instances of the commanders exhorting the Indians to be merciful—­which was a waste of breath,—­and several other instances where successful efforts were made to stop the use of torture.  The British officers were generally personally humane to their prisoners.]; in other words, the savages were expressly directed to make war on non-combatants, for it was impossible to attack a settlement without attacking the women and children therein.  In return the frontiersmen speedily grew to regard both British and Indians with the same venomous and indiscriminate anger.

    Nature of the Ceaseless Strife

In the writings of the early annalists of these Indian wars are to be found the records of countless deeds of individual valor and cowardice, prowess and suffering, of terrible woe in time of disaster and defeat, and of the glutting of ferocious vengeance in the days of triumphant reprisal.  They contain tales of the most heroic courage and of the vilest poltroonery; for the iron times brought out all that was best and all that was basest in the human breast.  We read of husbands leaving their wives, and women their children, to the most dreadful of fates, on the chance that they themselves might thereby escape; and on the other hand, we read again and again of the noblest acts of self-sacrifice, where the man freely gave his life for that of his wife or child, his brother or his friend.  Many deeds of unflinching loyalty are recorded, but very, very few where magnanimity was shown to a fallen foe.  The women shared the stern qualities of the men; often it happened that, when the house-owner had been shot down, his wife made good the defence of the cabin with rifle or with axe, hewing valiantly at the savages who tried to break through the door, or dig under the puncheon floor, or, perhaps, burst down through the roof or wide chimney.  Many hundreds of these tales could be gathered together; one or two are worth giving, not as being unique, but rather as samples of innumerable others of the same kind.

    Feat of the Two Poes.

In those days [Footnote:  1781, De Haas; Doddridge, whom the other compilers follow, gives a wrong date (1782), and reverses the parts the two brothers played.] there lived beside the Ohio, in extreme northwestern Virginia, two tall brothers, famed for their strength, agility, and courage.  They were named Adam and Andrew Poe.  In the summer of ’81 a party of seven Wyandots or Hurons came into their settlement, burned some cabins, and killed one of the settlers.  Immediately eight backwoodsmen started in chase of the marauders; among them were the two Poes.

The Wyandots were the bravest of all the Indian tribes, the most dangerous in battle, and the most merciful in victory, rarely torturing their prisoners; the backwoodsmen respected them for their prowess more than they did any other tribe, and, if captured, esteemed themselves fortunate to fall into Wyandot hands.  These seven warriors were the most famous and dreaded of the whole tribe.  They included four brothers, one being the chief Bigfoot, who was of gigantic strength and stature, the champion of all, their most fearless and redoubtable fighter.  Yet their very confidence ruined them, for they retreated in a leisurely manner, caring little whether they were overtaken or not, as they had many times worsted the whites, and did not deem them their equals in battle.