Poor Putnam was soon in a deplorable condition, with hands swollen terribly from the tightness of the ligature, and his feet gashed and bleeding, as he trudged along the trail beneath his enormous burden. He begged the savages to knock him on the head and end his sufferings; but he was soon to experience even more horrible sensations, for, arriving in advance of the main party at the place where they were to camp for the night, the small body of Indians that had him in charge concluded to burn him at the stake! He was suffering terribly from the blow on his jaw, from his swollen hands and mutilated feet, and also from a tomahawk gash in his cheek, so that he cared little what became of him, provided the end came quickly. To be burned alive, however, was a fate that brought a shudder to the frame of even stout-hearted Israel Putnam, and he looked on in horror while his captors stripped him naked, bound him to a tree and piled the dry brush they had gathered for fuel around him in a circle. All the while, as they labored at their fiendish task, they chanted a funeral dirge, which was almost as depressing to their captive as their sinister preparations for his immediate immolation. "Major Putnam soon began to feel the scorching heat," says his biographer, Colonel Humphreys, who had these details from the chief actor's own lips. "His hands were so tied that he could move his body, and he often shifted sides as the fire approached. This sight, at the very idea of which all but savages must shudder, afforded the highest diversion to his inhuman tormentors, who demonstrated the delirium of their joy by yells, dances, and gesticulations. He saw clearly that his final hour was inevitably come. He summoned all his resolution, and composed his mind, as far as the circumstances would admit, to bid an eternal farewell to all he held most dear.... His thought was ultimately fixed on a happier state of existence, ... the bitterness of death, even of that death which is accompanied with the keenest agonies, was in a manner past, ... when a French officer rushed through the crowd, opened a way by scattering the burning brands, and unbound the victim." The officer was no other than the redoubtable partizan, Marin, who exerted a wonderful influence over his savage company. He at once sent for the Indian who had captured Major Putnam, who did what he could to make amends for the dreadful treatment the latter had received; but that night, in order to prevent his prisoner from escaping, he stretched his limbs out in the shape of a cross and bound them to four saplings, then placed poles and bushes across his body as it lay on the ground with several Indians at either side, who kept watch the night through.