p grass. When we examined him, we
found seventeen bullet holes where he had been shot by the Indians. He
told me about falling in with Mrs. Eastlake and her three children.

They had all come from Lake Shetek. The settlement there comprised about
forty-five people. They had been attacked by the Indians under Lean Bear
and eight of his band, and the bands of White Lodge and Sleepy Eye,
although Sleepy Eye himself died before the massacre.

Many of the settlers knew the Indians quite well and had treated them
with great kindness. Mr. Ireland and his family were with the rest of
the settlers when they were overtaken by the Indians. Mrs. Ireland, Mr.
Eastlake and two of his children, were among the killed. Mrs. Eastlake
was severely wounded, and wandered for three days and nights on the
prairie searching for her two children, hoping they might have escaped
from the slough where the others met their death. Finally on the way to
New Ulm she overtook her old neighbor, Mr. Ireland, whom she supposed
killed, as she had last seen him in the slough pierced with bullets, but
he had revived and managed to crawl thus far, though in a sorry plight.
From him she received the first tidings from her two missing children.
Later on when she found her children, they were so worn by their
suffering she could hardly recognize them. The eldest boy, eleven years
old had carried his little brother, fifteen months old on his back for
fifty miles. All the baby had to eat was a little piece of cheese which
the older boy happened to have in his pocket. When within thirty miles
from New Ulm they found the deserted cabin of J. F. Brown in Brown
County, where Mrs. Eastlake and children, a Mrs. Hurd and her two
children, and Mr. Ireland lived for two weeks on raw corn, the only food
they could find. They dared not make a fire for fear the Indians would
see the smoke. Mr. Ireland had been so badly injured that he had not
been able to leave the cabin to get help, but finally was forced by the
extreme need of the women and children to start for New Ulm. He fell in
with a priest on the way, and together they came to our headquarters and
told their story. We started at four o'clock next morning, with a
company of soldiers and a wagon with a bed for the injured women. When
we reached the cabin the women were terribly frightened and thought it
was the Indians after them again. On our return to New Ulm we took a
different turn in the road. It was just as near a