"Is it quite certain that he did?" asked Grace.
"Quite," replied Grandma Elsie. "Lossing tells us that Proctor had offered a liberal sum for scalps, and that in consequence nearly all the wounded men were killed, their scalps carried to him at Malden, and such a bounty paid for them as is given for the destruction of so many wolves. In a footnote Lossing gives an extract from Niles' Weekly Register of April 3, 1813, in which it is stated that Mrs. Helm had arrived in Buffalo, and in the narrative she gave of her sufferings at and after the massacre at Chicago said, 'Colonel Proctor, the British commander at Malden, bought the scalps of our murdered garrison at Chicago,' and thanks to her noble spirit, she boldly charged him with the infamy in his own house."
"Did he deny it?" asked Evelyn.
"We are not told that he did; but no doubt he was angered, for he afterward treated both her and her husband with great cruelty, causing them to be arrested and sent across the wilderness from Detroit to Niagara frontier, in the dead of a Canadian winter. The writer also stated that Mrs. Heald had learned from the tribe with whom she was a prisoner, and who were the perpetrators of those murders, that they intended to remain true, but received orders from the British to cut off our garrison whom they were to escort.
"In our wars with England many British officers have shown themselves extremely cruel,—not a whit behind the savages in that respect,—but it would be very wrong to judge of the whole nation by their conduct; for there were in the mother country many who felt kindly toward America and the Americans. And I think," she added, with her own sweet smile, "that there are many more now."
"It seems Mrs. Helm too escaped with her life," said Walter; "but she was wounded, I presume, mother, since you just spoke of her sufferings both at and after the massacre."
"Yes, a stalwart young Indian attempted to scalp her; she sprang to one side, and the blow from his tomahawk fell on her shoulder instead of her head; at the same instant she seized him around the neck and attempted to take his scalping-knife, which hung in a sheath on his breast. Before the struggle was ended another Indian seized her, dragged her to the margin of the lake, plunged her in, and to her astonishment held her there in a way to enable her to breathe; so that she did not drown. Presently she discovered that he was the friendly Black Partridge, and that he was engaged in saving instead of trying to destroy her life.
"The wife of a soldier named Corbord fought desperately, suffering herself to be cut to pieces rather than surrender; believing that, if taken prisoner, she would be reserved for torture. The wife of Sergeant Holt was another brave woman. At the beginning of the engagement her husband was badly wounded in the neck, and taking his sword she fought like an Amazon. She rode a fine, spirited horse, which the Indians coveted, and several of them attacked her with the butts of their guns, trying to dismount her, but she used her sword with such skill that she foiled them; then suddenly wheeling her horse, she dashed over the prairie, a number of them in hot pursuit and shouting, 'The brave woman! the brave woman! don't hurt her!'"
"Did they overtake her?" asked Grace.
"Yes, at length; when a powerful savage seized her by the neck and dragged her backward to the ground while several others engaged her in front."