In the meantime her horse, which had become excited during the tumult by the smell of blood, commenced prancing around, and an Indian took him by the bit and led him down to the corral, or Indian camp near the fort. [This was on the banks of a slough which entered the river at about where State Street bridge now stands.] Approaching them, an Indian squaw caught sight of the bright-red blanket which was girted on over Mrs. Heald's saddle, for camping purposes, and immediately attempted to take it for her own. Mrs. Heald resisted vigorously, and although one hand was entirely useless and the other badly injured, she took her switch and with it struck the squaw such hard blows that "white welts were raised on her red hide." After this exhibition of spirit, the Indian who had hold of the horse's bit again shouted, "Epeconier! Epeconier!" and it is probably this display of daring which saved Mrs. Heald's life, and perhaps her husband's also. Rebekah Wells Heald was evidently worthy of her name. Daughter of Captain Samuel Wells, niece of Captain William Wells, wife of Captain Nathan Heald, she was a woman whom the sight of blood could not daunt, the smart of wounds weaken, or the fear of bereavement subdue. (For many hours after the battle she supposed herself a widow.) Her son Darius (her mouthpiece in this narrative) was not born until nine years after that dreadful day; and now (1893), in his seventy-third year, he shows the family form and spirit. Tall, stalwart, erect and dignified, he is a typical southern-westerner, a mighty hunter in the past and a tower of patriarchal strength in his old age. When she was brought in, after being captured and led down among the Indians, she was stripped of her jewelry--rings, breast-pin, ear-rings and comb. She was badly wounded, and was cared for that night (the fifteenth of August) as tenderly as a sister, by two or three squaws and one French woman, who did everything in their power to relieve her. She saw nothing of her jewelry till the next morning, when a brave made his appearance and pranced around, taking great pains to shew that he was wearing her comb in his scalp-lock--a performance fraught with difficulties, as he had hardly enough hair to keep it in, and found it necessary to push it back from time to time to prevent it from falling to the ground. Poor black Cicely she never saw again[G]. She had perished with the rest. Her horse, too, was gone forever. [G] See page 70.