While he was still revolving plans, two redskins crossed over to him, made him stand, seized his arms and bound them securely, though not unmercifully, behind his back, and motioned to him to follow them. 25 They conducted him towards the largest of the wigwams, outside which sat the chief of the tribe, solemnly smoking. After an interval of dead silence, that personage gave a little shout, and all the men in the camp collected round about the prisoner. A lengthy harangue followed, addressed partly to Munson, partly to the bystanders; and, at the close of this, one of the Indians drew a knife and whetted it on his moccasin.
Young Munson pulled himself together and endeavoured to take courage from the fact that, if death had now come, it had come while he was doing his duty; a man of his calling must expect to meet it any day of the week; indeed, how many of his old comrades-in-arms had met it within the last few hours? At least the savages should see that he could die like a man, without making a fuss.
The Indians nearest to him took him by the shoulders and forced him into a sitting posture, and the man with the knife walked slowly up to him and stood grinning over him. Then a horrible thought came to him; they were going to give him a punishment almost worse than death—to scalp him, in fact—an indignity which only a man who had lived all his life in the neighbourhood of Indians could fully appreciate. He wriggled himself free and, springing up again, kicked out fiercely at his tormentors. For this they seemed to care little; the man’s hands were tied and he was at their mercy. He was forced down again and held motionless; then, while one man gripped him by the back of his neck so that he could not possibly move his head, the operator with the knife entered upon his task.
But he whom Munson had regarded as the public executioner was but the barber to the tribe; the formidable-looking knife had no more terrible work to perform than that of shaving the unfortunate man’s head, and this in token that henceforth he was the chief’s bond-slave.
So much relieved that he laughed loudly at himself for his idle fears, the sergeant was then liberated, and taken to a wigwam where he found a fellow-slave, a Crow Indian, who had been captured some few weeks earlier; and both occupied the tent that night, by no means cheered by the fact that an armed redskin stood at the entrance all night long.
Apart from his anxiety to let his friends know of his whereabouts, the young man was not unhappy among the Cherokees. For the first month or two of his captivity a very close watch was kept upon him, and, even later, it was at all times difficult for him to be away from observation for many consecutive minutes; but gradually he was given more liberty, was allowed to go fishing and hunting within certain limits, and was not again subjected to the disgrace of having his head shaved. His principal duties were to carry water from the lake, collect firewood, tend the fires, and do such other menial work as the squaws were not strong enough for, and as the men were too proud to do. Having no one to converse with in his own language, he rapidly picked up theirs, more rapidly indeed than they realised, for they would often talk of their war plans in his presence as though he would not understand their talk. From the more approachable of the Cherokees he occasionally learned news of the outside 27 world; heard that General Wayne was still fighting against their people, and that “they themselves didn’t care a button for him.” He never saw, among them, any of the horrible scenes of blood and torture which other captives among Indians have described; they were ignorant and superstitious, but neither lazy nor drunken nor particularly cruel. Sometimes the “war-arrow” was brought into the camp by some fleet messenger, and then the majority of the braves would gallop away or set off in their canoes, and, after an absence of hours or days, would return—often laden with spoil taken from the Sioux or the whites, and sometimes leaving some of their number behind.
We may be sure that, all this while, Munson had worked out a good many schemes for effecting his escape; but, like a wise man, he knew that one unsuccessful attempt would infallibly result in prolonging his captivity and rendering it more severe, if not actually in his death. When he started, there must be no half-measures; all hindrances and difficulties must be foreseen and allowed for. He practised assiduously the art of following a trail, whether by land or water; already he had become very handy with a bow and arrow, for he was never allowed firearms; he did his best to become an expert canoeman, and lost no opportunity, in fact, of learning to outwit the enemy with their own weapons, all the while telling himself that, sooner or later, the golden opportunity must come.
It did come, but not till he had been in the Cherokee camp for nearly eight months. One morning, in the 28 summer of 1794, three Indians whom he had never seen before and who, he learned, were of the Huron tribe, rode into the camp and held a short parley with the chief. Very soon the place was in an uproar, and Munson was easily able to find out the news. The Iowas had spied out this camp and that of some neighbouring Hurons, had betrayed the secret to the Yankee general, and he was now on his way to attack the Hurons’ stronghold. In an hour’s time all the men, save three aged braves, had left the wigwams and were on the war-path.
For a while the sergeant hesitated. If the soldiers really knew how to find the camp they would force their way to it before long, cost them what it might; and he would be set at liberty. But the chances were that he might be either shot down before he could make himself known to them, or be killed by the Indians the moment he endeavoured to do so. He would never get a better opportunity of escaping than this, for the weather was warm, there was no one to stop him from going, and the canoes were all at his service, as the braves had gone in the opposite direction to the water.