44 Legend of Samuel Brady. 



the Indians, expecting a pursuit, were on the look-out, and ready to 

 receive him, with numbers four fold to those of Brady's party, whose 

 only safety was in a hasty retreat, which, from the ardor of the pur- 

 suit, soon became a perfect flight. Brady directed his men to sep- 

 arate, and each one to take care of himself ; but the Indians knowing 

 Brady, and having a most inveterate hatred and dread of him, from 

 the numerous chastisements which he had inflicted upon them, left 

 all the others, and with united strength pursued him alone. The 

 Cuyahoga here makes a wide bend to the south, including a large 

 tract of several miles of surface, in the form of a peninsula : within 

 this tract the pursuit was hotly contested. The Indians, by extend- 

 ing their line to the right and left, forced him on to the bank of the 

 stream. Having, in peaceable times, often hunted over this ground 

 with the Indians, and knowing every turn of the Cuyahoga as famil- 

 iarly as the villager knows the streets of his own hamlet, Brady di- 

 rected his course to the river, at a spot where the whole stream is 

 compressed, by the rocky cliffs, into a narrow channel of only twen- 

 ty two feet across the top of the chasm, although it is considerably 

 wider beneath, near the water, and in height more than twice that 

 number of feet above the current. Through this pass, the water 

 rushes like a race horse, chafing and roaring at the confinement of 

 its current by the rocky channel, while, a short distance above, the 

 stream is at least fifty yards wide. As he approached the chasm, 

 Brady, knowing that life or death was in the effort, concentrated his 

 mighty powers, and leaped the stream at a single bound. It so 

 happened, that, in the opposite cliff, the leap was favored by a low 

 place, into which he dropped, and grasping the bushes, he thus 

 helped himself to ascend to the top of the cliff. The Indians, for a 

 few moments, were lost in wonder and admiration, and before they 

 had recovered their recollection, he was half way up the side of the 

 opposite hill, but still within reach of their rifles. They could easily 

 have shot him at any moment before, but being bent on taking him 

 alive, for torture, and to glut their long delayed revenge, they for- 

 bore the use of the rifle ; but now seeing him Ukely to escape, they 

 all fired upon him : one bullet wounded him severely in the hip, but 

 not so badly as to prevent his progress. The Indians having to 

 make a considerable circuit before they could cross the stream, 

 Brady advanced a good distance ahead. His limb was growing stiff 

 from the wound, and as the Indians gained on him, he made for the 

 pond which now bears his name, and plunging in, swam under water 

 a considerable distance, and came up under the trunk of a large oak, 



