Although the scalp dance had continued far into the small hours of the previous night, the Indians were astir early on the morning of the ninth of March. They were determined upon completing the fiendish work which they had so well begun on the previous day. No council was held so far as the only white inmate of their tepees could discern. At the same time every Indian seemed to know where to go and what was to be done. There was no confusion of plans or hitch in their execution at any point. It was on the morning of March ninth that a portion of the Inkpaduta band started for the Howe and Thatcher cabins which were nearly three miles from the Indian encampment. As already noted, the settlers about the lakes had established a sort of mutual exchange system among themselves for the purpose of husbanding their food supplies during the absence of Luce and Thatcher on the expedition to Waterloo and other points in eastern Iowa. This morning Mrs. Howe discovered that the supply of meal was so nearly exhausted that it would be necessary to procure an additional supply from one of the neighbors. Thus it was that on this Monday morning Howe started on what proved to be a fateful trip to the home of either Gardner or Mattock. With his sack thrown over his shoulder he took the path along the south shore of the east lake. He was wholly ignorant of the recent arrival of the Indians. As Howe walked briskly along he may have been revolving in his mind possible plans for his work in the coming season; or he may have been speculating as to when his neighbor Thatcher would return from the trip back east. Possibly he was cherishing the hope that the privations of the winter might have ample compensation in an abundant harvest. Whatever his thoughts may have been as he walked along the lake, they were soon brought to an end by the Indians, who in all probability quickly disposed of their victim. The details of the murder are not known; but the badly mutilated body was later found and given burial by the Fort Dodge relief party.