Page:A Brief History of South Dakota.djvu/111

This page has been validated.
THE SPIRIT LAKE MASSACRE
105

followed Greyfoot's trail back to Lake Herman to find that Inkpaduta had abandoned that camp. They took his trail and followed him northwest from Lake Herman to the mouth of Snake River on the west side of the James River, two miles south of Ashton in Spink County, where they found the girl Abbie Gardner in a large camp of several hundred Yanktons. Mrs. Noble had been brutally murdered two days before, by Roaring Cloud, a worthy son of Inkpaduta's.
Little Crow
The Christian Indians succeeded in buying Abbie Gardner and safely conducted her to her friends. This lady, in 1905, was still living upon the old homestead at Spirit Lake, where her family was massacred.

The government took no suitable action to punish Inkpaduta for his horrible outrage. Though more than forty years had passed since the Wakpekutas drove away and disowned the Inkpaduta band, the government determined to hold the band responsible for Inkpaduta's conduct, and to withhold their annuities until he had been brought in and punished. The Indians thought this most unfair, but agreed to do their best to punish the outlaw. Just at this time Roaring Cloud, the young fiend who had murdered Mrs. Noble, appeared at Yellow Medicine Agency, on the Minnesota River, and he was shot and killed by a posse under Judge Flandrau, who attempted his arrest. A war