"That is Mrs. Heald," cried Mrs. Kinzie. "That Indian will kill her. Run Chandonnais," to one of Mr. Kinzie's clerks, "Take the mule that is tied there and offer it to him to release her."
Her captor by this time was in the act of disengaging her bonnet from her head in order to scalp her. Chandonnais ran up, offered the mule as a ransom, with the promise of two bottles of whisky as soon as they should reach his village. The latter was a strong temptation. "But," said the Indian, "She is badly wounded—she will die—will you give me the whisky at all events?" Chandonnais promised he would, and the bargain was concluded. The savage placed the lady's bonnet on his own head and after an ineffectual effort on the part of some squaws to rob her of her shoes and stockings, she was brought on board the boat, where she lay moaning with pain from the many wounds she had received in both arms.
In this narrative the Indian bargains that he shall have his booty whether the prisoners live or die. This stipulation indicates the savage's view of the value of a prisoner. If likely to live, and therefore exchangeable for ransom, then his life might be spared; if not, then he belonged to his captor and could be used for the keen delight of torture. This is probably the idea which inspired the hellish notion of the exclusion of the wounded from Captain Heald's capitulation. For the unhurt they could get ransom, therefore they would spare their lives. But the wounded! Why spare them? They are not merchantable. Nobody will give anything for a dead man. The dying are available for only one profit—torture.
When the boat was at length permitted to return to the mansion of Mr. Kinzie, and Mrs. Heald was removed to the house, it became necessary to dress her wounds. Mr. K. applied to an old chief who stood by, and who, like most of his tribe, possessed some skill in surgery, to extract a ball from the arm of the sufferer. "No, father," he replied, "I cannot do it; it makes me sick here," laying his hand on his heart. Mr. Kinzie then performed the operation himself with his penknife.
The discrepancy observable between this account and that of Mrs. Heald herself, which says that on that night she was cared for by squaws in the Indian encampment, may be explained away by supposing that it was on the following day, after the Kinzies had got back to their home on the north bank, that Mrs. Kinzie caught sight of her friend and sent Chandonnais to her rescue in one of the boats they always used for passing and repassing the river, at about where Rush Street bridge now stands. The fact that no mule could well have been tied where the boat lay offshore, near the river's mouth, makes this seem the probable explanation of the incongruity.
At their own mansion the family of Mr. Kinzie were closely guarded by their Indian friends, whose intention it was to carry them to Detroit for security. The rest of the prisoners remained at the wigwams of their captors.
Mrs. Helm, Mr. Kinzie's step-daughter, must have been among those once more housed at the historic building of squared logs built about 1776, by Pointe de Saible. This house was still standing when the village had become, in name at least, a city, which it did in 1837. Mr. Kinzie had planted along its front four poplar trees, and they appear in the early pictures of Chicago. Doubtless, if one were to dig in the open space on the east side of Pine Street, at its junction with Kinzie street, the old roots would be found to this day (1893), and there are probably a hundred living Chicagoans who remember having seen the house itself.
The following morning, the work of plunder having been completed, the Indians set fire to the fort. A very fair, equitable distribution of the finery appeared to have been made, and shawls, ribbons and feathers fluttered about in all directions. The ludicrous appearance of one young fellow, who had arrayed himself in a muslin gown and the bonnet of one of the ladies, would, under other circumstances, have afforded matter of amusement.
Black Partridge, Wan-ban-see and Kee-po-tah, with two other Indians, having established themselves in the porch of the building as sentinels, to protect the family from any evil the young men might be excited to commit, all remained tranquil for a short space after the conflagration. Very soon, however, a party of Indians from the Wabash made their appearance. These were, decidedly, the most hostile and implacable of all the tribes of the Pottowatomies. Being more remote, they had shared less than some of their brethren in the kindness of Mr. Kinzie and his family, and consequently their sentiments of regard for them were less powerful.