These events cast a shadow over the remaining years of Mrs. Slocum. She lived to see many bright and sunny days in that beautiful valley--bright and sunny, alas! to her no longer. She mourned for the lost one, of whom no tidings, at least during her pilgrimage, could be obtained. After her sons grew up, the youngest of whom, by the way, was born but a few months subsequent to the events already narrated, obedient to the charge of their mother, the most unwearied efforts were made to ascertain what had been the fate of the lost sister. The forest between the Susquehanna and the Great Lakes, and even the most distant wilds of Canada, were traversed by the brothers in vain, nor could any information respecting her be derived from the Indians. Once, indeed, during an excursion of one of the brothers into the vast wilds of the West, a white woman, long ago captive, came to him in the hopes of finding a brother; but after many anxious efforts to discover evidences of relationship, the failure was as decisive as it was mutually sad. There was yet another kindred occurrence, still more painful. One of the many hapless female captives in the Indian country becoming acquainted with the inquiries prosecuted by the Slocum family, presented herself to Mrs. Slocum, trusting that in her she might find her long lost mother. Mrs. Slocum was touched by her appearance, and fain would have claimed her. She led the stranger about the house and yards to see if there were any recollections by which she could be identified as her own lost one. But there was nothing written upon the pages of memory to warrant the desired conclusion, and the hapless captive returned in bitter disappointment to her forest home. In process of time these efforts were all relinquished as hopeless. The lost Frances might have fallen beneath the tomahawk or might have proved too tender a flower for transplantation into the wilderness. Conjecture was baffled, and the mother, with a sad heart, sank into the grave, as did also the father, believing with the Hebrew patriarch that the "child was not." Long years passed away and the memory of little Frances was forgotten, save by two brothers and a sister, who, though advanced in the vale of life, could not forget the family tradition of the lost one. Indeed it had been the dying charge of their mother that they must never relinquish their exertions to discover Frances. Fifty years and more had passed since the disappearance of little Frances, when news came to the surviving members of the bereaved family that she was still alive. She had been adopted into the tribe of the Miami Indians, and was passing her days as a squaw in the lodges of that people.