Considerable time was spent in parleying for the captive, but the Yankton owner remained firm in his refusal of the terms offered. At the close of the second day he stated that he would have to submit the question of sale to a tribal vote, since he lacked the power to negotiate it himself. This brought to light the fact that there were two parties in the tribe--one favoring immediate sale, the other maintaining that it would be better to take the captive to the Missouri River country. While these negotiations were in progress groups of Yanktons visited Abbie Gardner. With great gusto they dwelt upon the situation that existed in the council from time to time. Each group had its own version as to her future disposition. “One would say that I would be taken to the river and drowned.... Another would tell me that I would be bound to a stake and burned, showing the manner in which I would writhe and struggle in the flames. Another declared that I was to be cut to pieces by inches; taking his knife and beginning at my toes, or fingers, he would show how piece after piece was to be cut off”.[310] Finally the captive was relieved by a Yankton squaw who told her that there was no truth in these explanations, since the council had decided that she was to be freed by sale to the stranger Indians who would take her back to the whites. Thus on the fifth day of the council the party for immediate sale won, and the tribal vote expressed a willingness to close the bargain as soon as possible. The price paid for the ransom of Abbie Gardner was probably “two horses, twelve blankets, two kegs of powder, twenty pounds of tobacco, thirty-two yards of blue squaw cloth, thirty-seven and a half yards of calico and ribbon, and other small articles”.[311] Although there is no little disagreement as to how much was actually paid for her ransom, it is certain that none of the many articles with which the Indians were provided to secure the release of Mrs. Noble and Miss Gardner were ever turned back or accounted for by the three Indians. From this it may fairly be presumed that all were used in bringing about the ransom.