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.

Having placed his family in safety at Pittsburg, Mr. Lytle, still assisted by the commandant and the Indian Agent, undertook an expedition to the frontier to the residence of the British Agent, Colonel Johnson.  His representation of the case warmly interested the feelings of that benevolent officer, who promised him to spare no exertions in his behalf.  This promise he religiously performed.  He went in person to the village of the Big White Man, as soon as the opening of the spring permitted, and offered him many splendid presents of guns and horses, but the chief was inexorable.

Time rolled on, and every year the hope of recovering the little captive became more faint.  She, in the mean time, continued to wind herself more and more closely around the heart of her Indian brother.  Nothing could exceed the consideration and affection with which she was treated, not only by himself, but by his mother, the Old Queen.  All their stock of brooches and wampum was employed in the decoration of her person.  The principal seat and the most delicate viands were invariably reserved for her, and no efforts were spared to promote her happiness, and to render her forgetful of her former home and kindred.