Later he cut the
bullet out of his own leg, and was relieved from some part of the
pain. After his rescue, when his broken leg was set it did not
suit him, and he had the leg broken twice in the hospital and
reset until it knitted properly.
Forsyth's men lay under fire under a blazing sun in their holes
on the sandbar for nine days. But the savages never dislodged
them, and at last they made off, their women and children beating
the death drums, and the entire village mourning the unreturning
brave. On the second day of the fighting Forsyth had got out
messengers at extreme risk, and at length the party was rescued
by a detachment of the Tenth Cavalry. The Indians later said that
they had in all over six hundred warriors in this fight. Their
losses, though variously estimated, were undoubtedly heavy.
It was encounters such as this which gradually were teaching the
Indians that they could not beat the white men, so that after a
time they began to yield to the inevitable.
What is known as the Baker Massacre was the turning-point in the
half-century of warfare with the Blackfeet, the savage tribe
which had preyed upon the men of the fur trade in a
long-continued series of robberies and murders.
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