Produced by David Widger
By
Charles M. Skinner
Vol. 5.
The Swim at Indian Head
The Moaning Sisters
A Ride for a Bride
Spooks of the Hiawassee
Lake of the Dismal Swamp
The Barge of Defeat
Natural Bridge
The Silence Broken
Siren of the French Broad
The Hunter of Calawassee
Revenge of the Accabee
Toccoa Falls
Two Lives for One
A Ghostly Avenger
The Wraith Ringer of Atlanta
The Swallowing Earthquake
The Last Stand of the Biloxi
The Sacred Fire of Natchez
Pass Christian
The Under Land
At Indian Head, Maryland, are the government proving-grounds, where theracket of great guns and splintering of targets are a deterrent to themiscellaneous visitations of picnics. Trouble has been frequentlyassociated with this neighborhood, as it is now suggested in the noisysymbolry of war. In prehistoric days it was the site of an aboriginaltown, whose denizens were like other Indians in their love for fight andtheir willingness to shed blood. Great was the joy of all these citizenswhen a scouting party came in, one day, bringing with them the daughterof one of their toughest old hunters and a young buck, from anotherfaction, who had come a-courting; her in the neighboring shades.
Capture meant death, usually, and he knew it, but he held himself proudlyand refused to ask for mercy. It was resolved that he should die. Thefather's scorn for his daughter, that she should thus consort with anenemy, was so great that he was on the point of offering her as a jointsacrifice with her lover, when she fell on her knees before him and begana fervent appeal, not for herself, but for the prisoner. She would doanything to prove her strength, her duty, her obedience, if they wouldset him free. He had done injury to none. What justice lay in putting himto the torture?
Half in earnest, half in humor, the chief answered, "Suppose we were toset him on the farther shore of the Potomac, do you love him well enoughto swim to him?"
"I do."
"The river is wide and deep."
"I would drown in it rather than that harm should come to him."
The old chief ordered the captive, still bound, to be taken to a point onthe Virginia shore, full two miles away, in one of their canoes, and whenthe boat was on the water he gave the word to the girl, who instantlyplunged in and followed it. The chief and the father embarked in anotherbirch—ostensibly to see that the task was honestly fulfilled; really,perhaps, to see that the damsel did not drown. It was a long course, butthe maid was not as many of our city misses are, and she reached thebank, tired, but happy, for she had saved her lover and gained him for ahusband.
Above Georgetown, on the Potomac River, are three rocks, known as theThree Sisters, not merely because of their resemblance to each other—forthey are parts of a submerged reef—but because of a tradition that, morethan a hundred years ago, a boat in which three siste