After some conversation among the chiefs they shook hands and the captives were surrendered to White Crow, who must now get the girls to Blue Mounds Fort to obtain the $2,000 reward. The Port was about eighty miles to the southwest in a bee line. By the nearest trail through the Madison lake region, it was about ninety-three miles; and by way of Portage and thence on the Military Road to the Blue Mounds Fort, it was about one hundred and seven miles. The Sacs and Foxes were along the former route, which meant great danger, and the Military Road was the best in that country. Therefore, White Crow chose the latter route. The horses were brought, riding switches were cut and White Crow and Whirling Thunder with their captives seemed ready to go. The squaws with whom the girls had been staying were very much grieved at parting with them, tears rolling down their cheeks, and the girls who now reciprocated the affection of the squaws, preferred to stay with them rather than to go with the warriors; but the chief’s stern orders had to be obeyed. At this trying moment of the girls, a young warrior suddenly stepped up to Rachel and with a large knife cut a lock of hair from over her right ear and another from the back of her head. At the same time he muttered to White Crow, in the Indian language, something which the girls afterwards learned, was that he would have Rachel back in three or four days. His example was followed by another Indian who stepped up to Sylvia and without leave or a word of explanation, cut a lock of hair from the front of her head and placed it in his hunting-pouch. Sometime afterward a number of Indians made an attack on Kellogg’s Grove colony (near Dodgeville, Wis.) and one of them who was shot by a miner named Casey had around his neck a lock of braided hair which was subsequently identified as that taken from the head of Rachel Hall. It might not be amiss, here, to state that among some of the Indian tribes the cutting of the hair had a mystical meaning closely allied to the life of a person, and was usually attended with religious rites. The first clipping of a child’s hair was retained for religious purposes. A scalp had a double meaning: it indicated an act of supernatural power that had decreed the death of the man, and it served as tangible proof of the warrior’s prowess over his enemies.[27] [27] 1, “Handbook of Am. Indians,” 524. [Illustration: WHERE HALL GIRLS ENTERED CANOES.] While the Indians were taking locks of hair from the girls, White Crow, Whirling Thunder, and a few more Indians, had mounted their horses, and with their captives on ponies, all rode off at a gallop, keeping up a rapid speed during the rest of the day and far into the night, the Indians looking back frequently.