some of the boldest warriors were slain while trying in vain to batter down the gates with heavy timbers, the baffled Indians were obliged to retire discomfited.  The siege was chiefly memorable because of an incident which is to this day a staple theme for story-telling in the cabins of the mountaineers.  One of the leading men of the neighborhood was Major Samuel McColloch, renowned along the border as the chief in a family famous for its Indian fighters, the dread and terror of the savages, many of whose most noted warriors he slew, and at whose hands he himself, in the end, met his death.  When Wheeling was invested, he tried to break into it, riding a favorite old white horse.  But the Indians intercepted him, and hemmed him in on the brink of an almost perpendicular slope, [Footnote:  The hill overlooks Wheeling; the slope has now much crumbled away, and in consequence has lost its steepness.] some three hundred feet high.  So sheer was the descent that they did not dream any horse could go down it, and instead of shooting they advanced to capture the man whom they hated.  McColloch had no thought of surrendering, to die by fire at the stake, and he had as little hope of resistance against so many foes.  Wheeling short round, he sat back in the saddle, shifted his rifle into his right hand, reined in his steed, and spurred him over the brink.  The old horse never faltered, but plunged headlong down the steep, boulder-covered, cliff-broken slope.  Good luck, aided by the wonderful skill of the rider and the marvellous strength and sure-footedness of his steed, rewarded, as it deserved, one of the most daring feats of horsemanship of which we have any authentic record.  There was a crash, the shock of a heavy body, half springing, half falling, a scramble among loose rocks, and the snapping of saplings and bushes; and in another moment the awe-struck Indians above saw their unharmed foe, galloping his gallant white horse in safety across the plain.  To this day the place is known by the name of McColloch’s leap. [Footnote:  In the west this feat is as well known as is Putnam’s similar deed in the north.]

In Virginia and Pennsylvania the Indian outrages meant only the harassing of the borderers; in Kentucky they threatened the complete destruction of the vanguard of the white advance and, therefore the stoppage of all settlement west of the Alleghanies until after the Revolutionary war, when very possibly the soil might not have been ours to settle.  Fortunately Hamilton did not yet realize the importance of the Kentucky settlements, nor the necessity of crushing them, and during 1777 the war bands organized at Detroit were sent against the country round Pittsburg; while the feeble forts in the far western wilderness were only troubled by smaller war parties raised among the tribes on their own account.  A strong expedition, led by Hamilton in person, would doubtless at this time have crushed them.

    The Struggle in Kentucky.