Kit Harefoot, the Wood-Hawk

# Kit Harefoot, the Wood-Hawk

T. C. Harbaugh's serial "Kit Harefoot, the Wood-Hawk; or, Old Powder-Face and His Demons" appears in this 1885 Beadle and Adams publication. The frontier tale follows a Missouri wood-hawk—a timber-seller serving river steamboats—who discovers a threatening notice pinned to his cabin door. Written by the villain Devil Dick, the message warns that "Old Powder-Face" has returned to the region with his gang of outlaws, threatening violence to anyone interfering with their business. A mysterious, defiant young boy arrives and drives a bleeding knife through the notice. Later, Kit encounters a fantastical apparition—a figure with an eagle's head and human body pointing toward Fort Randall. The narrative blends backwoods dialect, supernatural mystery, and frontier violence, depicting Kit's moral crisis between protecting his homestead and warning distant military outposts of the returning threat.