“There were many prisoners that I did not see in the village, but I am left alone. The Yanktons, who hold me, are friendly by pretense, and go to the agencies for supplies and annuities, but at heart they are bitterly hostile. They assert that, if they did not murder and steal, the Father at Washington would forget them; and now they receive presents and supplies to keep them in check, which they delight in taking, and deceiving the officers as to their share in the outbreaks.”
Her dread of soldiers was such that she had never attempted to escape, nor did she seem to think it possible to get away from her present life, so deep was the despair into which long-continued suffering had plunged her.
Sad as my condition was, I could not but pity poor Mary’s worse fate. The unwilling wife of a brutal savage, and subject to all the petty malice of a scarcely less brutal squaw, there could be no gleam of sunshine in her future prospects. True, I was, like her, a captive, torn from home and friends, and subject to harsh treatment, but no such personal indignity had fallen to my lot.
When Mary was first taken, she saw many terrible things, which she related to me, among which was the following:
One day, the Indians went into a house where they found a woman making bread. Her infant child lay in the cradle, unconscious of its fate. Snatching it from its little bed they thrust it into the heated oven, its screams torturing the wretched mother, who was immediately after stabbed and cut in many pieces.
Taking the suffering little creature from the oven, they then dashed out its brains against the walls of the house.
One day, on their journey, they came to a narrow but deep stream of water. Some of the prisoners, and nearly all of the Indians, crossed on horseback, while a few crossed on logs, which had been cut down by the beaver. A lady (by name Mrs. Fletcher, I believe), who was in delicate health, fell into the water with her heavy burden, unable, on account of her condition, to cross, and was shot by the Indians, her lifeless body soon disappearing from sight. She also told me of a white man having been killed a few days previous, and a large sum of money taken from him, which would be exchanged for articles used among the Indians when they next visited the Red River or British Possessions. They went, she told me, two or three times a year, taking American horses, valuables, etc., which they had stolen from the whites, and exchanging them for ammunition, powder, arrow points, and provisions.
Before they reached the Missouri River they killed five of Mrs. Dooley’s children, one of which was left on the ground in a place where the distracted mother had to pass daily in carrying water from the river; and when they left the camp the body remained unburied. So terrible were the sufferings of this heart-broken mother, that, when she arrived in safety among the whites, her reason was dethroned, and I was told that she was sent to the lunatic asylum, where her distracted husband soon followed.
Mary wished that we might be together, but knew that it would be useless to ask, as it would not be granted.
I gave her my little book and half of my pencil, which she was glad to receive. I wrote her name in the book, together with mine, encouraging her with every kind word and hope of the future. She could read and write, and understood the Indian language thoroughly.