"Yes," said Davy, heart in mouth.
"What for?" quizzed the captain.
"To be exchanged—to get back home, to my own country."
"Well," said Powell, "if you really want to get free from the Indians come up and enlist in Butler's Rangers. Then we can ransom you from this old squaw—will you do it?"
"No, I won't!" blazed Davy, fiercely.
Capt. Powell turned on his heel. "Go back with the Indians again and be damned!" and with that he vanished into the house; and we have no means of knowing whether Jane, his wife, had by this time become so "Tory" that she made no protest; but it is pleasanter to think of her as remembering her own captivity, and, still loyal at heart, as interceding for the boy.[26] But that was the end of it for this time, and back Davy went, with an angry squaw, to continue his ignoble servitude until the next spring. Then word spread all through the region that the prisoners must be brought into Fort Niagara, and this time Davy was not disappointed, for with many others he was hurried on board the schooner Seneca and carried to Oswego. Obviously the news of the preparations for a peace had reached Niagara. Although the Treaty of Paris was not signed until September 3d of that year (1783), yet the preliminary articles had been agreed upon in January. The order from the British Ministry to cease hostilities reached Sir Guy Carleton about the 1st of April, and a week or so would suffice for its transmission to Niagara. Captives who had been detained and claimed by the Indians continued to be brought in during that summer, but we hear no more of returning war parties arriving with new prisoners. The War of the Revolution was over, even at remote Niagara, although for one pretext and another—and for some good reasons—the British held on to Fort Niagara and kept up its garrison for thirteen years more.
With the sailing of the Seneca the connection of Davy Ogden with Fort Niagara ended; but no one who has followed his fortunes thus far can wish to drop him, as it were, in the middle of Lake Ontario. That is where Davy came near going, for a gale came up which not only made him and the throng of others who were fastened below decks desperately sick, but came near wrecking the schooner. She was compelled to put in at Buck's Island, and after some days reached Oswego, then strongly garrisoned. Here Davy stayed, still a prisoner, but living with the British Indians, through the winter. In the spring, with a companion named Danforth, who stole a loaf of bread for their sustenance, he made his escape. He ran through the woods, twenty-four miles in four hours; swam the Oswego River, and on reaching the far side, and fearing pursuit, did not stop to dress, but ran on naked through the woods until he and his companion hoped they had distanced their pursuers. A party had been sent after them from the fort, but on reaching the point where the boys had plunged into the river, gave up the chase. Ogden and Danforth pressed on, around Oneida Lake—having an adventure with a bear by the way, and another with rattlesnakes—and finally, following old trails, reached Fort Herkimer, having finished their loaf of bread and run seventy miles on the last day of their flight. Here Davy was among friends. The officers promptly clothed him, gave him passports, and in a few days he found his parents at Warrensburg, in Schoharie County.
When the War of 1812 broke out, David took his gun again. He fought at the Battle of Queenston, where forty men in his own company were killed or wounded. Two bullets passed through his clothes, but he was unharmed. We can imagine the interest with which he viewed the Lewiston plateau where he had lived with Gunna-go-let more than thirty years before. After the war he returned East, and in 1840 was living in the town of Franklin, Delaware Co., being then seventy-six years old. The story of his adventures was gathered from his own lips, but I do not think it has ever been told before as a part of the history of the Niagara frontier.