That was indeed a pleasing as well as a crafty speech. The affair had been settled. The man in the British uniform grasped Simon by the arm.
"You are reprieved. Now you will come with me."
Again reprieved? Thoroughly bewildered, Simon followed him out. They mounted horses, and rode north, with one chief.
"I am Captain Drouillard," explained the officer. "This is what I said to the council." And he repeated. "You appreciate that I took a great risk by interfering. You were to have been burned at the stake in the morning. The Indians do not like to be robbed of their spoil, and I have engaged to return you. You will certainly be burned, if I do. But that rests with you. You have information of value. Reply to my questions, and talk straight, and all will be well. You shall stay in Detroit. Now, what is the American force in Kentucky? And how many men are there in Fort McIntosh?"
Fort McIntosh was an American post erected only last spring at the mouth of the Big Beaver River, beside the Ohio twenty-six miles below Fort Pitt.
"Lor' bless you," laughed Simon. "I'm nothin' but a private soldier, else a scout, and 'tain't my business to deal in such large matters. So I can't answer your questions, in any way, shape or manner. Fact is, as you can plainly see, I've enough to do to look out for myself."
Captain Drouillard eyed him, and laughed also.
"I believe you," he said. "You've made a bad bargain of it, at that. Perhaps so have I."
Simon was saved. The British did not send him back to the Indians. They sent presents, instead, and kept him as a prisoner of war. His arm healed, he grew strong, and stayed there from this October until the next June, 1779. He was by no means the only such prisoner in old Detroit. A great many others, taken in battle or on the trail, were here; among them, the majority of the ten Daniel Boone men sold by Chief Black Fish a year ago, to the British.
He and two of the Daniel Boone men planned to escape together. Mrs. Harvey, the wife of an Indian trader, agreed to aid them. She was particularly fond of Simon, who never complained and who had suffered so much.
It was more than two hundred miles to the nearest post on the Ohio River. Every mile led through the country of war Indians. They would be only too glad to catch Simon again. So he must have guns for himself and his companions. Mrs. Harvey said that she would get the guns.