Morning journal and courier., 1889-12-23

them when they left this country and went to their reservation in Iowa. And would like to go to Oregon now-as far west as could reach-and spend my last days in sight
 "An Indian you could trust. He keeps his word. Once I met an Indian out here on the bluff and he borrowed ten bullets of me. You couldn't get lead for making bullets short of Alton then. They were rather pre- cious. This young Indian said he would re- turn the bullets in . certain number of days when the sun was so high-hs lifted his hand to show about the middle of the fore noon-and meet me where we then stood. That day, within an hour of the time, that Indian was there with the bullets, and he had walked fifty miles to keep his word. Honestest folks ever saw.
 "Yes, I am wild man myself yet. I wish I could go to such another country as this was in 20. We came in 1917. My father moved his family into cave in the bluf, near spring. The time of the year was May. It was pretty living. We built our fire against the back of the cave, and the smoke oozed along the roof and went out the cave door without doing any damage. The mark of the smokes on that cave roof yet. The country was full of game. Only six white men were here then.
 "Once they had mill raising up the river. The mills standing yet.zet It ought to stand. u Ws1s Uullt OL blAUoES ALGccu AucueS s9 uAEos A rope broke at the raising, and one of the timbers fell and killed nearly all the men in ono countyl Six men. That's about all there were in that county.
 "But Seeley's mill over there; it was the place where every body used to grind. Folks brought their grists from Jacksonville and Springfield. Jacksonville and Springfield haven'r been where they are very long, though. went over their sites in 1891, and fharo wasn,f a houaa g
 ftSome fine men. came. out of this region arouna here.e There was Major Ringgold that died in the Mexican war; he used to be part owner of Seeley's mill. But some folks here in '23 didn't enjoy this country. A mans wife got sick and wanted pound of tea, and he walked clear to St. Louis te get 1t for her. He moved back east. He said it was too hard for him here.
 "The women did have ecares. This was when the British gave bounty on scalps. Some Indians went down Wood river and killed six children and woman and brought away their scalps-the quirl of the head, you know, where the hair grows around. Major Pruitt and some more whites got on horses and chased them down. They killed an In- dian, and the rest ran for twenty-four hours and bled to death at the nose they got 50 ex- hausted. Shabbona told me about their bleeding to death. He was the only ono got | scalp to her husband.
 "It was little Til Pruitt, my wife's sister, that got lost, and had all the men bstwixt here and Alton turned out to hunt hsr.
 'fHer mother was sick abed when it hap pened and afterward died of the scare. Til slipped out after her cousins when they went into the woods to hunt greens. Her mother thought she was with her father at his chop ping. She was barefooted and bareheaded and had on nothing but cotton slip. It was the 9th day of April, 1920. She was gone two nights and two days. One night she slept in the bed of @ dry run where leaves had drifted thick. She followed the course of @ stream, and that's how she got lost. IL made crook and turned her. She wsded across. The folks out hunting found her lit tie footprints, and bears tracks close by. Til was about years old. The men hunted down the bear and killed him, and cut him open, but he hadn't got hold of the child. When they found her she was asleep. They wouldn't have found her easy if she'd been awake. She'd got pretty wild. She says when she saw anybody or heard the shout ing she'd hide. She was afraid of men that were not her dad. Her feet were all cut and bloody, and her slip was in tatters. Every man had carried hunk of bread and mea, in his pocket to feed her with when they found her, and she was nigh starved, and weak, and they carried her to her father More than hundred men took dinner al Fruits the day Til was found. There was frost both nights that she was out. The woods were full of bears and wildcats and painters and Indians.
 "Yes I did know couple of children tha 1 were carried off and brought up among the Indians; two girls, one not 4 years old Taken prisoners, and the oldest one never got back, but the youngest one-I found hel out here at the point of the bluff. She was with the tribe. I knew her, though she was woman of 30 then and had an Indian hus band and two half breed children-boy and girl. The boy was named Baptiste and the girl was named Kloteed. Kloteed is an In- dian name.
 "As soon as that woman satisfied herself she wasn't an Indian but was white, she took her children and left her husband. She went to live with her white uncle's family uncle that lived not far from here.
 "Her husband would come and stand by the window and cry two or three days at 6 time, but she wouldn't go back. He begged her to go, but she wouldn't do it.. The chill dren both got sick and died. They couldn'i stand life in house. They were made to be free Indians and not live shut indoors But she never went back to the tribe any more."