DARNELL'S LEAP FOR LIFE.

It will be recollected by students of history that in the year 1778, during the Revolution, Daniel Boone, with twenty-seven others was taken prisoner in Kentucky and brought to Old Town, or Old Chillicothe, as the Shawanese called it. Through the influence of Hamilton, the British Governor, Boone with ten of his party was taken to Detroit, while the remaining seventeen prisoners were left with their savage captors. Among the latter number was a man whose name is supposed to have been Darnell. Brave as a lion and cunning as a fox, he resolved to try and effect his escape. One night, how it is not for us to say, he found himself in a wood northwest of Clifton. Beneath the branches of a monarch of the forest, he paused to recruit his strength when daylight suddenly burst upon him. Not seeming to comprehend his dangerous situation, he did not move, but coolly took a piece of pemmican from his pouch and began to devour it. He was not unarmed, for he had stolen his rifle and hunting accoutrements from his captors.

The pemmican had scarcely been devoured when the noise occasioned by the breaking of a twig assailed his ears. His backwoods learning at once told him that a human foot had broken the twig, and in an instant he was on his feet. Turning and looking in the direction of the noise he saw several Indians hid behind the trees. He knew they were Shawanese and there fore his bitterest enemies. What should he do? The redskins were in his very path and to attempt to get beyond them was to court death by their tomahawks or the terrible stake. Flight seemed the only alternative flight in a direction directly opposite to the course he had marked out. The savages remained behind the trees intensely watching the white man's movements. They could have brought him down with a bullet, but such was not their intention. They wanted him to die by fire in their village. For a minute he surveyed his perilous position and then

tightened the buckskin belt he wore. I will run he cried, and if they catch me they must stir their stumps well. He was no mean runner and no sooner had he started forward than the Indians sprang from behind the trees and started in swift pursuit. The course of the prisoner lay toward the Miami, and the gorge through which it flows. Suddenly he veered to the left and quickened his rapid pace for the savages were gaining ground. He had miscalculated their speed and endurance and now feared that they would soon overtake him. Presently he heard the roar of the falls and he veered still further to the left. His present course would take him to the falls, and the Shawanese sent their best runners to head him off. But he did not maintain his present path far, but veered again and ran straight forward. An ash tree, which he had marked with his hatchet several years before stood near the edge of the cliff a short distance below the falls, and it now lay directly in his path. Suddenly the hunter looked back at his pursuers. They numbered six in all, and were headed by Shawanese of no mean distinction. "I believe I can camp Little Fox," mutters the hunter as he examined the priming of his gun. The priming was in proper condition and he suddenly paused near a tree which stood on what is now the road leading from Clifton to Yellow Springs. He boldly faced his pursuers and threw his rifle to his shoulder. Little Fox saw that the wea

pon was directed to his breast and tried to shelter himself behind a tree. But alas; he was too late, for the rifle cracked and the Shawanese had lost a valuable chief. The prisoner smiled at the effect of his shot, but did not reload for with hideous yells the remaining five had darted forward to avenge the death of their leader. Directly before Darnell lay the gorge and from bank to bank it was fully thirty feet. Cedars and bushes grew along the edge of the cliff, while far below it rolled the historic Miami, white with foam from the falls. The hunter was not ignorant of all these facts for he had visited the spot before, and it was photographed on his mind. He knew the foolhardiness of an attempt to leap the gorge, and that almost certain death awaited him on the rocky bed of the Miami, but these thoughts did not arrest his progress. He had determined to make the leap and nothing in the world could have changed his mind. And then the thought

of a lingering death at the stake urged him on. Better, he murmured to die on the bed of the Miami, than at the stake in Old Chillicothe. In a moment he had passed the ash tree which stands to this day a witness of the daring deed we are relating, and the next he had actually leaped from the limestone cliff. He had not miscalculated the distance, nor permitted a nerve to remain inactive, every one had been strained for the feat. A moment the brave fellow was in mid-air, and then he grasped a bush on the opposite side of the gorge. With great exertion he drew himself up on terra firma and sprang forward again. But he had no need to exert himself longer for the pursuit was ended. The Shawanese had reached the cliff and were gazing, lost in amazement upon the scene of the white man's daring deed and his form which was disappearing among the trees. "He is more than pale face," said one of the Indians; "he is under the protection of the great spirit, for pale face nor Indian could never jump across the Chekemeameesepe. Let us no longer pursue a spirit. We will never look upon his like again this side of the dark river and the happy hunting grounds. Braves, back to your village." In silence the savages retraced their steps and told to their wondering people the story of the most daring feat ever recorded. The white pioneers could scarcely believe it, but they afterwards heard it from the lips of Darnell himself.

And now, reader, if it is ever your pleasure to visit the mountain gorge referred to in this narrative, do not forget to view the scene of the hunter's leap, which is a few feet to the right of the ash standing near the Clifton and Yellow Springs road, a short distance below the falls.

SONG WRITERS OF OHIO.

TWO SONGS INSPIRED IN OHIO.

BY C. B. GALBREATH.

While much has been said and written of the achievements of Ohio's men, the public has not fully appreciated, perhaps, the extent of the influence of the gifted women of the state. This is due, doubtless, to the fact that this influence is often exerted in ways somewhat obscure and indirect. A gifted woman, of course, is a creature of physical and intellectual beauty, endued with the power to lift man to the heights of fame or drive him to despair and poetry. The lovers of song owe something to Lorena and that other Ohio maiden with the eyes of "delicious blue."

COATES KINNEY.

Author of "Rain on the Roof."

A few months ago a stranger in Cincinnati might have met on one of the streets of that city a man in civilian dress with the martial bearing and elastic step of an officer temporarily off duty. The only evidence of ad

vanced age was hair and beard of immaculate white.

Such was Coates Kinney to the world, a militant spirit with much. of the exclusiveness and taciturnity that belong to the professional warrior. Such he was by nature and education. By birth a Puritan and by happy chance a disciple of Horace Mann, he was in walk and conversation something of an aristocrat. But like his famous preceptor, he was not to be judged by the austerity of his manners or the rigidity of his classic standards. At heart he was tenderly affectionate. The inner

COATES KINNEY.

man, as revealed by his writings, was thoroughly democratic and humanitarian.

In his ideal social state, man was dominant by intellectual prowess alone. In the language of Caius Marius his question was ever, "What can make a difference between one man and another but the qualities of the mind?" In the rising power of wealth, he saw the supreme menace to the Republic. He had ambitions in the direction of the public service, but "practical politics" were not to his liking. He had small patience with apologies for modern commercialism. Corruption felt the rapier thrust of his scathing denunciation.

Though born in New York, he reached manhood in Ohio. To the state of his adoption he was passionately devoted, and with it he was identified throughout his literary career.

To be chronologically and biographically specific, Coates Kinney was born at Kinney's Corners, Yates Co., N. Y., November 24, 1826. He came with his parents, Giles and Myra (Cornell) Kinney, to Ohio in 1840, and later taught school in Warren and Logan counties. While in the latter he studied law in the office of Judge Lawrence, at Bellefontaine, and for a time edited the West Liberty Banner. In 1849, he wrote his famous lyric, Rain on the Roof. Later he was admitted to the bar in Cincinnati. He spent one year in Antioch College, but was not graduated. After resigning a professorship in Judson College, Mt. Palatine, Ill., he returned to Ohio to become associate editor of the Genius of the West, a literary magazine founded by Howard Durham. William T. Coggeshall succeeded Durham in the partnership. Elected captain of a local company at the breaking out of the Civil War, Kinney, on the recommendation of Salmon P. Chase, was appointed paymaster with the rank of major. After four years' service, he was retired with the brevet of lieutenant-colonel. Before entering the service he was editor of the Xenia News. After the war, he edited the Xenia Torchlight, and wrote for the Cincinnati Times and the Ohio State Journal. In 1884 he became chief owner and editor of the Globe Republic of Springfield, Ohio. He served one term in the state senate and was an unsuccessful candidate for nomination to congress. He was twice married. A wife and three daughters survive.