172 The Winning of the West 



vidual warfare waged between them and their red 

 foes. 



For the same reason one or two of the more noted 

 hunters and Indian scouts deserve mention, as types 

 of hundreds of their fellows, who spent their lives 

 and met their deaths in the forest. It was their 

 warfare that really did most to diminish the fighting 

 force of the tribes. They battled exactly as their 

 foes did, making forays, alone or in small parties, 

 for scalps and horses, and in their skirmishes in- 

 flicted as much loss as they received; in striking 

 contrast to what occurred in conflicts between the 

 savages and regular troops. 



One of the most formidable of these hunters was 

 Lewis Wetzel. 79 Boone, Kenton, and Harrod illus- 

 trate by their lives the nobler, kindlier traits of the 

 dauntless border-folk; Wetzel, like McGarry, shows 

 the dark side of the picture. He was a good friend 

 to his white neighbors, or at least to such of them 

 as he liked, and as a hunter and fighter there was 

 not in all the land his superior. But he was of 

 brutal and violent temper, and for the Indians he 

 knew no pity and felt no generosity. They had 

 killed many of his friends and relations, among oth- 

 ers his father; and he hunted them in peace or war 

 like wolves. His admirers denied that he ever 

 showed "unwonted cruelty" 80 to Indian women and 

 children ; that he sometimes killed them can not be 



79 The name is variously spelt ; in the original German rec- 

 ords of the family it appears as Watzel, or Watzel. 



80 De Haas, 345. 



