92 DESOLATION OF THE FRONTIERS. [1763. 



repent their success, lost in a trackless wilderness, 

 and perishing miserably from hunger and expos- 

 ure. Such attempts could seldom be made in the 

 neighborhood of the settlements. It was only 

 when the party had penetrated deep into the forest 

 that their vigilance began to relax, and their cap- 

 tives were bound and guarded with less rigorous 

 severity. Then, perhaps, when encamped by the 

 side of some mountain brook, and when the war- 

 riors lay lost in sleep around their fire, the prisoner 

 would cut or burn asunder the cords that bound 

 his wrists and ankles, and glide stealthily into the 

 woods. With noiseless celerity he pursues his 

 flight over the fallen trunks, through the dense 

 undergrowth, and the thousand pitfalls and imped- 

 iments of the forest ; now striking the rough, hard 

 trunk of a tree, now tripping among the insidious 

 network of vines and brambles. All is darkness 

 around him, and through the black masses of 

 foliage above he can catch but dubious and uncer- 

 tain glimpses of the dull sky. At length, he can 

 hear the gurgle of a neighboring brook ; and, turn- 

 ing towards it, he wades along its pebbly channel, 

 fearing lest the soft mould and rotten wood of 

 the forest might retain traces enough to direct the 

 bloodhound instinct of his pursuers. With the 

 dawn of the misty and cloudy morning, he is still 

 pushing on his way, when his attention is caught 

 by the spectral figure of an ancient birch-tree, 

 which, with its white bark hanging about it in 

 tatters, seems wofully famiUar to his eye. Among 

 the neighboring bushes, a blue smoke curls faintly 



