'Three Score Years and Ten': Life-Long Memories of Fort Snelling, Minnesota, and Other; Parts of the WestVan Cleve, Charlotte Ouisconsin Clark
History
'Three Score Years and Ten': Life-Long Memories of Fort Snelling, Minnesota, and Other; Parts of the West
Van Cleve, Charlotte Ouisconsin Clark
Fort Snelling (Minn.); Frontier and pioneer life -- Minnesota
Of course we grieved over the result of these nightly raids, and,
finally, thought we would try and catch some of the marauders; so
procuring a steel-trap, we had a dead carcass of some animal hauled to
the foot of our garden, and began our work in real earnest. Our
success was far beyond our hopes, and it was our custom to rise every
morning at reveille, dress ourselves hastily and run down to look at
the trap, which was rarely without an occupant. One morning, to our
astonishment, the trap was gone, but the blood on the snow, and the
peculiar track leading toward the woods, satisfied us that a wolf was
in that trap somewhere between the fort and the "Little Falls." Hoping
to find him near home, we started in pursuit, without any protection
from the cold, which was intense, but the sun shone so brightly that
we did not think of the cold; our one idea was--the wolf, and how to
catch him. I was bare-headed and bare-handed; my brother, boy-like,
had seized his cap and mittens as he left the house, and was better
off than I. After traveling on, and on, not in the beaten path, but
wherever that track led us, we, of course, became cold and very
tired, but still could not think of giving up our search, and my dear,
brave brother insisted on my wearing his cap and mittens, saying,
"boys can stand the cold better than girls." We must have gone more
than a mile when our consciences, aided by the cold, began to warn us
that we were doing wrong, that our parents would be anxious about us,
and we ought to go back, but how could we give up the pleasure of
taking that wolf back in triumph, for the track assured us we should
find him crippled and fast to the trap, and we thought how pleased
Captain Scott would be to see us there with our prisoner as he came
out to breakfast. Looking back over the long years, I can clearly
remember that that thought gave me courage, and enabled me to hold out
so long. But, as we talked the matter over, setting duty against
inclination, and unable to decide, there appeared to us what may have
been an angel in disguise; to us it was an Indian boy in a blanket,
with his bow and quiver, emerging from the bushes very near
"Minnehaha," and thus my brother accosted him: "How! Nitchie." After a
friendly reply to this invariable salutation, Malcolm told him in the
Indian language, which was then as familiar to us as our mother
tongue, why we were there and what we wanted, offering him a loaf of
bread and piece of pork if he would find our wolf and bring him to our
door immediately. The lad gladly closed with the offer, took the trail
and started after him, while we turned our faces homeward. And now,
the excitement of expectancy being over, we began to have serious
misgivings as to the propriety of having gone so far from home without
the knowledge of our parents, and the wind, which blew keenly in our
faces, sided with our consciences, and convinced us we had much better
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