igns that no farther
evil was intended them.

These kindly demonstrations were interrupted by the arrival of another
party of the enemy, bringing with them the mother of the little
prisoners, with her youngest child, an infant of three months old.

It had so happened that the father of the family, with his serving-men,
had gone early in the day to a _raising_ at a few miles' distance, and
the house had thus been left without a defender. The long period of
tranquillity which they had enjoyed, free from all molestation or alarm
from the savages, had thrown the settlers quite off their guard, and
they had recently laid aside some of the caution they had formerly
deemed necessary.

These Indians, by lying in wait, had found the favorable moment for
seizing the defenceless family and making them prisoners. Judging from
their paint, and other marks by which the early settlers learned to
distinguish the various tribes, Mrs. Lytle conjectured that those into
whose hands she and her children had fallen were Senecas. Nor was she
mistaken. It was a party of that tribe who had descended from their
village with the intention of falling upon some isolated band of their
enemies, the Delawares, but failing in this, had made themselves amends
by capturing a few white settlers.

It is to be attributed to the generally mild disposition of this tribe,
together with the magnanimous character of the chief who accompanied the
party, that their prisoners in the present instance escaped the fate of
most of the Americans who were so unhappy as to fall into the hands of
the Iroquois.

The children learned from their mother that she was profoundly ignorant
of the fate of their remaining brother and sister, a boy of six and a
little girl of four years of age, but she was in hopes they had made
good their escape with the servant-girl, who had likewise disappeared
from the commencement.

After remaining a few hours to recruit the exhausted frames of the
prisoners, the savages again started on their march, one of the older
Indians offering to relieve the mother from the burden of her infant,
which she had hitherto carried in her arms. Pleased with the unexpected
kindness, she resigned to him her tender charge.

Thus they pursued their way, the savage who carried the infant lingering
somewhat behind the rest of the party, until, finding a spot convenient
for his purpose, he grasped his innocent victim by the feet, and, with
one whirl, to add s