Trail and Trading Post: The Young Hunters of the Ohio

“If we can only get that buffalo, Henry, it will be a feather in our cap.”

“Right you are, Dave. But the animal may be miles and miles away by this time. As you know, they can run a long distance when they are frightened.”

“Oh, yes, I know that well enough,” answered Dave Morris, as he rested for a moment on the paddle he had been using. “I haven’t forgotten the buffalo that once knocked our tent flat and ran away.”

“And I haven’t forgotten how I went after him and nearly lost my life tumbling over the rocks and down the big hill,” added Henry. “I can tell you, I don’t want another such experience!”

“Do you think the buffalo went around the head of the lake?”

“He was headed that way—the last I saw of him. Let us paddle up to the brook and go ashore. If the tracks are there we can follow them: if not, I reckon we’ll have to give up the hunt and content ourselves with some small game.”

“You don’t suppose that there are any unfriendly Indians around,” resumed Dave Morris, after a few minutes of silence, during which time both young hunters applied themselves to the paddles of the canoe they occupied. “I’ve had enough of fighting to last me for a long time to come.”

“There is really no telling about that, the redskins are so treacherous. Down at the fort they seem to think the district for fifty miles around is clear, but Sam Barringford told me to keep my eyes peeled—that there is no telling yet what may happen. The war is over, but Pontiac isn’t dead, and neither is Moon Eye, and a lot more of the other chiefs.”

“Don’t mention Moon Eye to me,” said Dave Morris, with a shrug of his broad shoulders. “That Indian will never forgive me for escaping from him with Nell and the twins. I suppose he’d give a whole lot to get his hands on me again.”

“As for that, he’d like to get his hands on any of the men who fought against him and his followers. The Indians think——Wait, Dave! Turn in to the shore, quick! I just saw the buffalo. He is back of the rocks over yonder!”

The canoe was turned in the direction indicated with all possible speed. Soon it glided under some overhanging bushes, and the paddles were stowed away noiselessly. Then each of the young hunters caught up his flint-lock musket, looked to the priming, to make certain that the weapon was ready for use, and stepped ashore.

“As you saw him first, you lead,” whispered Dave Morris to his companion, and Henry led off, with the other youth close at his heels. Both had their eyes and ears on the alert for whatever might turn up.

As the old readers of this “Colonial Series” know, Dave and Henry Morris were cousins, of about the same age, who when at home lived near Will’s Creek, Virginia—close to where the town of Cumberland now stands. Dave was the only son of a widower, James Morris, who was a well-known trapper and fur trader. Henry came of a more numerous family, he having an older brother Rodney and also a sister Nell, a bright miss of tender years.

In the first three volumes of this series, entitled, respectively, “With Washington in the West,” “Marching on Niagara,” and “At the Fall of Montreal,” I told how Dave worked for the first President of our country when the latter was but a humble surveyor, and how the youth also served under his former employer during the memorable and disastrous Braddock advance on Fort Duquesne—held at that time, 1755, by the French, and located where the prosperous city of Pittsburg stands to-day. This was really the opening of the fourth intercolonial war, and was followed by an attack on Fort Niagara, and then by assaults on Quebec, Montreal, and other points, in which fights both Dave and Henry took active parts, doing their duty as common soldiers to the best of their ability.

With the close of the war between England and France, both of the young soldiers were glad enough to return home, which they did in company with a number of others, including Sam Barringford, a frontiersman who had been their friend through thick and thin, and also White Buffalo, an old chief of the Delawares, who was very friendly with all of the Morrises and who had done them more than one service.

Previous to the war Dave’s father had established a small trading post in what was then considered the “far western country.” This was on the Kinotah, a small but beautiful stream flowing into the Ohio River. The trader had a good deal of trouble with a rascally Frenchman, who claimed the post as his own, and who hired a number of Indians to make war on Mr. Morris, and at last the post had to be abandoned.