the stake
by the ankles and the waist, so that he might squirm. He had been
pretty well beaten, and seemed so exhausted that they had no fears of
his escaping.

The next year the Wyandots ceased to burn prisoners. But now they
heaped the fagots around Captain Brady, and applied the torch for a
slow fire.

"We got you, Sam Brady," they jeered. "You no lose Injun; Injun no
lose Sam."

They danced about him, awaiting his agonies. He said no word, but he
had his wits keenly sharpened. He was not a "gone coon" yet. The
squaws were worse than the men. There was one squaw, a chief's squaw,
with a baby in her arms, especially aggravating. She darted in, to
strike him. Instantly his two hands flew out, tore the baby from her
and dropped it into the blaze.

She screamed; she and the warriors dived to rescue it--and on the
second Captain Brady had snapped his bonds and was plunging at top
speed for freedom. He knocked down two warriors, and cleared a way,
then he was into the open, and out and on like a deer, with the town in
pursuit.

Bullets and hatchets missed him. He bounded into the nearest brush;
won the river, first; wading and swimming crossed it, and a wide
country lay before.

He knew better than to turn south for Fort McIntosh. That was expected
of him, but only in the unexpected might he find safety. So he headed
eastward for the Pennsylvania border. He ran steadily, using every
trick in his pack. Up hill and down he ran, day and night, scarcely
pausing to rest; a party of the Indians continued to press him closely,
and at the end of one hundred miles he was being forced to the Cuyahoga
River in present Portage County, northeastern Ohio.

He knew of a ford there--the Standing Stone, it was called. But when
he had almost arrived, naked and torn and bleeding, he found himself
out-guessed. The Indian whoops sounded; the enemy were there before
him--they held the ford and they hemmed him in on either flank.

Straight onward, in front, the river had cut a gorge, thirty feet deep
and some twenty-five feet in width: a sheer up-and-down. That was the
trap laid for him; and just a moment he despaired. Had he come so far,
merely to be taken at last?

No! Not yet. He increased his speed, and set all his muscles. The
Indians were yelling triumphantly. They had Sam Brady again. But
their yells suddenly died. What was that? They had witnessed a
marvelous sight. From the brink of the gorge the