“Putnam was certainly a very brave man,” continued the lad; “Lossing tells of a brave deed of his at Fort Edward. He says that in the winter of 1756 the barracks took fire, and the magazine, which contained three hundred barrels of gunpowder, was only twelve feet distant from the blaze. Men attempted to knock down those barracks with heavy cannon, but failed.
“Putnam, who was stationed on Roger’s Island, in the Hudson, opposite the fort, must have seen the fire. He hurried over there, took his station on the roof of the barracks, and ordered a line of soldiers to hand him water. He did his best, but could not put the fire out; it drew nearer and nearer to the magazine. Colonel Haviland, seeing his danger, ordered him down, but he was too brave and persevering to obey that order; he worked on and would not leave his post until the building began to totter as if just ready to fall. Then he jumped to the ground and put himself between it—the falling barrack—and the magazine, and poured on water with all his might. The outside planks of the magazine were already burned so that there was only a thin partition between the fire and the powder; but he did succeed in extinguishing the flames and saving the powder.”
“But wasn’t he dreadfully burned?” asked Elsie.
“Yes, his hands and face were,” replied Edward, “and his whole body more or less blistered; so that it was several weeks before he recovered from the bad effects of that fight.”
“He must have been a very brave man,” cried Ned Raymond.
“He was,” said Grandma Elsie. “Would you all like to hear something more about him and his doings?”
“Yes, indeed, grandma, if you will be pleased to tell it,” answered several young voices, and at once she began:
“He was a Massachusetts man; had a fine, large farm, where he paid particular attention to the raising of fruits and of sheep. There had been a good many wild beasts in that region, but in 1735 all seemed to have been killed except an old female wolf that for some seasons went on visiting the farm yards and killing the fowls. Her lair was near Putnam’s farm, and one night she killed sixty or seventy of his fine sheep. Of course, a company was promptly raised to search for and kill her. They tracked her to her lair in a cave. It was dark and narrow, but Putnam pursued her into it, shot her at short range and dragged her out in triumph.
“Twenty years after that, 1755, troops were raised to defend the country against the French, and Putnam was given the rank of captain. He became a leading member of the band of Rangers that did much to annoy and embarrass the enemy during the next two years. In 1757 he was promoted to the rank of major, and after that occurred the two events Edward has just given us.
“In August, 1758, he was taken prisoner by the Indians, after a sharp skirmish, near Wood Creek. The Indians tortured him, and then decided to burn him alive. They stripped him, bound him to a tree and kindled a fire about him. The flames were searing his flesh when Captain Molang, a French officer, came rushing through the crowd, scattered the firebrands, cuffed and upbraided the Indians, and released poor Putnam.”