Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 1.djvu/465



stepped forward and volunteered to go on the perilous mission. On the morning of the 2d of April, the command separated, the main body under Major Williams turned back to the Irish colony, while Captain Johnson’s party started for the lakes. They reached East Okoboji about two o’clock, guided by Thatcher to his own cabin. A horrible sight confronted him. His home was in ruins, and lying in the yard were the dead bodies of his friends, Noble and Ryan, as they had fallen three weeks before, when surprised and shot down by the treacherous Sioux. Inside of the cabin nothing was left but the ghastly forms of the two little children who had been snatched from the arms of their terrified mothers, Mrs. Thatcher and Mrs. Noble. The fate of the two young mothers who were dragged off by the Indians was then unknown. From cabin to cabin, all through the settlement the company went, burying the dead, until all were laid beneath the snow-covered ground.

Not a living person of the entire colony was found. Mr. Marble’s body had been buried by the soldiers from Fort Bidgely. The body of young Dr. Herriott was found near Mattocks’ cabin, with his right hand still grasping his broken rifle, the barrel empty, where he had fallen in a hand-to-hand struggle with the Indians, bravely defending his neighbors. The bodies of Luce and Clark were not found until some weeks later, near the outlet of the lake. Their sad mission ended, the burial party started on the 4th of April on their homeward march, their provisions entirely consumed.

The weather was warm and the melting snow filled the sloughs with water, in many places waist deep, through which the men had to wade, wetting their clothing to the shoulders. About four o’clock the wind, which had been in the south, suddenly changed to the northwest and in half an hour a howling blizzard was sweeping down upon them. Their clothes were soon frozen stiff. Some of the party had taken their boots off to wade the sloughs, and