Marching on Niagara or, The Soldier Boys of the Old Frontier

Excerpt

IN THE FOREST

"Do you think we'll bag a deer to-day, Henry?"

"I'll tell you better about that when we are on our way home, Dave. I certainly saw the hoof-prints down by the salt lick this morning. That proves they can't be far off. My idea is that at least three deer are just beyond the lower creek, although I may be mistaken."

"I'd like to get a shot at 'em. I haven't brought down a deer since we left the army."

"Well, I reckon we had shooting enough in the army to last us for a while," returned Henry Morris, grimly. "I know I got all I wanted, and you got a good deal more."

"But it wasn't the right kind of shooting, Henry. I always hated to think of firing on another human being, didn't you?"

"Oh, I didn't mind shooting at the Indians—some of 'em don't seem to be more than half human anyway. But I must say it was different when it came to bringing down a Frenchman with his spick and span uniform. But the Frenchmen hadn't any right to molest us and drive your father out of his trading post."

"I'm afraid General Braddock's defeat will cause us lots of trouble in the future. Mr. Risley was telling me that he had heard the Indians over at Plum Valley were as impudent as they could be. He said half a dozen of 'em made a settler named Hochstein give 'em all they wanted to eat and drink, and when the German found fault they flourished their tomahawks and told him all the settlers but the French were squaws and that he had better shut up or they'd scalp him and burn down his cabin."

"Yes, Sam Barringford was telling something about that, too, and he said he wouldn't be surprised to hear of an Indian uprising at any time. You see, the French are backing the redskins up in everything and that makes them bold. If I had my way, I'd get Colonel Washington to raise an army of three or four thousand men—the best frontiersmen to be found—and I'd chase every impudent Frenchman out of the country. We won't have peace till that is done, mark my words on it," concluded Henry Morris, emphatically.

David and Henry Morris were cousins, living with their folks on a clearing not far from what was then known as Will's Creek, now the town of Cumberland, Virginia. The two families consisted of Dave and his father, Mr. James Morris, who was a widower, and Mr. Joseph Morris, his wife Lucy, and three children, Rodney, the oldest, who was something of a cripple, Henry, who has just been introduced, and little Nell, the sunshine of the whole home.

In a former volume of this series, entitled "With Washington in the West," I related the particulars of how the two Morris families settled at Will's Creek, and how James Morris, after the loss of his wife, wandered westward, and established a trading-post on the Kinotah, one of the numerous branches of the Ohio River. In the meantime Dave, his son, fell in with George Washington, when the future President was a surveyor, and the youth helped to survey many tracts of land in the beautiful Shenandoah valley.

At this time the colonies of England and of France in America were having a great deal of trouble between themselves and with the Indians....