On their arrival at Black Hawk’s Grove there was great rejoicing at the Indian camp. Several squaws hurried to the girls, assisted them off their horses, and conducted them to the center of the camp where they had prepared a comfortable place in the form of beds of animal skins and blankets. Also, the squaws brought in wooden bowls, parched corn, meal and maple-sugar mixed, which they invited the girls to eat. More through fear than appetite, the girls partook of the food, although it was disgusting to them.
The squaws requested the girls to throw on the fire particles of food and some tobacco which they handed them. The girls complied with the request of their dusky hosts, although they did not know for what purpose it was required. As a matter of fact, it was a common practice among the Indian tribes to make the offering of food and tobacco to their gods in case of escape from death or as thanks for some extraordinary good fortune.[19]
[19] 2 “Indian Tribes of U. S.”, Drake, 68, 72; 6 Schoolcraft’s, “History of Indian Tribes of the U. S.”, 83, 88.
The squaws requested Sylvia and Rachel to lie down on separate beds, and then a squaw lay on each side of each of the girls, so that there was no chance for escape. Thus abed, they had a night of confused, disordered sleep, in which visions of their friends and the scenes of the massacre haunted them almost continually. The squaws endeavored to soothe the girls, but they could not take the place of that mother who in their childish nightmares would say to them: “My dears, say a prayer and try to sleep.”
“But God is sweet.
My mother told me so,
When I knelt at her feet
Long—so long—ago;
She clasped my hands in hers.
Ah! me, that memory stirs
My soul’s profoundest deep—
No wonder that I weep.
She clasped my hands and smiled,
Ah! then I was a child—
I knew no harm—
My mother’s arm
Was flung around me; and I felt
That when I knelt
To listen to my mother’s prayer,
God was with mother there.
Yea! “God is sweet!”
She told me so;
She never told me wrong;
And through my years of woe
Her whispers soft, and sad, and low,
And sweet as Angel’s song,
Have floated like a dream.”—Fr. Ryan.
CHAPTER VI.
TO THE RESCUE.
When John W. Hall arrived at Ottawa he did not know that his sisters had been taken prisoners, but he supposed that they had been massacred with the rest of the people at the Davis cottage. His first impulse was revenge, and he rushed wildly about, urging men to arm and go with him to the scene of the massacre. The spirit of adventure was rampant among the people at the time, and John soon found himself at the head of a considerable number of mounted men armed with all kinds of guns, who followed him like a mob, from Ottawa to the Davis Settlement.
On their way out they met some of the men who were defeated at Stillman’s Run, returning to Ottawa. John endeavored to have these men accompany him to the Davis Settlement, but they had enough of Indian adventure, and instead of assisting John, discouraged the men with him from engaging in a fight with the Indians.
When John’s squadron arrived at the Davis cottage there was presented an awful sight—thirteen murdered and mutilated bodies in and about the cottage, some hung on shambles like butchered pigs, just as they were left by the Indians. On the creek below the cottage were found the bodies of Norris and George where they fell from the bullets of the Indians. The absence of his sisters Rachel and Sylvia from among the dead, presented to John a new quandary. A careful search was made about the premises but no traces of the girls could be found.