“Wal, Mis' Miller and Faith and Bije wa'n't long a dressin', you may believe; and they jest put on dark cloaks, and they jest streaked it out through the buttery-door! There was thick pole-beans quite up to the buttery-door, and then a field o' high corn, so that they was hid, and the way they run wasn't slow, I tell you. “But Col. Eph he hed to stop so to load that they got the pile o' brush afire, though he shot down three or four on 'em, and that was some comfort. But the long and the short o' the matter was, that they driv the door in at last, and came a whoopin' and yellin' into the house. “Wal, they took Col. Eph, and then went search-in' round to find somebody else; but jest then the meetin'-house bell begun to ring, and that scart 'em, and they took Col. Eph and made off with him. He hedn't but jest time to get into his clothes and get his shoes on, when they hurried him off. They didn't do nothin' to him jest then, you see, these Indians was so cur'ous. If a man made a good fight, and killed three or four on 'em afore they could take him, they sot great store by him, and called him a brave man. And so they was 'mazin' careful of Col. Eph, and treated him quite polite for Indians; but he knew the ways on 'em well enough to know what it was all for. They wanted a real brave man to burn alive and stick slivers into and torment, and Col. Eph was jest the pattern for 'em, and his fight-in' so brave made him all the better for what they wanted. “Wal, he was in hopes the town would be roused in time for some of 'em to come arter him; but the Indians got the start of 'em, and got 'way off in the woods afore people hed fairly come together and found out what the matter was. There was Col. Eph's house a blazin' and a lightin' up all the country for miles round; and the colonel he said it come ruther hard on him to be lighted on his way through the woods by such a bonfire. “Wal, by mornin' they come to one o' their camps, and there they hed a great rejoicin' over him. They was going to hev a great feast, and a good time a burnin' on him; and they tied him to a tree, and sot an Indian to watch him while they went out to cut pine knots and slivers to do him with. “Wal, as I said, Col. Eph was a brave man, and a man that always kep' his thoughts about him; and so he kep' a workin' and a workin' with the withs that was round his hands, and a prayin' in his heart to the Lord, till he got his right hand free. Wal, he didn't make no move, but kep' a loosenin' and a loosenin' little by little, keepin' his eye on the Indian who sot there on the ground by him. “Now, Col. Eph hed slipped his feet into his Sunday shoes that stood there by the bed and hed great silver shoe-buckles; and there was a providence in his doin' so, for, ye see, Indians are 'mazin' fond o' shiny things. [Illustration: 0203]