to cross with their guns and baggage, driving their horses into the river and compelling them to swim it.  A party of Indians was concealed on the opposite bank, who took possession of the horses as they mounted the bank from crossing the river.  Butler and his party seeing this, continued to float down the river on their raft without coming to land.  They concealed themselves in the bushes until night, when they crossed the river, pursued their journey, and delivered their despatches.

After this, Butler made a journey of discovery to the northern regions of the Ohio country, and was made prisoner by the Indians.  They painted him black, as is their custom when a victim is destined for their torture, and informed him that he was to be burned at Chillicothe.  Meanwhile, for their own amusement, and as a prelude of his torture, they manacled him hand and foot, and placed him on an unbridled and unbroken horse, and turned the animal loose, driving it off at its utmost speed, with shouts, delighted at witnessing its mode of managing with its living burden.  The horse unable to shake off this new and strange encumbrance, made for the thickest covert of the woods and brambles, with the speed of the winds.  It is easy to conjecture the position and suffering of the victim.  The terrified animal exhausted itself in fruitless efforts to shake off its burden, and worn down and subdued, brought Butler back amidst the yells of the exulting savages to the camp.

Arrived within a mile of Chillicothe, they halted, took Butler from his horse and tied him to a stake, where he remained twenty-four hours in one position.  He was taken from the stake to “run the gauntlet.”  The Indian mode of managing this kind of torture was as follows:  The inhabitants of the tribe, old and young, were placed in parallel lines, armed with clubs and switches.  The victim was to make his way to the council house through these files, every member of which struggled to beat him as he passed as severely as possible.  If he reached the council house alive, he was to be spared.  In the lines were nearly six hundred Indians, and Butler had to make his way almost a mile in the endurance of this infernal sport.  He was started by a blow; but soon broke through the files, and had almost reached the council house, when a stout warrior knocked him down with a club.  He was severely beaten in this position, and taken back again into custody.

It seems incredible that they sometimes adopted their prisoners, and treated them with the utmost lenity and even kindness.  At other times, ingenuity was exhausted to invent tortures, and every renewed endurance of the victim seemed to stimulate their vengeance to new discoveries of cruelty.  Butler was one of these ill-fated subjects.  No way satisfied with what they had done, they marched him from village to village to give all a spectacle of his sufferings.  He run the gauntlet thirteen times.  He made various attempts to escape; and in one instance would have effected it, had he not been arrested by some savages who were accidentally returning to the village from which he was escaping.  It was finally determined to burn him at the Lower Sandusky, but an apparent accident changed his destiny.