Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1889-05-25
A DESPERATE ESCAPE.


populated whole counties of newly-settlet
territory in a single day-the 18th O
August-and drove from the Minnesots
frontiers thousands of people in a few days
time.
During this ~eventful period there were
many thrilling and desperate adventures
and hairbreadth escapes. The local his.
t%orians, who published narratives gathered
at haphazard at the time, did all they
could to cover the ground Of incident
The main facts and causes of the bloody
uprising have been complied an5 pre-
served in several volumes published 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 account briefly relates the des-
perate escape of a French and Indian boy,
Baptiste or " Bat Gubeau-as this COM
mon name anon 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 ira
der, from the very circumstance that he
fancied he was safe, fell swift and easv
victim to the rifle and Ratchet Of the
Sioux.
All the employees of the four stores and
warehouses at Big Stone, Myrick's, Forbes
Roberts, Pratt & Co.'S were either French
habitants or half and quarter tlsod of hat
extraction. Among those Of mixed blood
was the warehouse boy" Bat Gubeau.
On the 2lst of August four of Roberts
men, Bat and three Canadians, Patnode,
Laundre and Pachette, were cutting hay
on a marsh near the lake shore below the
post. They were at work in their loose
shirts and leggings, moving with scythes,
one following the other. Without a sec
ond's warning a party of {" Blanket Sioux
came up out of the tall grass a few rods
distant and began firing at them. Pant
node, Pachette and Laundre, who were
ahead of Bat and most exposed to the In
0iuh IlS, W6lC hlitS0 dlluDSL dt Luc uISL
shot. .
Young Guheau saved his life from their
fire by qu~ick-wittedly throwing himself
forward 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 them over. He knew his captors
well and could understand their language
almost as well as the patois of his Cana
dian parents.
"Don't kill me-" said he. "Why did
you shoot these men? They were always
your friends"
"We 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 a 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 t~rading-post as a
malignant hater of the white men and a
constant fomenter of bad feeling among his
own people.
While two of the Indians were tying
Bats hands behind him with strips of
buckskin, the medicine man began pranc-
ing around and telling, in a boastful chant,
the murders which had been committed
upon the white settlers at the Lower
Agency, q. Beaver Creek and Birch Coolie.
sang boastfully that but two suns more
would pass before every white man west of
Minnehaha would die. The Sioux nation,
possessed Of 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 whooping,
singsong fashion of his kind, the exploits
of himself and the others with him.
The possession of a prisoner who could
understand their peculiar chants and the
braggings in which they SO like to indulge
was unusual 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
n they threw aside their weapons and
Joined the medicine man in his wierd leaps
and chantings about the prisoner.
Bat said not a word, but sat quietly, his
shrewd eyes watching for a chance to
break through the ring and escape. He
wa strong, 1.-THE, and a swift rGnner, and a
plan of action soon came to him. He felt
that it was 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
his companions had been cutting hay, and
the head of 1t was distant not more than a
ten minutes run. This strip of water was
grown thickly about with rushes, and was
from four to six feet deep.
If he could break away, escape his pur-
suers' shots and outrun them, be thought
be might find a hiding place among the
rushes until night should come on.
About the time he had canvassed the
chances of this plan, the Indians about
him had begun to wind up their dancing,
with a peculiar gyrating movement known
among them as the moon dance. in it the
dancers wheel. slowly about bow-leggedly.
lettering first upon one foot and then upon
the other, and s~waying the body from the
hips in a snake-like movement. The head
is rolled in imitation Of a lolling bear, and
the arms are worked writhingly while the
wriggling savage sings, in a most lugubri-
Gus, grunting tone: "E-yungh, e-yungh.
Hi-yee, hi-yerl E-yongh, e-yongh p
The prisoner kept his eye upon one Of
the Indians, whom he knew-for he knew
them all well-tob be the best runner among
them. As this one swung around between
himself and the line OF retreat he had
marked out, Bat sprang up, and with an
agile jump, planted both heels of the army
shoes he wore in the small of the dam
GERS back.
The Indian went down with a screech of
pain and surprise, as the keen-witted Can
adian passed over him and shot away to-
ward the lake.
Certain that he had disabled their
swiftest runner, Bat felt chiefly concerned
for the moment in lodging bullets and ar
rows. He sprang this way and that at as
sharp angles as he could, and at the same