fronted them. Snatching her featherbed and hastily ripping it open, she flung its contents upon the still glowing embers. At once a furious blaze and stifling smoke ascended the chimney, overcoming two of the Indians. Dazed, they fell down into the fire, where they were instantly dispatched with the axe. Then, with a quick side stroke, the woman inflicted a terrible gash in the cheek of the only remaining savage, whose head just appeared in the breach of the door. With a horrible yell the intruder withdrew, to be seen no more.
In Western Pennsylvania, in the year 1792, there stood some twenty-five miles from Pittsburgh the crude cabin of a settler, named Harbisson. One day, during his absence, the home was attacked by Indians, who, after ransacking the house, carried off the wife prisoner. But there were three children, two boys aged five and three respectively, and an infant. As the mother had no hand for the little fellow of three, one of the savages relieved her from this embarrassment by grasping the child, whirling it through the air and smashing his head against a tree. And when the older brother began to weep, his crying was stopped forever by cutting his throat. The mother fainted at the horrible sight, but the savages brought her back to consciousness again by giving her a few blows across the face. At night the poor woman noticed one of the savages busying himself with making two smal! hoops. The captive watched him with languid curiosity and saw that he had something in his hand. Then a flash of horror-struck recognition flickered in the woman's eyes. She saw the bloody scalps of her children, which the savage was stretching on the hoops to dry. "Few mothers," so the unfortunate woman said afterwards, "have been subjected to such dreadful trials. Those who did not see the scalps of their own children torn from their heads and handled in such a way, cannot imagine the horrible pain that tortured my heart!"
In the dark of the second night the poor mother managed to make her escape. It rained in torrents, but hugging the baby to her breast, she entered the endless forest and wandered the whole night and the next days, making her way to the settlements. She arrived there on the sixth day after incredible sufferings and almost starved. So changed was she by the many hardships, that her nearest neighbors failed to recognize her. The skin and flesh of her feet and legs was hanging in pieces, pierced by hundreds of thorns, some of which went through her feet and came out a long time afterwards at the top.—
Such were the hardships and dangers the women of the settlers had to brave. But they endured their sufferings like heroines. In recognition of this fact it may justly be said
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