lowed down to make the landing
a sight met our gaze that startled even the captain. The whole village of
several hundred Indians was in sight and a most frightful sight it was.
Everyone young and old was running about crying, wailing, with faces
painted black and white. They did not seem even to see the big steamer. It
was such an appalling spectacle that the captain deemed it best not to
land, but there were two men on board, residents of St. Paul returning from
St. Louis who got into a boat and went ashore.

They learned that there had been a fight in St. Paul the day before
between this band of Sioux and a party of Chippewas in which one of the
Sioux was killed and several wounded. It was not a very pleasant thing
to contemplate, for these people on board the boat were going to St.
Paul with their families to make homes in this far away west.

There were also on board some Sisters of Charity from St. Louis, one of
them Sister Victorine, a sister of Mrs. Louis Robert. They all fell on
their knees and prayed and wept and they were not the only ones who wept
either. There were many white faces and no one seemed at ease.

I remember my mother saying to my father, "Oh Thomas, why did we bring
these children into this wild place where there can be an Indian fight
in the biggest town and only ten miles from a fort at that."

The excitement had not subsided when St. Paul was reached, but the first
man that came on board as the boat touched the landing was my mother's
brother, Mr. W. W. Paddock. The sight of him seemed to drive away some
of the fear, as he was smiling and made light of the incident of the day
before. He took us up to the Old Merchants' Hotel, then a large rambling
log house and as soon as we had deposited some of our luggage, he said,
"Well, we will go out and see the battlefield." It was in the back yard
of our hotel, an immense yard of a whole block, filled with huge logs
drawn there through the winter for the year's fuel.

The morning of the fight, a party of Chippewas coming into St. Paul from
the bluffs saw the Sioux in canoes rounding the bend below and knowing
they would come up Third Street from their landing place, just below
Forbes' Store and exactly opposite the hotel, the Chippewas made haste
to hide behind the logs, and wait the coming of the Sioux.

The landlady, Mrs. Kate Wells, was standing on one of the logs, hanging
up some clothes on a line. Frightened almost to death at the sight of
t