Mr. Pettigrew attempted to barricade the door, but was shot down amidst shrieks and whoops, signals for the slaughter which followed. The men at the blacksmith shop were so completely surprised that no opportunity for defense was offered. Hall was instantly dispatched. Norris attempted resistance, but his gun was seized and in another instant he, too, was dead. Davis, the strongest of the party, fought desperately by clubbing his rifle, but to no purpose against such frightful odds, for no sooner would he dispose of one antagonist than others would take his place with added ferocity, for Davis was the man they most of all hated and feared, and well he earned the distinction of being a fighter on that dreadful day. The ground about his dead body was torn and bloody, indicating a conflict second only to the hand-to-hand contest of gallant Captain Adams at Stillman’s defeat. The brains of children were dashed out against a stump; the women were butchered, and, after the most revolting mutilations, their bodies were hanged, heads downward, to neighboring trees.[135] Young William Davis and John W., a son of William Hall, made their escape after desperate chances. Henry George, in attempting to escape, jumped into the mill pond, but a bullet quickly disposed of him. Spears, knives, tomahawks and rifles performed their bloody and deadly offices, and the fiends afterward confessed they relished the sight because the women squawked like ducks as the steel penetrated their flesh. Mrs. Davis, in her fright, threw both arms about Rachel Hall, and when shot down the muzzle of the rifle had been so close as to burn the flesh to a blister. Aside from the few who escaped, but two, Sylvia and Rachel Hall, aged, respectively, seventeen and fifteen years, were spared, whether from a sentimental demand made by the two Indians, To-qua-mee and Co-mee, before consenting to act as guides, or for the purpose of ransom, cannot be definitely determined, but from subsequent developments it is probable that both reasons were factors in their preservation. These two Indians, who subsequently confessed their part in the affair to Louis Ouilmette, after their acquittal, insisted that it was agreed the two young ladies should be spared because of the infatuation of those young red men for them. They had been frequent visitors at the Hall home, and endeavored, after the fashion of the Indian, to purchase the girls from Mr. Hall. Following is the narrative of the captivity of the Hall girls, reduced to writing by them and John W. Hall, the manuscripts being now in possession of Hon. James H. Eckles of Chicago, and by him loaned to be used herein. Mrs. Eckles is a granddaughter of Mrs. Munson. “A short and concise account of the capture, treatment and rescue of the two Misses Hall. The capture occurred on the 20th of May, 1832, in the afternoon, by the Sacs and Foxes, and the rescue on the 1st of June following.