Who Was Lost Bird?

Bodies were found a full three miles from where the massacre took place. There searchers heard a soft muted cry and discovered a frozen huddle of lifeless women. The cry seemed to be coming from under one of the bodies. Ice was chipped away and the woman turned over. There was a baby girl of about eight months of age, weak but still alive, covered with her mother’s blood.  Having survived three days of sub-freezing cold the baby was first given to an Indian woman to nurse, then handed from one person to another until a Native woman spirited her away to an Indian encampment. It was there that General Leonard W. Colby went looking for the child he had heard about, taking her as his own personal trophy of war. The baby was sent away to his wife, Clara Bewich Colby, to raise, completely cutting the Indian child off from her people, her culture, and her heritage.