Myths and Legends of Our Own Land, vol 6 | Page 3

trapper and frontiersman,
lived in a cabin on the upper Scioto, not far from the present town of
Kenton, Ohio. One evening when he returned from the hunt he found
his home rifled of its contents and his aged father weltering in his blood
on the floor. He then and there took oath that he would be revenged a
hundredfold. His mission was undertaken at once, and for many a year
thereafter the Indians of the region had cause to dread the doom that
came to them from brake and wood and fen,--now death by knife that
flashed at them from behind a tree, and the next instant whirled through
the air and was buried to the hilt in a red man's heart; now, by bullet as
they rowed across the rivers; now, by axe that clove their skulls as they

lay asleep.
Bill Quick worked secretly, and, unlike other men of the place and time,
he did not take his trophies Indian-fashion. The scalp was not enough.
He took the head. And presently a row of grinning skulls was ranged
upon his shelves. Ninety-nine of these ghastly prizes occupied his cabin,
and the man was confident that he should accomplish his intent. But the
Indians, in terror, were falling away toward the lakes; they were
keeping better guard; and ere the hundredth man had fallen before his
rifle he was seized with fatal illness. Calling to him his son, Tom, he
pointed to the skulls, and charged him to fulfil the oath he had taken by
adding to the list a hundredth skull. Should he fail in this the murdered
ancestor and he himself would come back to haunt the laggard. Tom
accepted the trust, but everything seemed to work against him. He
never was much of a hunter nor a very true shot, and he had no liking
for war; besides, the Indians had left the country, as he fancied. So he
grumbled at the uncongenial task appointed for him and kept deferring
it from week to week and from year to year. When his conscience
pricked him he allayed the smart with drink, and his conscience seemed
to grow more active as he grew older.
On returning to the cabin after a carouse he declared that he had heard
voices, that the skulls gibbered and cracked their teeth together as if
mocking his weakness, and that a phosphorescent glare shone through
the sockets of their eyes. In his cups he prattled his secret, and soon the
whole country knew that he was under oath to kill a red-skin-and the
country laughed at him. On a certain day it was reported that a band of
Indians had been seen in the neighborhood, and what with drink and
the taunts of his friends, he was impelled to take his rifle and set out
once more on the war-path. A settler heard a shot fired not long after.
Next day a neighbor passing Tom Quick's cabin tapped at the door, and,
receiving no answer, pushed it open and entered. The hundredth skull
was there, on the shelves, a bullet-hole in the forehead, and the scalp
gone. The head was Quick's.

THE CRIME OF BLACK SWAMP
Two miles south of Munger, Ohio, in the heart of what used to be
called the Black Swamp, stood the Woodbury House, a roomy mansion
long gone to decay. John Cleves, the last to live in it, was a man whose

evil practices got him into the penitentiary, but people had never
associated him with the queer sights and sounds in the lower chambers,
nor with the fact that a man named Syms, who had gone to that house
in 1842, had never been known to leave it. Ten years after Syms's
disappearance it happened that Major Ward and his friend John Stow
had occasion to take shelter there for the night--it being then
deserted,--and, starting a blaze in the parlor fireplace, they lit their
pipes and talked till late. Stow would have preferred a happier topic,
but the major, who feared neither man nor devil, constantly turned the
talk on the evil reputation of the house.
While they chatted a door opened with a creak and a human skeleton
appeared before them.
"What do you want? Speak!" cried Ward. But waiting for no answer he
drew his pistols and fired two shots at the grisly object. There was a
rattling sound, but the skeleton was neither dislocated nor disconcerted.
Advancing deliberately, with upraised arm, it said, in a husky voice, "I,
that am dead, yet live in a sense that mortals do not know. In my
earthly life I was James Syms, who was robbed and killed here in my
sleep by John Cleves." With bony finger it pointed to a rugged gap in
its