"Ay; but his life has been saved because Joseph Brant knew him before the dream of bein' made great sachem of the Six Nations turned that redskin into the most bloodthirsty of savages."
"Yet had you been in Peter Sitz's place when he was first taken prisoner, your despair would likely have been as great as it seems to be now."
I knew that Sergeant Corney would say many things which he himself did not believe, if he thought thereby he might strengthen my courage for the terrible ordeal which was probably before us; therefore his words of cheer had less weight than might otherwise have been the case.
Not until it seemed to me every square inch of my hands had been burned to a blister, and there was a livid, red mark across my forehead, where an old hag had scorched me with a burning brand, did the squaws tire of their cruel sport, and then we were left comparatively alone, with sufficient of pain to keep us so keenly alive to the situation that weariness of body did not make itself apparent.
"We came to aid Jacob, and now ourselves are standing in need of assistance," I said, bitterly, for this seemed like the irony of fate.
"True for you, lad, an' yet we won't look at it in that light. But for marvellous good luck we would have been made prisoners before this, therefore let us reckon it simply as the fortune of war, and not count Jacob the cause of our trouble."
I would have replied yet more bitterly than before, but for the fact that at the moment it so chanced my eyes were fixed upon the lodge wherein our comrade had said his father was held prisoner, and I saw the flap pulled cautiously aside.
Then the face of a man could be seen close to the ground, and I said, eagerly, to my companion, who, perforce, had his head turned in the opposite direction:
"Peter Sitz is lookin' at us."
"I would he had remained ignorant of our whereabouts," Sergeant Corney muttered, and I asked, in surprise: