‘Surely, I thought this a feast fit for the gods!’ Margaret said. ‘A great contrast from my former experience with Inkpaduta, where we subsisted mostly on digging roots, and roasting bones and feathers, to keep soul and body together.’ Inkpaduta’s men were paid off and left. Margaret was taken to Yellow Medicine Reservation, where the parents of the brothers who rescued her became her caregivers. In a few weeks, Stephen R. Riggs and Dr. Thomas S. Williamson, missionaries from Hazelwood, came to claim her. Minnesota (which became a state in 1858) paid $500 to each of the brothers who rescued her. Major Charles E. Flandrau, Indian agent for the Upper and Lower Minnesota Sioux, took Margaret to St. Paul.

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About one month after Marble’s rescue, Inkpaduta joined forces with a Yankton band. One of the Yanktons, End of the Snake, hoped to get a reward by returning the remaining captives, so he purchased them from Inkpaduta. He continued to work the women as before. A few nights later, Roaring Cloud burst into End of the Snake’s tepee and demanded Lydia Noble go with him. She was the only captive to be consistently disobedient to her captors. Lydia refused to leave with Roaring Cloud, but the enraged warrior forced her out of the tepee. He picked up a piece of firewood that Lydia had just cut and beat her with it, then left to wash his bloodstained hands. Abbie was not allowed to go to her. She heard Lydia moaning for a half hour before she died.

The next morning, the Indians forced Abbie to watch as they abused Lydia’s corpse by using her as a target, scalping her and tying her hair to the end of a stick. They then broke camp. While they marched, a young Indian walked next to Abbie, repeatedly whipping her in the face with the bloody scalp. ‘Such was the sympathy a lonely, broken-hearted girl got at the hands of the `noble red man,” she said later.

While Abbie Gardner was wondering if she would ever be rescued, Margaret Marble was in St. Paul meeting William Granger, whose brother had been killed on the first day of the massacre. He offered her a home with his family in Michigan. Three months after Marble moved to Michigan, she filed for damages with the commissioner of Indian Affairs. According to the Sioux City Eagle of August 22, 1857, she claimed the Indians destroyed or stole property worth $2,229, plus $200 for her husband’s preemption rights under the 1834 law. She was finally granted $1,994, but it did her little good — she gave power of attorney to Granger, and he collected the claim. When he was asked if he was going to pay her, he said that he learned from the investigation that Margaret’s husband was alive and had another wife and therefore she was due no payment.

Margaret might never have learned of Granger’s duplicity, for she made no mention of it in a letter she later wrote to Abbie Gardner. She continued to stay with his family.

Granger later moved them all to Sioux City, Iowa. There, Margaret met and married a Mr. Oldham, who was working for Granger. Oldham was suspicious of Granger’s story and inquired to the Department of Indian Affairs about any payoffs made to him. He discovered that Granger had totally misrepresented the amount the government allowed her. An official confronted Granger with demands for restitution, but he disappeared into Dakota Territory.

Little is known about the rest of Margaret’s life. Mr. Oldham disappeared from the scene sometime after 1857. In 1868 Margaret was living in Napa County, Calif. At some time she married a man named Silbaugh, for in 1885, she corresponded with Abigail Gardner Sharp and signed the letter M.A. Silbaugh. She lived in California for 43 years, dying on October 20, 1911, at age 74. She is buried in the St. Helena Cemetery.

Abbie Gardner finally was rescued. Inkpaduta and his band moved northwest to a large village on the James River in present-day Spink County, S.D. On May 30, 1857, three Wahpetons appeared in the encampment and began a three-day bargaining session for Abbie. An expensive deal was struck: For two horses, 12 blankets, two powder kegs, 20 pounds of tobacco, 32 yards of blue cloth and 37 yards of calico, the captive had new owners. Mazakutemani (Man Who Shoots Metal As He Walks, or John Other Day), Hotonhowashta (Beautiful Voice) and Chetanmaza (Iron Hawk) were from Yellow Medicine Reservation and acting under orders of Major Flandrau, who aided in Margaret Marble’s rescue and supplied the goods for Abbie’s purchase. About 10 days’ travel in early April brought them to the Yellow Medicine Agency and to the mission of Dr. Thomas S. Williamson.

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