In the Current of the Revolution 157 



defeat of the average white force was usually fol- 

 lowed by a merciless slaughter. Skilled backwoods- 

 men scattered out, Indian fashion, but their less skil- 

 ful or more panic-struck brethren, and all regulars 

 or ordinary militia, kept together from a kind of 

 blind feeling of safety in companionship, and in 

 consequence their nimble and ruthless antagonists 

 destroyed them at their ease. 



Still, the Indian war parties were often checked 

 or scattered ; and occasionally one of them received 

 some signal discomfiture. Such was the case with 

 a band that went up the Kanawha valley just as 

 Clark was descending the Ohio on his way to the 

 Illinois. 



Finding the fort at the mouth of the Kanawha 

 too strong to be carried, they moved on up the 

 river toward the Greenbriar settlements, the chiefs 

 shouting threateningly to the people in the fort, and 

 taunting them with impending destruction of their 

 friends and kindred. But two young men in the 

 stockade forthwith dressed and painted themselves 

 like Indians, that they might escape notice even if 

 seen, and speeding through the woods reached the 

 settlements first and gave warning. The settlers 

 took refuge on a farm where there was a block- 

 house with a stockaded yard. The Indians attacked 

 in a body at daybreak when the door was opened, 

 thinking to rush into the house; but they were 

 beaten off, and paid dear for their boldness, for 

 seventeen of them were left dead in the yard, be- 

 sides the killed and wounded whom they carried 



