09/19/2026
THE DOG THAT STAYED WITH THE R***E
For three days, a hunting dog waited alone in the Kentucky wilderness—beside a flooded creek, for his master to come back.
The story took place around March of 1790, when the country beyond the settlements was still a vast stretch of forest, steep ridges, tangled cane, and dangerous waterways.
Archie, Thomas, and Moses Skaggs—sons of the long hunter Charles Skaggs—had joined several other men on a bear hunt toward the Cumberland River.
They traveled deep into the wilderness, following game trails through the timber and sleeping beneath the open sky. On their first evening, the hunters killed a buffalo and hung the meat near camp. They covered it with hides, then pushed farther into the country in search of bear.
The hunt proved successful. Before long, the horses were loaded with as much bear meat as they could carry, and the men began the long journey home.
But when they reached their old camp, something was wrong.
The hides had been pulled away from the buffalo meat.
The hunters stopped and studied the ground. Whatever had disturbed the camp had done so recently. Yet the forest around them was silent. No birds called. No branches moved.
They laid down their ri**es and began replacing the hides.
Two of the larger men lifted young Thomas Skaggs by his legs so he could reach the meat and pull the covering back into place.
Then the woods exploded.
Gunfire cracked through the trees from several directions. Smoke rolled between the trunks. One hunter fell dead. Another was wounded. Men shouted and scattered as a group of Native warriors rose from the ambush.
Thomas was thrown to the ground.
When he looked up, he saw one of the warriors running toward his r***e.
Thomas lunged for it and reached the weapon first.
He seized the r***e and ran.
Three warriors followed close behind him, crashing through the timber. Thomas tried to fire, but the gun would not go off. He kept moving, stumbling over roots and rocks while trying to work dry powder into the r***e.
The men behind him were gaining.
One warrior came so close that Thomas could hear him shouting that the r***e would not fire. A spear flashed near his back.
Thomas knew he could not outrun them forever.
So he stopped.
He turned suddenly, raised the r***e, and pulled the trigger.
This time, the weapon fired.
The nearest warrior fell, and the others broke off the pursuit. Thomas ran on through the rough country, not stopping until the sounds behind him had disappeared.
Eventually, he reached the swollen waters of Russell Creek.
The rain-fed creek was running high and fast. Thomas knew he could not carry the r***e across and still have a chance of surviving the crossing. He found a hollow log, pushed the r***e inside, and hid it as best he could.
Then he tied his shirt to a pole and entered the water.
The current seized him almost immediately.
It tore the pole from his hands and dragged him downstream, but Thomas fought his way across. Cold, exhausted, and nearly naked, he finally reached the opposite bank and made his way toward the settlement.
He arrived after dark.
The other hunters had already returned. They had seen the three warriors chasing Thomas through the timber. They had heard the r***e fire.
They believed Thomas Skaggs was dead.
For three days, no one knew what had become of him.
Then Thomas returned with Moses to recover the r***e.
They followed the creek, searching through the timber until they found the hollow log. But before they reached it, they saw something moving beside the bank.
It was Thomas’s dog.
The animal had followed his master’s trail through the wilderness. When the trail ended at the creek, the dog had stayed behind.
He had no food. No shelter.
Only the r***e with Thomas’s last scent on it.
For three days, the dog waited beside that hollow log, staying the one thing his master had been forced to leave behind.
When Thomas finally appeared, the dog was still there.
Nobody recorded the dog’s name.
Nobody recorded his breed.
But more than two centuries later, the old account still remembers what he did.
A loyal dog does will wait however long it takes for his master to come back.
Keeping their stories alive.
—Hound & Mule Company
Source: John Barbee’s frontier account preserved in the Lyman C. Draper historical papers. Barbee wrote that many of these incidents were told to him by Thomas and Moses Skaggs themselves.
