Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 5.djvu/396

 36o THE GRANITE MONTHLY.

and Cherry mountain pass, he was at times greatly annoyed by the visits of the redskins. They never seemed to wish him any harm, however, until during the Revolutionary war. He one day found himself a captive in his own house. A wandering party of warriors applied to him for entertainment, and he as usual, suspecting no evil intentions, admitted them to his house and his table. Their wants supplied, they coolly informed him of their purpose to take him to Can- ada as a prisoner. Feigning submission, he at once commenced bustling around in preparation for the journey, telling them they must wait a little, until he could make ready to go. During his seeming preparations, he contrived to instruct his housekeeper to gain, by some stratagem, their attention from his movements ; this she successfully did, by the help of some curious mechanism which the Colonel possessed. Passing into his sleeping room for the alleged purpose of changing his clothing, he leaped from a rear window, and ran for the meadow where his workmen were engaged in fence-building. Directing each man to shoulder a stake, as soon as his would-be captors appeared in search of him, the sham hunters started for them. Seeing, as they supposed, a party of well-armed, brawny fellows, coming for them in dead earnest, the red devils, hastily seizing what booty they could conveniently make way with, took to the woods, firing as they went on a Mr. Gotham, who was a member of the Whipple household.

These Indians were, doubtless, members of the warlike tribe of Sokokies, or Pequauquaukes, who were driven from the valley of the Saco and their ancient hunting-grounds by the advance of the white man, in the early half of the eighteenth century. They were the most warlike of all the Abenakis tribes, but seem to have disbanded after the Lovewell fight, and joined the Anasagun- ticooks of northern Maine, and the Coosaukes at the head-waters of the Con- necticut, and in a few years thereafter, the St. Francis tribe in Canada. Those who attempted the abduction of Colonel Whipple, were, doubtless, in the em- ploy of the English, and this was among the last of hostile demonstrations by the subdued natives, before their final disappearance.

Around these head-waters of the John's river, was a famous resort of the moose, whose departure from these wilds, their native haunts, followed that of the Indian. And here those abodeless wanderers, the early hunters, found them in great numbers. One old Iiunter, whom the first settlers knew as '' Dinny " Stan- ley, used to relate how once upon a hunting expedition he found himself upon the borders of Cherry pond. Scarcely was his tent pitched before he heard the unmistakable sound of approaching moose, seeking the water for protection from flies, and in pursuit of a favorite food, the stem and pads of the white lily. From his evergreen covert he soon saw four of those monarchs of the woods, marching in Indian file down and into the pond, within gunshot of his camp. Waiting until the hindermost one had gotten well immersed, he gave his old "self-priming flint-lock a charge for a moose," and also filled his capacious mouth with bullets. Thus prepared, he, with a lively whoop, pre- sented "Old Dinny" at the edge of the pond, surmising that the startled bath- ers would retrace their steps, rather than attempt a swim to the other side. This they did, and as the last to enter wheeled for an hasty exit, he received the well-directed charge of the hunter, and dropped dead upon the beach. Scarcely had the smoke from the discharged piece disappeared, when the powder-horn was applied to the muzzle, a ball or two from Dinny's mouth followed the powder, a slap upon the breech primed the pan, and before the second animal had half reached the sandy border, he staggered to his death with a bullet through his heart. The third, also, only reached the " hard-hack " hedge, and fell a victim to Stanley's unerring aim. The fourth had gained the bank, ere the hunter, with well-ordered haste, smote the heated gun for the last deadly priming.

�� �