without losing their scalps.
This doesn't pass the smell test so far as I am concerned.
Wyoming County, WV, is on the western side of the Appalachian Mt chain. The chance that unknown Europeans got there without some reasonable infrastructure is preposterous. The Europeans we know of landed at Jamestown, not too far away, in 1607. In my quick search, I didn't find any evidence of Europeans we know of getting to Western Virginia until more than a century later.
ML/NJ