Thomas L. McKenney, who gained the woman’s story from her own lips, has narrated it in a manner worthy so illustrious a writer, disclosing a heroism sufficient to warrant the erection to her memory of a monument more than a little pretentious. In the order of mundane things, however, heroines fare very badly when burly heroes can be found or manufactured to consume the contributions of a hero-loving public, and probably Madam Gagnier will get no monument. Next evening a keel-boat, its sides literally filled with leaden balls, arrived from Fort Snelling, bearing the dead bodies of two of its crew and four wounded members, two mortally and two slightly; also the body of a dead Indian, the result of a conflict of unusual fierceness and inequality with Sac and Winnebago Indians at the mouth of the Bad Axe about sunset of the 26th. This boat, the Oliver H. Perry, with its consort, had gone up to Fort Snelling, under the command of Captain Allen Lindsay, some time before, and meeting on the route[60] with many exactions and exasperating and suspicious ovations from the Dakotas whose villages were along the river, asked and received at Fort Snelling thirty-two muskets and a quantity of powder and ball. Arriving on the downward passage[61] at the the last of their villages, Wa-ba-sha, now Winona, Minnesota, the Dakotas were found dancing a war dance and making threats, but, offering no resistance (the Winnebagoes and Sacs present having assumed that dangerous function), Captain Lindsay very naturally considered all danger over and allowed the boats, which had been lashed together for protection, to separate. That which sat deeper in the water, having the advantage of the river’s undercurrents, gained several miles’ advantage. This boat, commanded by a Sac half-breed named Beauchamp, was manned by a crew of sixteen, officers and men. The Frenchmen of the party, growing suspicious of the actions of new bands of Indians gathering as the boat approached the Bad Axe, urged the crew to caution, but the usual contempt for Indian prowess and the thought that all danger had been passed caused a foolhardy disregard of the Frenchmen’s warning. Naturally a supine security followed. The wind had sprung into unusual strength from the east and, in the face of continued admonition, some of the crew were for tying up for the night then and there, river crews in those days being much used to the enjoyment of their own wishes.