Page:Annals of Augusta County.djvu/91

 old woman became frantic from exposure and hunger. She afterwards made an insane attack upon Mrs. Ingles's life, and the latter only escaped by outrunning her pursuer and concealing herself.

Mrs. Ingles finally came to the remains of some abandoned settlements and found a few turnips which had not been consumed by wild animals. She had now been out forty days and had traveled not less than twenty miles a day. Her clothing had been worn and torn by the bushes until few fragments remained. In this condition she reached a clearing made in the spring on New river by Adam Harman. He recognized her call, and hastened to meet and carry her to his cabin. Mr. Harman took her on horseback lo a fort at Dunkard's Bottom, and there she was found the next day by her husband and her brother, John Draper, who had been making every effort in their power for the rescue of the captives.

The old Dutch woman found her way to the settlements, and in course of time returned to Pennsylvania through Staunton and Winchester.

Mrs. Draper was released six or seven years afterward. George Ingles died in captivity while still a child. Thomas was redeemed by his father when he was seventeen years of age. He was unable to speak English, and is said to have been a perfect savage in appearance and manners. His father sent him to school, but he never became fully reconciled to civilized life.

But let us follow the fortunes of Mrs. Ingles somewhat further. As stated, she was taken on her return to a fort at Dunkard's Bottom, on the west side of New River, near Ingles's Ferry. Feeling insecure there, her husband took her twenty miles further east to Vass's fort, where the settlers of that region had gathered for safety. This fort was near the head of Roanoke river, about ten miles west of where Christiansburg now stands. Many of the forts, so called, were merely log pens, and others were log or stone dwellings, larger and stronger than ordinary, which, however, afforded shelter from savages unprovided with