42 The Winning of the West 



dians; but the latter, once they were within doors, 

 dropped the garb of friendliness, and shot or toma- 

 hawked all save a couple of men who escaped and the 

 five who were made prisoners. The captives were 

 all taken to the Miami, or Detroit, and as usual were 

 treated with much kindness and humanity by the 

 British officers and traders with whom they came 

 in contact. McKee, the British Indian agent, who 

 was always ready to incite the savages to war against 

 the Americans as a nation, but who was quite as 

 ready to treat them kindly as individuals, ransomed 

 one prisoner; the latter went to his Massachusetts 

 home to raise the amount of his ransom, and re- 

 turned to Detroit to refund it to his generous rescuer. 

 Another prisoner was ransomed by a Detroit trader, 

 and worked out his ransom in Detroit itself. Yet 

 another was redeemed from captivity by the famous 

 Iroquois chief Brant, who was ever a terrible and 

 implacable foe, but a great-hearted and kindly victor. 

 The fourth prisoner died ; while the Indians took so 

 great a liking to the fifth that they would not let 

 him go, but adopted him into the tribe, made him 

 dress as they did, and, in a spirit of pure friendli- 

 ness, pierced his ears and nose. After Wayne's 

 treaty he was released, and returned to Marietta to 

 work at his trade as a stone mason, his bored nose 

 and slit ears serving as mementos of his captivity. 

 The squalid little town of Cincinnati also suffered 

 from the Indian war parties in the spring of this 

 year, 12 several of the townsmen being killed by the 



"American Pioneer," II, 149. 



