The door was soon forced and the fiends came tumbling in.  Mrs. Godfrey fired, the charge going over the heads of the savages and entering the ceiling above the door.  The Indians in the rear seeing their comrades fall, and thinking they were killed by the shot, at once retreated uttering terrible threats of vengeance.  One of the squaws, a short, stout old creature, was so terrified by the report of the musket and the falling to the floor of the three Indians, that in her bewildered retreat she tumbled headlong down a steep, stony bank and laid as if dead on the ice below.  She was left by her companions, who travelled as fast as their legs would carry them.  The old squaw was found and taken prisoner by Mrs. Godfrey.  Her nose and one rib were broken, her left arm dislocated at the elbow, and both her eyes completely closed with heavy shutters.  She presented a pitiable appearance, as she staggered along toward the house supported by her captor.  The Indians were so completely surprised and cowed by the courage of Mrs. Godfrey that they never came back to look after the wounded squaw, or sent to inquire whether she was living or dead.

As soon as the old squaw began to recover, Mrs. Godfrey found out that the old woman could speak some English.  She said she was a widow about sixty years old.  That her husband had been killed at Fort Pitt in 1763.  Her only son had been taken prisoner by the English at Fort Pitt, and had afterwards remained nine moons with an English officer in New York.  The officer went away to England and wanted her son to go with him, but on the eve of the officer’s departure he ran away, soon got on the trail of his mother, and at last found her at Detroit living with a band of Iroquois.  Not long afterward she and her boy wandered from post to post and camp to camp until they at last got over among the tribe on the St. John, where they had made their home among a strange tribe for the past two years.  Her son did not respect the tribe with whom they lived.  He had often told her that these Indians were not pure bloods.  Her son was sixteen years old when taken prisoner at Fort Pitt.  She had always been called Mag, but when any of the tribe addressed her, it was by the not very respectful addition of “Old Mag.”  Her boy had gone toward the setting sun to be with a party of English officers on a hunting excursion, he had left her in September and would not return for some moons.

Captain Godfrey and his family rested in comparative peace for some weeks, and Mrs. Godfrey drew from Old Mag many stories respecting the manner of life among the various tribes of American Indians.

About one month after the old squaw had been captured, she began to appear exceedingly dull and dispirited.  The Captain’s wife said to her one morning, “Mag, are you ill,” “No! no!” she replied, “me no sick to-day,” “bad dream some nights ago.  Saw all Indians outside house, and big black devil’s spirit come into them, black spirits come out woods, and fire on their heads, all went into Indians and made them dance war, yell and whoop and burn house.”