The victorious Monseys became very hilarious, hoisting the scalps on poles, they shimmied around “Black Agnes,” yelling and singing their ancient war songs, the proudest moment of their bellicose lives.
“Black Agnes” was calm in triumph, for she knew how transitory is life or fame. Biting her thin lips, she drew her scalping knife and bent down over the lifeless form of Shingaegundin, to remove his scalp in as business-like a manner as if she was skinning a rabbit. Addressing the grinning corpse, she said: “Bury it deep in the earth,” meaning that the Seneca’s injury would be consigned to oblivion. Then, with rare dexterity[dexterity], she removed the scalp, a difficult task when the skull has been broken in, in so many places.
Holding aloft the ugly hirsute trophy, she almost allowed herself to smile in her supreme moment of success. Her career was now made; she would rally the widely scattered remnants of the Delawares, and fight her way to some part of Pennsylvania where prestige would insure peace and uninterrupted happiness. But in these elevated moments comes the bolt from the blue.
One of the panic-stricken Senecas, bolting from the ignominious ambush of his fellows, had scrambled up the boulder-strewn side of the mountain, taking refuge behind the Raven’s Rock, lately occupied by the chief lookout of the Monseys–he who had shot the warning arrow into the air. Crouching abject and trembling at first, he began to peer about him as the fusillade ceased and smoke of battle cleared. He saw his slain and scalped clansmen lying about the greensward, and in the creek, and the awful ignominy meted out to his lion-hearted[lion-hearted] sachem, Shingaegundin. At his feet lay the bow and quiver full of arrows abandoned by the scout when he rushed down pell mell to join in the bloody scalping bee.
The sight of “Black Agnes” holding aloft his chieftain’s scalp, the horribly mutilated condition of Shingaegundin’s corpse, the shimmying, singing Monseys, waving scalps and severed heads of his brothers and friends, all drew back to his heart what red blood ran in his veins.
“Black Agnes” stood there so erect and self-confident, like a little robin red-breast, ready for a potpie, he would lay her low and end her pretensions. Taking careful aim, for he was a noted archer, the Seneca let go the arrow, which sped with the swiftness of a passenger pigeon, finding a place in the heart of the brave girl. The tip came out near her backbone, her slender form was pierced through and through. The slight flush on her dark cheeks gave way to a deadly pallor, and, facing her unseen slayer, “Black Agnes” Dunbar tumbled to the earth dead.
The dancing, singing Monseys suddenly became a lodge of sorrow, weeping and wailing as if their hearts would break. The Seneca archer could have killed more of them, they were so bewildered, but he decided to run no further risks, and made off towards his encampment to tell his news, good and bad, to his astounded tribesmen.
When it was seen that “Black Agnes” was no more, and could not be revived, the sorrowful Monseys dug a grave within the stockade. It was a double death for them, as they knew that they would be hunted to the end like the Wolf Tribe that they were, and they had lost an intrepid and beloved leader.
According to the custom, before the interment, “Black Agnes’” clothing was removed, the braves deciding to take it as a present to the dead girl’s mother, to show how bravely she died. They walled up the grave and covered the corpse with rocks so that wolves could not dig it up, graded a nice mound of sod over the top, and, like the white soldiers at Fort Augusta, fired a volley over her grave.
That night there was a sorrowing scene enacted at the campground near the big spring at Zimmerman’s Run. The grief-stricken mother wanted to run away into the forest, to let the wild beasts devour her, and was restrained with great difficulty by her tribesmen, who had also lost all in life that was worth caring for, peace and security.