True to the Old Flag | Page 3

of attack. He settled there, however, just after Pontiac,
who was at the head of an alliance of all the Indian tribes of those parts,
had, after the long and desperate siege of Fort Pitt, made peace with us
upon finding that his friends, the French, had given up all thought of
further resistance to the English, and had entirely abandoned the
country. Mr. Welch thought, therefore, that a permanent peace was
likely to reign on the frontier, and that he might safely establish himself
in the charming location he had pitched upon, far removed from the
confines of civilization.
The spot was a natural clearing of some forty acres in extent, sloping
down to the water's edge, and a more charming site could hardly have
been chosen. Mr. Welch had brought with him three farm laborers from
the East, and, as time went on, he extended the clearing by cutting
down the forest giants which bordered it.
But in spite of the beauty of the position, the fertility of the soil, the
abundance of his crops, and the advantages afforded by the lake, both
from its plentiful supply of fish and as a highway by which he could
convey his produce to market, he had more than once regretted his
choice of location. It was true that there had been no Indian wars on a
large scale, but the Indians had several times broken out in sudden
incursions. Three times he had been attacked, but, fortunately, only by
small parties, which he had been enabled to beat off. Once, when a
more serious danger threatened him, he had been obliged to embark,
with his wife and child and his more valuable chattels, in the great
scow in which he carried his produce to market, and had to take refuge
in the settlements, to find, on his return, his buildings destroyed and his
farm wasted. At that time he had serious thoughts of abandoning his
location altogether, but the settlements were extending rapidly toward
him, and, with the prospect of having neighbors before long and the
natural reluctance to give up a place upon which he had expended so
much toil, he decided to hold on; hoping that more quiet times would
prevail, until other settlers would take up land around him.
The house had been rebuilt more strongly than before. He now
employed four men, and had been unmolested since his return to his

farm, three years before the date of this story. Already two or three
locations had been taken up on the shores of the lake beyond him, a
village had grown up thirty-five miles away, and several settlers had
established themselves between that place and his home.
"So you are going out fishing this morning, Harold?" Mr. Welch said.
"I hope you will bring back a good supply, for the larder is low. I was
looking at you yesterday, and I see that you are becoming a first-rate
hand at the management of a canoe."
"So I ought to be," the boy said, "considering that for nearly three
months I have done nothing but shoot and fish."
"You have a sharp eye, Harold, and will make a good backwoodsman
one of these days. You can shoot nearly as well as I can now. It is lucky
that I had a good stock of powder and lead on hand; firing away by the
hour together, as you do, consumes a large amount of ammunition. See,
there is a canoe on the lake; it is coming this way, too. There is but one
man in it; he is a white, by his clothes."
For a minute or two they stood watching the boat, and then, seeing that
its course was directed toward the shore, they walked down to the edge
of the lake to meet it.
"Ah, Pearson! is that you?" Mr. Welch asked. "I thought I knew your
long, sweeping stroke at a distance. You have been hunting, I see; that
is a fine stag you have got there. What is the news?"
"About as bad as can be, Master Welch," the hunter said. "The Iroquois
have dug up the tomahawk again and are out on the war-path. They
have massacred John Brent and his family. I heard a talk of it among
some hunters I met ten days since in the woods. They said that the
Iroquois were restless and that their chief, War Eagle, one of the most
troublesome varmints on the whole frontier, had been stirring 'em up to
war. He told 'em, I heard, that the pale-faces were pushing further and
further into the Injun woods, and that, unless they drove 'em back, the
redskin hunting grounds would be gone. I hoped that nothing would
come of it, but I might have known better.