Fred Godfrey not only was close to the stirring scenes that marked that memorable massacre, but he was among them sooner even than he anticipated. CHAPTER II. Just here we must turn aside for a minute or two, in order to understand the situation. On the third of July, Colonel Zebulon Butler, of the Continental army, had marched forth at the head of his two hundred and odd boys, old men, and a few able-bodied soldiers to meet his cousin, the British Colonel Butler, with his horde of soldiers, Tories, and Iroquois Indians. "We come out to fight, not only for liberty," said the patriot leader, as the battle was about to open, "but for our lives and that which is dearer than our lives--to preserve our homes from conflagration, and our wives and children from the tomahawk." For a time all went well, and Colonel Zebulon Butler began to hope that the marauders would be driven off, but his force was unsteady, and some of them gave way when they saw their enemies as they swarmed out of the woods and assailed them. The trembling mothers who were prayerfully listening to the sounds of battle on the plain above, heard the regular platoon firing which showed that all was going well; but, by and by, the increasing yells, the dropping shots, the blaze of musketry from the swamp on the left of the fighting settlers, where the Iroquois were rushing forth, the panic-stricken fugitives coming into sight here and there, white, panting and wild, told the dreadful truth. The patriots had been overwhelmed by the invaders, who were driving everything before them. But a single hope remained--flight. Some might succeed in reaching the mountains on the other side the river, and possibly a few would be able to force their way through the dismal wilderness known as the "Shades of Death," and reach Stroudsburg and the sparse settlements on the upper Delaware, many miles away. The moment the patriots began flying before the Tories and Indians, the panic spread to all. It is a historical fact that in the flight the pursuers shot many of the patriot officers and soldiers in the thigh, so as to disable them from running, and left them on the ground to be finally disposed of afterwards, while the Iroquois hastened after the other fugitives. Many of these were tomahawked in their flight; others fled down the river banks in the direction of Wilkesbarre, on the opposite side of the river; others made for the mountains back of the battle-ground; still others hastened to the protection of the Forty Fort, while a great many found a temporary refuge in the undergrowth of Monocacy Island, in the Susquehanna. Still others got across the river and plunged into the mountainous wilderness and began their toilsome tramp through the section I have named, and which is still known as the "Shades of Death." It was at this hour that Fred Godfrey galloped directly into the massacre in his desperate resolve to do all he could to save his friends.