te it was fired, the squaw started for
the door. I suspected that it was a signal for her to come outside, and
tell what she knew. Hawley had left his post and come in among us. Our
babies were on a field bed on the floor. Calling to Mrs. Dunn to look
after them, I sprang to the door and grabbed the discarded gun. At that
moment, the squaw tried to pass. I ordered her back. She called me a
"Seechy doe squaw" meaning "mean squaw" and tried to push me back. I
raised the bayonet saying, "Go back or I'll ram this through you." She
went back growling and swearing in Sioux. Probably in half an hour I was
relieved of my self-appointed task. Martin Tanner taking my place, I
said to him, "Don't let that squaw get away." I sat down on a board over
some chairs and made the squaw sit beside me. There we sat all that long
night with my right hand hold of my knife and the other holding her blue
petticoat. Didn't she talk to me and revile me? None of the others even
tried to leave. At last we saw the dawn appear.

Have you ever been in great danger where all was darkness where that
danger was? If so, you will know what an everlasting blessing that
daylight was.

From our upper windows we could look out and see that our foes were not
yet in sight. All night long among the refugees, praying, supplicating
and wailing for the dead, was constant, but as the light came and we
began to bestir ourselves among them, nursing the wounded and feeding
the hungry, this ceased and only the crying of the hungry children was
heard.

The Indians had driven away all the stock so there was no milk. My baby
had just been weaned. All those ten days we stayed in the fort, I fed
her hard tack and bacon; that was all we had. I chewed this for her.
There were many nursing mothers, but all were sustaining more than their
own.

There was no well or spring near the fort. All water had to be brought
from the ravine by mule team. Early that morning, under an escort, with
the cannon trained on them, the men drove the mule teams again and again
for water. Busy as all the women who lived at the fort were, I never let
that squaw out of my sight. I kept hold of a lock of her hair whenever I
walked around. She swore volubly, but came along.

About ten o'clock in the morning Lieutenant Gere, a boy of nineteen, who
was left in command when the senior officers were killed, called on me.
On a hill to the northwest, a great body of Indians were assembled. He
wanted me t