Boquet remained here two weeks, occupied with sending and receiving messengers who were charged with business relating to the restoration of the captives. At the end of this time, two hundred and six, the majority of them women and children, had been received into camp. An hundred more yet remained in the hands of the Indians. These they solemnly promised to restore in the spring, and, as the leafless forest, the biting blast, and occasional flurries of snow, reminded Boquet of the coming on of winter, he determined to retrace his steps to Fort Pitt. These two weeks, during which the prisoners were being brought in, were filled with scenes of the most intense, and often painful excitement. Some of the captives had been for many years with the Indians, recipients of their kindness and love; others had passed from childhood to maturity among them, till they had forgotten their native language, and the past was to them, if remembered at all, but a half-forgotten dream. All of them—men, women and children—were dressed in Indian costume, and their hair arranged in Indian fashion. Their features, also, were bronzed by long exposure to the weather, so that they appeared to have passed more than half way to a purely savage state. As troop after troop came in, the eager looks and inquiries of those who had accompanied the army to find their long-lost families and kindred, made each arrival a most thrilling scene. In some instances, where the separation had only been for a short time, the recognition was simultaneous and mutual, and the short, quick cry, and sudden rush into each other's arms, brought tears to the eyes of the hardy soldiers. In others, doubt, agony, fear and hope, would in turn take possession of the heart, chasing each other like shadows over the face, as question after question was put, to recall some event or scene familiar to both, till at last a common chord would be touched, when the dormant memory would awake as by an electric shock, a flood of fond recollections sweep away all uncertainty, and the lost one be hurried away amid sobs and cries of joy. Sometimes the disappointed father or brother would turn sorrowfully away, and, with that hope deferred which maketh the heart sick, sadly await the arrival of another group. But the most painful sight was when a mother recognized her own child, which, however, in turn, persisted in looking on her as a stranger, coldly turning from her embrace, and clinging to its savage protector; or when a mutual recognition failed to awaken affection on one side, so entirely had the heart become weaned from its early attachments. In these cases, the joy of the captors knew no bounds; the most endearing epithets and caresses would be lavished on the whilome prisoner. But when they saw them taken away, torrents of tears attested their sincere affection and grief. The attitude of intense interest, and the exhibition of uncontrollable