wnfiel' wuz trompled an' blackened an' ruined; an' jes' on the aidge
uv the woods by the roadside thar lay ther pore cow, still breathin',
but welterin' in her own blood. The red devils hed split her wide open
with a tommyhock. Mrs. Page fainted away when she saw thet, an' wuz
most dead when we got to Bryan's. She got bettah, though, an' the next
day when we sot out in pursuit uv the Injuns, her husband went with us.
But, pore woman, she an' her baby both died thar in the fort befoh we
got back."

Abner Dudley, listening with fascinated attention, was thrilled into
strange excitement by the tantalizing impression of his having once
been, as a little boy, a spectator or a participator in just such an
episode as Mr. Rogers was describing--of the terror-stricken little
family fleeing through the woods at night. He also seemed to recall the
picture of a burning cabin, and of a slaughtered cow lying on the
roadside. Still another picture seemed to flit before him--that of a
group of women and children alone within high log walls, and of a
bewildered, heart-broken little boy being lifted by one of these women
from a rude pallet where lay a dying mother and a still-faced, tiny
babe.

Often before to-night Dudley had had dim, fleeting fancies or
imaginings of such a scene which always, when he would have recalled
more clearly, would vanish entirely. Realizing how impossible it was
that he, born and reared in a quiet Virginia village, could ever have
lived such a scene, he had always, when tormented by the fancy,
concluded that the impression was evoked by the memory of some tale
heard in early childhood of the horrors of pioneer life. So now,
instead of trying to follow up these tantalizing fancies, he dismissed
them again from his mind.

"When we got to Bryan's," Rogers was saying when Abner again began to
listen, "Girty an' Caldwell an' ther Wyandottes hed fled. The stockade
hed held out agin 'em, an' all inside wuz safe. But, land o' liberty!
whut a ruination all about the outside o' them walls! Oveh three
hundurd dead cattle an' hogs an' sheep lay strowed 'round through the
woods; the big cawnfiel's wuz cut down an' tromped an' ruined; so wuz
the flax an' hempfiel's; an' the tater craps an' the other gairden
stuff wuz pulled up. No wondeh we thusted fur vengeance. So us rescuin'
parties an' the Bryan Station fo'ces, afteh a night consultation, set
out et daybreak nex' mawnin' to folleh up an' punish. We thought ef we
hu