Page:History of Goodhue County, Minnesota.djvu/133

 HISTORY OF GOODHUE COUNT'S 95 heavy burdens by day, and to cut wood, build fires and do other camp duty when night came. In consequence of poor health and recent childbirth, Mrs. Thatcher became burdensome, and at Big Sioux river, when attempting to cross on the trunks of trees fallen from the opposite banks, she was pushed off into the deep, cold water by one of the Indians. She swam to the shore, when they pushed her back into the current, and then shot at •her, as if she were a target, until life was extinct. In May two men from Lac qui Parle, who had been taught to read and write, while on their spring hunt found themselves in the neighborhood of Inkpadootah and his party. Having heard that they held some American women in captivity, the two brothers visited the camp, though this was at some risk of their own lives, since Inkpadootah 's hand was now against every man, and found the outlaws and succeeded in bargaining for Mrs. Marble, whom they conveyed to their mother's mission and reclothed in civilized costume. From thence she was con- veyed to St. Paul, where the citizens welcomed her and made up a purse of $1,000. with which she was presented. The rescue of the other two women was now resolved upon, and Flandrau, the Dakota agent, commissioned a ''good Indian" named Paul by the whites to accomplish their redemption. He was fitted out with a wagon, two horses and some valuable presents, and started on his mission. He found Inkpadootah and his iniquitous cut-throats with a band of Yanktons on the James river. Only Miss Gardner was living. Mrs. Noble had been murdered a few nights before. She had been ordered to go out and be subject to the wishes of the party, and refusing to go, a son of Inkpadootah dragged her out by the hair of her head and killed her. The next morning a Dakota woman took Miss Gardner out to see the corpse, which had been horribly treated after death. By perseverance and large presents, Paul succeeded in redeeming Miss Gardner, and she was taken to the mission house. From there she was taken to St. Paul, from whence she was sent to her sister in Iowa. The same year, about the last of June or first of July. Ink- padootah 's son, said to have been the murderer of Mrs. Noble, was killed while seeking to escape arrest for that cruel butchery. Keports became current that he was in camp on l^ellow Medicine river. Flandrau and a detachment of soldiers from Fort Ridgely, acompanied by some Indian guides, started for the camp to arrest him. As they approached the camp the alarm was given and the murderer ran from his lodge and concealed himself in the brush near the river, but was soon uncovered and shot by United States soldiers. The rest of the gang managed to escape, and are said to have taken refuge beyond the Missouri river.