No more characteristic bit of Indian painting has ever been made than that given in these few words. Here was the native savage (not ignorant of wiser ways, for he had had the thrifty white man under his eyes for four generations) still showing himself in sense a child, in strength a man, and in cruelty a fiend incarnate. Mrs. Helm continues: I well remember a remark of Ensign Ronan, as the firing went on. "Such," turning to me, "is to be our fate--to be shot down like beasts." "Well, sir," said the commanding officer, who overheard him, "are you afraid?" "No," replied the high-spirited young man, "I can march up to the enemy where you dare not show your face!" And his subsequent gallant behavior showed this to be no idle boast. Unconsciously Mrs. Helm, in this artless tale told to glorify the younger officer, awakens in our minds a feeling of dislike for him. That a youth, scarce two years out of West Point, should add an ill-timed insult to the heavy cares of his senior officer, a soldier of thirteen years service, must be shocking to every one. Seeing that within two hours he was to die in action, bravely doing his duty (in company with his senior similarly engaged and sorely wounded) we can readily forgive his error, but not without a protest against a foolish woman's foolish effort to make it out a noble and praiseworthy outburst. Mrs. Heald's narrative[B] (though fortified by Captain Heald's letter, quoted later) seems less probable than the foregoing circumstantial account in Wau-Bun. She says: The fort was vacated quietly, not a cross word being passed between soldiers and Indians, and good-byes were exchanged. Not an officer objected to leaving. Nobody objected but Kinzie, who did so for personal reasons. Everything left was divided among the Indians who were there, and a party of them escorted the whites out of the fort, these Indians being the ones who took no interest in the fight, although they may have known something about it. The general impression among the officers (and this was Captain Heald's idea also) was that the Indians who took their share when the things were distributed at the fort, had no part in the massacre. [B] It is a curious fact that all our direct information concerning the events of that day comes from two women. Mrs. Lieutenant Helm, who has been already mentioned, and Mrs. Captain Heald. Both these young wives will receive more detailed mention a little further on. Mrs. Heald's account has never been published before. I give it as taken down in short-hand from the lips of her son, the Hon. Darius Heald of O'Fallon, Missouri, in the summer of 1892.