Mohave County miner and our mineral wealth., 1922-09-29
CHAPTER xv

Dawned 17S1.
 The war was coming into Virginia at last. Virginia falling would thrust a great wedge through the center of the confederacy. feed the British armies and end the fight. Cornwallis was to drive the wedge, and never had the opening seemed easier. Virginia was drained of her fighting men, and south of the mountains was protected only by militia, for the most part. of old men and boys. North and south ran despair. The soldiers had no pay. little food, and only old wOrnOut coats, tartered linen overalls. and one blan- ket between three men. to protect them from drifting snow and icy wind. Even the great Washington was near despair. and in foreign help his sole hope lay. Already the traitor, Arnold, had taken Richmond, burned Ware houses, and returned, but little har- asSed, to Portsmouth. 'EU
 COrnwallis was coming on. Tarle- tons white rangers were bedeviling the land, and it was at this time that Erskine Dale once more rode Firefiy to the river James.
 The boy had been two years In the wilds. When he left the Shawnee camp winter was setting in, that ter rible winter of '79-of deep snow and hunger and cold, When he reached Kaskaskia, Captain Clark had gone to Kentucky, and Erskine found bad news. Hamilton and Hay had taken Vincennes. There Captain Helms Gre Oles, as soon as they saw the red coats. slipped away from him to sur render their arms to the British, and thus deserted by all, he and the two or three Americans with him had to give up the fort. The French reswOre allegiance to Britain. Hamilton con- tiscated their liquor and broke up their billiard tables. He let his Indians scatter to their villages, and with his regulars, volunteers, white Indian leaders and red auxlliaries went into winter quarters. One band of Shaw nees he sent to Ohio to scout and take scalps in the settlements. In the spring he would sweep Kentucky and destroy all the settlements west of the Alleghanies. So Ersklne and Dave went for Clark and that trip neither ever forgot Storms had followed each other since late November and the snow, lay deep. Cattle and horses perished, deer and elk were found dead In the woods, and buffalo came at nightfal to. old Jerome Sanders fort for food and cOmpanionship with his starving herd. There was no salt or vegetable food; nothing but the flesh of lean wild game. Yet, while the frOntiersmen remained crowded in the stOckades and the men hunted and the women made clothes of tanned deer hides, buffalo-woOl cloth, and net tle-bark linen, and both hollowed ''nOg- gins" out of the knot of a tree, Clark made his amazing march to Vim cennes. recaptured 1t by the end of February, and sent Hamilton to Will liamsburg prisoner. Erskine pleaded to be allowed to take him there. but Clark would not let him go. Perma- nent garrisons were placed at Vim cennes and Cahokia, and at Kaskaskia. Erskine stayed to help make peace with the Indians, punish marauders and hunting bands, so that by the end of the year Clark might sit at the falls of the Ohio as a shield for the West and sure guarantee that the whites would never be forced to abandon wild Kentucky.
 The two years in the wilderness had left their mark on Erskine. He was tall, lean, swarthy, gaunt, and
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