agonized posture of their bodies told far
more forcibly than any language the tortures which had come before a
welcome death. All had been scalped; all had been mutilated in that
nameless manner which seems to delight the brutal instincts of the North
American savage.

Moving slowly from one to the other of the lifeless forms which still
showed the agony of their death-throes, the chief of the scouts came
across the bodies of two boys, both of whom had been scalped and
shockingly wounded, besides being mutilated, yet, strange to say, both
of them were alive. As tenderly as the men could lift them, they were
conveyed at once back to Fort Larned and given in charge of the post
surgeon. One of the boys died in a few hours after his arrival in the
hospital, but the other, Robert McGee, slowly regained his strength, and
came out of the ordeal in fairly good health.

The story of the massacre was related by young McGee, after he was
able to talk, while in the hospital at the fort; for he had not lost
consciousness during the suffering to which he was subjected by the
savages.

He was compelled to witness the tortures inflicted on his wounded and
captive companions, after which he was dragged into the presence of the
chief, Little Turtle, who determined that he would kill the boy with his
own hands. He shot him in the back with his own revolver, having first
knocked him down with a lance handle. He then drove two arrows through
the unfortunate boy's body, fastening him to the ground, and stooping
over his prostrate form ran his knife around his head, lifting
sixty-four square inches of his scalp, trimming it off just behind his
ears.

Believing him dead by that time, Little Turtle abandoned his victim; but
the other savages, as they went by his supposed corpse, could not resist
their infernal delight in blood, so they thrust their knives into him,
and bored great holes in his body with their lances.

After the savages had done all that their devilish ingenuity could
contrive, they exultingly rode away, yelling as they bore off the
reeking scalps of their victims, and drove away the hundreds of mules
they had captured.

When the tragedy was ended, the soldiers, who had from their
vantage-ground witnessed the whole diabolical transaction, came up
to the bloody camp by order of their commander, to learn whether the
teamsters had driven away their assailants, and saw too late what their
cowardice had allowed to take place