Aunt Peggy Carey "builded better than she knew."  
In her fierce attack on the Tory she administered well-merited punishment, leaving him in a demoralized condition, so whipped, indeed, that for several minutes he was dazed and not himself.
 
Her friends trembled to think of the he would visit upon her for the act, but the good lady herself seemed to have no , and, turning about, she carefully arranged her hair and , and resumed cooking slices from the carcass of the pig, intending now to wait upon the Senecas, who had been kind enough not to while she attended to the other important duty.
 
What the next step would have been was hard to guess, but for the sudden discovery which we have made known.
 
One of the captives was found to be missing, and he was the most important of all, being no less a personage than Fred Godfrey.
 
The instant Aunt Peggy Golcher the youth saw that the opportunity for which he was waiting had come, and he took advantage of it.
 
The for the moment was great. The captives on the log sprang to their feet, and the Senecas their attention on the couple, seeing which, Mr. Brainerd said to his son:
 
"Now's your time, Fred!"
 
He turned as he , and saw the lieutenant vanishing like a shot in the gloom. When the his absence, he was at a safe distance in the wood.
 
a half-dozen Senecas sprang off in the darkness, using every effort to recapture the prisoner, who could be at no great distance, no matter how fast he had traveled.
 
Had Fred given away to the excitement of the occasion, and lost that coolness that had stood him so well more than once on that dreadful afternoon and evening, he hardly would have escaped recapture before he went a hundred yards; for the Iroquois were so accustomed to the ways of the woods, they would have seized such advantage and come upon him while he was in the neighborhood.
 
They believed he would continue running and stumbling in the darkness, and thus betray his whereabouts.
 
And that is what Fred Godfrey did not do.
 
He ran with all speed through the woods, tripping and picking himself up, and struggling forward, until he was far beyond the reach of the light of the camp-fire, when all at once he caught the signal of the Indians, and he knew they were after him.
 
Then, instead of keeping on in his flight, he straightened up and stepped along with extreme caution, feeling every foot of the way.
 
Thus it was he avoided betraying his situation to the cunning warriors, who, in their aimless p............