f them
could not be brought because he was dying of the wound received the
evening before. Much ceremony attended the proceedings as the Indian
mother led her sons to the officers saying: "Of seven sons three only
are left; one of them is wounded, and soon will die, and if the
two now given up are shot, my all is gone. I called on the head men to
follow me to the Fort. I started with the prisoners, singing their death
song, and have delivered them at the gate of the Fort. Have mercy on
them for their youth and folly."[329]

Because of the attack which Hole-in-the-Day had made on the Sioux a
short time before, Major Plympton decided not to execute the prisoners.
They were turned over to their own people to be flogged in the presence
of the officers. More humiliating than death was their punishment. Their
blankets, leggins, and breech-cloths were cut into small pieces, and
finally the braves whipped them with long sticks while the women stood
about crying.[330]

Although there was now a deep desire for revenge in each of the tribes,
they manifested outward friendliness when they met at the fort. During
the month of June, 1839, there came to Fort Snelling over twelve hundred
Chippewas thinking that there they would be paid their annuities for the
land they had ceded in 1837. There were two main groups--one which came
down from the headwaters of the Mississippi, and the other which came up
the river from the vicinity of the St. Croix. At the same time Sioux
numbering eight hundred and seventy were encamped near the agency. This
was considered an opportune time to conclude a peace, and so the long
calumet with its mixture of tobacco and bark of the willow tree was
smoked while friendly athletic contests were held on the prairie.
On July 1st the two parties of Chippewas started for home. But in one of
the bands were the two sons of the man who had been murdered the year
before. In the evening before beginning their homeward journey, they
visited the graveyard of the fort to cry over the grave of their father.
Here the thought of vengeance came to them, and morning found them
hidden in the bushes near the trail that skirted the shore of Lake
Harriet. The Badger, a Sioux warrior, was the first to pass that way as
he went out in the early morning to hunt pigeons. A moment later he was
shot and scalped. The murderers then hurried away and hid behind the
water at Minnehaha Falls.

A few hours later, when the news had spread thr