Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 4).djvu/77

 the town has petitioned the assembly to enable them to raise $3000 by lottery.

We stopped at Webster's excellent, comfortable, and well furnished inn, where we found good fires, a good supper, and a series of the Baltimore Daily Advertiser.

Since I had come over the three mountains between Strasburgh and Ramsay's, the principal subject of conversation along the road, was concerning the murder by two Frenchmen of a Mr. David Pollock, on the 23d of this month, on Allegheny mountain. {54} They had shot him, and when he fell in consequence from his horse, they dragged him off the road into the wood, and stabbed him with a knife in several places. He was soon after discovered dead by a company of packers, who had seen two men but a little while before, and had heard soon after, the reports of a double barrelled gun carried by one of them. This, and the meeting of a horse with a saddle and saddle-bags, and no rider, gave them a suspicion, and induced them to search in the wood, following the tracks of men from the road into the wood, to the body. After returning to the road they again saw the two men whom they suspected come out of the woods before them. They pursued them, but lost sight of them at a turning in the road, where they again took into the woods. The packers rode on to the next house and gave an alarm, which soon mustered the inhabitants of the neighbourhood, who arming themselves, went in pursuit of the murderers. One of them resisting, when discovered, was shot, and the other apprehended, and lodged in Somerset gaol.

I had been informed that the prisoner neither spoke, nor understood English, and that since his apprehension, he had no interpreter with him, except a German farmer, who understood French but badly. Impelled by humanity, I asked my landlord to accompany me to visit him. He was