I will not now stay to describe my feelings or attempt to give in language, an idea of the million phantoms of dread and terror; memory seemed but too keen, and only too vividly could I behold the repetition of the scenes that had just passed before me. I stayed all day in the tent. I had the hope that some one would buy me off. Yet the hope was mingled with dispair. I thought if I could see Alec, one of our own Indians, that he would buy me, but I could not find out were he was. Towards evening I went to Johnny Pritchard's tent and asked him to buy me. He said he had been trying all day but could not succeed, however he expected to strike a bargain before night. He had only one horse and the Indians wanted two horses for me. As good luck would have it, he got Nolin—another half-breed—to give the second horse. It was all they had and yet they willingly parted with that all, to save me from inhuman treatment, and even worse than a hundred deaths. There was a slight relief in knowing that I was out of the power of the painted devil that held me, since my husband's death. But we were far from safe. Pritchard took me to his own tent, and placed me with his wife and family. There I felt that if there existed any chance of an escape at all I would be able to take advantage of it. I fully trusted to Pritchard's manliness and good character, and I was not deceived. He not only proved himself a sincere friend and a brave fellow, but he acted the part of a perfect gentleman, throughout, and stands, ever since, in my estimation the type of God's noblest creatures—A TRULY GOOD MAN.
For three weeks I was watched, as a cat would watch a mouse. All night long the Indians kept prowling about the tent, coming in, going out, returning; they resembled, at times, a pack of wolves skulking around their prey, and, at times, they appeared to resemble a herd of demons as we see them represented in the most extravagant of frightful pictures. However, Pritchard spoke to them and their attentions became less annoying. They may have watched as closely as ever and I think they did, but they seldom came into my tent and when they did come in, it was only for a moment. I slept in a sitting position and whenever I would wake up, in a startled state from some fevered dream, I invariably saw, at the tent door, a human eye riveted upon me.
Imagine yourself seated in a quiet room at night, and every time you look at the door, which is slightly ajar, you catch the eye of a man fixed upon you, and try then to form an idea of my feelings. I heard that the human eye had power to subdue the most savage beast that roams the woods; if so, there must be a great power in the organ of vision; but I know of no object so awe-inspiring to look upon, as the naked eye concentrated upon your features. Had we but the same conception of that "all seeing eye," which we are told, continually watches us, we would doubtlessly be wise and good; for if it inspired us with a proportionate fear, we would possess what Solomon tells us in the first step to wisdom—"The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom."
But I never could describe all the miseries I suffered during those few weeks. I was two months in captivity; and eight days afterwards we heard of Major-General Strange's arrival, I managed to escape. The morning of our escape seemed to have been especially marked out by providence for us. It was the first and only time the Indians were not upon the close watch. Up to that day, we used to march from sunrise to sunset, and all night long the Indians would dance. I cannot conceive how human beings could march all day, as they did, and then dance the wild, frantic dances that they kept up all night. Coming on grey dawn they would tire out and take some repose. Every morning they would tear down our tent to see if we were in it. But whether attracted by the arrival of the soldiers—by the news of General Strange's engagement—or whether they considered we did not meditate flight, I cannot say—but most certainly they neglected their guard that day.
Some of them came in as usual, but we were making tea, and they went off. As soon as the coast was clear we left our tea, and all, and we departed. Maybe they did not know which way we went, or perhaps they were too much engaged with their own immediate danger to make chase, but be that as it may, we escaped. It was our last night under the lynx-eyed watchers. We went about two miles in the woods, and there hid. So far I had no covering for my head, and but scant raiment for my body. The season was very cold in April and May, and many a time I felt numb, chill, and sick, but there was no remedy for it; only "grin and go through." In the last part of my captivity, I suffered from exposure to the sun. The squaws took all my hats, and I could not get anything to cover my head, except a blanket, and I would not dare to put one on, as I knew not the moment we might fall in with the scouts; and they might take me for a squaw. My shawl had become ribbons from tearing through the bush, and towards the end I was not able to get two rags of it to remain together. There is no possibility of giving an idea of our sufferings. The physical pains, exposures, dangers, colds, heats, sleepless nights, long marches, scant food, poor raiment, &c., would be bad enough,—but we must not loose sight of the mental anguish, that memory, only two faithful, would inflict upon us, and the terror that alternate hope and despair would compel us to undergo. I cannot say which was the worst. But when united, our sad lives seemed to have passed beneath the darkest cloud that could possibly hang over them.
When the Indians held their tea-dances or pow-wows in times of peace, the squaws and children joined in, and it was a very amusing sight to watch them. We often went three miles to look at a tea-dance, and I found it as attractive and interesting as a big circus would be to the children of a civilized place. But I had then no idea of the war-dance. They differ in every respect. No fire-arms are used at the tea-dance, and the guns and tomahawks and knives play the principal part in the war dance. A huge fire throws its yellow, fitful light upon the grim spectre-like objects that bound, leap, yell and howl, bend and pass, aim their weapons, and using their tomahawks in a mimic warfare, a hideous pantomine, around and across the blaze. Their gesticulations summon up visions of murder, horror, scalps, bleeding and dangling at their belts, human hearts and heads fixed upon their spears; their yells resemble at times the long and distant howl of a pack of famished wolves, when on the track of some hapless deer; and again their cries, their forms, their actions, their very surroundings could be compared to nothing else than some infernal scene, wherein the demons are frantic with hell, inflamed passions. Each one might bear Milton's description in his "Paradise Lost," of Death:
"The other shape—
If shape it might be called, that shape had none,
Distinguishable, in member, joint or limb:
black it stood as night.
Fierce as ten Furies, terrible as hell,
And shook a dreadful dart.—"
And the union of all such beings might also be described in the words of the same author.