Indian troubles along the border were perhaps never worse in the history of the Northwest territory than in this year (1792) when Return Kingdom and John Jerome daily lived surrounded by dangers, the true, awful extent of which they little realized.

The scalping knife was never sharper, seldom bloodier. The torch was put to cabin after cabin. At mid-day and at midnight the flames which consumed the scattered evidences of civilization west of the Ohio river leaped skyward. The fierce war-whoop rang defiantly from Detroit south to the settlements in Kentucky and no white man was safe. Harmless traders, and peaceable hunters as well as settlers were murdered and their scalps hung high on the lodges of the Delawares, Shawnees, Chippewas, Wyandots, and all the tribes between the Wabash river and the Allegheny mountains.

And all the while the British at Detroit were urging the Indians on, and all the while the authorities of the American government were urging moderation on Wayne’s part and trying hopelessly to bring about peace.

Some peace commissioners who were sent to treat with the Indians were at first received kindly, but without warning, a few days later, slain.

News traveled far less rapidly in those days than now. A family might at midnight hear the redskins’ dreadful yells and die fleeing from the fierce savages, even while flames devoured their home. But neighbors only a few miles distant would continue to dwell in supposed security, knowing nothing of the outrage, and so only the more readily fall victims of the same ferocious Indian band a little later.

Indeed, it is not remarkable that Return and John had felt little fear among the Indians, while living so far from the frontier that news of the terrible tragedies along the border did not reach them. Their entire plan for the future had been from the first to make the redskins their friends. They had, with some rather serious exceptions, in which they were not at fault, succeeded admirably until Lone-Elk incited Captain Pipe’s people to hostility. But now, even had both the boys been at their cabin, and seemingly at peace with every tribe, as they had once been, they could not have failed to discover evidence of the warlike activity about them. They would not only have seen but, very likely, have felt, the increasing hostility of every redman the vast wilds contained.

No longer did the head men, such as Chief Hopocon or Captain Pipe, seek to restrain the bloodthirsty young warriors. They were allowed full sway. Treaties still fresh in their minds, such as that fixing the Cuyahoga and the portage trail as a definite boundary between the white men and their red brethren, were forgotten or no more regarded than the leaves which drifted before the autumn winds.

The arrival of John Jerome; bound hand and foot, at the Delaware town on the lake was the signal for an outburst of ferocious savage hilarity, by no means comforting to that young gentleman.

Twice had John attempted to escape from the five young bucks—Indians scarcely older than himself—and each time had he failed. First he had tried to buy his liberty and exerted every effort to prevail upon the youthful braves to give him his freedom, to give him at least a chance for it, a start of three yards, then the use of his hands and feet and no start at all. His endeavors and his pleading were all fruitless.

Determined to escape, then, John made a bold-dash while the little party was on the march; but the strap which held him was strong, and he was stopped in a moment. His second attempt to get away was scarcely more successful. The Indians had paused to rest and refresh themselves beside a little lake which lay but a few miles from the Delaware town. One of the fellows, the one who held the long strip of rawhide tied to the captive’s neck, lay down on the beach to drink. For a moment he released his hold on the strap and instantly John took advantage of it. But he ran only a few rods before two of the braves caught him, and the punishment they and the others administered was severe. Then it was that the prisoner’s feet as well as his hands were bound and so was he dragged into the village at last.

In vain did John look about for Fishing Bird, for Gentle Maiden or some of the other Delawares who had been especially friendly in the past. Fishing Bird, of course, was not there, and Gentle Maiden remained out of sight. That she felt sympathy for the prisoner, however, is certain. She saw to it that proper food was carried to him, and exerted all her influence to prevent harm from coming to him. Especially did she urge that the sentence of death for witchcraft should not be executed until the return of Captain Pipe, who was gone to the Delaware town on the Muskingum.

As Lone-Elk, also, was away, and as he had a strong personal interest in the infliction of the punishment the Little Paleface must suffer, no more was done to end the captive’s life at once. But one by one the Delawares informed John of what he must expect. Some told him his fate would be death at the stake. Others said that Lone-Elk would end everything with one mighty blow with the same hatchet that had caused Big Buffalo’s death.

Even these gloomy assurances, however, did not alarm poor John so much as the wild hostility he saw everywhere about him—nearly all the Indians in war paint, their war-whoops ringing out at every hour of the day and night, as they contemplated the extinction of both the settlers and later the whole Paleface army, gathering as they knew, to march against them. Much of the threatening demonstration was due to the keen zest of the younger savages. In the absence of their chief they were under no restraint and the ferocious delight with which they scented from afar the expected fighting was but a part of their nature.

Day after day slipped by and Captain Pipe did not return. Confined in a rude hut, without fire and without comforts of any kind, excepting sufficient food, such as it was, John Jerome suffered both in body and in spirit. But he was to suffer more later. Indeed, each day brought its additional burdens of grief and pain.

Constantly watched as he was, the sorrowful boy found not one reason to believe that a chance to escape might come to him, and now was anxiety for his own safety more than doubled by the conviction forced upon him that Return Kingdom was gone forever—murdered, tortured, shot from ambush. He knew not how his life had been taken, but the certain evidence that Ree was dead was presented to him in the course of a night of savage barbarity the like of which few white men ever had equal opportunities of seeing.

It was late in the afternoon of an ideal Indian summer day that Lone-Elk returned to the Delaware town. He brought bullets and this time powder also. Only a shrug of his bare shoulders marked his interest in the news when told that the “witch” was captured; that Little Paleface was even at the moment safely held captive beyond all possibility of escape.

He did not so much as go to see and gloat over the unhappy prisoner; but a murderous gleam came in his eyes and he told Neohaw and several others that the stake and the fire would be the “witch’s” portion when Captain Pipe came. He would not execute the death sentence before the chief’s return, for then they would have a celebration which would be a lesson to all the Palefaces for many days to come, just as the burning of the “White Chief,” Crawford, had been.

Nevertheless Lone-Elk quickly laid his plans to torture and torment the young captive, and to instill in the minds of all the Delawares a hatred of every Paleface, and a belief in the certain ease with which their country might be rid of them. He arranged a war dance. Every warrior, every buck and brave in the village answered his summons. Gentle Maiden guessed at once the meaning of it all, as in the early twilight the fighting men of her father’s people began to gather. It was useless for her to remonstrate, and as the fierce, sharp cries that accompanied the horrid dance swelled in volume and in number, John himself was scarcely more apprehensive of the outcome than was she.

Bound and round the campfire the savages danced. Their contortions of face and body, their violent shrieks and awful fervor were terrible to look upon. Fiercest of all was Lone-Elk. Louder than all the others was the war-whoop of the Seneca, and at midnight he had wrought to the highest pitch of bloodthirsty ardor every Delaware participating in the horrible revelry.

“Come!” called the outcast loudly at last, “Come! Will the Delawares close their eyes in sleep when so near them is a house of the Palefaces? A house that will draw others to it till the forests of the Indians are all cut down and they themselves driven away and killed? Come! Who will come with Lone-Elk!”

A fierce chorus of war cries greeted his words. Drunk with excitement, the Delawares paused not to consider. With terrible yells they surged after the Seneca and like a shrieking band of fiends hurried rapidly through the moonlit forest.

“Hold! Let the Delawares bring the Paleface witch!” cried Lone-Elk. “Let the murderer of the brave Big Buffalo see the nest where birds of his kind are hatched go up in fire!”

No sooner said than done. A dozen of the fiercest of the band, mad with the passions that had been aroused within them, rushed back and in five minutes came dragging John Jerome after them. By a rope around his body, and by another about his neck, they both drove and pulled him. Their awful yells could have been heard for miles.

Following the portage trail to its end and crossing the river, the savages broke into the clearing about the cabin a little further on at a run. Up the hill they went and with whooping and yelling of impassioned fury they attacked the cabin, so humble, so quiet and so home-like and unoffending in its appearance that its destruction seemed the foulest crime in all of border warfare’s awful annals.

With tomahawks the door was beaten in, though but to have pulled the string would have raised the latch, and the mad race of pillage and plunder began. Everything breakable was thrown down and destroyed. Table, stools, bedding and all the little conveniences that Ree and John had been at such pains to plan and construct were thrown indiscriminately about.

“Let the witch burn his own foul nest,” the Seneca yelled in his native tongue, but the captive, trembling with anger and sickened by the awful scenes he was compelled to witness, understood and drew back. In vain two Delawares who held him sought to force him to take and apply the torch that a third held out. They burned his bare hands, set fire to his clothing and his hair, but to no purpose. He could not fight, but he could resist if it killed him, and resist John did, let the consequences be what they might.

“Ugh! Ugh!” loudly ejaculated one of the older Indians impatiently, at last, and grabbing the burning hickory bark from the one who tried vainly to make the prisoner take it, he carried it quickly into the lean-to stable.

In an instant the dry hay and fodder were in flames. In another minute the fire had reached the cabin. Soon the terrible glare filled all the clearing and while the home the boy pioneers had held so dear, and all the things within it which long association made them fondly cherish, turned black, then red and yielded at last to the crackling, roaring destroyer, the Indians danced about in savage celebration, brandishing tomahawks and scalping knives, yelling and shrieking like the untamed demons that they were.