Reporter and farmer. [volume] (Webster, Day County, Dakota [S.D.]) 188?-1946, 1903-10-29
by D. e. POTTER.

oSt'So IA she paw tASo0 aS'Suo17
less women with these merciless
savages leaving all near and dear to
them mutulated and unburied to
bleach upon the prairies, and certain
of a fate a thousand times verse
than death awaiting them, dear
reader how would you have felt?
The teepees are nov struck and
horses, dogs, squaws and captives
are loaded with plumber, Abbie says
her load consisted Of the following
articles. Eight bars of lead, one
pint of bullets, n teepee cover
made of thick heavy cloth, one bel
comfort, one blanket, one iron bar
three feet long and one-half inch
thick, II gun and one piece Of wood
several inches wide and four feet
long to keep the pack in shape, she
says, the whole weighed about
seventy pounds, think of this load
for a girl Of thirteen years of age to
carry.
The reader must bear in mind it
wassnow March, the heavy SHOWS Of
the proceeding. winter were now
melting, the ground was covered
with slush and water as cold as ice,
streams were overhowing, and no
bridges across them, and no roads
to travel. part of the way fires had
swept over the prairies the fall
befofe and the sharp stubble of the
grass was almost like needles to the
lacerated bleeding feet of the cap
tives who had been compelled by
their cruel captors to throw away
their shoes and don the moccasin,
which in a short time would be worn
w
through and saturated with water,
their journey lay towards the north
west camping in the groves, never
two nights in the same place, thus
they travelled on till the 26th of
March, when they encamped at a
place called Huron Lake fifteen
miles from Springfield, Mimi, now
called jackson. From here all the
warriors but one who with the
squaws were left with the captives
taking special pains to inform the
captives what they intended to do at
Springfield. This was q new cause
of anguish for Abbie, as she had a
sister there who had gone there the
first of the winter to visit a sick
friend, and owing to the deep snow
had not returned home, and when
they returned two days later and
told by signs they had killed one
woman Abbie thought this might
have been her sister. They brought
back twelve horses loaded with
plumber consisting Of dry goods
groceries powder and lead. Early
the next morning they started for
the Dakotas, to the white man
unknown. As they tramped on day
after day through the deep snow and
oftimes Though streams of ice water
-aist deep, the hardships proved to
much for Mrs. Thatcher, whose babe
had been torn from her bosom, and
yet she bore up with remarkable
fortitude hoping the time might
come when she would be rescued
from her captors.
The provisions they had taken
from the whites lasted about four
weeks, then began the subsisting on
what they could get, and Abbie says
animals that had lain till putriica-
ton had well begun were devoured
with avidity. Fish found along the
shore that had lain till the flesh was
actually dropping from the bones
were eaten without being cooked and
pronounced "Was-ta-do' very-good)
and pass this We sensitive ones.
at vas no unusual thing to see the
most delicate bellies in Ink-pa-du-tas
train picking the yermine from the
head of a papocse and cracking them
in their teeth. / should have stated
that while encamped at Heron Lake,