Part 8 (2/2)

He was fleet-footed, and ran as never before; but, while straining every nerve, he caught his foot in a root, and was thrown headlong down the bank, rolling all in a heap underneath the bushy top of a fallen tree.

He started to scramble to his feet, when, like a flash, it occurred to him that there was no safer course than to stay where he was.

Only a few seconds pa.s.sed, when the Indians approached and began hunting for him. How they failed to discover the young man pa.s.ses comprehension, and it was only another of the several wonderful escapes which marked the ma.s.sacre of Wyoming.

The savages peered here and there, drawing the bushes aside, and looking among the old logs. The poor fellow heard their stealthy footsteps all around him, and caught glimpses of their coppery faces, smeared with paint, as they uttered some exclamation and almost stepped upon him in his concealment.

Once he was sure he was detected, and he held his breath, fearful that the throbbing of his heart would betray him; but the red men moved away, and shortly after returned to Queen Esther's Rock to help in the executions going on there.

Hammond stayed where he was until all was still, when he crept cautiously out, and, swimming the river, made his way to the fort at Wilkesbarre, where, to his amazement, he found his companion in flight.

The escape of this patriot was no less extraordinary than that of Hammond.

He had also swum the river to the bar on the lower point of Monocacy Island, going almost the entire distance under water. Whenever he threw up his head for a breath of fresh air he was fired upon, and he received a bad wound in the shoulder.

Although suffering severely from it, he persevered and soon reached the opposite side, where he found a horse wandering loose and without bridle or saddle.

With little effort Elliott succeeded in catching him, and with a bridle improvised from the bark of a hickory sapling, he rode the animal to Wilkesbarre, where the wound was dressed by a surgeon.

The next morning he went down the river with his wife and child in a canoe managed by a boy, and joined his friends at Catawissa.

Both Hammond and Elliott lived many years afterward, and are still remembered by some of the old settlers in Wyoming Valley.

CHAPTER XIII.

In the mean time the little party consisting of Maggie and Eva Brainerd, Aunt Peggy, and the servant Gravity Gimp, and the eccentric New Englander Habakkuk McEwen, were improving to the utmost the advantage gained by reaching the eastern bank of the Susquehanna.

”I don't want to go away without papa,” said Eva, as she looked longingly across the river, where the ma.s.sacre was going on, as shown in the smoke of burning buildings, the crack of the rifles, the whoop of the Indians, the shouts of fugitives, and the flight of settlers, including women and children, who flocked to the river.

Despite the danger, Maggie shared with her sister the most tender solicitude for her parent.

”Perhaps he is among them,” said she, in a lower voice, to Gravity.

”There's no telling where anybody is,” replied the New Englander, ”but I notice that the Tories and Injins right across from us are watching our movements pretty sharp, and it won't do for us to loaf about here many days, if we expect to get out with our lives.”

”What a pity that Jake Golcher was not shot when we had the chance!”

exclaimed Aunt Peggy.

”We're likely to get dat same chance agin,” said Gimp, impressively, ”and de next time de one dat don't took it has got to be shot for him.”

”If we could do Richard any good,” added Aunt Peggy, more thoughtfully, ”we ought to wait here; but can we?”

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