"You, sirrah, dispatch a man as fast as horse or boat can speed to Bottetourt. Tell Andrew Lewis to raise at once a thousand men and march from Lewisburg across Mt. Laurel to the mouth of the Great Kanawha. Here are his sealed orders." The messenger took the packet and went out.
"An Indian war will bring them back. I, myself, will lead the right wing, the pick and flower of the army. I'll make of the best men my own scouts. To myself will I bind this Boone, this Kenton, Morgan, and that young surveyor, George Rogers Clark, before these agitators taint their loyalty. I, myself, will lead my troops to the Shawnee towns. Let Lewis rough it down the Great Kanawha."
It was the sixth of June when the messenger drew rein at Boone's door in Powell's Valley. The great frontiersman sat smoking in his porch, meditating on the death of that beloved son killed on the way to Kentucky. The frightened emigrants, the first that ever tried the perilous route, had fallen back to Powell's Valley.
Boone heard the message and looked at his faithful wife, Rebecca, busy within the door. She nodded assent. The messenger handed him the compass, as large as a saucer. For a moment Boone balanced it on his hand, then slipped it into his bosom. Out of a huge wooden bowl on a cross-legged table near he filled his wallet with parched corn, took his long rifle from its peg over the door, and strode forth.
Other messengers were speeding at the hest of Lord Dunmore, hither and yon and over the Blue Ridge.
Andrew Lewis was an old Indian fighter from Dinwiddie's day,—Dinwiddie, the blustering, scolding, letter-writing Dinwiddie, who undertook to instruct Andrew Lewis and George Washington how to fight Indians! Had not the Shawnees harried his border for years? Had he not led rangers from Fairfax's lodge to the farthest edge of Bottetourt? Side by side with Washington he fought at Long Meadows and spilled blood with the rest on Braddock's field. More than forty years before, his father, John Lewis, had led the first settlers up
