All was confusion. William Hawley was inside guard at the door of the room we were in upstairs. He was just out of the hospital and was very weak. In spite of this he had gone with the soldiers to Redwood and had just returned after crawling out from under his dead companions and creeping through the brush and long grass those dreadful miles. He was all in. His gun had a fixed bayonet. My eyes never left those squaws for a moment. I was sure they were spies who would go to the devils outside and tell them of the weakness of the fort. Two of the squaws began to fight about a fine tooth comb. The more formidable of the two, with much vituperation, declared she would not stay where the other one was. Just at the height of the fight, a gun outside was fired. The minute it was fired, the squaw started for the door. I suspected that it was a signal for her to come outside, and tell what she knew. Hawley had left his post and come in among us. Our babies were on a field bed on the floor. Calling to Mrs. Dunn to look after them, I sprang to the door and grabbed the discarded gun. At that moment, the squaw tried to pass. I ordered her back. She called me a "Seechy doe squaw" meaning "mean squaw" and tried to push me back. I raised the bayonet saying, "Go back or I'll ram this through you." She went back growling and swearing in Sioux. Probably in half an hour I was relieved of my self-appointed task. Martin Tanner taking my place, I said to him, "Don't let that squaw get away." I sat down on a board over some chairs and made the squaw sit beside me. There we sat all that long night with my right hand hold of my knife and the other holding her blue petticoat. Didn't she talk to me and revile me? None of the others even tried to leave. At last we saw the dawn appear. Have you ever been in great danger where all was darkness where that danger was? If so, you will know what an everlasting blessing that daylight was. From our upper windows we could look out and see that our foes were not yet in sight. All night long among the refugees, praying, supplicating and wailing for the dead, was constant, but as the light came and we began to bestir ourselves among them, nursing the wounded and feeding the hungry, this ceased and only the crying of the hungry children was heard. The Indians had driven away all the stock so there was no milk. My baby had just been weaned. All those ten days we stayed in the fort, I fed her hard tack and bacon; that was all we had. I chewed this for her. There were many nursing mothers, but all were sustaining more than their own.