since had visited the grave
Webber offered the trapper some money
if he would lead him to the spot, but he
shuddered and refused, though with yisi-
BILE terpidation. he consented to guide him
within sight of it.
He walked in fornt OF them some time
among cliffs and trees, over streams and
through hollows, till from bluff eminence
they looked down on narrow, wide plain
Over the surface Of this, lay what seemed
a number of fiat rocks, but where in real
ity stone sacophagi, or graves which are
to be found in thousands sometimes cov-
ering miles of ground in the southern
part of Kentucky and portions of Tennes-
see. The people who used this curious
mode ofsepulture are now extinct. They
existed long before the Indian nation
long before the red skins hunted through
those woods and savannas. Their burial
grounds are all that remains of them
They were apparently pigmies for the
graves are not, on an ayerrge more than
three feet in length. Some have imagin-
ed that these were the graves of the chill
dren of the Aztec nation. In this case,
they must have died by thousands when
they were about three feet high, and the
older people musthave been buried secret
ly.
In one of these curious sepulchres the
body of Bill Smith was discovered It
was a sarcoghagus sunk into the earth,
almost eighteen inches by the same in
width. The explorers examined the
grave--they even disturbed the remains,
but laid them again in their place Of rest
and left once more to his solitary repose
the Silent Hunter of the Green River
Hills.
Whata dark and mounful story. How
strange and checkered life 1t was the
faith of this man to his early love, and
the affection of his heart for his children
that made him the te rrible, silent remorse.
less being he afterwards became. But he
was not in nature wicked man. During
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