The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1872-11-22
MI celIaneous
Indian Strategy.

The first white settlers of West Virginia
experienced dark and troublesome times
in effecting permanent Judgment on the
banks of the Ohio. The Indians being
subsidized by the English, were hostile
and conflicts were inevitable whenever
colonist met native. To protect the pio-
neers of this then far remote region, stock
ade was constructed at Wheeling, some
where about the close of the Revolutionary
war, and small garrison placed within it,
which was more than once unsuccessfully
beseiged by the northern tribes of red men,
Its neighborhood became the scene of
many personal deeds of daring, perilous en-
counters, hand hand fights and hair
breadth escapes on the part ofboth soldiers
and settlers. Some of the immediate de-
scendants Of the actual participants in
these scenes were living thirty years since,
when the writer was sojourning in that in
teresting section of country, and from them
he learned many facts proving conclusive
ly the skill and boldncss of those early adj
venturers and the price they paid in haz
ard, suffering and blood, in establishing
an ownership to the banks of La Belle Riv-
iere. Among the incidents related was the
following:
Game of various kinds, particularly wild
turkeys, abounded in the vicinity of the
fort, and was sometimes hunted by the SOL
diers of the garrison to relieve the tedium
of their monotonous life and vary their Or
binary rations. On one occasion the SEEM
ing call of one of these birds from rocky
ledge not far to the rear of the stockade,
prompted a soldier to go out at early morn
ing in search, who, at the expiration of his
leave of absence, had not returned. The
autumnal sun, declined and set in the hazy
forests beyond the Ohio, and still his quar-
tiers in the fort were vacant, nor did he ever
again fill them. Known to be of restless
disposition, it was surmised that wearied
of his confined garrison life, he had TAX
en- the opportunity to desert. A day or
two after the same bird called from the
same direction, inviting more trusty SOL
dier to solicit permission to 60 out to hunt.
The report of rifle was heard anon in the
direction toward which he had gone, and
his comrades began to look for his return,
successful or otherwise. But he, too, came
not, nor was he ever after seen alive. These
disappearance were accounted very singu-
lar and parties were sent out for the missing,
but in vain. Before the excitement there
by occasioned had subsidized, squad of
recruits to make good the places of men
whose enlistment had expired, arrived
from Pennsylvania. Among them was one
Louis Wetzel, o veteran Indian hunter, &C.
quainted with all the subtleties Of Indian
strategy, and ola boldness equaled only
| by his success. Learning the recent mys-
terious occurrences, he quietly remarked
that he thought he could solve them if the
like invitation to hunt should happen and
leave to do so be given him.
Fortunately he had not long to wait ;
for one foggy morning; he same sound
echoed through the eastern forests, and
Wetzel stole forth on his perilous explora-
ton. An hour passed. on sufficiently te-
dious to his intensely excited comrades in
the fort, and then the sharp crack of q ri
file broke the stiffness of the wood.
"That's Wetzels gun !" exclaimed the
new corners. ave should know it among
thousand"
Shortly the long, 1.-the figure of its owner
stalked out of the forest into the clearing,
and he drew )earer bloody scalp was
seen dangling by its single gray lock of
hair from the muzzlc of his rifle. A rous