from Life, Character, Death Dr. Benjamin Henry Kibler
A single incident will serve to show what dangers he was exposed to. Upon one occasion, having earned a few pounds he started to his home. Mounted upon a fine fleet horse, he made considerable progress the first day, during which nothing remarkable occurred until the dusky shades of evening drew around him. He had yet more than twenty miles to ride before reaching an English settlement. His horse was hungry and jaded, and he was quite hungry and tired; and as he rode on, contemplating with gloomy forebodings, the dangers of the approaching night, he suddenly came upon an encampment of about fifty Indians. The Indians immediately surrounded him and invited him, in their own native tongue, to alight and partake of the repast, which they were then preparing at their camp-fires. He knew that if he accepted their invitation he would be detained and scalped before the next morning; and he knew, too that an attempt to escape would be attended with almost equal danger; and thinking the earliest opportunity the most favorable, he sought to divert their attention from him for a moment that he might make the trial.
In order to this he requested them first to furnish him with a pipe and tobacco that he might enjoy a smoke of their "gold old American" while considering their proposition. They immediately dropped the reins of the bridle, which they had held all the while, and hastened to the camp fire to prepare the favor, when he applied spur and whip to his horse, and the whole company of Indians set out in full chase after him, making the forests ring with their hideous yells. Tomahawks were hurled at him in rapid fury, and arrows were flying thickly around him. Two very tall and fleet Indians ran by his side for more than two miles, and several times attempted to seize his bridle reins, but the race was too long, they began to lag behind; but for ten miles, or more, from the point at which the race commenced, he could distinctly hear the frightful yelling of the savages. He reached the English settlement about 1 o'clock the next morning. Many other incidents of similar character might be related in connection with the history of this venerable Virginia pioneer; but we pass on.
