Breakfast being finished, the Indians cleared off a piece of ground about ninety feet in circumference and erected in the center a pole about twenty-five feet high, around which they set up fifteen spears, on the points of which were placed the scalps of the murdered friends of the girls. To the horror of the girls, they recognized the scalps of their father, mother and Mrs. Pettigrew. Upon three separate spears the Indians placed three human hearts, which added greatly to the horror of the girls. Was one of the hearts their mother’s? The Indians jabbered among themselves for awhile and then the squaws painted one side of the face of each of the girls red and the other side black. Then the girls were laid with their faces downward on blankets near the center, just leaving room for the Indians to pass between them and the pole. When these preliminaries were completed, the warriors, grasping in their hands their spears, which they occasionally struck into the ground, and yelling all the while as Indians only can, danced around the girls. Every moment while this was going on, the girls expected to be thrust through with the spears; but they had become so harrassed with dread of torture, that they almost wished to have death end their troubles. However, not one of the spears touched the girls, and outside of keeping them in terror, they were in nowise injured. After the warriors had continued their dance for about half an hour, two old squaws (one of whom was the wife of Black Hawk) led the girls away to a wigwam where they washed off the paint as well as they could by scrubbing them unmercifully. The squaws had adopted the girls, and, as the children of chiefs, they were not required to work. The Indians having finished their dance, struck their tents, and, after a good deal of bustle and confusion, the whole camp started in a northerly direction. When they reached a point beyond the grove, it seemed to the girls that the whole earth was alive with Indians. Probably not less than 4,000 warriors, squaws, and children constituted that army. Tired and sore from their former long ride and greatly exhausted by their constant fears, it was an extraordinary ordeal for the girls to plunge still farther into the wilderness. During traveling hours the girls were separated and each was placed in charge of two squaws. Whenever the army halted the girls were brought together, but always kept under the surveillance of the four squaws. Their march from Black Hawk’s Grove was very slow and over a broad prairie. Shortly before sundown the Indians pitched their tents at Cold Spring, about three miles southeast of Ft. Atkinson, near “Burnt Village,” the camp of Little Priest.[23] [23] Hist. of Jefferson Co., 327.