He and
Blackstaffe held many conferences through the day, and they
longed for the presence of Simon Girty, who was farther west.
That night an Onondaga runner arrived from one of the farthest
villages of the Mohawks, far east toward Albany. He had been
sent from a farther village, and was not known personally to the
warriors in the great camp, but he bore a wampum belt of purple
shells, the sign of war, and he reported directly to
Thayendanegea, to whom he brought stirring and satisfactory
words. After ample feasting, as became one who had come so far,
he lay upon soft deerskins in one of the bark huts and sought
sleep.
But Braxton Wyatt, the renegade, could not sleep. His evil
spirit warned him to rise and go to the huts, where the two
remaining prisoners were kept. It was then about one o'clock in
the morning, and as he passed he saw the Onondaga runner at the
door of one of the prison lodges. He was about to cry out, but
the Onondaga turned and struck him such a violent blow with the
butt of a pistol, snatched from under his deerskin tunic, that he
fell senseless. When a Mohawk sentinel found and revived him an
hour later, the door of the hut was open, and the oldest of the
prisoners, the one called Ross, was gone.
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