did not want to go.
He then told me I must go; that they were his children and that they
were very good Indians; they would not hurt me. Then the old chief gave
me to the oldest brother, in place of his father who was killed about
one year before by the white people; he was one of their chiefs. Then
the four Indians started off and I with them; they went down to the
lower end of the town and stopped at an Indian cabin and got some bread
and meat to eat. They gave me some. I did not go into the Indian cabin.
They had not been in the cabin more than ten or twelve minutes before
the old chief's young squaw came up and stood at the door. She would not
go in. I discovered the Indians laughing and plaguing her. She looked in
a very ill humor; she did not want them to take me away. They
immediately started from the cabin and took a tolerably large path that
led into the woods in a pretty smart trot. The squaw started immediately
after them. They would look back once in a while, and when they would
see the squaw coming they would whoop, hollow and laugh. When they got
out of sight of the squaw they stopped running and traveled in a
moderate walk. When we got about three miles from the town, they stopped
where a large tree had fallen by the side of the path and laid high off
the ground. They got up high on the log and looked back to see if the
squaw was coming. When the squaw came up she stopped and they began to
plague her and laugh at her. They spoke in English. They talked very
vulgar to the squaw. She soon began to cry. When they got tired plaguing
her, they jumped off the log and started on their road in a trot, and I
ran with them. The squaw stood still till we got most out of sight. They
would look back and laugh and sometimes hollow and whoop, and appeared
to be very much diverted. They did not run very far before they
slackened in their runnings. They then walked moderately until they got
to their town, which was three miles further from the tree they stopped
at. We got into their town about one hour and a half before the sun set.
That same evening the squaw came in about half an hour after we arrived.
I met with a young man that evening who had been taken prisoner about
eighteen months before I was taken. His name was Nicholas Coonse (a
Dutchman), then about 19 years of age. He heard I was coming, and he
came to meet me a little way out of town. He was very glad to see me and
I to see him, and we soon made up acquaintanc