Mr. Dustin defending his Children.
Father and children reached the fort in safety; but the Indians rushed into the house, killed the baby by dashing its head against the wall, and carried both women off as captives. After several days' march and much ill treatment Mrs. Dustin, her nurse, and two captive boys made up their minds to escape. One of the boys had learned from an Indian how to kill and scalp a foe; so one night, when their captors were asleep, the four prisoners noiselessly rose, seized tomahawks, and killed and scalped ten Indians. Then they took a canoe, and with some trouble made their way home. Mrs. Dustin received fifty pounds reward for those scalps, besides a present from the governor of Maryland, who admired her pluck. That people might not forget what hard times the settlers had, her statue has been placed in Concord, New Hampshire, where you can see her grasping a tomahawk, ready to kill her foes.
As long as the war lasted, New Englanders and New Yorkers defended themselves as bravely as they could. But Indian foes were very hard to fight, because they always fell upon people unawares. In their anger, the colonists finally determined to carry the war into the enemy's country. They therefore sent out a fleet under Sir William Phips, to attack and destroy Port Royal, in Acadia. This being done, the fleet tried to take Quebec, while armies from New York and Connecticut attacked Montreal. But both these attempts failed, and when the war was ended by the treaty of Rys´wick (1697), neither party had gained anything, although many lives had been lost.
L. TWO WARS WITH THE FRENCH.
Both the French and the English suffered greatly during King William's War, but the peace which followed it did not last long. Five years later, "Queen Anne's War" brought about new sufferings, and more deeds of heroism.
We are told that, urged by a French priest, the Indians built a church at St. Re´gis, in Canada. Wishing to have a bell to hang in the tower of this chapel, each convert brought a pelt, and the bell was ordered from France. But on its way over, it fell, by accident, into the hands of the English, who hung it up in the town of Deerfield, in Massachusetts.
The Indians, feeling that the bell belonged to them, and egged on by their priest, made a sudden raid upon Deerfield, in 1704, and, after killing or capturing many of the people, rescued their bell from the English meetinghouse, or church, and carried it off to St. Regis. They were so delighted with it that it is said they rang it every step of the way. This bell was cracked over a hundred years later, and the Indians, who still prized it greatly, carried it to Troy, where they had it refounded, while they mounted guard over it day and night.