Catherine’s personal explanation to me was that the little girls, when down to the last morsel of edible scrapings, had difficulty in deciding which one should eat it. The little one thought the older one should have it—that it might enable her to live to get away. It would appear that the little one had already resigned herself to her fate. The older one decided it rightly belonged to the baby. And neither of them ate it. It was only a dirty kernel of corn, Catherine said in her article: “God had a hand in that work, and I believe you will agree with me when I say He wrought a miracle.”
And I, for one, certainly do agree.
Several inaccurate accounts of the fate of this unfortunate family have been written—one by a professor, who evidently did not have the full facts, as text for the Wichita schools. And another one, as told to a reporter for the Kansas City Journal by “Uncle” Jimmy Cannon, an interpreter on Government pay-rolls, stationed in Kansas (the rider of “Little Gray Johnny”) in which he himself, in a daring dash on a band of Indians, rescued one of the little girls — which, in fact, he didn’t do at all, according to Catherine.
Actually, it was this story of “Uncle” Jimmy’s that caused Catherine to write the true story of the massacre and of their captivity, for my paper. Catherine said it was soldiers under Lieutenant Baldwin of the Fifth Infantry who found her little sisters, sick, emaciated, on the verge of starvation, in that same deserted camp, which was really no camp at all—only an overnight camp site. And though soldiers were constantly on the trail of the Indians, there was no spectacular dash by the military in the rescue the two older girls. When first taken into the main Cheyenne camp, in Texas, Chief Stonecalf told Catherine, who was then nearly eighteen years old, that he was grieved know that his people would do such a deed; that he would, Soon as possible, deliver them to the Cheyenne and Arapahoe Agency—and that he did. Catherine had much praise for Chief Stonecalf, and General Nelson A. Miles, their efforts in liberating them. Under Indian custom, girls were regarded as loot, and had to be bought from their captors.
Jim Smith, now living in the west part of Wetmore, went to school — at the Porter school house on Wolfley-creek—with the two younger German girls. Pat Corney, living on a farm adjacent to the J. P. Smith farm, was guardian of the girls.
Addie—Mrs. Frank Andrews—is still living, or was a few years ago, at Berwick in Nemaha county. A few years back, Mrs. Andrews was invited to appear on a radio program in New York, with all expenses paid—but she did not go. Amos Swerdfeger, husband of Catherine—and son of Adam Swerdfeger, who was among the first settlers here—died at Atascadero, California, Nov. 12, 1921, age 73. Catherine died in 1932, age 75.
These two Indian stories would make good reading now—and while they are in line with my endeavor to give a true picture of the old days, they are not included in this volume. Nothing but my own writings, since my retirement from the newspaper field appears in this book. However, slight reference to those two Indian attacks were made in my more recently published stories, which are reproduced in this book—just as they were written at the time. Many changes have taken place in the meantime.
After it became generally known here that the defenders of that fiercely fought Indian battle in Montana were former Wetmore citizens, many of our people came in from time to time to read the story. That page of the old files is pretty well thumbed.
About fifty years ago, a family by the name of Cummings came here and lived for a short while in the northwest part of town. Mrs. Cummings said she was the daughter of Andy Maxwell. I did not learn her given name, but supposed she was May. She called at the Spectator office, and read the story.
Then, in February, 1939, Mrs. Nettie E. Rachford, Westwood, California, wrote the Spectator asking for a copy of the story, saying she was the daughter of Andy Maxwell. I then copied the story from my files, and W. F. Turrentine printed it again in the Spectator, February 1939.