Transcriber’s Notes:

The Table of Contents was created by the transcriber and placed in the public domain.

Additional Transcriber’s Notes are at the end.

CONTENTS

The Prologue. In the Glade and by the Moonlight.

Chapter I. The Mark on the Tree.

Chapter II. The Secret Foe.

Chapter III. A Timely Shot.

Chapter IV. The Girl That Fired the Shot.

Chapter V. Virginia’s Suitor.

Chapter VI. Another Victim.

Chapter VII. The Scheme of Clement Murdock.

Chapter VIII Boone in a Tight Place.

Chapter IX. Love and Hate.

Chapter X. The Cabin in the Forest.

Chapter XI. The Surprise.

Chapter XII. Kenton Sees the Wolf Demon.

Chapter XIII. The Offer of the Shawnee Chief.

Chapter XIV. A Mysterious Disappearance.

Chapter XV. The Renegade’s Daughter.

Chapter XVI. The Wounded Man.

Chapter XVII. Virginia’s Escape.

Chapter XVIII. A Terrible Friend.

Chapter XIX. A Strange Appearance.

Chapter XX. Virginia’s Guide.

Chapter XXI. In the Toils.

Chapter XXII. Calling Back the Past.

Chapter XXIII. Boone’s Escape.

Chapter XXIV. Ke-ne-ha-ha and the Medicine-man.

Chapter XXV. On the Trail.

Chapter XXVI. The Great Medicine.

Chapter XXVII. The Story of the Wolf Demon.

Chapter XXVIII. A Terrible Encounter.

Chapter XXIX. A Friend in Need.

Chapter XXX. Father and Daughter.

Chapter XXXI. The Vengeance of the Renegade.

Chapter XXXII. A Strange Story.

Chapter XXXIII. A Strange Attack.

Chapter XXXIV. The Return to Point Pleasant.

Chapter XXXV. The Price of Le-a-pah’s Hand.

Chapter XXXVI. Death or Freedom.

Chapter XXXVII. Following a Madman.

Chapter XXXVIII. A Joyous Meeting.

Chapter XXXIX. The Totem of the Renegade.

Chapter XL. The White Dog and the Wolf Demon.

Chapter XLI. The Fight Unto the Death.

Chapter XLII. The Last of the Demon.

Beadle’s New York Dime Library

COPYRIGHTED IN 1878, BY BEADLE & ADAMS.

Vol. IV.

Complete In One Number.

Beadle & Adams, Publishers, No. 98 WILLIAM STREET, NEW YORK.

Price, Ten Cents.

No. 49

THE WOLF DEMON; OR, The Queen of the Kanawha.

BY ALBERT W. AIKEN,

AUTHOR OF “INJUN DICK,” “ROCKY MOUNTAIN ROB,” “KENTUCK, THE SPORT,” ETC., ETC.

THE PROLOGUE. IN THE GLADE AND BY THE MOONLIGHT.

The great, round moon looked down in a flood of silver light upon the virgin forest by the banks of the Scioto, the beautiful river which winds through the richest and fairest valley in all the wide western land—the great corn valley of the Shawnee tribe—those red warriors who, in their excursions across the Ohio (the “La Belle” river of the early French adventurers) had given to the plains and valleys of Kentucky the name of “The Dark and Bloody Land.”

The tree-tops were green and silver; but under the spreading branches, sable was the gloom.

The strange, odd noises of the night broke the forest stillness. One hears all noises in the night even in a civilized land; how much more wondrous then are the wild, free cries of the inhabitants of the great greenwood, untrammeled by the restraining hand of man!

The free winds surged with a mournful sound through the branches of the wood.

A ring around the moon told the coming storm.

[2]

Dark masses of clouds dashed across the sky, ever and anon vailing in the “mistress of the night,” as though some unquiet spirit was envious of the pale moonbeams, and wished to cover, with its mantle, the earth, and cloak an evil deed.

A frightened deer came dashing through the aisles of the forest—a noble buck with branching horns that told of many a year spent under the greenwood tree.

Across a little open glade, whereon the moonbeams fell—kissing the earth as though they loved it—dashed the deer, and then, entering again the dark recesses of the forest, the brown coat of the wood-prince was lost in the inky gloom.

Then in the trail of the buck, guided by the noise of the rustling branches, came a dark form.

As the form stole, with noiseless tread, across the moonlit glade, it displayed the person of an Indian warrior.

A red brave, decked out in deer-skin garb, stained with the pigments of the earth in many colors, and fringed in fanciful fashion.

The warrior was a tall and muscular savage, one of Nature’s noblemen. A son of the wilderness untrammeled by the taint of civilization—a brave of the great Shawnee tribe, the lords of the Ohio valley from the oil “licks” of the Alleghany stream to the level prairies where the Wabash and the White pour their muddy tide into the great river of the New World, the winding, smiling Ohio.

Fast on the trail of the deer he followed, although the chase was almost hopeless.

Hardly had the warrior crossed the glade and entered the thicket, when, on his track—following him as he was following the deer—came another form through the forest.

A form that moved with noiseless steps; a form that cast behind it a shadow gigantic in its hight.

The form did not pass across the glade, but skulked around it in the shadow, as though it feared the moonlight.

The warrior penetrated into the thicket beyond the glade, but a hundred yards or so. Then satisfied that the deer was thoroughly alarmed and had sought safety in flight, the warrior began to retrace his steps. The Shawnee brave dreamed not of the dark and fearful form—that seemed neither man nor beast—that lurked in his track.

He had hunted the deer, but little thought that he, too, in turn was hunted.

The red chief guessed not that the dread demon of his nation—the terrible foe who had left his red “totem” on the breast of many a stout Shawnee brave—was even now on his track, eager for that blood which was necessary to its existence.

With careless steps the warrior retraced his way.

From behind a tree-trunk came the terrible form. One single blow, and a tomahawk crashed through the brain of the red-man.

With a groan the Shawnee chief sunk lifeless to the earth.

The dark form bent over him for a moment. Three rapid knife-slashes, and the mark of the destroyer was blazoned on the breast of the victim, reddened with blood.

Then through the aisles of the forest stole the dark form.

All living things—the insects of the earth—the birds of the night—shrunk from its path.

It crossed the glade full in the soft light of the moon.

The rays of the orb of night fell upon a huge gray wolf, who walked erect like a man! The face of the wolf was that of a human. In the paw of the beast glistened the tomahawk of the red-man, the edge now scarlet with the blood of the Shawnee chief.

For a moment the moon looked upon the huge and terrible figure, and then, as if struck with deadly fear at the awful sight, hid itself behind a dark cloud.

When it again came forth, the strange and terrible being, that wore the figure of a wolf and the face of a man, had disappeared, swallowed up in the gloom of the forest.

Once again the creatures of the night came forth. Again the shrill cries broke the stillness of the wood.

CHAPTER I. THE MARK ON THE TREE.

Two rifle-“cracks” broke the stillness of the wilderness, that stretched in one almost unbroken line from the Alleghany and Blue Ridge peaks to the Ohio river. The reports re-echoed over the broad expanse of the Kanawha and Ohio rivers, for the shots were fired near the junction of the two streams—fired so nearly at the same time that the two seemed almost like one report.

Then, before the smoke of the rifles had curled lazily upward in spiral rings on the air, came a crash in the tangled underbrush, and forth into a little open glade—the work of Nature’s master hand—dashed a noble buck. The red stream bursting from a wound just behind the shoulder and staining crimson the glossy brown coat of the forest lord, told plainly that he was stricken unto death.

The buck gained the center of the glade, then his stride weakened; the dash through the thicket was the last despairing effort of the poor brute to escape from the invisible foes whose death-dealing balls had pierced his side.

With a moan of pain, almost human in its expression, the buck fell upon his knees, then rolled over on his side, dead.

The brute had fallen near the trunk of a large oak tree—a tree distinguished from its neighbors by a blazon upon its side, whereon, in rude characters, some solitary hunter had cut his name.

Scarcely had the death-bleat of the buck pierced the silence of the glen, when two men came dashing through the woods, each eager to be the first to secure the game.

One of the two was some twenty yards in advance of the other, and reached the body of the dead buck just as his rival emerged from the thicket.

Placing his foot upon the buck, and rifle in hand, he prepared to dispute the quarry with the second hunter, for both men—strangers to each other—had fired at the same deer.

The hunter who stood with his foot upon the buck, in an attitude of proud defiance, had reloaded his rifle as he ran and was prepared to defend his right to the game to the bitter end.

In person, the hunter was a muscular, well-built man, standing some six feet in hight. Not a clumsy, overgrown giant, hardly able to bear his own weight, but a man as supple and as active as a panther. He was clad in buck-skin hunting-shirt and leggins, made in the Indian fashion, but unlike that fashion in one respect, and that was that no gaudy ornaments decorated the garments. Upon the feet of the hunter were a pair of moccasins. A cap rudely fashioned from a piece of deer-skin, and with the little flat tail of the animal as an ornament, completed the dress of the hunter.

The face of the man was singular to look upon. The features were large and clearly cut. The cold gray eye, broad forehead, and massive, squarely-chiseled chin, told of dauntless courage and of an iron will. A terrible scar extended from the temple to the chin on the left side of the face.

The hunter was quite young—not over twenty-five, though deep lines of care were upon the face.

The second hunter, who came from the tangled thicket, but paused on the edge of the little glen on beholding the threatening attitude of the hunter who stood with his foot on the deer, was a man who had probably seen forty years. He, too, like the other, was of powerful build, and his muscular frame gave promise of great strength.

He was dressed, like the first, in the forest garb of deer-skin, but his dress was gayly fringed and ornamented.

In his hand he bore one of the long rifles so common to the frontier settler of that time, for our story is of the year 1780.

The clear blue eye of the second hunter took in the situation at a glance. He readily saw that the man who stood so defiantly by the deer was not disposed to yield his claim to the animal without a struggle. So the second hunter determined upon a parley.

“Hello, stranger! I reckon we’re both after the same critter,” said the hunter who stood on the edge of the little glade.

“Yes; it ’pears so,” replied the other, who stood by the deer.

There was something apparently in the voice of the last comer that impressed the first favorably, for he dropped the butt of his rifle to the ground, though he still kept his foot upon the deer’s carcass.

“Well, stranger, we can’t both have the game. I think I hit him, an’ of course, as it is but nat’ral, you think so, too. So I reckon we’d better find out which one of us he belongs to; ’cause I don’t want him if my ball didn’t finish him, an’ of course, you don’t want him if he’s mine by right,” said the second hunter, approaching the other fearlessly.

“You’re right, by hookey!” cried the other, yielding to the influence of the good-humored tone of the other.

“Let me introduce myself, stranger, ’cos you seem to be a new-comer round hyer,” said the old hunter. “My name’s Daniel Boone; mayhap you’ve heard of me.”

“Well, I reckon I have!” exclaimed the other, in astonishment. “Thar’s few men on the border but what have heard on you. I’m right glad to see you, kurnel.”

“How may I call your name?” asked Boone, who had taken a fancy to the brawny stranger.

“Thar’s my mark—my handle,” said the stranger, pointing as he spoke to the name carved on the tree-trunk by which the deer had fallen; “that’s me.”

Boone cast his eye upon the tree.

Such was the inscription blazoned upon the trunk of the oak.

“You see, kurnel, the buck evidently thought that it was a ball from my rifle that ended him, ’cos he laid down to die right under my name,” said the hunter, with a laugh.

“Abe Lark!” Boone read the inscription upon the tree aloud.

“Yes, that’s me, kurnel; your’n to command,” replied the hunter.

“Stranger in these parts?” questioned Boone.

“Yes,” replied the other; “I’ve jest come down from the[3] north. I camped hyar last night, an’ this morning I jest put my mark onto the tree, so that folks might know that I was round.”

“I’m right glad to meet you,” and Boone shook hands warmly with the stranger hunter. “And while you’re in these parts, just take up your quarters with me. I’m stopping down yonder, at Point Pleasant, on a visit to some friends of mine.”

“Well, I don’t mind, kurnel; I’ll take your invitation in the same good spirit that you offer it,” said Lark.

“Now for the deer; let’s see who the animal belongs to,” cried Boone, kneeling down by the carcass.

“Why, kurnel, I resign all claim. It ain’t for me to dispute with Kurnel Boone!” exclaimed Lark.

“Resign your claim?” cried Boone, in astonishment. “Not by a jugful. I’ll wager my rifle ag’in’ a popgun that you’re as good a hand at the rifle as myself. It’s just as likely to be your deer as mine.”

Then the two carefully examined the carcass. They found the marks of the two bullets easily; both had struck the animal just behind the shoulder, but on opposite sides. It was difficult to determine which had inflicted the death-wound.

“Well, now, this would puzzle a lawyer,” muttered Boone.

“S’pose we divide the animal, share and share alike,” said Lark.

“That’s squar’,” replied Boone. “We’ll take the buck in to the station. By the way, what’s the news from the upper settlements?”

“Well, nothing particular, ’cept that the red devils are on the war-path ag’in,” replied Lark.

Boone was astonished at the news.

“On the war-path ag’in, eh? What tribe?”

“The Shawnees and the Wyandots.”

“The Shawnees and the Wyandots!” cried Boone: “then we’ll see fire and smell gunpowder round these parts before long.”

“I shouldn’t wonder,” said the other.

“Well, I’m glad that you have brought the news. We’ll be able to prepare for the imps.”

“You can depend upon it,” said Lark; “a friend of mine has been right through the Shawnee country. They are coming down onto the settlements in greater force than was ever known before. They’ve been stirred up by the British on the border. I did heer say that the British Governor agrees to give so much apiece for white scalps to the red savages.”

“The eternal villain!” cried Boone, indignantly.

“The Injuns are a-goin’ to try to wipe out all the settlements on the Ohio. It will be a blood-time while it lasts,” said Lark, soberly.

“We’ll have to face it,” replied Boone. “Did your friend hear what chief was goin’ to lead the expedition ag’in’ us on the south?”

“Yes; Ke-ne-ha-ha.”

“The-man-that-walks,” said Boone, thoughtfully. “He’s one of the best warriors in all the Shawnee nation. Blood will run like water along our borders, I’m afeard.”

“Yes, and the renegade, Simon Girty, is to guide the Injuns.”

“If I had him within reach of my rifle once, he’d never guide another Injun expedition ag’in’ his own flesh and blood,” said Boone, and his hand closed tightly around the rifle-barrel.

“I was jest on my way to the settlement at Point Pleasant when I started up the buck this morning,” said Lark.

“Well, I’m right glad that it happened as it did, ’cos I shouldn’t have had the pleasure of meetin’ you,” said Boone. “Now, s’pose we swing the buck on a pole an’ tote it in to the station. I reasonably expect that there’ll be some white faces over yonder when they hear that Ke-ne-ha-ha an’ his Shawnees, to say nothin’ of Girty, are on the war-path.”

“There ought to be good men enough along the Ohio to whip any force these red devils can bring,” said Lark.

“Well, they’re awful scattered, but I reckon that now that we know what’s goin’ on, we can get men enough to give the Shawnees all the fighting that they want.”

Then the two slung the buck on a pole and started to the station known as Point Pleasant.

CHAPTER II. THE SECRET FOE.

In the pleasant valley of the Scioto, near what is now the town of Chillicothe, stood the principal village of the great Shawnee nation—the Indian tribe that could bring ten thousand warriors into the field—deadly enemies of the pale-faced intruder.

All was bustle within the Indian village. To one used to the Indian customs, it would have been plain that the red-skins were preparing for the war-path.

The village was alive with warriors. Gayly-painted savages, decked with ocher and vermilion, strutted proudly up and down, eagerly waiting for the time to come when, like tigers, they could spring upon the pale-faces and redden their weapons with the blood of their hated foes.

Over the village ruled the great chief, Ke-ne-ha-ha, or “The-man-that-walks”—so termed, first, because he was reputed to be the fastest runner of any red braves in the Ohio valley, Shawnee, Wyandot or Mingo; second, that when a youth, on his first war-path against the Hurons, he had stolen by night into the midst of a Huron village, literally walked among the sleeping warriors, and brought back to his comrades the scalp of a great Huron chief, whom he had dispatched without alarming the sleepers—the greatest warrior in all the Shawnee nation—a chief wise in council, brave on the war-path, and wily as the red fox.

In the village of the red-men were two whose skins were white, though they were Indians at heart. The two were renegades from their country and their kin.

These two stood together by the river’s bank, and idly watched the daring and howling warriors. They were dressed in the Indian fashion, and were sinewy, powerful men in build.

The taller of the two, whose hair and eyes were dark, was called Simon Girty. At one time he had been reputed to be one of the best scouts on the border, but, for some reason, he had forsaken the settlements and found a home with the fierce red-men of the forest-wild, giving up home, country, friends, every thing. He had been adopted into the Indian tribe, and none of his red-skinned brothers seemed to bear as deadly a hatred to the whites as this renegade, Simon Girty.

His companion was not quite so tall, or as stoutly built. He was called David Kendrick, and was an adopted son of the Shawnees, as Girty was of the Wyandots.

“This is going to be a bloody business,” said Girty, as he surveyed the yelling Indians, who were busy in the “scalp-dance.”

“Yes, our chief, Ke-ne-ha-ha, has sworn to break the power of the whites along the Ohio. The braves are well provided with arms by the British Governor. Kentucky never saw such a force upon her border as this will be,” replied the other.

“The more the better,” said the renegade, Girty, moodily.

Then a howl of anguish rung through the Indian village. The braves stopped their sports to listen. They knew the signal well: it was the wail for the dead. It told that some Shawnee warrior had gone to the spirit-land.

The cry of anguish came from a party of braves entering the village from the south. In their midst they bore what seemed, to the eyes of the renegades, a human body.

The warriors deposited their burden before the door of the council-lodge.

Attracted by the death-note, Ke-ne-ha-ha, the great chief of the Shawnees, came from his lodge.

The chief was a splendid specimen of a man. He stood nearly six feet in hight, and was as straight as an arrow. He was quite light in hue for an Indian, and his features were intelligent and finely cut.