Eighty-one Copies Re-Printed In
Nineteen Hundred and Twenty-two.
——
In the year 1788, March 28th, I was going from Bellfontain to Cahokia,in company with a young man named John Vallis, from the State ofMaryland; he was born and raised near Baltimore. About 7 o'clock in themorning I heard two guns fired; by the report I thought they were to theright; I thought they were white men hunting; both shot at the sametime. I looked but could not see any body; in a moment after I looked tothe left and saw sixteen Indians, all upon their feet with their gunspresented, about forty yards distant from me, just ready to drawtrigger. I was riding between Vallis and the Indians in a slow trot, atthe moment I saw them. I whipped my horse and leaned my breast on thehorse's withers, and told Vallis to whip his horse, that they wereIndians. That moment they all fired their guns in one platoon; you couldscarcely distinguish the report of their guns one from another. Theyshot four bullets into my horse, one high up in his withers, one in the[Pg 8]bulge of the ribs near my thigh, and two in his rump, and shot four orfive through my great coat. The moment they fired their guns they rantowards us and yelled so frightfully, that the wounds and the yelling ofthe Indians scared my horse so that he jumped so suddenly to one side ofthe road, that my gun fell off my shoulder, and twisted out of my hand;I then bore all my weight on one stirrup, in order to catch my gun, butcould not. I had a large bag of beaver fur, which prevented me fromrecovering my saddle, and having no girth nor crupper to my saddle, itturned and fell off my horse, and I fell with it, but caught on my feetand held the mane; I made several attempts to mount my horse again; butthe Indians running up so close, and making such a frightful yelling,that my horse jumped and pranced so that it was impossible for me tomount him again, but I held fast to my horse's mane for twenty or thirtyyards; then my hold broke and I fell on my hands and knees, and stumbledalong about four or five steps before I could recover myself. By thetime I got fairly on my feet, the Indians were about eight or ten yardsfrom me—I saw then there was no other way for me to make my escape butby fast running, and I was determined to try it, and had but littlehopes at first of my being able to escape. I ran about one hundred yardsbefore I looked back—I thought almost every step I could feel thescalping knife cutting my scalp off. I found I was gaining ground onthem, I felt encouraged and ran about three hundred yards farther, andlooking back saw that I had gained about one hundred yards, andconside