ime, they still traded and communicated with each
other; and when, in the course of time, it became known in New Amsterdam
that there was a white woman held as a prisoner in this Indian camp,
there was every reason to suppose that this woman was the young wife who
had been left on the seacoast by the survivors of the wreck.
Consequently some of the men who had been her fellow-passengers came
over to the Indian camp, which was not far from where Middletown now
stands. Here, as they had expected, they found Penelope, and demanded
that the Indians should give her up.

After some discussion, it was agreed that the matter should be left with
Penelope herself; and the old Indian who had saved her life went to
her,--for of course, being an inferior, she was not present at the
conference,--and put the question before her. Here she was, with a
comfortable wigwam, plenty to eat and drink, good Indian clothes to
wear, as well treated as any Indian woman, and, so far as he could see,
with everything to make her comfortable and happy; and here she might
stay if she chose. On the other hand, if she wished to go to New
Amsterdam, she would find there no one with whom she was acquainted,
except the people who had rowed away and left her on that desolate
coast, and who might have come in search of her a long time before if
they really had cared anything about her. If she wanted to live here
among friends who had been kind to her, and be taken care of, she could
do so; if she wanted to go away and live among people who had deserted
her, and who appeared to have forgotten her, she could do that.

Very much to the surprise of this good Indian, Penelope declared that
she should prefer to go and live among people of her own race and
country; and so, much to the regret of her Indian friends, she departed
for New Amsterdam with the men who had come for her.

A year or two after Penelope had gone back to New Amsterdam, being then
about twenty-two, she married an Englishman named Richard Stout, who
afterwards became an important personage. He, with other settlers, went
over to New Jersey and founded a little village, which was called
Middletown, not far from the Indian camp where Penelope had once been a
prisoner. The Indians still remained in this camp, but now they appeared
to be quite friendly to the whites; and the new settlers did not
consider that there was anything dangerous in having these red
neighbors. The good Indian who had been Pe