“She was bred in old Kentucky,
Where the meadow grass grows blue,
There’s the sunshine of the country,
In her face and manner too.”—Braisted.

Milwaukee, Wis.
July 15, 1915.
CHARLES M. SCANLAN.

CONTENTS

PAGE
[Preface],[3]
I.[Description of the Country],[9]
II.[Indian Davis Troubles],[13]
III.[The Davis Settlement],[23]
IV.[The Massacre],[31]
V.[The Captivity],[38]
VI.[To the Rescue],[48]
VII.[Military Movements],[51]
VIII.[Reward Offered],[54]
IX.[The Captive Girls],[59]
X.[Ransomed],[66]
XI.[Royally Welcomed],[81]
XII.[Homeward Bound],[90]
XIII.[Romance and History],[95]
XIV.[Shabona],[106]
XV.[Comee and Toquamee,][111]
[Index][114]

CHAPTER I.
DESCRIPTION OF THE COUNTRY.

In its natural condition, perhaps no more attractive country ever laid before the eyes of man than that in which occurred the incidents of the following narrative. On the south it is bordered by the Illinois river, with its historical events beginning with the old Kaskaskia Mission established by Father Marquette in 1673 amidst the most beautiful scenery in the whole state of Illinois, which is now included in Starved Rock State Park.

What memories cluster around old Kaskaskia! As the first capital of Illinois, it was visited by Gen. La Fayette and Presidents Jackson, Lincoln, Taylor and Harrison; by Jefferson Davis, Gen. Albert Sidney Johnson, and by nearly every other man who was prominent in United States history prior to 1837, when Springfield became the state capital.

On the east for more than one hundred miles the Fox river, with its source in a beautiful lake near Waukesha, Wisconsin, flows south into the Illinois at Ottawa. Westward the great prairie stretches off to and beyond the Rock river which has eroded a narrow valley through that otherwise flat plain. Besides Rock river the only important streams that lay in the course of travel of the Hall girls as prisoners, were the Sycamore (South Kishwaukee) and the Kishwaukee in Illinois, and Turtle Creek, the Bark River and the Oconomowoc in Wisconsin.