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Updated: May 22, 2025
Good!" he repeated exultantly as he gloated over the repulsive thing. Then gloomily: "But why couldn't I 'a' took it? Luck's been ag'in' me for days. Found a burned cabin after I quit you on the Cheat, an' 'lowed to ambush the party when they made for the Ohio. 'Stead o' goin' to their villages they fooled me by strikin' across to here. Now they've made this kill! Who be they?" "The Grisdols.
I had not neglected Uncle Dick's advice in regard to provisions, and the front of my loose hunting-shirt held a bag of corn cakes and some cooked venison. On reaching the first slope I had watched carefully for the tracks Hughes had seen south of the trace, but found none. There could be no question of Hughes' ability to read Indian-signs; and his warning recalled the Grisdols to my mind.
Across this line of thought came the recollection of the Grisdols' fate. The girl would be safe at Howard's Creek, but death lined the trace leading thereto. My reason assured me Black Hoof's band had long since departed from the mountains. My fear that the girl was being led into an ambush threw me into a fine sweat; and I pushed on the faster.
One of the Grisdols, the father of the two children, had brought it as a reminder of his dead wife. Cousin's great fight was not against the red besiegers, but against his emotions. I knew he was thinking of his sister. "Come here!" I sharply called. "They want a pow-wow. One's waving a green bough." Cousin climbed to the hole in the roof, holding his rifle out of sight by the muzzle.
He had not liked my words as they set his superstitions to working, but it would never do for him to bow before the threats of a white medicine. So he remained inexorable in his determination to cover his dead with a white victim. His raid into Virginia had been disastrous even though he could count the four Grisdols, the seven men, women and children in Abb's Valley in his death score.
I briefly recited for the twentieth time since leaving Dunlap's Creek the conditions west of the mountains. Detailed cross-examination brought forth the happenings at Howard's Creek and the murder of the four Grisdols, and the firing of the Edgely cabin.
I reined in and stared down on a terrible sight that of the four Grisdols. They lay in the path, head to head, in the form of a cross. I felt my stirrup shake as Cousin's hand rested on it. He gave a little gasping sob and whispered: "How near to the cabin now?" "Less than half a mile," I told him as I soothed my horse and permitted him to pick his way around the dead.
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