[Edward Manning Ruttenber (1872)] ing alliances. The Senecas gave them arms, removed from them the petticoat, and bade them take the hatchet; the " six. different nations of French Indians " 2 plead their cause with the Mohawks, and " advised and entreated them " to break the Albany sales, and to " have some consideration for those they 'called brothers;"3 the council at Onondaga repudiated the offensive contracts. October came, and no sooner had the biting frost reddened the maple and hardened the yellow corn in the husk, than, with their allies, painted black for war, in bands of two or four abreast, they moved eastward with murderous intent, and the line of the Blue mountain, from the Delaware to the Susquehanna, became the scene of the carnival which they held with torch and tomahawk during many coming months. The defenseless settlers were harassed by an unseen foe by day and by night. Some were shot down at the plow, some were killed at the fireside; men, women and children were promiscuously tomahawked or scalped, or hurried away into distant captivity, for torture or for coveted ransom. There was literally a pillar of fire by night and a pillar and cloud by day going up along the horizon, marking the progress of the relentless Indians, as they dealt out death, and pillage, and con flagration, and drove before them, in midwinter's flight, hundreds of homeless wanderers, who scarce knew where to turn for safety or for succor in the swift destruction thatswas come upon them.4