"Greathouse has fled to Pittsburg," he said. "I cannot retire with my people because they would not follow me. It is too late, Mr. Cardigan; Dunmore has sprung his trap. Ha! Look at that!" And he turned and shouted out an order to the soldiers around.
A dozen savages, naked to the waist, were fording the Ohio between us and the settlement. Already the soldiers were running through the woods along the river to head them off, and Cresap started after them, calling back for those who remained to guard the trail in the rear. Then a rifle went bang! among the trees; another report rang out, followed instantly by twenty more in a volley.
Down a low oak ridge, close by, I saw an Indian tumbling like a stone till he fell with a splash into a mossy hollow full of rain-water and dead leaves. After him bounded a hunter in buckskins, long knife flashing.
"Cresap!" I panted, "don't let him take that scalp! Have your men gone mad? You can stop this war! It is not too late yet, but a scalp taken means war--God in heaven! a scalp means war to the death!"
"Don't touch that scalp!" roared Cresap, hurrying towards the ranger, who was kneeling on one knee beside the dead Cayuga. "Nathan Giles! Do you hear me? Let that scalp alone, you bloody fool!"
It was too late; the ranger squatted, wrenching the scalp free with a ripping sound, just as Cresap ran up in a towering rage.
"They take ours," remonstrated the ranger, tying the ghastly trophy to his belt by its braided lock of hair; "I guess I have a right to scalp my own game!" he added, sullenly.
Cresap turned to me with a gesture of despair.
"You see," he said; and walked slowly away towards the river, where the rifles were ringing out shot on shot across the shoals below the shallow camp-ford on the edge of the roaring riffles.
So now, at last, Lord Dunmore's war had begun without hope of mediation. Too late now for embassy of peace, too late for truce or promises or the arbitration of fair speech. There is nothing on earth to compensate for a scalp taken, save a scalp taken in return. I had failed--failed totally, and without hope of retrieving failure. The first attempt must be the last. A scalp had been taken. My mission was at an end.
Ay, ended irrevocably now, for all around me firelocks and rifles were banging; the woods swam in smoke; the war-yelp sounded nearer and nearer; the white cross-belts of the soldiers glimmered through the trees.