328 The Winning of the West 



and their own feats were in the eyes of their neigh- 

 bors in no way distinguishable from those of other 

 horse-thieves and murderers. Accordingly the 

 backwoodsmen soon grew to regard toryism as 

 merely another crime; and the courts sometimes 

 executed equally summary justice on tory, desper- 

 ado, and stock-thief, holding each as having for- 

 feited his life. 4 



The backwoodsmen were engaged in a threefold 

 contest. In the first place, they were occasionally, 

 but not often, opposed to the hired British and 

 German soldiers of a foreign king. Next, they were 

 engaged in a fierce civil war with the tories of 

 their own number. Finally, they were pitted against 

 the Indians, in the ceaseless border struggle of a 

 rude, vigorous civilization to overcome an inevitably 

 hostile savagery. The regular British armies, 

 marching to and fro in the course of their long 

 campaigns on the seaboard, rarely went far enough 

 back to threaten the frontiersmen; the latter had 

 to do chiefly with tories led by British chiefs, and 

 with Indians instigated by British agents. 



Soon after the conflict with the revolted colonists 

 became one of arms as well as one of opinions the 

 British began to rouse the Indian tribes to take 

 their part. In the Northwest they were at first 

 unsuccessful; the memory of Lord Dunmore's war 



4 Executions for "treason," murder, and horse-stealing 

 were very common. For an instance where the three crimes 

 were treated alike as deserving the death penalty the perpe- 

 trators being hanged, see Calendar of Virginia State Papers, 

 Vol. Ill, p. 361. 



