She often carried cakes and nuts in her pocket, and had something to give to this and that one, to draw them to her school. The present race of Dakotas remember Aunt Jane, as we called her, or Dowan Dootawin, _Red Song Woman_, as they called her, with tender interest, and many of them owe more to her than they can understand.
At this time, a translation of the first part of John Bunyan's Pilgrim, which I had prepared, was printed by the American Tract Society, and at once became a popular and profitable reading-book for the Dakotas.
1857-1862.--Spirit Lake.--Massacres by Inkpadoota.--The Captives.--Delivery of Mrs. Marble and Miss Gardner.--Excitement.--Inkpadoota's Son Killed.--United States Soldiers.--Major Sherman.--Indian Councils.--Great Scare.--Going Away.--Indians Sent After Scarlet End.--Quiet Restored.--Children at School.--Quarter-Century Meeting.--John P. Williamson at Red Wood.--Dedication of Chapel.
By the northern line of Iowa, where the head-waters of the Des Moines come out of Minnesota, is a lake, or group of lakes, called the "Minne Wakan," _Mysterious Water_, or, as the name goes, Spirit Lake. Sometime in 1855, this beautiful spot of earth was found and occupied by seven or eight white families, far in advance of other white settlements. In the spring of 1857, there were in this neighborhood and at Springfield, ten or fifteen miles above on the Des Moines, and in Minnesota, nearly fifty white persons. During the latter part of that winter the snows in Western Iowa and Minnesota were very deep, so that traveling on the prairies was attended with great difficulty.
It appears that during the winter a few families of annuity Sioux, belonging to the somewhat roving band of Leaf Shooters, had, according to their habit, made a hunting expedition down into Iowa, on the Little Sioux. _Inkpadoota_, or Scarlet End, and his sons were the principal men. The deep snows made game scarce and hunting difficult, so that when, in the month of March, this party of Dakotas came into the Spirit Lake settlement, they were in a bad humor from hunger, and attempted at once to levy blackmail upon the inhabitants. Their wishes not being readily complied with, the Indians proceeded to help themselves, which at once brought on a conflict with the white people, and the result was that the Indians massacred almost the entire settlement, killing about forty persons and taking four women captive.