BOOK NOTICES. 
PIONEER DAYS IN OHIO, 
Dr. Zane Grey has written what I regard 
as one of the strongest and most thrilling 
historical novels of the day. It deals with 
the history of the first settlement on the 
Ohio river, where Wheeling now stands, 
and recounts vividly the perils, the hard- 
ships and the privations of the sturdy pio- 
neers who hewed out a hole in the forest, 
built a block house and defended it, time 
and again, with their lives. The last battle 
of the Revolution was fought on _ that 
ground, and had it proved a victory instead 
of a defeat for the British arms, the strug- 
gle would no doubt have lasted several 
years longer. 
Dr. Grey is a direct descendant of Col- 
onel Zane who built Fort Henry, and who 
for several years commanded the troops 
stationed there. The heroine of the story 
is Betty Zane, a sister of Colonel Zane, 
and the author tells in a most stirring way 
how that young girl ran through a hail 
storm of British bullets and Indian arrows, 
a distance of some 200 yards, to the maga- 
zine, and brought a keg of powder 
to the defenders of the Fort, reaching them 
at a moment when the last charges they 
had were being fired from their guns. But 
for the heroic bravery of this girl, the Fort 
would have been compelled to capitulate 
within another hour, and a victory for the 
British at that point would have meant 
an entire change in the tide of the war. 
There is just enough of a love story run- 
ning through the book to hold the sym- 
pathy and to rivet the attention of the 
reader to the more serious and_ tragic 
phases of the drama. 
Among the other historical characters 
who figure in this story are Simon and 
James Girty, Jonathan and Isaac Zane, 
Lew Wetzel, and Wingenund, Thunder 
Cloud, Logan, and other Indian chiefs. 
Wetzel was a friend and companion 
of Daniel Boone, and next to him was 
probably the greatest and most successful 
Indian hunter that ever trod the virgin 
soil of the middle West. 
Dr. Grey is himself a big game hunter 
and a careful student of the science of rifle 
shooting, and is thus enabled to analyze 
the charactaers of such men and to describe 
in detail their wonderful feats of marks- 
manship in a manner that few other writers 
of this day could. There is not a man liv- 
ing, who knows the power and _ the 
deadly accuracy of the old Kentucky rifle, 
who will not hold his breath while reading 
some of the accounts of Wetzel’s wonderful - 
feats of marksmanship. 
156 
Here is an extract that will give the 
reader an idea of the treat in store for 
pe when he gets a copy of Dr. Grey’s 
ook: 
Wetzel’s keen gaze, as he looked from 
left to right, took in every detail of the 
camp. He was almost in the village. A 
tepee stood not 20 feet from his hiding 
place. He could have tossed a stone in the 
midst of squaws, and braves, and chiefs. 
The main body of Indians was in the cen- 
ter of the camp. The British were lined 
up farther on. Both Indians and soldiers 
were resting on their arms and waiting. 
Suddenly Wetzel started and his heart 
leaped. Under a maple tree not more than 
150 yards’ distant, stood 4 men in earnest 
consultation. One was an Indian. Wet- 
zel recognized the fierce, stern face, the 
haughty, erect figure. He knew that long, 
trailing war bonnet. It could have adorned 
the head of but one chief—Wingenund, the 
sachem of the Delawares. A British offi- 
cer, girdled and epauletted, stood next to 
Wingenund. Simon Girty, the renegade, 
and Miller, the traitor, completed the 
group. 
Wetzel sank to his knees. The perspi- 
ration poured from his face. The mighty 
hunter trembled, but it was from eager- 
ness. Was not Girty, the white savage, the 
bane of the poor settlers, within range of a 
weapon that never failed? Was not the 
murderous chieftain, who had once whipped 
and tortured Wetzel, and who had burned 
Crawford alive, there in plain sight? Wet- 
zel reveled a moment in fiendish glee. He 
passed his hands tenderly over the long 
barrel of his rifle. In that moment as 
never before he gloried in his power—a 
power which enabled him to put a bullet 
in the eye of a squirrel at the distance these 
men were from him. But only for an in- 
stant did the hunter yield to this feeling. 
He knew too well the value of time and 
opportunity. 
He rose again to his feet and peered out 
from under the shading laurel branches. 
As he did so the dark face of Miller turned 
full toward him. A tremor, like the in- 
tense thrill of a tiger when about to spring, 
ran over Wetzel’s frame. In his mad de- 
light at being within rifle shot of his great 
Indian foe, Wetzel had forgotten the man 
he had trailed for 2 days. He had forgot- 
ten Miller. He had only one shot, and 
Betty was to be avenged. He gritted his 
teeth. The Delaware chief was as safe as 
though he were a thousand miles away. 
This opportunity for which Wetzel had 

