In their fiendish desire for revenge for Stillman’s treachery and to terrify the whites, the Indians cut out the hearts of some of the slain and otherwise mutilated their bodies. Of all the whites none but Rachel and Sylvia Hall remained alive to witness the closing act of the horrible tragedy. As they saw scattered in the yard the bodies of their murdered parents, their sister, and their neighbors--sixteen in all, the girls were stupefied with horror. The wonder is that the shock did not kill both of them. The massacre has been described so often, and is so sickening in its particulars, that we drop the curtain on the tragic scene.[15] [15] 3 Smith’s “History of Wisconsin”, 187; “History of La Salle County,” Baldwin, 95; “The Black Hawk War,” Stevens, 150; “Memories of Shabona,” Matson, 145-155; _Ottawa Journal_, Aug. 30, 1906; 12 Transactions Ill. State Hist. Soc., 332; Ford’s History of Illinois, 122. CHAPTER V. THE CAPTIVITY. A person never knows what he would do under conditions and circumstances never before experienced: a mother who would flee from a cow, would, to protect her child, fight a tiger without thought of her own safety; a timid deer that would flee from a baby, when its nature is changed by a serious wound will fight a hunter to death; a soldier’s nature becomes so changed in battle that he obeys orders like an automaton and in his efforts to kill men exerts himself until the sweat rolls down his face as it would down the face of a harvest hand mowing grass. Sylvia and Rachel Hall, who in the peace of their home would faint at the sight of blood, had their nature so changed during the slaughter and mutilation of their dear relatives and friends that they viewed the scene with horror that almost paralyzed them and put them in a psychological condition of mental aberration. The spell of lethargy was rudely broken when the girls were dragged off as captives, first to the creek, and, after Rachel had been pulled half way across the stream, then back again to the yard. There two Indians, each seizing one of Sylvia’s hands, and two others taking Rachel in a similar manner, hustled the girls northward along the easterly side of the creek. The girls were soon in unknown lands through which they were tugged on, and on, not knowing whither nor to what fate. Did they cry? Of course they did; strong men would have wept under similar circumstances. Did they pray? Yes; but their prayers were not like the Pharisee’s: they prayed with an intense feeling from the bottom of their hearts and with all the power of their souls. Were their prayers answered? Were they? Read on, read on!