their three children; Mrs. Snider and three children; Mrs. Mickel and
three children; Mrs. Randall, the sutler's wife, and myself and our
three children.

The winter passed monotonously. We used to have some fun with the
squaws. Once I was writing home to mother. I wanted a little lock of
Indian hair to show her how coarse an Indian's hair was. Old Betts
happened to come in just then, so I took my scissors and was going to
cut a little bit of her "raving locks." When she saw what I was going to
do she jumped away screaming and acting like a crazy woman. She never
came near that house again, but in the spring after my husband had gone
to the front and Mrs. Dunn and I had joined forces and gone to living in
another cabin, she stuck her head in our window to beg. I jumped and
grabbed a looking glass and held it before her to let her see how she
really did look. She was a sight. She had an old black silk hood I had
given her and her hair was straggling all over. When she saw the
reflection she was so mad she tried to break the glass.

Three weeks before the outbreak, the Sioux, our Indians had a war
dance back of the fort and claimed it was against the Chippewas. At
first we believed them, but when the half breed, Indian Charlie, came in
to borrow cooking utensils, he sat down and hung his head, as if under
the influence of liquor. He kept saying "Too bad! Too bad!"

Mrs. Dunn became suspicious and knowing I knew him well, as he had often
stopped at our cabin, said "Ask him what is too bad." He said, "Injins
kill white folks. Me like white folks. Me like Injins. Me have to fight.
Me don't want to." He seemed to feel broken-hearted. I did not believe
him and thought him drunk, but Mrs. Dunn said "You go over and tell
Sergeant Jones what he said." I did. Sergeant Jones said, "What
nonsense! They are only going to have their war dance. All of you white
people go over and see that dance."

We all went. The soldiers were all there. The Indians had two tom-toms,
and the squaws beat on them while the Indians, all painted hideously,
jumped stiff legged, cut themselves until they were covered with blood
and sweat and yowled their hideous war whoop. They were naked excepting
their breech clout. Sargeant Jones had control of all the guns at the
fort, and unknown to us, the cannon were all trained on the dancers. We
could not understand why the soldiers were so near us, but later in the
day learned that there was a soldier for eve