118 HISTORY OP who the sufferers were^ is covered in darkness^ except that it was between the whites and Indians.' ^^ This post will probably continue as long as the country shall remain inhabited, as the citizens heretofore have uni- formly replaced it with a new one, exactly like the original, whenever it has become decayed. Nothing more of note happened to us till we came to the Genesee river, except a continued state of suffering. We passed along between the Chemung and the heads of the lakes Cayuga and Seneca, leaving the route of Sullivan, and went over the mountains farther north. These mountains, as they were very steep and high, being covered with brush, and our bodies weak and emaciated, were almost insurmountable ; but at length we reached the top of the last and the highest, which overlooks immeasurable wilds, the ancient abode of men and nations unknown, whose history is written only in the dust. ^^Here we halted to rest, when the tory Beacraft, took it into his head to boast of what he had done in the way of murder, since the war began. He said that he and others had killed some of the inhabitants of Schoharie, and that among them was the family of one Yrooman. These, he said, they soon dis- patched, except a boy about fourteen years of age, who fled across the flat, towards the Schoharie river. took after the lad,' said the tory, ' and although he ran like a spirit, I soon over- took him, and putting my hand under his chin, laid him back on my thigh, though he struggled hard, cut his throat, scalped him, and hung the body across the fence.' This made my blood run cold, vengeance boiled through every vein ; but we dared not say a word to provoke our enemies, as it would be useless. This man, however, got his due, in a measure, after the war was over, as will be related at the end of this ac- count. ^'Another of them, by the name of Barney Cane, boasted that he had killed one Major Hopkins, on Dimon's Island,
