Page:History of the Ojibway Nation.djvu/485

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OJIBWAYS IN 1827 ATTACKED AT FORT SNELLING.
475

by a bullet, and though she received attention from Surgeon McMahon, soon died.

Captain Clark the next morning went in pursuit of the assassins, and thirty-two prisoners were soon brought back from Land's End. Colonel Snelling ordered them to be brought into the presence of the Ojibways who were on the parade ground, and two being recognized as participants in the attack were delivered to the aggrieved party, who led them out to the plain in front of the fort gate, and when placed at a certain distance, were told to run for their lives. With the rapidity of frightened deer they bounded over the ground, but the Ojibway bullets flew faster, and they soon fell lifeless to the ground.[1] After the execution, the Ojibways entered the fort, and the same day a deputation of Sioux warriors arrived to express sorrow for the act of their young men, and to deliver two more of the assassins.

The Ojibways under a son of Flat Mouth met the Sioux on the prairie, near where the Indian agent resided, and with much solemnity two more of the guilty were delivered. One was fearless, and with firmness stripped himself of his clothing and ornaments, and distributed them. The other could not face death with composure.[2] He was disfigured by a hare-lip and begged for life. H.H. Snelling mentions that "their inanimate bodies no sooner touched the ground than both Sioux and Chippewas rushed to the spot, and thrusting their knives into the still warm flesh of the brave men, drew them reeking with blood, through their lips, saying, that the blood of so brave men would inspire courage in the weakest heart. The

  1. Accounts vary. H.H. Snelling writes that they refused to run, and, facing their foes, told them to fire.
  2. Major Garland told Schoolcraft that the two walked to execution hand in hand, when one perceiving that his comrade trembled, drew away his hand, and said be would be ashamed to die by the side of a coward. Schoolcraft's Reminiscences, p. 618.