ey could go no farther, but, after an almost
fruitless endeavor to get some milk from the cows, they laid themselves
down to sleep under an old bedstead that stood behind the house. Their
father and his party had caused them additional terror in the night. The
shouts and calls which had been designed to arouse the inmates of the
house, they had mistaken for the whoop of the Indians, and, not being
able to distinguish friends from foes, they had crept close to one
another, as far out of sight as possible. When found the following
morning, they were debating what course to take next, for safety.

The commandant at Fort Pitt entered warmly into the affairs of Mr.
Lytle, and readily furnished him with a detachment of soldiers, to aid
him and his friends in the pursuit of the marauders. Some circumstances
having occurred to throw suspicion upon the Senecas, the party soon
directed their search among the villages of that tribe.

Their inquiries were prosecuted in various directions, and always with
great caution, for all the tribes of the Iroquois, or, as they pompously
called themselves, the Five Nations, being allies of Great Britain, were
inveterate in their hostility to the Americans. Thus, some time elapsed
before the father with his attendants reached the village of the _Big
White Man_.

A treaty was immediately entered into for the ransom of the captives,
which was easily accomplished in regard to Mrs. Lytle and the younger
child. But no offers, no entreaties, no promises, could procure the
release of the little Eleanor, the adopted child of the tribe. "No," the
chief said, "she was his sister; he had taken her to supply the place of
his brother who was killed by the enemy--she was dear to him, and he
would not part with her."

Finding every effort unavailing to shake this resolution, the father was
compelled to take his sorrowful departure with such of his beloved ones
as he had had the good fortune to recover.

We will not attempt to depict the grief of parents compelled thus to
give up a darling child, and to leave her in the hands of savages, whom
until now they had too much reason to regard as merciless. But there was
no alternative. Commending her to the care of their heavenly Father, and
cheered by the manifest tenderness with which she had thus far been
treated, they set out on their melancholy journey homeward, trusting
that some future effort would be more effectual for the recovery of
their little girl.