Weak and faint from the loss of blood, when he got there he was unable to move, and some of the people carried him in and cared for him as well as they could; but he was too much exhausted to give any account of the occurrence. After some restoratives were applied, he rallied, and gave a statement of the affair. His description of the white man in company with the Indians was so accurate, that the people knew at once that Hare, if not the direct author, was the instigator, of this diabolical outrage.
Loudenslager, for want of good medical attendance or an experienced surgeon, grew worse, and the commander, to alleviate his sufferings if possible, placed him in a canoe, and despatched him, accompanied by some men, on his way to Middletown,—then the nearest point of any importance; but he died after the canoe had descended the river but a few miles.
The excitement occasioned by the shooting of young Loudenslager was just at its height when more bad news was brought to Standing Stone Fort.
On the same day, the same party that shot Loudenslager went to the house of Mr. Eaton, (though probably unaccompanied by Hare,) in the upper end of the same valley; but, not finding any men about the house,—Mr. Eaton being absent,—they took captives Mrs. Eaton and her two children, and then set fire to all the buildings. The work of devastation was on the point of being completed when Mr. Eaton reached his home. He did not wait to see his house entirely reduced to ashes, but rode to Standing Stone as fast as his horse could carry him, and spread the alarm. The exasperated people could hardly muster sufficient patience to hear the particulars before they started in pursuit of the enemy. They travelled with all the speed that energetic and determined men could command, scouring the country in every direction for a period of nearly a week, but heard no tidings of Mrs. Eaton and her children, and were forced to give her up as lost.
This aroused the wrath of the settlers, and many of them were for dealing out summary punishment to Hare as the instigator; but, in the absence of proof, he was not even brought to trial for the Loudenslager murder, of which he was clearly guilty. The act, however, put people upon their guard; the most notorious known tory in the county had openly shown his hand, and they knew what to expect of him.
Mr. Eaton—broken-hearted, and almost distracted—hunted for years for his wife and children; and, as no tidings could be had of them, he was at last reluctantly forced to believe that the savages had murdered them. Nor was he wrong in his conjecture. Some years afterward the blanched skeletons of the three were found by some hunters in the neighborhood of Warrior's Mark. The identity of the skeletons was proved by some shreds of clothing—which were known to belong to them—still clinging to their remains.
When Captain Blair's rangers, or that portion of them raised in Path Valley, came across to the Juniata, they had an old drum, and—it is fair to infer, inasmuch as the still-house then seemed to be a necessary adjunct of civilization—sundry jugs of whiskey accompanying them. At Jack's Narrows lived a burly old German, named Peter Vandevender, who, hearing the noise, came to his door in his shirt-sleeves, with a pipe in his mouth.
"Waas ter tuyfel ish ter meaning of all dish?" inquired old Vandevender.
"We are going to hunt John Weston and his tories," said one of the men.
"Hunt dories, eh? Well, Captin Plair, chust you go ant hunt Chack Hare. He ish te tamtest dory in Bennsylvania. He dold Weshton ash he would half a gompany to help him after he come mit ter Inchins."