Page:History of Delaware County (1856).djvu/119

DELAWARE COUNTY. 95 plunged into the woods and disappeared. This was Brant, and the little daughters of the settlers were safe. The Indians, as they passed along and ran from place to place, saw the black mark, and left the children undisturbed. The happy thought, like a flash of lightning, entered the minds of these little sisters, and suggested that they could use the mark to save their brothers. The scattered boys were quickly assem- bled, and the girls threw their aprons over the clothes of the boys, and stamped the black impression upon their outer garments. They, in turn, held up the palladium of safety as the Indians passed and repassed ; and these children were thus saved from injury and death, to the unexpected jo}^ of their parents.'^ Col. Stone, in his life of Brant, says : — No sooner had the fugitives from Minisink arrived at Groshen with the intelligence, than Dr. Tustin, the colonel of the local militia, issued orders to the officers of his command to meet him at Minisink on the following day, with as many volunteers as they could raise. The order was promptly obeyed, and a body of one hundred and forty-nine men, including many of the principal men of the county, met their colonel at the designated rendezvous, at the time appointed. A council of war was held, to determine upon the expediency of a pursuit. Colonel Tustin was him- self opposed to the proposition with so feeble a command, and with the certainty, if they overtook the enemy, of being obliged to encounter an officer, combining, with his acknowledged prowess, so much of subtlety as characterized the movements of the Mohawk chief. His force, moreover, was supposed to be greatly superior to theirs in numbers, and to include many tories, as well acquainted with the country as themselves. The colonel therefore preferred waiting for the reinforcements, which would be sure to arrive, the more especially, as the vol- unteers already with him were but ill provided with arms and ammunition. Others, however, were for immediate pursuit;