o Fort
Mcintosh.

The tragic adventures of the Indian captives must often have been
relieved by comic incidents like those of Knight's escape from his
guard; but there is very little record of anything except sorrow and
suffering, danger and death. Certainly in the captivity of John Slover,
another of Crawford's ill-starred and ill-willed crew of marauders,
there were few gleams of happier chance to distinguish it from most
histories of the sort. He had been captured by the Indians when a boy
of eight years, and carried from his home in Virginia to their town of
Sandusky, where he was adopted into their nation, and where he lived
quite happily till his twentieth year, when he was given up to his own
people.

He fought through two years of the Revolutionary War, and he was
thoroughly fitted to act as a guide for Crawford.

After the battle, or rather the disorderly rout, he was one of those who
was mired in the swamps. He left his horse there, and with a few others
tried to make his way to Detroit. Twice the party escaped capture by
hiding in the grass, as the Indians passed near them, but on the third
morning they were ambushed; two were killed, one ran away, and the
remaining three gave themselves up on the promise of good treatment.
They were taken to Wapatimika, where Simon Kenton was to have been
burned, and they soon proved how far the promises of the savages were to
be trusted.

The Indians knew Slover at once, and they bitterly reproached him with
having come to betray his friends. At the council held to try him,
James Girty urged them to put him to death for his treason. But Slover
strongly defended himself, reminding the Indians that they had freely
given him up, and had no longer any claim upon him. His words had such
weight that the council put off its decision. In the meantime he was
left with an old squaw, who hid him under a bear skin, and scolded off
the messengers who came to bring him before a grand council of Shawnee,
Delaware, Wyandot, Chippewa, and Mingo warriors. But shortly after,
Girty came with forty braves and seized him. Slover was now stripped,
and with his hands tied and his face painted black, he was taken to a
village five miles off, where he was beaten as usual by the people,
and then driven a little farther to another village, where he found
everything made ready to burn him, as Crawford had been burned. He was
tied to the stake, and the fire was lighted; an orator began to kindle
t