Adventure Magazine Cover — page 91: what you’re looking at

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

The Battle of the Kettles Boyce appeared at some distance, walking in leisurely fashion—“‘and from his face and manner there is evidently no danger. You may feel perfectly safe, madam.” This encounter nerved him to bring to her at breakfast a nicely broiled slice of meat from his own private stock. “Mrs. Murkett,” said he, ‘‘may I offer you a piece of this prime Kentucky ham? It’s chestnut-fed and maple-sugar cured. You won’t find anything tastier. We so seldom have ladies in our parties,’”’ he ex- plained for the benefit of her crab-faced hus- band, who was looking on jealously, ‘‘that we like to give them the best we have.”’ She thanked him very graciously and divided the slice with Silas. : Sufficient food was cooked over the break- fast fire to furnish the noon meal also. Just before the company went aboard the boat again Crist raised his hand and said: | “Friends, we’re in a mighty dangerous part of the country now. Everybody must be vigilant every minute. This river is so narrow that the redskins can pick us off from the bank if we let ’em steal up on us. “Tom Floyd and I are going to scout ahead of you up both shores today, and maybe all night. Spears and Crepps know where to meet us this evening, and if they don’t find us there, they’ll know where to meet us in the morning. If we don’t meet you then, it’ll mean that the Indians have got us, and the boat’ll push on to the Lick as fast as possbile. But it’s unlikely they'll get more than one of us at the outside. “Joe Boyce will keep watch on board to- day while Spears and Crepps get a little sleep; and he knows Indian sign as well as any of us, I reckon. But all of you should keep an eye on the woods and thickets, and give alarm the moment you see anything wrong. In case of an attack, Spears will be the commander.” Except for two or three of the passengers, most of this advice would have been super- fluous; for the majority of the party—as was true of three-fourths of the inhabitants of Kentucky in that day—had heard the wart-whoop ringing through the aisles of the forest and had faced possible death under an Indian tomahawk or at the end of an Indian’s rifle barrel. So hardened were they to such things that most of them, Crist and Floyd included, regarded the perilous scouting expedition quite casually as a part of the ordinary 89 day’s work. But Susan Murkett and young Tom Humphreys gazed with round eyes and worshipful admiration at the ‘wo lion- hearted adventurers who walked into the trackless forest as blithely and unhesitat- ingly as they would have strolled down the main street of Louisville. Only one of the men even thought of shak- ing hands with them; and that was the effervescent Irishman, Jack Fossett, who was no tenderfoot—for he had ranged the wilderness and fought all comers, red and white, from Ireland to Kentucky—but who was overgiven to demonstration anyhow. ““Good-by, boys!’ he bellowed, pump- handling their arms vigorously. ‘‘We’ll see you tonight or the mornin’ at the latest; for there’s nary an Injun whelped that can outdo ayether one of ye! I’ll lay a wager on that!” CRIST looked very lonely as he stood leaning on his rifle while the boat pulled farther and farther away from the shore. Just before the boat reached the south bank, where Floyd was to be landed, Crist waved his hat in farewell and plunged into the undergrowth. Hav- ing dropped Floyd, the clumsy craft plodded slowly upstream with eight men manning the sweeps, the passengers taking their turn as per agreement; while the two scouts, un- seen, trotted ahead of the boat through the woods These two were well fitted for this par- ticular service. When he was little more than a child, Henry Crist was familiar with the upper Ohio from Fort Du Quesne to Maysville; at fifteen he had descended with a party of pioneers to the Falls. An early chronicler of Kentucky says of him that ‘‘a more dauntless man never contended with mortal foe.”” Floyd, too, was an experi- enced Indian tracker and fighter, and knew the Kentucky wilderness from the Big Sandy to the Mississippi. Crist found no fresh sign on the north bank; but well along in the afternoon Floyd struck the trail of a party of fifteen or twenty Indians who had come up from the south, apparently hunted along the stream for a time and then turned southward again. Floyd followed their trail for some dis- tance; but, convinced that it led far away from the river, he left it and turned back to the stream, which he reached after dusk. Toward evening Spears, having reached DOOLK (© inn