1 70 The Winning of the West 



A still more remarkable event had occurred a 

 couple of summers previously. Some keel boats, 

 manned by a hundred men under Lieutenant Rogers, 

 and carrying arms and provisions procured from the 

 Spaniards at New Orleans, were set upon by an In- 

 dian war party under Girty and Elliott, 77 while 

 drawn up on a sand beach of the Ohio. The boats 

 were captured and plundered, and most of the men 

 were killed ; several escaped, two under very extra- 

 ordinary circumstances. One had both his arms, 

 the other both his legs, broken. They lay hid till 

 the Indians disappeared, and then accidentally dis- 

 covered each other. For weeks the two crippled be- 

 ings lived in the lonely spot where the battle had 

 been fought, unable to leave it, each supplementing 

 what the other could do. The man who could walk 

 kicked wood to him who could not, that he might 

 make a fire, and making long circuits, chased the 

 game toward him for him to shoot it. At last they 

 were taken off by a passing flat-boat. 



The backwoodsmen, wonted to vigorous athletic 

 pastimes, and to fierce brawls among themselves, 

 were generally overmatches for the Indians in hand- 

 to-hand struggles. One such fight, that took place 

 some years before this time, deserves mention. A 

 man of herculean strength and of fierce, bold na- 

 ture, named Bingaman, lived on the frontier in a 

 lonely log-house. The cabin had but a single room 

 below, in which Bingaman slept, as well as his 



17 Haldimand MSS. De Peyster to Haldimand, November 

 i. 1779- 



