Page:History of Delaware County (1856).djvu/136

112 HISTOEY or misgiving there, but all was firm and fair ; wlien lie again be- lieved Mm, and resumed bis march. " There was a very aged man, by the name of Brown, who had not gone oflF with the rest of the families who had fled the country. This miserable old man, with -two grandsons, mere lads, were taken by Brant's party, and compelled to go pri- soners with us. The day after our meeting with the party, as above noticed, this old man, who was entirely bald from age, became too weary to keep up with the rest, and requested that he might be permitted to return, and alleged as a reason that he was too old to take part in the war, and therefore could do the king's cause no harm. "At this request, instead of answering him, a halt was made, and the pack was taken from him, when he spoke in a low voice to his grandsons, saying, ' I shall see you no more, for they are going to Mil me this he knew, being acquainted with the manners of the Indians. He was now taken in the rear of the party and left in the care of Indian, whose face was painted entirely black, as a token of his ofilce, which was to kill and scalp any of the prisoners who might give out by the way. In a short time the Indian came on again, with the bald scalp of the old man dangling at the end of his gun, hitched in between the ramrod and muzzle. This he often flapped in the boys^ faces, on the journey. The place at which this was done, was just on the point of a mountain, not far from where Judge Foot used to live, on the Delaware, below Delhi. There he was left, and doubtless devoured by wild animals ; human bones were afterward found on that part of the mountain. We pvrsued our way down the Delaware, till we came to the Cook-House, suffering much night and day from the tight- ness of the cords with which our arms were bound. From this place we crossed through the wilderness, over hills and mountains, the most distant and dismal to be conceived of, till we came to a place called Oquago, on the Susquehanna