THE INDIAN MASSACRE.
Though there were no Indians residing very near the Lake Settlement,
they frequently visited the place, and the settlers were on familiar
terms with them. At the house of John Grant they were always treated
with kindness and a generous hospitality. Among those who sometimes
came was a chief called Lean Bear. Fanny was much interested in these
denizens of the forest, and she exerted herself to please them, and
particularly the chief of the Red Irons, as his tribe was called. She
sang to him, brought him milk and bread, and treated him like a great
man. He was a brawny fellow, morose and savage, and though he smiled
slightly, he did not seem to appreciate her kindness.
About the 15th of August, when Fanny had been at the settlement less
than two months, Mr. Grant started for one of the Indian Agencies, on
the Minnesota River, for the purpose of procuring supplies of the
traders in that vicinity. He went with a wagon and a span of horses,
intending to be absent ten days.
One morning, when he had been gone a week, Mrs. Grant was milking the
cows, of which they kept twenty. Ethan was helping her, and Fanny, not
yet a proficient in the art, was doing what she could to assist.
Doubtless she was rather bungling in the operation, for the cow was not
as patient as usual.
"Seems like you gals from the east don't know much," laughed Ethan.
"You are on the wrong side of the creetur."
"So I am! I thought there was something wrong, for the cow don't stand
quiet," replied Fanny.
"No wonder; cows allers wants things did accordin' to rule," added
Ethan.
"I didn't mind that I was on the wrong side."
"What do the gals do out east that they don't know how to milk?"
"They don't milk there."
"They don't do nothin'--do they?"
"Not much; at least, they didn't at Woodville."
"Well, gals isn't good for much, nohow," said Ethan, philosophically,
as he commenced milking another cow.
"They can do some things as well as boys."
"Perhaps they kin; but you couldn't milk a cow till you kim out hyer."
"I could not."
"Hokee!" suddenly exclaimed Ethan. "What's all that mean?"
"What, Ethan?"
"Don't you see all them hosses up to the house? Hokee! Them's Injins,
as sure's you live!"
Fanny looked, and saw about twenty Indians ride up to the house and
dismount. The sight did not alarm her, though it was rather early in
the morning for such a visit.
"D'ye see all them Injins, Miss Grant?" said Ethan to his mistress.
"Dear me! What can they want at this time in the morning? I must go
into the house, and see to them, for they'll steal like all possessed."
Mrs. Grant put her milk-pail in a safe place, and hastened to the
house, which she reached before any of the savages had secured their
horses. Five or six of the visitors entered by the front door, and the
rest assembled in a group, a short distance from the dwelling.
"I wonder what them redskins wants here so airly in the mornin'," mused
Ethan, when Mrs. Grant had gone. "I wonder ef they know there ain't no
one to home but women folks and boys."
"Suppose they do know,--what then?" asked Fanny.
"Nothin'; only I reckon they kim to steal sunthin'."
"They wouldn't steal from aunt Grant."
"Wouldn't they, though!" exclaimed Ethan, incredulously.
"She has been very kind to them."
"They'd steal from their own mothers," added Ethan, as he finished
milking another cow, and moved towards a third.
As he crossed the yard he stopped to look at the horses, and to see
what had become of the riders.
"Hokee!" cried he, using his favorite expression when excited.
"What's the matter, Ethan?" asked Fanny.
"As true as you live, one of them hosses is 'Whiteskin,'" replied he,
alluding to one of Mr. Grant's animals.
"One of the Indian horses?"
"Yes; as true as you live! I kin see the old scar on his flank."
"Where could the Indians get him?"
"That's what I want to know," continued Ethan, now so much excited that
he could not think of his milking. "Creation hokee!" he added--his
usual expression when extraordinarily excited.
"What is it?"
"Creation hokee!" repeated Ethan.
"What do you see, Ethan?" demanded Fanny, who was now so much
interested that she abandoned her occupation.
"There's the t'other hoss!" replied Ethan. "They've got both on 'em."
"Where could they get them?" said Fanny, who regarded the fact
indicated by her companion as sufficiently ominous to excite her alarm.
"That's what I'd like to hev some 'un tell me. Fanny, I tell you
sunthin' hes happened."
At this moment a shrill and terrible scream was heard in the direction
of the house, followed by the sharp crack of a rifle. Ethan and Fanny,
appalled by the sounds, looked towards the house. They saw Mrs. Grant
rush from the back door, and then fall upon the ground. Two or three
Indians followed her, in one of whom Fanny recognized Lean Bear, the
stalwart chief she had endeavored to conciliate. He bent over the
prostrate form of the woman, was seen to strike several blows with his
tomahawk, and then to use his terrible scalping-knife.
At the sound of the rifle, which seemed to be a signal for the purpose,
the savages who had grouped together outside of the house rushed in,
yelling and hooting like demons.
"Creation hokee!" gasped Ethan, his face as nearly white as its
sun-browned hue would permit.
Fanny's blood was chilled in her veins; she could not speak, and her
limbs seemed to be paralyzed. And now in the distance harsh and
discordant sounds rose on the still morning air. They came from the
direction of the other portions of the settlement. The shrill screams
of women, the hoarse cries of men, and the unearthly yells of the
savages, mingled in horrible confusion. It was evident to the appalled
listeners that a fearful Indian massacre had commenced. They had seen
Mrs. Grant fall; had seen the fierce Lean Bear tomahawk and scalp her.
It was madness to stand still in the midst of so much peril, but both
Ethan and Fanny seemed to be chained to the spot where they stood,
fascinated, as it were, by the anguished cries of agony and death that
were borne to their revolting senses by the airs of that summer
morning. The savages were at that moment busy in ransacking and
plundering the house, but Fanny realized that she might be the next
victim; that the tomahawk of the terrible Lean Bear might be glaring
above her head in a few moments more. She trembled like an aspen leaf
in the extremity of her terror, as she heard the terrific cries uttered
by the mangled, mutilated, dying men, women, and children, far enough
off to be but faintly heard, yet near enough to be horribly distinct.
"It's time sunthin' was did," said Ethan, with quivering lips.
"What can we do?" asked Fanny, in a husky whisper.
"We must git out of sight fust. Come along with me, Fanny," added
Ethan, as he led the way into the barn.
"They will find us here," said Fanny.
"P'rhaps they will; but there ain't nowhere else to go to."
"Why not run away as fast as we can?"
"We kin run, but I reckon bullets will travel faster 'n we kin."
Ethan went up a ladder to the top of the hay-mow, and Fanny followed
him. He carried up with him a small hay-fork, with which he went
vigorously to work in burrowing out a hole in the hay. Fanny assisted
him with her hands, and in a few moments they had made an aperture deep
enough to accommodate them. This hiding-place had been made in the back
part of the mow, next to the side of the barn, where there were wide
cracks between the boards, through which they could receive air enough
to prevent them from being stifled.
"Now, you get in, Fanny, and I'll fix the hay so I kin tumble it all
down on top on us, and bury us up."
"Suppose they should set the barn afire," suggested Fanny.
"Then they will; we must take our chances, such as they be. We hain't
got much chance nohow."
Fanny stepped down into the hole; Ethan followed her, and pulled the
mass of hay over so that it fell upon them. They were four or five feet
below the surface of the hay.
"I would rather be killed by a bullet than burned to death in the
fire," said Fanny, with a shudder, when her companion had adjusted the
hay so as to afford them the best possible means of concealment.
"P'rhaps they wouldn't kill you with a bullet. Them redskins is awful
creeturs. They might hack you all to pieces with their knives and
tomahawks," whispered Ethan.
"It's horrible!" added Fanny, quivering with emotion.
"I've hearn tell that there was some trouble with the redskins up on to
the reserves; and I knowed sunthin' had happened when I see them two
hosses. I was kind o' skeery when the varmints rid up to the house."
"Do you suppose they have killed my uncle?" asked Fanny, sick at heart.
"I s'pose they hev," answered Ethan, gloomily. "I reckon we'd better
keep still, and not say nothin'. Some o' the redskins may be lookin'
for us. They're pesky cunnin'."
This was good advice, and Fanny needed no persuasion to induce her to
follow it. Through the cracks in the side of the barn she could see a
few houses of the settlement; and through these apertures came also the
hideous sounds which denoted the progress of the massacre. Great piles
of curling smoke were rising from the burning buildings of the devoted
settlers, and the work of murder and pillage still continued, as the
relentless savages passed from place to place in the execution of their
diabolical mission.
The greater part of the detachment which had halted at the house of Mr.
Grant had now departed, though the sounds which came from the dwelling
indicated that the rest were still there. Lean Bear knew the members of
Mr. Grant's household. With his own hand he had slain the woman who had
so often fed him, and ministered to his necessities, thus belying the
traditional character of his race; and it was not probable that he
would abandon his object without a diligent search for the missing
members of the family.
Fanny was safe for the present moment, but the next instant might doom
her to a violent death, to cruel torture, or to a captivity more to be
dreaded than either death or torture. She trembled with mortal fear,
and dreaded the revelations of each new second of time with an
intensity of horror which cannot be understood or described.
"They are comin' out of the house," said Ethan, in a tremulous whisper.
"There's seven on 'em."
"Are they coming this way?"
"No; they are lookin' round arter us. They are going down to the lake."
"I hope they won't come here."
"But they will kim here, as sure as you live."
"Do you ever pray, Ethan?" asked Fanny, impressively.
"Not much," replied he, evasively.
"Let us pray to God. He can help us, and He will, if we ask Him in the
right spirit."
"I dunno how," added Ethan.
"I will pray for both of us. The Indians can't hear us now, but God
can."
Fanny, in a whisper, uttered a brief and heart-felt prayer for
protection and safety from the savage monsters who were thirsting for
their blood. She prayed earnestly, and never before had her
supplications come so directly from her heart. She pleaded for herself
and for her companion, and the good Father seemed to be very near to
her as she poured forth her simple petition.
"Thy will, not ours, be done," she murmured, as she thought that it
might not be the purpose of "Him who doeth all things well" to save
them from the tomahawk of the Indians. If it was not His will that they
should pass in safety through this ordeal of blood, she asked that they
might be happy in death, or submissive to whatever fate was in store
for them.
Ethan listened to the prayer, and seemed to join earnestly in the
petitions it contained. With his more devout companion, he felt that
God was able to save them, to blunt the edges of the weapons raised to
destroy them, or to transform their savage and bitter foes into the
warmest and truest of friends.
"I feel better," said Fanny, after a moment of silence at the
conclusion of the prayer.
"So do I," replied Ethan, whose altered look and more resolute tones
confirmed his words. "I feel like I could fight some o' them Injins."
"We can do nothing by resistance."
"I dunno; if they don't burn the house, I reckon I know whar to find
some shootin' fixin's."
"Where?"
"Mr. Grant sort o' hid his rifle and things, for fear some un might
steal 'em, I s'pose. I know where they be; and I reckon them redskins
won't find 'em."
"Let us not think of resistance. There must be hundreds of Indians at
the settlement."
"'Sh!" said Ethan, impressively. "They're comin'."
The light step of the moccasoned feet of the savages was now distinctly
heard in the barn. Their guttural jargon grated harshly on the ears of
the fugitives in their concealment, as they tremblingly waited the
issue.