other-in-law. He had fallen while defending his hearth and home.
Close to him lay a young boy, who, I guessed, was his eldest child, shot
through the head.

"My poor sister! where could she be?

"Again a cry reached my ear. It came from an inner room. It was
Martha, your mother, who had uttered the cry. She was stretched on the
ground, holding you in her arms. Her neck was fearfully wounded, her
life-blood ebbing fast away.

"I endeavoured to stanch it, telling her meanwhile who I was.

"`Stephen and I have come at your invitation,' I said.

"`Heaven, rather, has sent you, to protect my Roger,' she faintly gasped
out, trying to put you in my arms. `His father and brother are dead; I
saw them fall. Hearing voices which I knew to be those of white men, I
cried out, that they might come and protect him. Mark! I am dying.
You will ever be a father to him?'

"The blood continued to flow; and soon she breathed her last, her head
resting on my arm. Your dress and little hands were stained with her
blood; but you were too young to understand clearly what had happened,
although, as I took you up to carry you from the hut, you cried out
lustily to be taken back to your poor mother.

"Thinking it possible that the Indians might return, I hurried out to
look for Stephen, so that we might make our escape. I was resolved at
all costs to save your life. I tried to comfort you, at the same time,
by telling you that I was your uncle, and that your mother had wished me
to take care of you.

"Going on a little way, I found another hut, the door of which was open,
and smoke coming out of it. The savages had thrown in their firebrands
as they quitted the village, and the front part was already on fire.

"While I was shouting for Stephen he rushed out of the hut, with a
blanket rolled up in his arms, the end thrown over his own head.

"`I have saved this child, and thank Heaven you are here to take her!'
he exclaimed, unfolding the blanket, and putting a little girl into my
arms. `I must try and preserve the mother;' and again throwing the
blanket over his head, he dashed in through the flames.

"In another minute he reappeared, struggling along under the heavy
burden of a grown-up person wrapped in the blanket. As he reached me he
sank down, overcome by the smoke, and I noticed that his clothes and
hair were singed.

"On opening the blanket I saw a young woman, her dress partly burned.
She too was wounded. The