All the Wyandot town of Sandusky welcomed him with clubs and shrieks. He was painted black—the paint of death—and tied loosely to the stake by the ankles and the waist, so that he might squirm. He had been pretty well beaten, and seemed so exhausted that they had no fears of his escaping.
The next year the Wyandots ceased to burn prisoners. But now they heaped the fagots around Captain Brady, and applied the torch for a slow fire.
"We got you, Sam Brady," they jeered. "You no lose Injun; Injun no lose Sam."
They danced about him, awaiting his agonies. He said no word, but he had his wits keenly sharpened. He was not a "gone coon" yet. The squaws were worse than the men. There was one squaw, a chief's squaw, with a baby in her arms, especially aggravating. She darted in, to strike him. Instantly his two hands flew out, tore the baby from her and dropped it into the blaze.
She screamed; she and the warriors dived to rescue it—and on the second Captain Brady had snapped his bonds and was plunging at top speed for freedom. He knocked down two warriors, and cleared a way, then he was into the open, and out and on like a deer, with the town in pursuit.
Bullets and hatchets missed him. He bounded into the nearest brush; won the river, first; wading and swimming crossed it, and a wide country lay before.
He knew better than to turn south for Fort McIntosh. That was expected of him, but only in the unexpected might he find safety. So he headed eastward for the Pennsylvania border. He ran steadily, using every trick in his pack. Up hill and down he ran, day and night, scarcely pausing to rest; a party of the Indians continued to press him closely, and at the end of one hundred miles he was being forced to the Cuyahoga River in present Portage County, northeastern Ohio.
He knew of a ford there—the Standing Stone, it was called. But when he had almost arrived, naked and torn and bleeding, he found himself out-guessed. The Indian whoops sounded; the enemy were there before him—they held the ford and they hemmed him in on either flank.
Straight onward, in front, the river had cut a gorge, thirty feet deep and some twenty-five feet in width: a sheer up-and-down. That was the trap laid for him; and just a moment he despaired. Had he come so far, merely to be taken at last?
No! Not yet. He increased his speed, and set all his muscles. The Indians were yelling triumphantly. They had Sam Brady again. But their yells suddenly died. What was that? They had witnessed a marvelous sight. From the brink of the gorge the figure of Sam Brady had launched itself into the air; arms and legs extended it had been out-lined for an instant, in space, then had landed—Crash!—amidst the thin bushes clinging to the opposite edge, had scrambled, recovered, hauled itself a few feet, and was disappearing.