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Show THATS JOHNS GUN! At the battle of Blue Licks, in 1782, the Kentuckians were defeated in the great slaughter by the Indians. Among their captives was a citizen of Mercer County, a husband and father. He and eleven were painted black, a sign that they were devoted to torture and death. Ringing them in a row on a log, the Indians slaughtered the eleven, one by one. When they came to the husband they paused, and, after a long pow wow, spared his life. For a year he remained a captive, mourned by his friends as dead. But his wife insisted that he was alive and would yet return to her. A lover wooed her. Her relatives aided his wooing. She consented to marry him, but from time to time postponed the wedding-day wedding day. She could not, she said, rid herself of the belief that her husband was living and would yet return. At last the pleadings of her lover and the expostulations of her friends won from her a reluctant consent to be married, on a certain day. On its morning, just before daylight, she heard the crack of a rifle. That's John's gun! she cried ; and running from her cabin, in a moment was clasped in the arms of her husband. But the romance did not end with the husbands return. Nine years after, he fell in St. Clairs defeat. The disappointed lover renewed his suit, and the widow at last became his wife. |