ne that beggars description. The bodies, all warm
and limp, are dragged to the brow of the hill. Men, who at the sight
of blood become fiends, tear off the scalps, and hand them to the
chief, who hangs them around his neck. Women and children with
tomahawks and knives, cut deep gashes in the poor dead bodies, and
scooping up the hot blood with their hands, eagerly drink it. Then,
grown frantic, they dance and yell, and sing their horrid scalp-songs,
recounting deeds of valor on the part of their brave men, and telling
of the Sioux scalps taken in former battles, until, at last, tired and
satiated with their ghoul-like feast, they leave the mutilated bodies
festering in the sun. At nightfall they are thrown over the bluff into
the river, and my brother and myself, awe-struck and quiet, trace
their hideous voyage down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico. We
lie awake at night talking of the dreadful thing we have seen; and we
try to imagine what the people of New Orleans will think when they
see those ghastly up-turned faces; and we talk with quivering lips and
tearful eyes of "Little Six," and the many kind things he has done for
us--the bows and arrows, the mocauks of sugar, the pretty beaded
moccasins he has given us; and we wish, oh! we wish he could have run
faster, or that the Chippewa rifles had missed fire. And we sleep and
dream of scalps, and rifles, and war-whoops, and frightful yells, and
wake wishing it had all been a dream.

Next day the chief sat up in bed, painted himself for death, sang his
death song, and, with those five fresh, bloody scalps about his neck,
lay down and died calmly and peacefully in the comfortable hope, no
doubt, of a welcome in the "happy hunting grounds," prepared by the
"Good Spirit" for all those Indians who are faithful to their friends,
and avenge themselves upon their foes.

A few years ago, I told this story to another "Little Six." "Old
Shakopee," as he lay with gyves upon his legs, in our guard house at
Fort Snelling, awaiting execution for almost numberless cold-blooded
murders, perpetrated during the dreadful massacre of '62. He
remembered it all, and his wicked old face lighted up with joy as he
told me he was the son of that "Little Six" who made so brave a run
for his life, and he showed as much pride and pleasure in listening to
the story of his father's treacherous conduct, as the children of our
great generals will do some day, when they read or hear of deeds of
b