32 The Winning of the West 



loaded the guns, and even, when the rush was made, 

 assisted to repel it by firing through the loop-holes. 

 After making a determined effort to storm the stock- 

 ade, in which some of the boldest warriors were 

 slain while trying in vain to batter down the gates 

 with heavy timbers, the baffled Indians were obliged 

 to retire discomfited. The siege was chiefly mem- 

 orable ^because of an incident which is to this day 

 a staple theme for story-telling in the cabins of the 

 mountaineers. One of the leading men of the neigh- 

 borhood was Major Samuel McColloch, renowned 

 along the border as the chief in a family famous for 

 its Indian fighters, the dread and terror of the sav- 

 ages, many of whose most noted warriors he slew, 

 and at whose hands he himself, in the end, met his 

 death. When Wheeling was invested he tried to 

 break into it, riding a favorite old white horse. But 

 the Indians intercepted him, and hemmed him in 

 on the brink of an almost perpendicular slope, 16 

 some three hundred feet high. So sheer was the 

 descent that they did not dream any horse could 

 go down it, and instead of shooting they advanced 

 to capture the man whom they hated. McColloch 

 had no thought of surrendering, to die by fire at the 

 stake, and he had as little hope of resistance against 

 so many foes. Wheeling short round, he sat back 

 in the saddle, shifted his rifle into his right hand, 

 reined in his steed, and spurred him over the brink. 

 The old horse never faltered, but plunged headlong 



16 The hill overlooks Wheeling ; the slope has now much 

 crumbled away, and in consequence has lost its steepness. 



