San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1889-04-16
4 DESPERATE ESCAPE.

ulated whole counties of newly settled terri
tory in a single day-the 18th of August
and drove from the Minnesota frontiers thou
sands of people in few days time.
During this eventful period there were
many thrilling and desperate adventures and
hairbreadth escapes. The local historians,
who published narratives gathered at hap
hazard at the time, did all they could to cover
the ground of incident. The main facts and
causes of the bloody uprising have been COM
piled and preserved in several volumes pub
lished at St Peter and st. Paul
In one of these, several paragraphs are
devoted to the murder of the men in charge
of the stores at the isolated trading post on
the eastern shore of Big Stone lake. This &C
count briefly relates the desperate escape of
French and Indian boy Baptiste or Bat
Gubeau-as this common name among the
Canadian French is frequently abbreviated.
In the Minnesota massacre it was Little
Crows ruthless policy to exterminate all the
whites west of the Mississippi. Every one
with white blood in his veins who could not
or would not take part against the settlers
was to be killed. Contrary to the usual rule
in Indian wars the fur trader from the very
circumstance that he fancied he was safe, fell
aswift and easy victim TO the rife and Ratchet
of the Sioux.
All the employees of the four stores and
ware houses at Big Stone, Myrick'S, Forbes,
Roberts, Pratt & Cos were either French
habitans or half and quarter bloods of that
extraction. Among those of mixed blood was
the ware house boy" Bat Gubeau.
On the 21st of August four of Roberts men,
Bat and three Canadians, Patnode, Laundre
1 D., bay on,
near the lake shore below the post. They
were at work in their loose shirts and leg
gings, moving with scythes, one following
the other. Without a seconds warning a
party of Blanket" Sioux came up out of the
tall grass few rods distant and began firing
upon them Patnode, Pachette and Laundre,
who were ahead of Bat and most exposed to
to the Indian fire, were killed almost at the
first shot.
Young Gubeau saved his life from their
fire by quick wittedly throwing himself for
ward upon his face as though shot, lying
across the swath and blade of his scythe.
The Indians scalped his comrades and
stripped them of their hats and shoes then
several of them came to him and turned him
over He knew his captors well and could
understand their language almost as well as
the patois of his Canadian parents.
Don't kill me-" said he. "Why did you
shoot those menu they were always your
friends"
I'VE killed them" one replied, with black
looks, because all whites and fur men have
always cheated and lied to the Indians, and
we'll kill you because you are a dog of
mixed blood. We shall kill you when the
sun goes down, after a scalp dance and after
the squaws have burned the Indian blood
out of your body with brands from their
fires"
This is, in effect, what the savages said as
near as Baptiste could interpret it in his
broken English.
The speaker was a Wapekutu medicine
man well known at the trading post as q
malignant hater of the white men and con
slant fOmenter of bad feeling among his own
people.
While two Of the Indians were tying Bat's
hands behind him with strips of buckskin
the medicine man began prancing around and
telling, in a b5stful chant, the murders
which had been committed upon the white
settlers at the Lower Agency, at Beaver
Creek and Birch Coolie. He sang boastfully
that but two suns more would pass before
every white man west of Minnehaha would
die. The Sioux nation, possessed of the guns
and ammunition taken from the dead settlers
and soldiers, could hold its country and beat
back the white people always. Then he
warmed up and began recounting, after the
whoopiug, singsong fashion of his kind the
| exploits of himself and the others with him.
The possession of a prisoner who could I'M
derstand their peculiar chants and the brag-
gings in which they SO like to indulge was I'M
usual good fortune. The vauntings of the
medicine man seemed to act upon the savages
like the baneful charm some reptiles are said
to exercise. One by one they threw aside
their weapons and joined the medicine man
in his weird leaps and chantings about the
prisoner.
Bat said not word, but sat quietly his
shrewd eyes watching for chance to break
through the ring and escape He was strong
1.-THE, and swift runner, and a plan of &C
ton soon came to him He felt that it wa:
desperate enough, but it was his only chance
A bayou or narrow bay ran up from the
lake into the marsh upon which he and Iii
companions had been cutting hay, and the
head of it was distant not more than ter
minutes run. This strip Of water was grown
thickly about with PUSHES, and was from
four to six feet deep
If he could break away, escape bis pursu
ers' shots and outrun them, he thought h
might find a hiding. place among the rushe
until night shcSId cOIhe on.
.ESSEt tAa lima he hSd .cauvassed tb,
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