“I learnt among the Indians, when I was a lad. I was on a visit at my uncle’s, and the Indians were in ambush in the woods. My uncle was a very strong, fearless man, and an excellent marksman. It was not known that there were any Indians round; and one morning he loaded his gun (for they never went without arms in those days), and went down beside the brook to cut some timber. Instead of taking his powder-horn, he, by mistake, took a horn that was full of sand, which they kept to put on the scythe rifles. (We would say to our readers, that the scythe rifles in those days were not made as at present, by putting sand or emery upon wood, with cement; but they scratched the wood and made it rough, then smeared it with tallow, and put fine sand on it, which adhered to the tallow and the scratches.) While he was at work the Indians fired at and wounded him. He returned the fire, and killed the chief’s son, and, when they rushed upon him, he killed another with the butt of his gun, when they mastered him. If he had only taken his powder-horn instead of the sand, he would probably have driven them off. They then killed my aunt and cousins, and put my poor uncle to the torture; but the chief, whose son my uncle had killed, took me for his own, and I grew up with the Indians, and they learnt me all their ways. When I was with them I used to shoot partridges, coons, and porcupines, for my Indian mother.”