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Show American Heroines By LOUISE M. COMSTOCK Betty Zane IN 1770 Capt. Ehenezer Zane, following follow-ing the westward trail established fifty years before by Governor Spots-wood Spots-wood and his Knights of the Golden Horseshoe, settled at the mouth of Wheeling Creek, In Ohio County, Virginia. Vir-ginia. Here he prepared a home and inter brought to it his family and his sister Elizabeth, a pretty girl in her early teens, who had had a year In school at Philadelphia and learned her way about In the society back East. Within a few years other settlers followed fol-lowed him, and but sixty feet from his cabin door rose the stout wooden stockade of Fort Henry. In 1770, during the border warfare that followed the slaying of the Indian In-dian chief Cornstalk, a menacing band of over four hundred Wyandots, headed head-ed by that strange white man turned red, Simon Girty, rose out of the surrounding sur-rounding forests and descended upon the little garrison. The settlement took refuge in the stockade and prepared pre-pared to meet the attack. There were available exactly 42 fighting men. Thirteen of them were dispatched under un-der Capt. Samuel Mason to do battle with the Indians outside the stockade. They were massacred. Girty demanded demand-ed surrender. But Captain Zane determined deter-mined to fight to the finish rather than yield to "that man." For long days and weary nights the siege continued, each passing hour taking its costly toll of provisions, ammunition, am-munition, life. There came a time when there were but twelve men left to defend the fort. And then, to destroy de-stroy what little hope was left, came word that the supply of ammunition was exhausted. The only available supply was a keg of powder stored In the Zane cabin outside the stockade. It was Betty Zane, sixteen at the time and fair to look upon, who volunteered vol-unteered to get it. Anxious faces pressed to the portholes to watch her, as she slipped out of the gate, Into the clearing. The red men, peering out of the protecting forest, stared in astonishment and forgot to fire. In safety Betty reached the cabin and secured the precious keg of powder. But her journey was only half completed. com-pleted. As she started back the enemy, en-emy, as if suddenly realizing the significance sig-nificance of her errand, opened fire. Stumbling under her burden, saved only by a miracle from the rain of bullets bul-lets and arrows, Betty again crossed the open space and reached the gate and safety. With its new supply of powder Fort Henry held its own until the next morning, when Colonel Mc-Collock Mc-Collock brought aid from Short Creek. Rebecca and Abigail Bates IN AFTER years, when admiring tourists and school children asked the Misses Rebecca and Abigail Bates to write in their albums, they always signed themselves, with due pride, "The American army of two, In the War of 1812." One bright August morning, only two months after the formal declaration declara-tion of war, a British battleship appeared ap-peared off the coast of Massachusetts, making straight for the little village of Scituate, whose harbor was filled with small, defenseless fishing craft. The only ones to see the ship were Rebecca and Abigail, girls in their teens, who happened to be up in the lighthouse of which their father was keeper, trimming and polishing the big lanterns. Their father was away, bartering bar-tering for meal in a neighboring village. vil-lage. So the two girls, with wide eyes and flying hair, ran down the spiral stairs, out of the lighthouse and across the short stretch of sandy beach between be-tween It and Scituate, where they gave the warning and precipitated a furious bustle of terrified preparation. Back at the lighthouse Rebecca and Abigail again looked out over the sea, and saw that five small boats, bristling with armed soldiers, had left the ship and were bound for the harbor. Something Some-thing must be done, and quickly. Now Rebecca had beguiled many a loDg hour in their lonesome home learning to beat out a rhythm onan old drum, while Abigail was capable of producing a squeaky but quite distinguishable dis-tinguishable tune on her father's fife. Armed with drum and fife the two sisters sis-ters again ran out of the lighthouse, took their stand behind a low dune near the shore, and set up a dismal little tune. At first their music seemed rather a joke. Rebecca and Abigail sat down on the sand, breathless, and giggled at each other, rather frightened fright-ened at what they were doing. But the British boats steadily approached nearer and nearer the shore. The girls jumped to their feet again. After all, the idea was a good one. Again they started In. Louder and shriller squeaked the fife, deeper and faster rolled the drum. Back and forth they marched, behind the protecting dune, accompanied by a very torrent of martial mar-tial music. Out on the attacking ship the lookout spoke to the commander. "Sounds as if quite an army was gathering out there," he said. "Looks bad for our boats." The men In the small boats heard the music, too, and when the command was received to turn back, they did so in double quick time. And the next morning the British battleship battle-ship lifted anchor and sailed away, pausing only to run out a cannon and fire a harmless parting shot at the Scituate lighthouse. , 1932, Western Newspaper Union, |