captive woman, referred to as the "old Dutch woman" but who may have been German, to escape with her. The next day (probably 19 October) they asked permission of the Indians to go into the forest to gather wild grapes, and set off, retracing the route the Indians had followed after Mary was taken captive in July. They wore moccasins and carried only a tomahawk and a knife (both of which were eventually lost), and two blankets. As they were leaving the camp, they met three French traders from Detroit who were harvesting walnuts. Mary traded her old dull tomahawk for a new one. The women went north, following the Ohio River as it curves to the east (see map). Expecting pursuit, they tried to hurry at first. As it turned out, the Shawnee made only a brief search, assuming the two women had been "destroyed by wild beasts." The Shawnee told this account to Mary's son Thomas Ingles, when he met some of them many years later after the Battle of Point Pleasant in 1774. After four or five days the women reached the junction of the Ohio and Scioto rivers, where they could see Lower Shawneetown in the distance, on the opposite riverbank. There they found an abandoned cabin, which contained a supply of corn, and an old horse in the back yard. They took the horse to carry the corn, but he was lost in the river when they tried to take him across what was probably Dutchman's Ripple. They followed the Ohio, Kanawha, and New rivers, crossing the Licking, Big Sandy, and Little Sandy rivers, Twelvepole Creek, the Guyandotte and Coal rivers, Paint Creek, and the Bluestone River. During their journey, they crossed at least 145 creeks and rivers—remarkable as neither woman could swim. On at least one occasion they "tied logs together with a grape-vine [and] made a raft" to cross a major river. They may have traveled as much as 500 to 600 miles, averaging between eleven and twenty-one miles a day. Once the corn ran out, they subsisted on black walnuts, wild grapes, pawpaws, sassafras leaves, blackberries, roots and frogs but, as the weather grew cold, they were forced to eat dead animals they found along the way. On several occasions they saw Indians hunting and each time managed to avoid being seen. On one occasion they were able to obtain deer meat