When found the following morning, they were debating what course to take next, for safety.
The commandant at Fort Pitt entered warmly into the affairs of Mr.
Lytle, and readily furnished him with a detachment of soldiers, to aid him and his friends in the pursuit of the marauders.

Some circumstances having occurred to throw suspicion upon the Senecas, the party soon directed their search among the villages of that tribe.
Their inquiries were prosecuted in various directions, and always with great caution, for all the tribes of the Iroquois, or, as they pompously called themselves, the Five Nations, being allies of Great Britain, were inveterate in their hostility to the Americans.

Thus, some time elapsed before the father with his attendants reached the village of the _Big White Man_.
A treaty was immediately entered into for the ransom of the captives, which was easily accomplished in regard to Mrs.Lytle and the younger child.

But no offers, no entreaties, no promises, could procure the release of the little Eleanor, the adopted child of the tribe.

"No," the chief said, "she was his sister; he had taken her to supply the place of his brother who was killed by the enemy--she was dear to him, and he would not part with her." Finding every effort unavailing to shake this resolution, the father was compelled to take his sorrowful departure with such of his beloved ones as he had had the good fortune to recover.
We will not attempt to depict the grief of parents compelled thus to give up a darling child, and to leave her in the hands of savages, whom until now they had too much reason to regard as merciless.