They were playing in the garden, when they were alarmed by seeing the Indians enter the yard near the house.  Unperceived by them, the brother, who was but six years of age, helped his little sister over the fence into a field overrun with bushes of the blackberry and wild raspberry.  They concealed themselves among these for awhile, and then, finding all quiet, they attempted to force their way to the side of the field farthest from the house.  Unfortunately, the little girl in her play in the garden had pulled off her shoes and stockings, and the briers tearing and wounding her tender feet, she with difficulty could refrain from crying out.  Her brother took off his stockings and put them on her feet.  He attempted, too, to protect them with his shoes, but they were too large, and kept slipping off, so that she could not wear them.  For a time, they persevered in making what they considered their escape from certain death, for, as I have said, the children had been taught, by the tales they had heard, to regard all strange Indians as ministers of torture, and of horrors worse than death.  Exhausted with pain and fatigue, the poor little girl at length declared she could go no farther.

“Then, Maggie,” said her brother, “I must kill you, for I cannot let you be killed by the Indians.”

“Oh, no, Thomas!” pleaded she, “do not, pray do not kill me!  I do not think the Indians will find us.”

“Oh, yes, they will, Maggie, and I could kill you so much easier than they would.’”

For a long time he endeavored to persuade her, and even looked about for a stick sufficiently large for his purpose; but despair gave the little creature strength, and she promised her brother that she would neither complain nor falter, if he would assist her in making her way out of the field.

The idea of the little boy that he could save his sister from savage barbarity by taking her life himself, shows what tales of horror the children of the early settlers were familiar with.

After a few more efforts, they made their way out of the field, into an uninclosed pasture-ground, where, to their great delight, they saw some cows feeding.  They recognized them as belonging to Granny Myers, an old woman who lived at some little distance, but in what direction from the place they then were, they were utterly ignorant.

With a sagacity beyond his years, the boy said,—­

“Let us hide ourselves till sunset, when the cows will go home, and we will follow them.”

They did so, but, to their dismay, when they reached Granny Myers’s they found the house deserted.  The old woman had been called by some business down the valley, and did not return that night.

Tired and hungry, they 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.