arms they rolled into the water.  Here each tried to drown the other, and Andrew catching the chief by the scalp lock held his head under the water until his faint struggles ceased.  Thinking his foe dead, he loosed his grip to try to get at his knife, but, as Andrew afterwards said, the Indian had only been “playing possum,” and in a second the struggle was renewed.  Both combatants rolled into deep water, when they separated and struck out for the shore.  The Indian proved the best swimmer, and ran up to the rifle that lay on the sand, whereupon Andrew turned to swim out into the stream, hoping to save his life by diving.  At this moment his brother Adam appeared on the bank, and seeing Andrew covered with blood and swimming rapidly away, mistook him for an Indian, and shot him in the shoulder.  Immediately afterwards he saw his real antagonist.  Both had empty guns, and the contest became one as to who could beat the other in loading, the Indian exclaiming:  “Who load first, shoot first!” The chief got his powder down first, but, in hurriedly drawing out his ramrod, it slipped through his fingers and fell in the river.  Seeing that it was all over, he instantly faced his foe, pulled open the bosom of his shirt, and the next moment received the ball fair in his breast.  Adam, alarmed for his brother, who by this time could barely keep himself afloat, rushed into the river to save him, not heeding Andrew’s repeated cries to take the big Indian’s scalp.  Meanwhile the dying chief, resolute to save the long locks his enemies coveted—­always a point of honor among the red men,—­painfully rolled himself into the stream.  Before he died he reached the deep water, and the swift current bore his body away.

    Other Feats of Personal Prowess

About this time a hunter named McConnell was captured near Lexington by five Indians.  At night he wriggled out of his bonds and slew four of his sleeping captors, while the fifth, who escaped, was so bewildered that, on reaching the Indian town, he reported that his party had been attacked at night by a number of whites, who had not only killed his companions but the prisoner likewise.

A still more remarkable event had occurred a couple of summers previously.  Some keel boats, manned by a hundred men under Lieutenant Rogers, and carrying arms and provisions procured from the Spaniards at New Orleans, were set upon by an Indian war party under Girty and Elliott, [Footnote:  Haldimand MSS.  De Peyster to Haldimand, November 1, 1779.] while drawn up on a sand beach of the Ohio.  The boats were captured and plundered, and most of the men were killed; several escaped, two under very extraordinary circumstances.  One had both his arms, the other both his legs, broken.  They lay hid till the Indians disappeared, and then accidentally discovered each other.  For weeks the two crippled beings lived in the lonely spot where the battle had been fought, unable to leave it, each supplementing what the other could do.  The man who could walk kicked wood to him who could not, that he might make a fire, and making long circuits, chased the game towards him for him to shoot it.  At last they were taken off by a passing flat-boat.