148 The Winning of the West 



The ravages committed by those skulking parties 

 of murderous braves were monotonous in their 

 horror. All along the frontier the people on the out 

 lying farms were ever in danger, and there was risk 

 for the small hamlets and block-houses. In their 

 essentials the attacks were alike: the stealthy ap 

 proach, the sudden rush, with its accompaniment of 

 yelling war-whoops, the butchery of men, women, 

 and children, and the hasty flight with whatever 

 prisoners were for the moment spared, before the 

 armed neighbors could gather for rescue and re 

 venge. 



In most cases there was no record of the outrage ; 

 it was not put into any book; and save among the 

 survivors, all remembrance of it vanished as the 

 logs of the forsaken cabin rotted and crumbled. 



Yet tradition, or some chance written record kept 

 alive the memory of some of these incidents, and a 

 few such are worth reciting, if only to show what 

 this warfare of savage and settler really was. Most 

 of the tales deal merely with some piece of un 

 avenged butchery. 



In 1785, on June 29th, the house of a settler 

 named Scott, in Washington County, Virginia, was 

 attacked. The Indians, thirteen in number, burst 

 in the door just as the family were going to bed. 

 Scott was shot; his wife was seized and held mo 

 tionless, while all her four children were toma 

 hawked, and their throats cut, the blood spouting 

 over her clothes. The Indians loaded themselves 

 with plunder, and, taking with them the wretched 



