Rensselaer Union, Volume 11, Number 27, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 March 1879 — A TREACHEROUS "GOBBLER.” [ARTICLE]

A TREACHEROUS "GOBBLER.”

In 1781 no finer hunting-grounds • could have been found than were in the valley of the Ohio River. There were then but few settlements on the riv6t below VV heeling, and those were on the Virginia side along the eastern bank. It was several years later before land was taken up on the Ohio side, for that was the “ Indian country;” yet the settlers on the eastern shore used to cross often to the western side to hunt for deer and wild turkeys, which were there very abundant. From their cabin-doors in the early morning the pioneers would sometimes see flocks of from ten to fifty magniticant turkeys break suddenly forth to the water, or espy them sitting in rows on the projecting branches of the longlimbed oaks."" - Often the vooiferous “ gobbling" of the males resounded across the water, interluded by the plaintive “yeap yeapyeap! yop-yop-yop!” or quickly changed to a Bharp “ quit!” at the sudden appearance of a wolf or fox. It was but a few minutes’ work for the settlers to paddle across in their log canoes, and with a few discharges of shot, secure turkeys enough to last each family a week. Turkey was the dish most easily procured, and the gob-; bling of a flock on the opposite slope across the stream came to be a signal for a turkey-hunt. Jn the fall of 1781 a wily savage of _Jthe Shuwanese tribe, named wit, who had no doubt watched the settlors in some of their bunting expeditions, hit upon a plan to secure a few scalps so that it could be done with little danger to himself. During all these years ther 3 was almost constant war with the Indians, and the British, it is said, had set a price 'on American scalps. The ruse which this cunning savage had hit on will soon be understood. One morning as a settler named Bingman was feeding his hogs just at sunrise, he heard a wild turkey “gobble” across the river, which at that point was not more than two hundred yards in width. The gobbling was repeated. So clear and still was the air that Bingman could even hear the odd "chockl” -in the gobbler's throatas it “ strutted.?’ A moment after, too, the plaintive “ yoap!” of a second turkey came to his ears. Calling to his wife to bring his gun, Bingraan got into his canoe and paddied across the river to shoot the turkeys. Mrs. Kingman saw him land on the opposite shore, and go cautiously in among the bushes. Five minutes later she heard him “ re ’ ;** B h° supposed, and thought ne would soon bo back; but half an hour and an hour passed, and he did not come. Ihe forenoon dragged by. The poor woman thought he must have started a deer, and gone in pursuit of it: but becoming much alarmed before night she went to the clearing of a neighbor named Mclntosh, and in company with him crossed the river in search of her missing husband. A few rods up from the bank, where his oanoe lay, poor Bingman was fpund, lying dead and scalped. Only the next morning a settler « named Woodfin. seven or eight miles above Bingman’s, was shelling corn at his cabin door, and on going into 'the . abed where hls handmill f<7r gmtf'iiig stood, he, too, heard a gobbler across the river, accompanied by the “ yeaping” of'a whole tioclTfef turkeys.

As his family had nothin# but cornmeal from which to make a breakfast, the chance of securing a line turkefy or two was not to be lost. Woodfln took his gun, and atonoe crossed the river. The report of a gun was soon heard, but Woodfln, like Bingman, did not come back. Late that evening a party of his friends found him lying dead, scalped and robbed of his gan and clothing, a little wav back from the river. i'hat same forenoon Freeman Hasted, a youth of seventeen, was fishing on the bank several miles above Wooddn’s, whon he heard turkeys in the bushes on the opposite Bhore. Two girls of fifteen and eighteen, named Ruth Miller and Harriet Beakman, were with him, and were joking him on his ill-success in fishing. On hearing the turkeys, Freeman told them he would have a turkev for each of them in fifteen minutes. They were near the clearing of Mr. Beakman, and his own boat and that of a neighbor named Miller were drawn up close by. Young Husted stepped into one of the canoes and poled across, for the water was then very low. * The girls soon heard him fire his gun, as they thought. Some time passed; he did, not return. They supposed he was searching for a second turkey. At last they began calling to him, and soon after Mrs. Beakman and some of the younger children saw both girls get into the other canoe and paddle over to the west bank. Ruth and Harriet were both somewhat used to the canoes. The children heard them laughing, and the rattling and splashing of the paddles, as they went across. They were never again seen alive. Later in the day Mrs. Beakman, becoming very uneasy about her daughter, Mr. Beakman waded the river at the “rips,” a little farther up, where the water was then not much more than watsr-deep, and, after n brief search, found Che bodies of the two girls close together. They had both been scalped scarcely a minute after they nad laughingly paddled the canoe across. • A little farther up the sloping bank, in front of a thick clump of pawpaw bushes, young Husted lay dead. At their funeral a day or two later there was a most pitiable scene, for these young peoDle had many friends, and Ruth, the oldest, was shortly to have been married. The scene of this triple tragedy was but a few miles below Wheeling Fort The next day, or next but one, at about two o’clock in the afternoon, turkeys were heard across thtnriver at the clearing of a Mr. Guthridge, some twenty miles below the Beakman place* As news traveled slowly from one isolated post and house to another, the Guthiidges had as yet heard nothing of the sad fate of H usted and the girls. Mr. Guthridge had a boy of thirteen named Casper, whom he had taught to lire his ritie-guu and to hunt. Instead of forbidding him the use of the gun, he bad taken great pains to teach him how to shoot, and how to charge the gun properly and safely, as also now to swim.

Casper was a bright, sharp boy, with an eye like a young lynx. It was he that heard the turkeys in the woods across the river. Mr. Guthridge himself had gone out into a back field after dinner to cut up corn, leaving Casper to hew out a pig’s trough from a section of cottonwood log; for beside teaching the lad to bunt and swim, Mr. Guthridge had taught him how to do all kinds of farm jobs, such as making troughs, gates and axehelves. As Casper chopped and hacked at his pig-trough, he heard the gobbling of the turkeys on the other shore, tie ran in and told his mother that he wanted her to taxe down the rifle-gun for him to shoot a turkey. The gun hung overhead, on two wooden hooks in the beams of the loft door. His mother said no; she didn’t want him to take it. “ Why,” cried tLe boy, “don’t yer think lean kill a turkey? Finny would let me hev it quick enough cf he was here!” ~~ f —~ •''■■■■, ' Phineas was his father’s name, and such was the easy intimacy and goodtjllowship between • the two, that they commonly called each other “ Finny” and “Cap.” At this his mother took down the gun for him, and let him have the powder-horn and buliet-poueh. The lad put in a charge, secured his ammunition, and then, getting into their canoe, commenced paddling aoross the river. The turkey kept “gobbling” every few moments till the lad got near the opposite shore, when there came a sudden, sharp “quit!”* At that Casper stopped short, thinking he had frightened the birds; but the “quit!” was followed next moment by the familiar, plaintive “yeap-yeap-yeap, yop-yop-yop!” Now our young pioneer was a close observer, and had watched the habits and notes of all wild game very olosely. Something unnatural about these turkeys’ calls struck his mind. When, in a flock of wild turkeys, one of their number gives the sharp “quit!” for danger, he had never heard another turkey at once set up a long “yeap-yeap-yeap, yop-yop-yop!” The whole flock always stand silent, add look sharply about them. , The boy’s keen ear and instinct told him in a moment that there was something not quite right in what he had heard. Yet he aid not think it was an Indian, or he would probably have gone back far more quickly than he had come across. The bank was npt sloping here, but rose to a height of about four feet, and was covered with thick alders wreathed with woodbine. The boy landed, but instead of climbing tne bank and pressing through tne alders toward where the flock seemed to be, be stole downstream along the bank for near two hundred yards, crouching low, so as to keep hidden from the game. Then, creeping in through the alders, he crawled, gun in hand, along the ground, looking sharply on every side. In this manner he gaindd the top of a wooded slope fifteen rods or more from the water, and got into a little gully over behind it. This done, he began to crawl quietly along the bed of the gully, which was overhung by briers and wild grape-vines, to get in the rear of the turkeys—if, indeed, they were turkovs, of which he had his doubts, though he cou'd still hear them gobbling ana yenping very naturally. When he had got about opnosite to them, and behind them, he crawled out of the gully, and gaining the summit of the little ridge, he glanced warily down the slope toward the river. ..JW-JMctay* in sight,. Watoning a few moments, he was horror struok at seeing an Indian's head rise stealthily up fftftn behind a root, and look down through the branches

toward where he had drawn up his canoe. Casper’s heart beat fast and hard. He was within a hundred feet of the Indian, but in his tear. After a long, sharp look, the savage drew dowri behind the root and began gobbling and yeaping again. Casper had not a drop of ooward blood, and though the thought, pf the danger he had so barely escaped made him feol oold and almost sick, he felt that his own safety lay in bis shooting the Indian before the savage had a chance tp shoot him. '* Stretching himself flat on the ground behind a small log, he rested his riflegun across the log, and kept it pointed at the root. Presently the Indian’s head was again raisod. This was the lad's chance, and taking aim, he fired, and the head went out of sight. But the lad was not sore he had hit the Indian. Crawling back into the gully as quickly as he dared, ne sought the river shore. Not daring to go to the canoe, he hid the rifle-gun amongst some joint-grass, and then, after going down the bank some distanoe, he entered the water, and swam and waded across the river. Running, dripping wet and out of breath, to the cabin, he shouted, “Mother, I’ve killted a redskin!” “No, you hain’t!”. said Mrs. Guthridge. “ Yes, I have! I’jn sure of it!” She would not believe him. The lad then ran out into the field to his father. Even his father could scarcely credit the boy’s statement. But finding that he had left his gun on tbe other side, Mr. Guthridge went for two of his neighbors, aud toward night they made a raft, ana crossed the river to see if the boy’s story was true. Sure enough, on approaching the root, they saw the Indian lying dead. The boy's aim had been .'sure. Strung to the Indian’s belt were five scalps, two of them being scalps of women. These were Identified as the hair of poor Bingman, Woodfln, Husted and the two girls. This savage had truly been a treacherous gobbler. The settlers thought themselves fortunately rid of that tur~ key. And 1 think that every boy and every parent, too, will agree with me that in the case of the pioneer boy, the instructions which Guthridge had given his boy in the use of a gun were neither out of place nor useless. — C. A. Stephens, in Youth's Companion.