Wau-Bun: The Early Day in the Northwest

by Mrs. John H. Kinzie

Late in the evening of that day the father returned to his dwelling. All within and around was silent and desolate. No trace of a living creature was to be found throughout the house or grounds. His nearest neighbors lived at a considerable distance, but to them he hastened, frantically demanding tidings of his family.

As he aroused them from their slumbers, one and another joined him in the search, and at length, at the house of one of them, was found the servant-maid who had effected her escape. Her first place of refuge, she said, had been a large brewing-tub in an outer kitchen, under which she had, at the first alarm, secreted herself until the departure of the Indians, who were evidently in haste, gave her an opportunity of fleeing to a place of safety. She could give no tidings of her mistress and the children, except that they had not been murdered in her sight or hearing.

At length, having scoured the neighborhood without success, Mr. Lytle remembered an old settler who lived alone, far up the valley. Thither he and his friends immediately repaired, and from him they learned that, being at work in his field just before sunset, he had seen a party of strange Indians passing at a short distance from his cabin. As they wound along the brow of the hill, he could perceive that they had prisoners with them—a woman and a child. The woman he knew to be a white, as she carried her infant in her arms, instead of upon her back, after the manner of the savages.

Day had now begun to break, for the night had been passed in fruitless searches, and the agonized father, after a consultation with his kind friends and neighbors, accepted their offer to accompany him to Fort Pitt to ask advice and assistance of the commandant and Indian Agent at that place.

Proceeding down the valley, as they approached a hut which the night before they had found apparently deserted, they were startled by observing two children standing upon the high bank in front of it. The delighted father recognized two of his missing flock, but no tidings could they give him of their mother and the other lost ones. Their story was simple and touching.

They were playing in the garden, when they were alarmed by seeing the Indians enter the yard near the house. Unperceived by them, the brother, who was but six years of age, helped his little sister over the fence into a field overrun with bushes of the blackberry and wild raspberry. They concealed themselves among these for awhile, and then, finding all quiet, they attempted to force their way to the side of the field farthest from the house. Unfortunately, the little girl in her play in the garden had pulled off her shoes and stockings, and the briers tearing and wounding her tender feet, she with difficulty could refrain from crying out. Her brother took off his stockings and put them on her feet. He attempted, too, to protect them with his shoes, but they were too large, and kept slipping off, so that she could not wear them. For a time, they persevered in making what they considered their escape from certain death, for, as I have said, the children had been taught, by the tales they had heard, to regard all strange Indians as ministers of torture, and of horrors worse than death. Exhausted with pain and fatigue, the poor little girl at length declared she could go no farther.

"Then, Maggie," said her brother, "I must kill you, for I cannot let you be killed by the Indians."

"Oh, no, Thomas!" pleaded she, "do not, pray do not kill me! I do not think the Indians will find us."

"Oh, yes, they will, Maggie, and I could kill you so much easier than they would.'"

For a long time he endeavored to persuade her, and even looked about for a stick sufficiently large for his purpose; but despair gave the little creature strength, and she promised her brother that she would neither complain nor falter, if he would assist her in making her way out of the field.