ect freedom,
there was no reason whatever to suppose that the Indians would suddenly
determine to rise up and massacre a whole settlement of peaceable
neighbors, who had never done them any harm, and who were a great
benefit to them in the way of trading. It would be all nonsense, he
said, to leave their homes, and run away from Indians so extremely
friendly and good-natured as those in the neighboring camp.

But Penelope had entirely different ideas upon the subject. She
thoroughly believed in the old Indian, and was sure that he would not
have come and told her that story unless it had been true. If her
husband chose to stay and risk his life, she could not help it; but she
would not subject herself and her children to the terrible danger which
threatened them. She had begged her husband to go with her; but as he
had refused, and had returned to his work, she and her children would
escape alone.

Consequently she set out with the little ones, and with all haste
possible she reached the place where the canoe was moored among some
tall reeds, and, getting in with the children, she paddled away to New
Amsterdam, hoping she might reach there in time to send assistance to
Middletown before the Indians should attack it.

When Farmer Stout found that his wife had really gone off, and had taken
the children with her, he began to consider the matter seriously, and
concluded that perhaps there might be something in the news which the
old Indian had brought. He consequently called together a number of the
men of the village, and they held a consultation, in which it was
determined that it would be a wise thing to prepare themselves against
the threatened attack; and, arming themselves with all the guns and
pistols they could get, they met together in one of the houses, which
was well adapted for that purpose, and prepared to watch all night.

They did not watch in vain, for about midnight they heard from the woods
that dreadful war whoop which the white settlers now well understood.
They knew it meant the same thing as the roar of the lion, who, after
silently creeping towards his intended victim, suddenly makes the rocks
echo with the sound of his terrible voice, and then gives his fatal
spring.

But although these men might have been stricken with terror, had they
heard such a war cry at a time when they were not expecting it, and from
Indians to whom they were strangers, they were not so terrified at the
coming of these