CHAPTER XVIII

AFTER THE ENCOUNTER


Less than an hour after leaving his nephew and Jadwin, James Morris reached
the spot where the fearful encounter of the evening before had occurred.


The spectacle was one to make the heart of any onlooker turn sick, and a
shudder passed through the frame of the trader as he gazed at the scene of
desolation before him.

Close to the burnt-out camp-fire rested the form of Barnaby Cass, a
well-known resident of Winchester, who had followed Barringford to the Ohio
district in an endeavor to better his fortunes, A bullet had passed through
his heart, and he must have died ere his body struck the ground.

A dozen paces away lay the corpse of the other white man, Oliver Lampton,
well known through western Pennsylvania as the Trapper Preacher, because
about half of his time was spent in hunting and trapping, and the remainder
in preaching temperance to the whites and red men who indulged in liquor to
excess. Beside Lampton lay one of the pack-horses, also dead, and another
pack-horse lay a little further off, suffering greatly from two broken
legs. To put this animal out of its misery James Morris fired a shot into
its brain.

Great confusion was on all sides, for many of the packs had been broken
open and rifled of their most valuable contents. About half of the stuff
had been left behind, principally the goods of the greatest weight. Much