n the heart of the woods a tiny hut, such as a child might build, of
sticks and moss, with a bed of leaves inside; a path which led from it
to a blackberry patch near by was beaten hard by the little feet of the
wanderer. The rough backwoodsmen broke into tears when the father came
up and at sight of the poor shelter called out, "Oh, Lydia, Lydia, my
dear child, are you yet alive?"

[Illustration: Lost in the woods 172]

They never found her. A mile or two from the hut they found her bonnet,
and a few miles further on an Indian camp. They could only guess that
the Indians had carried her away, and go back to their homes without
her. The father never gave up, but as long as he lived he searched for
her among the Indians. It was thought afterwards that the very means,
the lights and the noises, used to attract the child, might have
frightened her from her rescuers; for a strange craze would come upon
lost people after a time, and they would hide from those who were
looking for them. Others became hopelessly bewildered, and it is told of
a pioneer, Samuel Davy, who was lost near Galion, that he wandered about
till he reached a log cabin in a clearing. There he asked of the woman
at the door if she knew where Samuel Davy lived. She laughed and bade
him come in and see. Then he knew that it was his own wife speaking to
him from his own threshold.

Whenever a lost child could not be found, the Indians were naturally
suspected of stealing it; and this was probably the fate of a little one
whom her mother lifted over the fence into the dooryard of her cabin,
near Galion, and then went back to her work of making sugar in the
woods. When she came home at nightfall, the child was not there, and
no search afterwards availed to find her, though the whole neighborhood
searched the woods for days and nights. It was known only that a party
of Indians had lately camped near, and that they might have taken the
child and brought it up as their own; but the mother never heard of her
again.

Galion is rather famous for lost people, but at least one of them was
found again. This was a little girl of the name of Bashford, who was
sent to bring home the cows. In trying to return she became confused,
and she wisely decided to keep with the cattle. When they lay down for
the night, she sheltered herself against the warm back of a motherly
old cow, and then followed them about in the morning till the neighbors
found her.

She was none the w