Wau-Bun: The Early Day in the Northwest

by Mrs. John H. Kinzie

The idea of the little boy that he could save his sister from savage barbarity by taking her life himself, shows what tales of horror the children of the early settlers were familiar with.

After a few more efforts, they made their way out of the field, into an uninclosed pasture-ground, where, to their great delight, they saw some cows feeding. They recognized them as belonging to Granny Myers, an old woman who lived at some little distance, but in what direction from the place they then were, they were utterly ignorant.

With a sagacity beyond his years, the boy said,—

"Let us hide ourselves till sunset, when the cows will go home, and we will follow them."

They did so, but, to their dismay, when they reached Granny Myers's they found the house deserted. The old woman had been called by some business down the valley, and did not return that night.

Tired and hungry, they could go no farther, but, after an almost fruitless endeavor to get some milk from the cows, they laid themselves down to sleep under an old bedstead that stood behind the house. Their father and his party had caused them additional terror in the night. The shouts and calls which had been designed to arouse the inmates of the house, they had mistaken for the whoop of the Indians, and, not being able to distinguish friends from foes, they had crept close to one another, as far out of sight as possible. When found the following morning, they were debating what course to take next, for safety.

The commandant at Fort Pitt entered warmly into the affairs of Mr. Lytle, and readily furnished him with a detachment of soldiers, to aid him and his friends in the pursuit of the marauders. Some circumstances having occurred to throw suspicion upon the Senecas, the party soon directed their search among the villages of that tribe.

Their inquiries were prosecuted in various directions, and always with great caution, for all the tribes of the Iroquois, or, as they pompously called themselves, the Five Nations, being allies of Great Britain, were inveterate in their hostility to the Americans. Thus, some time elapsed before the father with his attendants reached the village of the Big White Man.

A treaty was immediately entered into for the ransom of the captives, which was easily accomplished in regard to Mrs. Lytle and the younger child. But no offers, no entreaties, no promises, could procure the release of the little Eleanor, the adopted child of the tribe. "No," the chief said, "she was his sister; he had taken her to supply the place of his brother who was killed by the enemy—she was dear to him, and he would not part with her."

Finding every effort unavailing to shake this resolution, the father was compelled to take his sorrowful departure with such of his beloved ones as he had had the good fortune to recover.