Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 4).djvu/276

 fifty acres of land cleared on the Kentucky shore opposite {243} the island. This used to be the principal haunt of a banditti, from twenty to thirty in number, amongst which the names of Harper, five Masons, and Corkendale, were the most conspicuous. They attacked and plundered the passing boats, and frequently murdered the crews and passengers. At length the government of Kentucky sent a detachment of militia against them. They were surprised, and Harper, one of the Masons and three or four more were shot, one in the arms of his wife, who escaped unhurt though her husband received eleven balls. The rest dispersed, and again recruiting, became under Mason the father, the terrour of the road through the wilderness between Nashville in Tennessee and the Mississippi Territory. About four years ago, two of the gang, tempted by the reward of five hundred dollars for Mason dead or alive, offered by the governour of Mississippi Territory, shot him, carried his head to Natchez, received the promised reward, which they expected, and a more just one which they did not expect, being both found guilty of belonging to the gang, and being executed accordingly.[176]

It is impossible to convey even a faint idea of the dangers to which people descending those rivers were liable, until within a few years that the population of the banks has become general.

The Indians could not brook the intrusion of the whites on the hunting grounds and navigable waters which they had been in habits of considering as their own property from time immemorial, and partly through revenge for the usurpation of their rights, partly to intimidate others, but chiefly from the hopes of booty, all the nations in the