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Updated: May 16, 2025
"Maybe so," assented Rogers, "or ef, when we did git to the springs thar on the banks uv the Lickin', we'd heeded the counsels uv Boone an' Todd an' Trigg, instid o' the lead o' thet red-headed, hot-blood Irishman, Hugh McGary, when he plunged his hoss inteh the river, an' wavin' his knife oveh his haid, challenged all whut wuzn't cowa'ds to folleh him.
"And who's in command here?" demanded Harrod. "I am, for one," said McGary, with an oath, "and my corn's on the ear. I've held back long enough, I tell you, and I'll starve this winter for you nor any one else." Harrod turned. "Where's Clark?" he said to Bowman. "Clark!" roared McGary, "Clark be d d. Ye'd think he was a woman."
This action lasted about two hours; the Indians then withdrew. The firing had been heard, and the neighborhood roused for the fight. Major McGary, with some of his men, and others from other stations, to the number of forty, appeared on the ground soon after the Indians had retreated, and determined on pursuing them. This was accordingly done with promptitude and celerity.
Boone, fust in command, took the left wing; Todd, the centah; Trigg, the right; an' the Lincoln County men undeh Harlan, McBride an' McGary a sort o' advance guard. But 'twuz no use then. We only fired one round. Befoh we could reload, them devils wuz on us with tommyhocks an' scalpin'-knives. Then, a hand-to-hand fight fur a minit.
"And who's in command here?" demanded Harrod. "I am, for one," said McGary, with an oath, "and my corn's on the ear. I've held back long enough, I tell you, and I'll starve this winter for you nor any one else." Harrod turned. "Where's Clark?" he said to Bowman. "Clark!" roared McGary, "Clark be d d. Ye'd think he was a woman."
"Sargeant," began Jerry in his old raucous, martyred, thunderous tones of complaint. "I've got a fare here that " Jerry paused. He drew a knotted, red hand across his brow. The fog set up by McGary was beginning to clear away. "A fare, sargeant," he continued, with a grin, "that I want to inthroduce to ye. It's me wife that I married at ould man Walsh's this avening.
The dogs I have said little about, for none of us liked to think of them. The poor creatures Toodla and Whitey had been taken with us as last resources against starvation. They were, as McGary worded it, "meat on the hoof," and "able to carry their own fat over the floes."
There was a vision of a woman flying across the common, and we saw the dauntless Mrs. Harrod snatching her husband's gun from his resisting hands. So she saved his life and McGary's. At this point Colonel Clark was seen coming from the gate. When he got to Harrod and McGary the quarrel blazed up again, but now it was between the three of them, and Clark took Harrod's rifle from Mrs.
Their accustomed horrid yells preceded a general attack upon the station. Their fire was returned with spirit, the women running balls as fast as they were required. The attack continued two hours, when the Indians withdrew. The firing had aroused the neighborhood; and soon after the retreat of the Indians, Major McGary appeared with forty men.
Harrod and held it. However, it was presently decided that McGary should wait one more day before going to his clearing, whereupon the gates were opened, the picked men going ahead to take station as a guard, and soon we were hard at work, ploughing here and mowing there, and in another place putting seed in the ground: in the cheer of the work hardships were forgotten, and we paused now and again to laugh at some sally of Terence McCann's or odd word of Swein Poulsson's.
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