eks ago, Col. Snelling heard from some hunters, who had been
far out west, that there were two little white boys held captive by a
band of Sioux; he sent out some troops, who rescued the children, and
they reached the Fort this morning with the boys; the oldest one,
John, is at the Colonel's, and this is the other, 'Andrew Tully;'
shall we keep him with us?" "Oh, yes! father, we want him for our
little brother;" and he became one of us. In time we learned from
John, who was a bright boy, and from the rescuing party, who had heard
some particulars, that Mr. David Tully, a Scotchman, had been living
three years at the Selkirk settlement, where the crops had been so
poor, from various causes, notably from the grasshoppers and the
ravages of innumerable black birds, that a famine was threatened, and
he, becoming discouraged, had started, with his wife and children, two
boys and an infant daughter, to come to the Fort, hoping in some way
to continue his journey from there to the white settlements, and find
work to enable him to live and support his family comfortably.

After traveling for many days, they were overtaken by a party of
Sioux, who, returning from an unsuccessful hunt, were in a very bad
humor, and attacking Mr. Tully, demanded such provisions as he had. He
refused, of course, to give up that, without which his family must
perish, and they fell upon him, soon disabled him, and seizing the
little baby, dashed its brains out on the ice, then mortally wounded
his wife, and with a blow of his hatchet, one of the party finished
them both. John says he remembers seeing his father, who had broken
through the ice, struggling to save his mother and the baby, but that
when they knew there was no hope left, his parents told him to take
his little brother and hide in the bushes, and to try in every way to
get to the settlements. Then, with their dying breath, they besought
God to take care of their little boys, and their freed spirits went
beyond the reach of pain and suffering. The little fellows obeyed
them, and ran for safety to some hazel brush near by, where, of
course, the Indians soon found them, but their thirst for blood being
somewhat allayed, and their object attained, they contented themselves
with cutting off a piece of John's scalp, tearing it most brutally
from the quivering flesh, when the squaws from some tepees near by,
hearing his heartrending screams, came to the rescue, and begged that
they might keep th