The ugliness of their real character for the first time appeared in their treatment of a settler by the name of Robert Hammond. It seems that Hammond resisted their thieving after he had admitted them to his cabin, with the result that he was badly beaten. This episode appears to have started the Indians upon their fiendish career. Having left Hammond helpless in his cabin, they turned, when some distance away, and literally shot the cabin door off its hinges. This was done, presumably, as a warning of what was likely to happen if they were further interfered with. They then left the settlement and continued their journey northward.
As he proceeded up the course of the Little Sioux, Inkpaduta followed the policy of sending out scouting and foraging parties into the surrounding country. At nearly every cabin found by these parties everything in the line of guns, food, and ammunition was either carried off or destroyed. Not infrequently the stock of the settler—hogs, cattle, or horses—was killed and left untouched: the Indians seemed now to be seeking to destroy rather than to take for their own use.
The next settlement reached by the band was Pilot Rock in Cherokee County. While pausing here for a brief time scouts were sent out in all directions through the surrounding country. Very little transpired at Pilot Rock other than the taking of food and arms. Here the Indians found no opposition upon the part of the settlers; and when they had satisfied themselves they left the community.
Another settlement visited was that of the Milford Colony, which was located a little north of the present town of Cherokee. Cattle and hogs were shot, doors torn from their hinges, and furniture ruined. Bedding was torn into shreds, and feather ticks were ripped open and the contents scattered upon the prairie. Here the Indians remained for three days; and while the settlers suffered only from fright and the destruction of property, they were only too happy to note the red men’s preparations for leaving.
The Indians had tarried at Milford Colony evidently for rest and recuperation, finding here more supplies than they had encountered elsewhere. This was doubtless due to the fact that the settlers, having but lately come west from Milford, Massachusetts, were well provided against possible future needs. For three days the Indians feasted and appeared to deliberate. Upon the evening of the third day two of the Milford pioneers returned from a business trip to Sac City. The arrival of Parkhurst and Lebourveau seemed to arouse the Indians’ suspicion. They demanded to be told from whence the settlers had come. Not having received the desired information they probably concluded they were being pursued and that night left the settlement. After the departure of the Indians, the Milford pioneers deserted the colony and sought refuge at various places—at Ashland, at Onawa, and at Smithland.
As they came to isolated cabins north of this settlement the Indians resorted to various modes of terrorizing the pioneers. At the cabin of Lemuel Parkhurst they amused themselves for an hour or more by striking their tomahawks into the floor and logs of the cabin, while flourishing scalping knives about the heads of the affrighted occupants. Mrs. Parkhurst finally pacified them by preparing a meal which she set before them. Having consumed this meal, they proffered the peace pipe, shook hands, and departed.
At the cabin of James A. Brown they seemed to be seeking entertainment rather than food. After compelling Brown to mount a hay stack, two Indians climbed up—one armed with a rifle, the other with a pitchfork. They amused themselves by testing the steadiness of Brown’s nerve. He was alternately lunged at by the possessor of the fork and levelled at by the holder of the gun. After thus amusing themselves for ten or fifteen minutes, the Indians allowed him to get down and go to his cabin. They then went to the stable, killed an ox, and attempted to steal a horse; but the animal was so vicious that they finally gave up the attempt and left. These are but incidents illustrative of the behavior of the Indians as they passed to the north of Cherokee and up the Little Sioux.[144]
Arriving in the northwestern corner of Buena Vista County, their conduct became, if possible, still more vicious. Wherever they appeared they were sullen, as contrasted with their tendency to talk and seek entertainment at points further down the river. Waste, violence, and cruelty now characterized their actions. At the home of a Mr. Weaver they not only wantonly shot all his hogs and cattle, but also roughly handled him and the members of his family. Satisfied with this, they moved off to the northwest.
They were next heard of at the home of H. H. Waterman in O’Brien County. The visit to the Waterman cabin, however, seems to have been from a scouting detachment rather than from the band as a whole. In Waterman’s own words “Seven big strapping Sioux bucks stopped at my house; they were so tall I had to look up at them”. They told him of the Smithland affair. Although they seemed much excited, Waterman paid little attention to their story for he recognized them as the same Indians that had called upon him more than once before. He did, however, become alarmed when they began stealing his property—to which he finally objected. But they took everything they could lay hands on; and ended by beating Waterman in the back and stringing him up by the thumbs. Apparently satisfied, they committed no further mischief, but departed in the direction from which they had come.[145]
After the episode at the Waterman cabin the band concentrated at the site of the present town of Peterson in southwestern Clay County, where they found white settlers—at which they were apparently much surprised. Peterson was only a short distance away from the cabins of Weaver in Buena Vista County and Waterman in O’Brien. Here it would seem they began in earnest the campaign of terror which was to end in massacre at the lakes and in the attack upon Springfield. They were no longer satisfied with thieving and pillaging; but the torturing of people and the taking of human life now seemed to be the pronounced bent and purpose of their raid. The mere presence of white people seemed to infuriate them to frenzied acts, and the wonder is that the general massacre of the settlers did not begin at Peterson rather than at Okoboji.