The night was dark, dense clouds obscuring the sky.  The Indians themselves had become somewhat weary, and deeming it impossible for their victims to escape and feeling sure of the booty, which could by no possibility be removed, relaxed their watchfulness.  As any death was preferable to captivity and torture by the Indians, the traders resolved, in the gloom of midnight to attempt an escape, though the chances were a hundred to one that they would be almost buried beneath the arrows of the howling savages.

Cautiously they emerged from their hiding-place, creeping slowly and almost breathlessly through the tall grass of the prairie, till quite to their surprise, they found themselves beyond the circle of the besiegers.  There were ten men, one wounded, fleeing for life, expecting every moment to be pursued by five hundred savages.  It was a long, dark, dismal winter’s night, for in that changing clime a freezing night succeeded a sunny day.  Like spectres they fled over the open prairie.  That their flight might not be encumbered they had taken nothing with them but their guns and ammunition.

They were determined men.  In whatever numbers and with whatever speed the mounted Indians might ride down upon them, ten of their warriors would inevitably bite the dust ere the fugitives could be taken.  The Indians fully understood this.  And when the morning dawned and they saw that their victims had escaped, instead of pursuing, they satisfied their valor in holding a triumphant powwow over the rich booty they had gained.

It was a chill day and the wind moaned dismally over the bleak prairie.  But as far as the eye could extend no foe could be seen.  Not even a tree obscured the vision.  The exhaustion of the fugitives, from their thirty-six hours of sleeplessness and battle, and their rapid flight, was extreme.  They shot a few prairie chickens, built a small fire of dried buffalo chips with which they cooked their frugal breakfast, and then, lying down upon the rank grass, slept soundly for a few hours.

They then pressed on their pathless way toward the rising sun.  Through weary days and nights they toiled on, through rain and cold, sleeping often in stormy nights drenched, upon the bare soil, without even a blanket to cover their shivering frames.  Their feet became blistered.  Passing beyond the bounds of the open prairie, they sometimes found themselves in bogs, sometimes in tangled forests.  There were streams to be waded or to be crossed upon such rude rafts as they could frame with their hatchets.  Their clothes hung in tatters around them, and, most deplorable of all, their ammunition became expended.

For days they lived upon roots and the tender bark of trees.  Some became delirious, indeed some seemed quite insane through their sufferings.  The man who was wounded, Mr. Schenck, was a gentleman of intelligence and of refinement and of distinguished family connections, from Ohio.  A poetic temperament had induced him to seek the romance of an adventure through the unexplored wilderness.