Page:Old ninety-nine's cave.djvu/53

 the whites seized their hunting-grounds and corn-patches. They never purchased the land as the settlers on the other side of the mountain did. The Indians were peaceable until the French war, during which one family was massacred. After that they were still on good terms, but during the Revolution, the British were at the bottom of all their depredations, telling them that the settlers had stolen their lands and that they were cowards not to be avenged. The British offered them a guinea for every white scalp they obtained and gave them every assistance. If the Indians had been let alone, they would never have committed the fearful outrages which they are now charged with. As it was, the Indian hesitated where the Tories did not; the latter would sneak into the home when the men were laboring in the fields and plunge his knife into the bosom of a sleeping infant or a defenseless woman. Can you wonder that the word Tory is hated by every descendant of the early settlers of this town?"

"I should think they could have been