elled all the way
on foot through the deep snow, a distance of nearly one hundred miles.
Although the air was always full of rumors of Indian troubles in those
days, I was convinced that the news brought by these boys was true, so I
made a requisition on Colonel Alexander of the Tenth United States
Infantry, stationed at Fort Ridgely, for troops, and he sent me Company
"A," commanded by Captain Barnard E. Bee and Lieutenant Murray. I
supplied guides and interpreters from my Indians, and after a most
laborious and painful roundabout march of many days, we reached the
scene of the troubles, only to find, as I fully expected, the Indians
gone. The dead were buried, and the troops, after remaining for some
time, returned to the fort.

Now comes the most interesting part of the incident. The captured women
were Mrs. Noble, Mrs. Thatcher, Mrs. Marble and Miss Gardner. The
legislature of the territory was in session, and the news of the event
soon reached St. Paul, and, as might be expected, created great
excitement, and, of course, the principal interest centered in the
rescue of the prisoners. All the legislature could do was to appropriate
money to defray the expenses of the undertaking, and as nobody knew
what to do or how to do it, they appropriated $10,000 and wisely left
the whole matter to Governor Medary, who was then the governor of the
territory, with full power to do what he thought best about it. He,
being a practical man, and having no idea at all of how to proceed in
the matter, very sensibly turned the whole business over to me, with
_carte blanche_ to do whatever I thought best.

An accident controlled the situation, and shaped future events. Two of
my Indians, who had been hunting on the Big Sioux river, heard that
Ink-pa-du-ta was encamped at Skunk lake, about seventy-five miles west
of Spirit lake, and had some white captives in his camp; so they went to
see him, and succeeded in purchasing Mrs. Marble, for whom they paid
horses and rifles, and whatever they had, and brought her into the
Yellow Medicine agency and delivered her to me. I paid them $500 each
for their services, and immediately sent out another expedition to try
to rescue the other captives. I say I paid these two Indians $500 each.
The fact is, I could raise but $500 in money on the reservation, which I
gave them, and resorted to a financial scheme to get the rest, which has
since become quite the fashion when people or communities are short