In Search of Revenge and Respect

Gus is a teen ager whose parents are killed in an Indian raid on their farm in Bedford County Pennsylvania. He vows that he will one day avenge their deaths. After moving in with relatives in Bedford, Gus meets Elizabeth, a new girl in town, who turns out to be the minister's daughter. His feelings for her grow stronger each time they are together and he finds himself making excuses to walk by her house or to bump into her in places he knows she will be. He even starts attending church just to see her. In time, it becomes obvious to Elizabeth's father that his daughter and Gus are in love. But he wants his daughter to marry a professional man, not someone who had wants to be a farmer. He asks Gus to stop visiting and to let Elizabeth find someone else more to his liking. Gus is upset. He has lost his parents and now he has lost the only girl he had ever loved. He vows that somehow he will prove himself worthy to marry Elizabeth. The opportunity to be able to seek his revenge and to earn some respect comes when a notice is posted at the fort saying that the army is seeking local scouts to lead a brigade of men under the direction of Colonel Henry Bouquet to Fort Pitt that was under siege. Gus is an excellent marksman and woodsman and he is selected as one of the scouts. The journey from Fort Bedford over the mountains to Fort Ligonier is a hard one. What makes it a little easier is listening to one of the veterans of the French and Indian War tells stories of what had happened during the campaigns he was in just a few years earlier. These stories give Gus hope that he would be able to meet his enemy and take his revenge. But each night after the stories, while he lie on the ground trying to sleep, he thinks less of killing Indians and more of the girl he left and wonders how he would ever win her hand. As the brigade makes its way from Fort Ligonier toward Fort Pitt, it is attacked by the Indians who had Fort Pitt under siege. In the two day battle that follows, Gus kills his first man, wounds another and is himself wounded. The Indian he wounds is about his age. As the story unfolds, their lives from that point forward become intertwined and he begins to see this Indian as a person just like himself. His perspective of the world broadens and over the next few months, the boy who was bent on revenge helps to bring about peace in the Ohio Valley.