“His wife does,” she answered. “I am forced to do all manner of slavish work, and when my strength fails, I am urged on by blows. Oh! I do so fearfully dread the chilling winters, without proper food or clothing; and I long to lie down and die, if God’s mercy will only permit me to escape from this hopeless imprisonment. I have nothing to expect now. I did once look forward to release, but that is all gone. I strove to go with the others, who were ransomed at Fort Pierre, and Mrs. Wright plead for me with all her heart; but the man who bought me would not give me up, and my prayers were useless.
“Mr. Dupuy, a Frenchman, who brought a wagon for the redeemed women and children, did not offer enough for me; and when another man offered a horse my captor would not receive it.
“There were many prisoners that I did not see in the village, but I am left alone. The Yanktons, who hold me, are friendly by pretense, and go to the agencies for supplies and annuities, but at heart they are bitterly hostile. They assert that, if they did not murder and steal, the Father at Washington would forget them; and now they receive presents and supplies to keep them in check, which they delight in taking, and deceiving the officers as to their share in the outbreaks.”
Her dread of soldiers was such that she had never attempted to escape, nor did she seem to think it possible to get away from her present life, so deep was the despair into which long-continued suffering had plunged her.
Sad as my condition was, I could not but pity poor Mary’s worse fate. The unwilling wife of a brutal savage, and subject to all the petty malice of a scarcely less brutal squaw, there could be no gleam of sunshine in her future prospects. True, I was, like her, a captive, torn from home and friends, and subject to harsh treatment, but no such personal indignity had fallen to my lot.
When Mary was first taken, she saw many terrible things, which she related to me, among which was the following:
One day, the Indians went into a house where they found a woman making bread. Her infant child lay in the cradle, unconscious of its fate. Snatching it from its little bed they thrust it into the heated oven, its screams torturing the wretched mother, who was immediately after stabbed and cut in many pieces.