In like manner, had this little exploring expedition been accompanied by colonists experienced in Indian ways, or had they chosen to make use of Indian scouts, disaster might have been averted. As it was, almost on the threshold of their journey they were ambushed, and cut off by the Redskins. Robson, Davers, and two of the men were speedily picked off by the concealed enemy, or were killed in the final rush of the painted, yelling savages. The little force was scattered to the winds. One or two, taking to the water, under cover of the darkness, and protected by that Providence which sometimes watches over helpless persons, eventually reached safety. But young Kerr was not amongst these fortunate ones. For him, experiences more trying were in store. In the last mêlée he fell into the hands of a grim-looking, powerfully-built warrior, who bound him to a tree, and in that most unpleasant predicament the lad for a time remained, from moment to moment anticipating for himself the treatment he saw being dealt out on the bodies of his friends. His youth saved him. Too young to be considered by the Indians as fit to be a warrior, his scalp was not added to the other bloody trophies of victory; for him was reserved the fate of slavery, the disgrace (from an Indian point of view) of performing menial offices, of doing the work usually performed by squaws. Kerr's captor, a warrior named Peewash, of the tribe of the Chippeways, dragged his prisoner home to his wigwam. There the boy was stripped naked, painted as Indians were painted, his head clean shaved except for one tuft on top called "the scalp lock," which amongst the Indians it was the custom to leave in order to facilitate the operation of scalping by their enemies should the owners chance to fall in battle. A scalp was the recognised trophy of victory. It was not regarded as absolutely necessary to kill an enemy; if his scalp could be torn from his head, no more was required, and not infrequently a wounded man was left scalpless on the ground, writhing in speechless agony, to linger and die miserably.
After undergoing the preliminaries of an Indian toilet, young Kerr had moccasins given to him, and a blanket to wear—a costume perhaps more convenient than becoming—and he entered on a round of duties new and strange. He was not, after a time, unkindly treated by Peewash and his squaw. But the work was far from pleasant, and many were the terrible sights forced on his unwilling notice at this time. Once, when the little garrison of Detroit sent out a small party, which, making a dash at the Indian camp, succeeded in killing a Chippeway Chief, the Redskins in revenge tortured and killed Captain Campbell, a Scot, who had been captured by the Ottawas. Such sights filled the boy with sick horror, and with a not unnatural dread of the fate which might yet await himself. Rather than remain to furnish in his own person the leading feature of an Indian festival, it was surely better, he thought, to die in attempting escape.
As it chanced later, a French trader—these tribes were the allies of the French—arrived in camp, and remained there some time. Moved to pity by the boy's unhappy condition, this man, with some difficulty, persuaded Peewash to sell the lad to him for goods to the value of £40. Great was Kerr's exultation; once more he was free, free too without having had to face the terrible ordeal of attempting to escape from these murderous Indian devils. All would now be well, for assuredly he, or his friends, would repay to the Frenchman the ransom money. The boy felt as if his troubles were already over; in a day or two at longest he would sleep again under the flag of his own land; perhaps even, at no distant date, he might once more gaze on scenes for which throughout his captivity his soul had hungered, see, once more, Cheviot lying blue in the distance, the Eildons with their triple crown, hear the ripple of the Border streams. What tales of adventure he would have to tell.
Alas! he counted without his hosts. The Chippeways when they heard of the transaction would have none of it. The captive boy had been the property of the tribe, they said, and they refused to part with him; he must be given up by the Frenchman. And the latter had no choice but to comply.
Black now were the nights, gloomy the days, for Andrew Kerr, the blacker and the more gloomy for the false dawn that for brief space had cheered him; unbearable was his burden, more hopeless and wretched than ever before, a thousandfold, his captivity. It was as it might be with a man dying of thirst if a cup of cold water were dashed from his lips and spilt on the sandy desert at his feet. Who can blame the boy if only the knowledge of what treatment he would avowedly receive from the young Indians if he should play the squaw and weep, kept him from shedding tears of misery and vexation.
A new master was now his, a chief of the Chippeways; a new squaw set him hateful, degrading tasks, and ordered him about; the young men and the squaws laughed him to scorn; life became more bitter than ever before.
Gradually, however, Kerr's new owners relaxed their severity of treatment, and his lines grew less unpleasant. Time, indeed, made him almost popular—embarrassingly popular—for there came a day when the tribe more than hinted its desire that the Pale-face should wed one of its most beauteous daughters. Happily, the question of who should be bride was left in abeyance. He became, too, almost reconciled to his dress, or want of dress—though, to be sure, a coat of paint and a blanket cannot, at the best, be regarded as more than a passably efficient hot-weather costume. With the easy adaptability of boyhood, Andrew Kerr had become almost a veritable Indian.
Now, Peewash all this time had looked with covetous eye on his former slave, and desired to repossess him. A big price would have to be paid, no doubt; but Peewash was prepared to bid high, and the owner could not withstand a temptation, backed, as it was, by that bait irresistible to a Red Indian, "firewater." The boy again changed hands, and now for some time served his original captor.
About this period the Tribes again "dug up the hatchet," and set out on a big war-trail. Cruel and bloody was the fighting, many the prisoners taken and brought into camp from time to time. On one occasion young Kerr was compelled to stand, a horrified spectator, among the exulting Redskins as with yells of gratified triumph, warriors and squaws, young men and children, gloated fiercely over the brutal torture and lingering death of eight English prisoners. It was a grim and grisly spectacle, for no form of torment—from the nerve-wracking test of knife and tomahawk, arrow or bullet, aimed with intent to graze the flesh and not immediately to kill, to the ghastly ordeal of red-hot ramrods and blazing pine-root splinters thrust into the flesh or under the nails —was omitted by those bloodthirsty red devils. Many a sleepless hour, many a night broken by awful dreams, must the sight have cost the boy. But it determined him to attempt escape at all hazards whenever kind fortune should put the chance in his way.
And fortune did help him ere long. There was a French trader named Boileau who came much about the camp. To him Andrew very cautiously made advances, and succeeded at last in enlisting the man's sympathies. Kerr confided to the trader his desire to attempt escape, and, none too willingly at the beginning, Boileau agreed to take the risk of helping. It was no easy task to lull the suspicions and to evade the watchful eye of the crafty Indians; but the boy had never, so far, shown any desire to escape, and he was not now so everlastingly under supervision. In very bad English on Boileau's part, and in worse French on that of Kerr, a plan of escape was devised. Early in the day, Boileau, after his usual habit, was to leave camp in his canoe, ostensibly setting out on an ordinary trapping expedition. After nightfall, he would return to a certain rock on the lake shore, and then Kerr was to steal out and attempt to join him; thereafter, a night's paddling ought to take the fugitive out of the immediate danger-zone.