they got some hoofs under 'em an' picked up the childern an' toddled
off. I went out in the bush to find Buckeye an' he were dead as the
whale that swallered Jonah."

So ends the letter of Solomon Binkus.

Jack Irons and his family and that of Peter Bones--the boys and girls
riding two on a horse--with the captives filed down the Mohawk trail.
It was a considerable cavalcade of twenty-one people and twenty-four
horses and colts, the latter following.

Solomon Binkus and Peter Bones and his son Israel stood on guard until
the boy John Bones returned with help from the upper valley. A dozen
men and boys completed the disarming of the band and that evening set
out with them on the south trail.


2

It is doubtful if this history would have been written but for an
accidental and highly interesting circumstance. In the first party
young Jack Irons rode a colt, just broken, with the girl captive, now
happily released. The boy had helped every one to get away; then there
seemed to be no ridable horse for him. He walked for a distance by the
stranger's mount as the latter was wild. The girl was silent for a
time after the colt had settled down, now and then wiping tears from
her eyes. By and by she asked:

"May I lead the colt while you ride?"