that though they would not torture any Americans, they
intended thenceforth to put all their prisoners to death. [Footnote:
_Do_. Dec. 1, 1782.]

Crawford Tortured to Death.

Crawford was tied to the stake in the presence of a hundred Indians.
Among them were Simon Girty, the white renegade, and a few Wyandots.
Knight, Crawford's fellow-captive, was a horrified spectator of the
awful sufferings which he knew he was destined by his captors ultimately
to share. Crawford, stripped naked, and with his hands bound behind him,
was fastened to a high stake by a strong rope; the rope was long enough
for him to walk once or twice round the stake. The fire, of small
hickory poles, was several yards from the post, so as only to roast and
scorch him. Powder was shot into his body, and burning fagots shoved
against him, while red embers were strewn beneath his feet. For two
hours he bore his torments with manly fortitude, speaking low, and
beseeching the Almighty to have mercy on his soul. Then he fell down,
and his torturers scalped him, and threw burning coals on his bare
skull. Rising, he walked about the post once or twice again, and then
died. Girty and the Wyandots looked on, laughing at his agony, but
taking no part in the torture. When the news of his dreadful fate was
brought to the settlements, it excited the greatest horror, not only
along the whole frontier, but elsewhere in the country; for he was
widely known, was a valued friend of Washington and was everywhere
beloved and respected.

Knight, a small and weak-looking man, was sent to be burned at the
Shawnee towns, under the care of a burly savage. Making friends with the
latter, he lulled his suspicions, the more easily because the Indian
evidently regarded so small a man with contempt; and then, watching his
opportunity, he knocked his guard down and ran off into the woods,
eventually making his way to the settlements.

Another of the captives, Slover by name, made a more remarkable escape.
Slover's life history had been curious. When a boy eight years old,
living near the springs of the Kanawha, his family was captured by
Indians, his brother alone escaping. His father was killed, and his two
little sisters died of fatigue on the road to the Indian villages; his
mother was afterwards ransomed. He lived twelve years with the savages,
at first in the Miami towns, and then with the Shawnees. When twenty
years old he went to Fort Pitt, where, by accident, he wa