ier, with his
pitchfork at "charge bayonets" and awaited the approach of the Indian.
The Indian came to within a very few feet of Mr. Hindman and stopped.
Each stood, looked, and waited for the other to open the meeting;
finally the Indian turned as if to retreat, and Mr. Hindman turned again
toward the creek.

He then followed the creek bed down to the house of Mr. Charles Mack,
where he found a pony belonging to himself, which he had ridden there
that morning, and started with all speed for his own home, where he
arrived just before dark. His children were gone, his house ransacked,
nearly everything broken or destroyed, and in the meadow a short
distance from the house was the dead body of Mr. Charles Mack. By this
time darkness had set in. His wife had gone that day about two miles to
the house of Mr. Jesse Thomas to attend a neighborhood quilting. He
again mounted his pony and started across the prairie for that place.
When about one-half the distance had been made, his pony looked sharply
through the semi-darkness in the direction indicated and there about
three hundred feet away were the Indians; four of them were mounted, the
remainder on foot. Mr. Hindman put whip and spur to his pony and ran him
for about a mile, then he stopped in a valley to listen for the Indians,
but he did not hear or see them.

On arriving at the house of Jesse Thomas he found it deserted, ransacked
and nearly everything destroyed.

It proved that his children saw the Indians attack Mr. Mack, and ran
from the house and secreted themselves in the very tall grass of the
slough in which Mr. Mack was mowing, and escaped with their lives. The
ladies at the quilting had a visit from the Indians; they saw them
approaching from a belt of timber but a few rods away, and escaping by
way of a back door to a cornfield which came quite up to the house, all
of their lives were saved. The Indians secured the horses of Mr. Root,
and also those of Mr. Charles Mack, and those of Mr. Stevens whose
horses were at the place of the quilting.

No more honest men, kindhearted and generous neighbors, or hardy
pioneers, ever gave their lives in the defense of their property and
their families, than were Charles Mack and Noble G. Root.

A man was asked, why did you return to the west, after having gone back
to New York and having spent two years there? His answer was.
"Neighbors. Would you want to spend your life where the people twenty
feet away do not know