Very few white settlers had ventured beyond the Susquehanna. The numerous roving bands of Shawano, Nanticoke, and other Indians, although at times professing friendship for the Americans and acting in concert with the Delawares or Lenape as allies, at other times suffered themselves to be seduced by their neighbors, the Iroquois, into showing a most sanguinary spirit of hostility. For this reason the life of the settlers on the frontier was one of constant peril and alarm. Many a dismal scene of barbarity was enacted, as the history of the times testifies, and even those who felt themselves in some measure protected by their immediate neighbors, the Delawares, never lost sight of the caution required by their exposed situation. The vicinity of the military garrison at Pittsburgh, or Fort Pitt, as it was then called, gave additional security to those who had pushed farther west among the fertile valleys of the Allegheny and Monongahela. Among these was the family of Mr. Lytle, who, some years previous to the opening of our story, had removed from Baltimore to Path Valley, near Carlisle, and subsequently had settled on the banks of Plum River, a tributary of the Allegheny. Here, with his wife and five children, he had lived in comfort and security, undisturbed by any hostile visit, and annoyed only by occasional false alarms from his more timorous neighbors, who, having had sad experience in frontier life, were prone to anticipate evil, and magnify every appearance of danger. On a bright afternoon in the autumn of 1779, two of Mr. Lytle's children, a girl of eight and her brother, two years younger, were playing in a little hollow in the rear of their father's house. Some large trees which had recently been felled were lying here and there, still untrimmed, and many logs, prepared for fuel, were scattered around. Upon one of these logs the children, wearied with their sport, seated themselves, and fell into conversation upon a subject that greatly perplexed them. While playing in the same place a few hours previous, they had imagined they saw an Indian lurking behind one of the fallen trees. The Indians of the neighborhood were in the habit of making occasional visits to the family, and the children had become familiar and even affectionate with many of them, but this Indian had seemed to be a stranger, and after the first hasty glance they had fled in alarm to the house. Their mother had chid them for bringing such a report, which she had endeavored to convince them was without foundation. "You know," said she, "you are always alarming us unnecessarily: the neighbors' children have frightened you nearly to death. Go back to your play, and learn to be more courageous." So, hardly persuaded by their mother's arguments, the children had returned to their sports. Now as they sat upon the trunk of the tree, their discourse was interrupted by what seemed to be the note of a quail not far off.