rendered. They stipulated, however, for their own safety and for
the safety of their remaining women and children. The wounded prisoners,
however, in the hurry of the moment, were unfortunately omitted, or rather
not particularly mentioned and were therefore regarded by the Indians as
having been excluded.

One of the soldiers' wives, having frequently been told that prisoners
taken by the Indians were subjected to tortures worse than death, had from
the first expressed a resolution never to be taken; and when a party of
savages approached to make her their prisoner, she fought with
desperation; and, though assured of kind treatment and protection, refused
to surrender, and was literally cut in pieces and her mangled remains left
on the field.

After the surrender, one of the baggage wagons, containing twelve
children, was assailed by a single savage and the whole number were
massacred. All, without distinction of age or sex, fell at once beneath
his murderous tomahawk.

Captain Wells, who had as yet escaped unharmed, saw from a distance the
whole of this murderous scene; and being apprized of the stipulation, and
seeing it thus violated, exclaimed aloud, so as to be heard by the
Pottawatomies around him, whose prisoner he then was, "If this be your
game, I will kill too!" and turning his horse's head, instantly started
for the Pottawatomie camp, where the squaws and Indian children had been
left ere the battle began. He had no sooner started, than several Indians
followed in his rear and discharged their rifles at him as he galloped
across the prairie. He laid himself flat on the neck of his horse, and was
apparently out of their reach, when the ball of one of his pursuers took
effect, killing his horse and wounding him severely. He was again a
prisoner; as the savages came up, Winnemeg and Wa-ban-see, two of their
number, and both his friends, used all their endeavors in order to save
him; they had disengaged him already from his horse, and were supporting
him along, when Pee-so-tum, a Pottawatomie Indian, drawing his
scalping-knife, stabbed him in the back, and thus inflicted a mortal
wound. After struggling for a moment he fell, and breathed his last in the
arms of his friends, a victim for those he had sought to save--a sacrifice
to his own rash intentions.

[Illustration: WINNEMEG, OR THE CATFISH.]

The battle having ended, and the prisoners being secured, the latter were
conducted to the Pottawatomie camp ne