William fought on the side of the Indians in the campaign of 1790 and 1791, when they defeated the Americans under Generals Harmer and Saint Clair. The story of his reclamation, as told by Rebekah (Wells) Heald to her son Darius, and repeated by him to a stenographer, in my presence, in 1892, is quite romantic. Rebekah was daughter of Samuel Wells, elder brother of William, and was therefore niece of the latter. She must have been born between 1780 and 1790. We learn from the story of her son, the Hon. Darius Heald, as follows: She was fond of telling the story of her life, and her children and her friends were never tired of listening to it. [Her son thinks he has heard her tell it a hundred times.] She would begin away back in her girlhood, spent in the country about Louisville, Kentucky, when her father. Colonel Samuel Wells, was living there; and tell how they all wanted uncle William Wells, whom they called their "Indian uncle," to leave the Indians who had stolen him in his boyhood, and come home and belong to his white relations. He hung back for years, and even at last, when he agreed to visit them, made the proviso that he should be allowed to bring along an Indian escort with him, so that he should not be compelled to stay with them if he did not want to. Young Rebekah Wells was the one who had been chosen to go to the Indian council with her father, and persuade her uncle William to come and visit his old home; she, being a girl, very likely had more influence with him than any of the men could have had. William Wells was at that time living a wild Indian life, roaming up and down the Wabash river, and between the lakes and the Ohio. Probably the place where the battle of Tippicanoe was fought, in 1811, near the present site of La Fayette, Indiana, was pretty near the center of his regular stamping ground. After much hesitation he consented to get together a party of braves, somewhere from seventy-five to a hundred, and visit his relatives. Little Turtle, whose daughter he had married, was along, very likely commanding the escort. They went down to the falls of the Ohio river, about opposite Louisville, and camped, while William Wells, with a picked band of twenty-five, crossed the river and met with his own people. Then the question arose as to whether he was the brother of Colonel Samuel Wells, and he asked to be taken to the place where he was said to have been captured, to see if he could remember the circumstances. When he reached there, he looked about and pointed in a certain direction and asked if there was a pond there; and they said: "Well, let's go and see." So they went in the direction indicated, and to be sure they saw the pond; and he said that he could remember that pond. Then he saw a younger brother present, whom he had accidentally wounded in the head as a child, and he said to his brother: