Page:History of Delaware County (1856).djvu/107

DELAWARE COUNTY. 83 apparently in high glee, one of their number was left to guard the prisoner, while the others went up the river to capture Sawyer. It was night when the Indians arrived at his house, and being unapprehensive of danger, and unprepared for de- fence, they took him with little difficulty. The next morning the Indians returned with their captive, when, contrary to the usual custom, they left the women and children, and took only the men away with them as prisoners. The party encamped the first night a short distance below Delhi ; at which place the Indians, assisted by their willing captives, constructed a rude raft, on which they all floated down the Delaware, a distance of about forty miles, to a place well known in those early times as the Cook-house, (now De- posit village,) where they intersected the Oquago trail, lead- ing toward the Susquehanna. From the Cook-house they resumed their journey by land to Fort Niagara, the place of their destination. The prisoners were far from being ignorant of Indian cha- racter, and to conceal their original design — which was to escape the first favorable opportunity — would intimate by signs as well as they could (they were unable to converse with the Indians in either the Dutch or Indian language,) that they would rather proceed with their captors than return to the settlements they had left ; and they avoided conversing toge- ther as much as possible, lest it should excite the suspicions of the Indians, one or more of whom were always watching their movements. They had already proceeded eleven days on their journey without seeing a favorable opportunity of making their escape — the last ray of hope seemed to have sped — they had followed the blind Indian trail — had traversed hill and dale — crossed large streams, and were already far beyond any white settlement — all the horrors of a long cap- -tivity seemed inevitably their fate; the extremely dangerous feat of running the gauntlet, was presented vividly to their