Death-Dealer, The Shawnee Scourge: The Wizard of the Cliffs

It was a sultry summer day, nearly a hundred years ago.

The heat was almost intolerable, and man and beast sought the cooling shade of the forest, to spend the hours until it should in a measure abate.

Not a breath of air was stirring.

In a leafy covert, a little removed from the right bank of the Scioto, a form lay stretched at full length upon the earth.

One would have needed almost a second glance to have told whether the object was human or brute.

Even then he might have said it was a cross between the two.

At first sight, a Barnum or a Darwin might have gone wild with delight.

The former would have thought that he had stumbled upon a veritable “What-Is-It?”; while the latter would have declared that he had at last found the long-looked-for connecting link between the human and brute creation.

There was the human form, though ungainly in its shape; but covered with hair from the crown of its head to the sole of its feet.

It was indeed a second Esau.

A great mass of bushy hair covered his head, which, from its appearance, had not known the presence of a comb for months.

A beard of the same reddish color as his hair, and with a like unkempt appearance, covered the lower part of his face, and reached up over his cheeks almost to his eyes.

These were small and deep-set, though sharp and piercing, and overhung by eyebrows of the same gigantic pattern as his beard and hair.

A strange and forbidding appearance the man presented about the head, and his form kept it company.

It was covered with the skins of wild animals, worn with the hair-side out, so that at a glance one would have supposed that it was his own natural covering, so much in keeping was it with that about his head.

As he lay there, one could see that his form was crooked and distorted, until it had hardly the shape of a human being.

But still it was not so noticeable as it was when he was upon his feet, and as erect as it was possible for him to be.

His altitude then was not more than five feet, with a monstrous hump upon his shoulders, which, if any thing, made him look shorter than he really was.

A rifle, almost as long as himself, was lying by his side, so close that he could place his hand upon it at a moment’s notice.

A huge knife was thrust into his belt, and the hand that rested upon the handle thereof, showed plainly that it had the strength to use it to a purpose when the occasion warranted.

Though that portion of his face which was not covered by a beard was turned to a dark brown, an observer would have said that he was a white man, though a long residence in the forest had almost changed his appearance and his nature.

The name this uncouth person had once borne was Richard Higgins.

But this had been lost or forgotten long ago. His ears had not heard that name for years.

When he had first appeared among the settlers along the river, as he had done in the capacity of scout and Indian-hunter, they had known him simply as Dick.

But as time wore on, another name became attached to him.