But what of the little one who had left home four days before? Determined
that not one member of the family should be left, the Boxers searched for
him in all directions. But Mr. Tien had taken Ti-to to the home of a
relative only a few miles from Pao-ting-fu, and they escaped detection.
This relative feared to harbor them more than two or three days, so they
turned their faces northward, where a low range of sierra-like mountains
was outlined against the blue sky. Seventeen miles from Pao-ting-fu, and
not far from the home of an uncle of Mr. Tien's, they found a little cave
in the mountainside, not high enough to allow them to stand upright. Here
they crouched for twenty days. The uncle took them a little food, but to
get water they were obliged to go three miles to a mountain village,
stealing up to a well under cover of darkness. In that dark cave, hunger
and thirst were their constant companions, and the howling of wolves at
night made their mountain solitude fearsome.
Ti-to had lived for five days in this retreat when word was brought to him
that father, brothers, sisters, aunt, cousins, and all the missionaries
belonging to the three missions in Pao-ting-fu, had been cruelly massacred,
and that churches, schools, homes, were all masses of charred ruins.
Pages:
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229