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These Long Knife Americans had crossed the rivers and the mountains, were possessing themselves of Ohio, and even of Kentucky; much blood had been shed, and the wiser heads among the tribes did not know exactly what to do about it. The great Cornstalk, loved chief of the Shawnees, and now fifty years in age, lifted his voice for peace. He could see no good in a war against the Americans.
After the ball game, which I told you about last night, all the players, and those who had looked on, and Uncle Wiggily, the umpire, started for home. On the way they talked of how kind Aunt Lettie was. "She's the kindest person I have ever known," said Uncle Wiggily, as he limped along on his crutch that Nurse Jane Fuzzy-Wuzzy had gnawed out of a cornstalk for him. "She is very Oh dear! Oh me!
"Yes, she is driving there to lunch, and Angel is to bring the little cornstalk over to make friends with our Lily! I trust the creature goes to sleep now, and I may get a word out of Angel!" Wherewith he dashed on, and the two ladies agreed that "those Underwoods seemed to be curiously impulsive."
In single encounters, man to man, valorous deeds were done. Cornstalk proved himself a worthy general. When his line bent back, before the discipline of the Long Knives, it was only to form an ambush, and then the whites were bent back. He had early placed his warriors across the base of the point, so that they held the whites in the angle of the two rivers.
But when they hastened for their towns they found them in danger from the Lord Dunmore column. Governor Dunmore sent Chief White-eyes, of the Delawares, who had not joined in the war, to ask Chief Cornstalk for a talk. Chief White-eyes returned with no answer, for the Cornstalk chiefs were in bitter council.
He was too shrewd and evasive. Once I believed I had him, for I had located him behind a detached mound of fallen timber. He was loudly calling out for his men to be brave and to lie close, when a warrior leaped up and started to run to the rear. Then Cornstalk flashed into view long enough to sink his ax into the coward's head. It was all done so quickly that he dropped to cover unharmed.
Now and again a corn-crake, moving in silence, bowed to the ground, but betrayed by its loquacity. Now and again a trembling glass-eyed rabbit. To each and every footstep he had one invariable response. He ran up the nearest cornstalk, as high as he could go, and watched the author of it pass beneath him. He was rarely sighted. Once a weasel leapt at him.
This night the warriors ferried the Ohio, above the camp, by means of seventy-eight rafts. They worked hard, and formed for battle at daybreak. "We will make a line behind the Long Knives," ordered Cornstalk, "and drive them forward like bullocks into the two rivers."
Campbell MSS. Preston's letter. Stewart's Narrative. Led by Isaac Shelby, James Stewart, and George Matthews. Campbell MSS. Preston's letter. "Am. Archives" Letter of November 4, 1774. It is doubtful if Logan was in this fight; the story about Cornstalk killing one of his men who flinched may or may not be true. Hale, 199, the plunder was afterwards sold at auction for L74 4s. 6d.
Cornstalk heard them rushing in, and knew that his hour had come; with unmoved countenance he exhorted his son not to fear, for it was the will of the Great Spirit that they should die there together; then, as the murderers burst into the room, he quietly rose up to meet them, and fell dead pierced by seven or eight bullets.
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