Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 1.djvu/449



suddenly turned their guns upon them and fired, killing both men before they could seize their rifles. They then caught the two children from their mother’s arms and swinging them by their feet against a tree near the door, crushed their brains out. They plundered the house, killed the cattle and hogs, then dragging Mrs. Noble and Mrs. Thatcher with them, started for their camp. With a refinement of cruelty peculiar to their race, they took Mrs. Noble back to the Howe cabin, where with unspeakable horror she saw the mangled bodies of her mother, sister and four brothers. Jacob, her thirteen year old brother, was still alive, and while the Indians were killing the cattle, she tried to get him into a bed in the house, hoping he might be saved, but the savages discovered him and beat his brains out, while his sister stood by powerless to protect him.

The Indians remained about the lakes until the 13th, while William Marble and his young wife in their cabin on the shores of Spirit Lake knew nothing of the terrible fate that had overtaken every family of their neighbors. They were several miles from any other house and, as the snow was very deep, Mr. Marble had not ventured away from home and had heard nothing to alarm him. On that morning, soon after breakfast, as Mrs. Marble relates, looking out of the cabin window, a band of painted and armed Indians was seen approaching. They came into the house and professed friendship. One of them wanted to exchange his rifle for a very fine one belonging to Mr. Marble, who, fearing to offend them, agreed to the trade. They then proposed shooting at a mark. Mr. Marble fired first and stepped forward to examine the target, when the treacherous savages shot him in his back. Mrs. Marble, who had been anxiously watching them from the window, in fear for her husband’s safety, sprang out with piercing screams as he fell, and threw her arms around her murdered husband, in the agony of despair. He was dead, and she was alone, in the hands of his brutal