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But although Lewis himself once was out-lawed by the military government for shooting an Indian needlessly, Martin was the really vindictive killer. No Indian of any kind, and whether surrendered or not, was safe from him, his rifle and his tomahawk. Indian-hunting and Indian-killing was a business with the Wetzels, and the name "Wetzel" carried terror through the forests.
Colonel Zane saw his home go up in flame and smoke, while the feathered, shrieking foe danced and capered and deluged the fort with lead. The whole village blazed, and the frightened cows and horses and dogs scampered in slaughter. The fort showed no lights; the Indians' figures were outlined blackly, and the rifles of the Zanes, the Wetzels, and the others every man a dead shot picked them off.
Had the Indians struck at once, they might have scored heavily, in spite of the fighting Zanes, Wetzels, McCollochs, and all. But they delayed, and by the last week of August Colonel Shepherd reported to General Hand: "We are well prepared. Fort Henry is Indian proof."
This night they all slept upon the ground in the woods north of Wheeling. The Indians tied the boys tightly. There was no chance of escape and it was a very uncomfortable night, what with Lewis's wound and Jacob's fear, and the cold and the hunger and the thought of the cabin on Wheeling Creek. "Don't you beller, Jakie," Lewis bade. "We won't stay with 'em any longer'n we have to. We're Wetzels."
With the invasion of the valley of the Ohio by the whites, with the march into the wilderness of that wild-turkey breed of heroes of which Boone, Kenton, the Zanes, and the Wetzels were the first, the Indian's nature gradually changed until he became a fierce and relentless foe. The Hurons had sided with the French in Pontiac's war, and in the Revolution they aided the British.
it was a wide, grassy, forest-dotted country strange to the Long Knives. Few of them, not even the Zanes and the Wetzels and their like, had ever been here except as prisoners.
One night the Indians forgot to tie their captives, and the two boys escaped. Lewis returned to the camp, after they had stolen away, for a pair of moccasins, and again for his father's rifle, which the Indians had carried off. They followed the boys, but the young Wetzels got safely back to the Ohio, and crossed the river on a raft which they made of logs.
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