"Zane Grey - Betty Zane" - читать интересную книгу автора (Grey Zane)

Beneath him to the left and across a deep ravine he saw a wide level clearing.
The few scattered and blackened tree stumps showed the ravages made by a
forest fire in the years gone by. The field was now overgrown with hazel and
laurel bushes, and intermingling with them w ere the trailing arbutus, the
honeysuckle, and the wild rose. A fragrant perfume was wafted upward to him. A
rushing creek bordered one edge of the clearing. After a long quiet reach of
water, which could be seen winding back in the hills, the stream tumbled madly
over a rocky ledge, and white with foam, it hurried onward as if impatient of
long restraint, and lost its individuality in the broad Ohio.

This solitary hunter was Colonel Ebenezer Zane. He was one of those daring
men, who, as the tide of emigration started westward, had left his friends and
family and had struck out alone into the wilderness. Departing from his home
in Eastern Virginia he had plunged into the woods, and after many days of
hunting and exploring, he reached the then far Western Ohio valley.

The scene so impressed Colonel Zane that he concluded to found a settlement
there. Taking "tomahawk possession" of the locality (which consisted of
blazing a few trees with his tomahawk), he built himself a rude shack and
remained that summer on the Ohio.

In the autumn he set out for Berkeley County, Virginia, to tell his people of
the magnificent country he had discovered. The following spring he persuaded a
number of settlers, of a like spirit with himself, to accompany him to the
wilderness. Believing it unsafe to take their families with them at once, they
left them at Red Stone on the Monongahela river, while the men, including
Colonel Zane, his brothers Silas, Andrew, Jonathan and Isaac, the Wetzels,
McCollochs, Bennets, Metzars and others, pushed on ahead.

The country through which they passed was one tangled, most impenetrable
forest; the axe of the pioneer had never sounded in this region, where every
rod of the way might harbor some unknown danger.

These reckless bordermen knew not the meaning of fear; to all, daring
adventure was welcome, and the screech of a redskin and the ping of a bullet
were familiar sounds; to the Wetzels, McCollochs and Jonathan Zane the hunting
of Indians was the most thrilling passion of their lives; indeed, the Wetzels,
particularly, knew no other occupation. They had attained a wonderful skill
with the rifle; long practice had rendered their senses as acute as those of
the fox. Skilled in every variety of woodcraft, with lynx eyes ever on the
alert for detecting a trail, or the curling smoke of some camp fire, or the
minutest sign of an enemy, these men stole onward through the forest with the
cautious but dogged and persistent determination that was characteristic of
the settler.

They at length climbed the commanding bluff overlooking the majestic river,
and as they gazed out on the undulating and uninterrupted area of green, their
hearts beat high with hope.