n order to direct a fuller attention
to the getting of my father's scalp. This most unfair disposition of the
Indians was a great, deep anxiety to all of us up to the time when
General Sullivan and his avenging army marched through the valley and
swept our tormentors afar.

And yet great calamities could happen in our valley even after the
coming and passing of General Sullivan. We were partly mistaken in our
gladness. The British force of Loyalists and Indians met Sullivan in one
battle, and finding themselves over-matched and beaten, they scattered
in all directions. The Loyalists, for the most part, went home, but the
Indians cleverly broke up into small bands, and General Sullivan's army
had no sooner marched beyond the Wyoming Valley than some of these small
bands were back into the valley plundering outlying cabins and shooting
people from the thickets and woods that bordered the fields.

General Sullivan had left a garrison at Wilkesbarre, and at this time we
lived in its strong shadow. It was too formidable for the Indians to
attack, and it could protect all who valued protection enough to remain
under its wings, but it could do little against the flying small bands.
My father chafed in the shelter of the garrison. His best lands lay
beyond Forty Fort, and he wanted to be at his ploughing. He made several
brief references to his ploughing that led us to believe that his
ploughing was the fundamental principle of life. None of us saw any
means of contending him. My sister Martha began to weep, but it no more
mattered than if she had began to laugh. My mother said nothing. Aye, my
wonderful mother said nothing. My father said he would go plough some of
the land above Forty Fort. Immediately this was with us some sort of a
law. It was like a rain, or a wind, or a drought.

He went, of course. My young brother Andrew went with him, and he took
the new span of oxen and a horse. They began to plough a meadow which
lay in a bend of the river above Forty Fort. Andrew rode the horse
hitched ahead of the oxen. At a certain thicket the horse shied so that
little Andrew was almost thrown down. My father seemed to have begun a
period of apprehension at this time, but it was of no service. Four
Indians suddenly appeared out of the thicket. Swiftly, and in silence,
they pounced with tomahawk, rifle, and knife upon my father and my
brother, and in a moment they were captives of the redskins--that fate
whose very phrasing was