y said to me, and I tried my best to enter into conversation
with him, to the end that I might in some slight degree take my mind from
the torture which, perhaps, was but a foretaste of what I would be forced
to suffer.

"He will be overcome with grief on knowin' that by lingerin' to speak once
more with his father we were captured, an' I fear the lad may be led to
some foolishly reckless move," I said, at the same moment trying to stifle
a groan.

"If he will but stop a moment to rigger the matter out, he'll understand
that only by keepin' clear of this camp can he hope to help us," the old
man replied, and I asked, sharply:

"Do you really believe, sergeant, that any one can aid us now?"

"Tut, tut, lad; do not give yourself up for dead yet awhile. So long as
there's life there's a chance. Peter Sitz has been in the clutches of
these villains many a day, an' yet, 'cordin' to Jacob's story, he's as
sound an' hearty as when he left Cherry Valley."

"Ay; but his life has been saved because Joseph Brant knew him before the
dream of bein' made great sachem of the Six Nations turned that redskin
into the most bloodthirsty of savages."

"Yet had you been in Peter Sitz's place when he was first taken prisoner,
your despair would likely have been as great as it seems to be now."

I knew that Sergeant Corney would say many things which he himself did not
believe, if he thought thereby he might strengthen my courage for the
terrible ordeal which was probably before us; therefore his words of
cheer had less weight than might otherwise have been the case.

Not until it seemed to me every square inch of my hands had been burned to
a blister, and there was a livid, red mark across my forehead, where an
old hag had scorched me with a burning brand, did the squaws tire of their
cruel sport, and then we were left comparatively alone, with sufficient of
pain to keep us so keenly alive to the situation that weariness of body
did not make itself apparent.

"We came to aid Jacob, and now ourselves are standing in need of
assistance," I said, bitterly, for this seemed like the irony of fate.

"True for you, lad, an' yet we won't look at it in that light. But for
marvellous good luck we would have been made prisoners before this,
therefore let us reckon it simply as the fortune of war, and not count
Jacob the cause of our trouble."

I would have replied yet more bitterly than before, but for the fact that
at the moment it so chan