CHAPTER III.

Lorenzo Oatman--Conscious of most of the Scenes of the Massacre--The

next Day he finds himself at the Foot of a rocky Declivity,

over which he had fallen--Makes an Effort to walk--Starts for

Pimole--His Feelings and Sufferings--Is attacked by Wolves--Then

by two Indians, who are about to shoot him down--Their subsequent

Kindness--They go on to the Place of Massacre--He meets the

Wilders and Kellys--They take him back to Pimole--In about one

Month gets well, and starts for Fort Yuma--Visits the Place of

Massacre--His Feelings--Burial of the Dead--Reflections--The

two Girls--Their Thoughts of Home and Friends--Conduct of their

Captors--Disposition of the Stock--Cruelty to the Girls to hurry

them on--Girls resolve not to proceed--Meet eleven Indians,

who seek to kill Olive--Reasons for--Apaches defend her--Their

Habits of Fear for their own Safety--Their Reception at the

Apache Village--One Year--The Mohaves--Their second coming among

the Apaches--Conversation of Olive and Mary--Purchased by the

Mohaves--Avowed Reasons--Their Price--Danger during the Debate.

In this chapter we ask the reader to trace with us the narrow and

miraculous escape of Lorenzo Oatman, after being left for dead by the

Apaches. He was the first to receive the death-dealing blow of the

perpetrators of that horrid deed by which most of the family were taken

from him. The last mention we made of him left him, under the effects

of that blow, weltering in his blood. He shall tell his own story of

the dreadful after-part. It has in it a candor, a freedom from the

tinselings so often borrowed from a morbid imagination, and thrown

about artificial romance, that commends it to the reader, especially

to the juvenile reader. It exhibits a presence of mind, courage, and

resoluteness that, as an example, may serve as a light to cheer and

inspirit that boy whose eye is now tracing this record, when he shall

find himself stumbling amid mishaps and pitfalls in the future, and

when seasons of darkness, like the deep, deep midnight, shall close

upon his path:

“I soon must have recovered my consciousness after I had been struck

down, for I heard distinctly the repeated yells of those fiendish

Apaches. And these I heard mingling in the most terrible confusion

with the shrieks and cries of my dear parents, brothers, and sisters,

calling, in the most pitiful, heart-rending tones, for ‘Help, help! In

the name of God, cannot any one help us?’

“To this day the loud wail sent up by our dear mother from that

rough death-bed still rings in my ears. I heard the scream, shrill,

and sharp, and long, of these defenseless, unoffending brothers and

sisters, distinguishing the younger from the older as well as I could

have done by their natural voice; and these constantly blending with

the brutal, coarse laugh, and the wild, raving whooping of their

murderers. Well do I remember coming to myself, with sensations as of

waking from a long sleep, but which soon gave place to the dreadful

reality; at which time all would be silent for a moment, and then the

silence broken by the low, subdued, but unintelligible gibberings of

the Indians, intermingled with an occasional low, faint moan from some

one of the family, as if in the last agonies of death. I could not

move. I thought of trying to get up, but found I could not command

a muscle or a nerve. I heard their preparations for leaving, and

distinctly remember to have thought, at the time, that my heart had

ceased to beat, and that I was about giving my last breath. I heard

the sighs and moans of my sisters, heard them speak, knew the voice of

Olive, but could not tell whether one or more was preserved with her.

“While lying in this state, two of the wretches came up to me, rolling

me over with their feet; they examined and rifled my pockets, took off

my shoes and hat in a hurried manner; then laid hold of my feet and

roughly dragged me a short distance, and then seemed to leave me for

dead. During all this, except for a moment at a time, occasionally,

I was perfectly conscious, but could not see. I thought each moment

would be my last. I tried to move again and again, but was under the

belief that life had gone from my body and limbs, and that a few

more breathings would shut up my senses. There seemed a light spot

directly over my head, which was gradually growing smaller, dwindling

to a point. During this time I was conscious of emotions and thoughts

peculiar and singular, aside from their relation to the horrors about

me. At one time (and it seemed hours) I was ranging through undefined,

open space, with paintings and pictures of all imaginable sizes and

shapes hung about me, as if at an immense distance, and suspended upon

walls of ether. At another, strange and discordant sounds would grate

on my ear, so unlike any that my ear ever caught, that it would be

useless endeavoring to give a description of them. Then these would

gradually die away, and there rolled upon my ear such strains of sweet

music as completely ravished all my thoughts, and I was perfectly

happy. And in all this I could not define myself; I knew not who I was,

save that I knew, or supposed I knew, I had come from some far-off

region, only a faint remembrance of which was borne along with me. But

to attempt to depict all of what seemed a strange, actual experience,

and that I now know to have been crowded into a few hours, would

only excite ridicule; though there was something so fascinating and

absorbing to my engaged mind, that I frequently long to reproduce its

unearthly music and sights.

“After being left by the Indians, the thoughts I had, traces of which

are still in my memory, were of opening my eyes, knowing perfectly my

situation, and thinking still that each breath would be the last. The

full moon was shining upon rock, and hill, and shrub about me; a more

lovely evening indeed I never witnessed. I made an effort to turn my

eye in search of the place where I supposed my kindred were cold in

death, but could not stir. I felt the blood upon my mouth, and found

it still flowing from my ears and nose. All was still as the grave. Of

the fate of the rest of the family I could not now determine accurately

to myself, but supposed all of them, except two of the girls, either

dead or in my situation. But no sound, no voice broke the stillness

of these few minutes of consciousness; though upon them there rested

the weight of an anguish, the torture and horror of which pen cannot

report. I had a clear knowledge that two or more of my sisters were

taken away alive. Olive I saw them snatch one side ere they commenced

the general slaughter, and I had a faint consciousness of having heard

the voice and sighs of little Mary Ann, after all else was hushed, save

the hurrying to and fro of the Indians, while at their work of plunder.

“The next period, the recollection of which conveys any distinct

impression to my mind at this distance of time, was of again coming to

myself, blind, but thinking my eyes were some way tied from without.

As I rubbed them, and removed the clotted blood from my eyelids, I

gathered strength to open them. The sun, seemingly from mid-heaven,

was looking me full in the face. My head was beating, and at times

reeling under the grasp of a most torturing pain. I looked at my worn

and tattered clothes, and they were besmeared with blood. I felt my

head and found my scalp torn across the top. I found I had strength

to turn my head, and it surprised me. I made an effort to get up, and

succeeded in rising to my hands and knees; but then my strength gave

way. I saw myself at the foot of a steep, rugged declivity of rocks,

and all about me new. On looking up upon the rocks I discovered traces

of blood marking the way by which I had reached my present situation

from the brow above me. At seasons there would be a return of partial

aberration, and derangement of my intellect. Against these I sought to

brace myself, and study the where and wherefore of my awful situation.

And I wish to record my gratitude to God for enabling me then and there

to collect my thoughts, and retain my sanity.

“I soon determined in my mind that I had either fallen, or been hurled

down to my present position, from the place where I was first struck

down. At first I concluded I had fallen myself, as I remembered to

have made several efforts to get upon my hands and knees, but was

baffled each time, and that during this I saw myself near a precipice

of rocks, like that brow of the steep near me now, and that I plainly

recognized as the same place, and now sixty feet or more above me. My

consciousness now fully returned, and with it a painful appreciation

of the dreadful tragedies of which my reaching my present situation

had formed a part. I dwelt upon what had overtaken my family-kin, and

though I had no certain mode of determining, yet I concluded it must

have been the day before. Especially would my heart beat toward my fond

parents, and dwell upon their tragical and awful end: I thought of the

weary weeks and months by which they had, at the dint of every possible

exertion, borne us to this point; of the comparatively short distance

that would have placed them beyond anxiety; of the bloody, horrid night

that had closed in upon the troublous day of their lives.

“And then my thoughts would wander after those dear sisters; and

scarcely could I retain steadiness of mind when I saw them, in thought,

led away I knew not where, to undergo every ill and hardship, to

suffer a thousand deaths at the hands of their heathen captors. I

thought at times (being, I have no doubt, partially delirious) that my

brain was loose, and was keeping up a constant rattling in my head,

and accordingly I pressed my head tightly between my hands, that if

possible I might retain it to gather a resolution for my own escape.

When did so much crowd into so small a space or reflection before?

Friends, that _were_, now re-presented themselves; but from them, now,

my most earnest implorings for help brought out no hand of relief;

and as I viewed them, surrounded with the pleasures and joys of their

safe home-retreats, the contrast only plunged me deeper in despair.

My old playmates now danced before me again, those with whom I had

caroled away the hours so merrily, and whom I had bidden the laughing,

merry ‘_adieu_,’ only pitying them that they were denied the elysium

of a romantic trip over the Plains. The scenes of sighs, and tears,

and regrets that shrouded the hour of our departure from kindred and

friends, and the weeping appeals they plied so earnestly to persuade us

to desist from an undertaking so freighted with hazard, now rolled upon

me to lacerate and torture these moments of suffocating gaspings for

breath.

“Then my own condition would come up, with new views of the unbroken

gloom and despair that walled it in on every side, more impenetrable to

the first ray of hope than the granite bulwarks about me to the light

of the sun.

“A boy of fourteen years, with the mangled remains of my own parents

lying near by, my scalp torn open, my person covered with blood,

alone, friendless, in a wild, mountain, dismal, wilderness region,

exposed to the ravenous beasts, and more, to the ferocity of more than

brutal savages and human-shaped demons! I had no strength to walk, my

spirits crushed, my ambition paralyzed, my body mangled. At times I

despaired, and prayed for death; again I revived, and prayed God for

help. Sometimes, while lying flat on my back, my hands pressing my

torn and blood-clothed head, with the hot sun pouring a full tide of

its unwelcome heat upon me, the very air a hot breath in my face, I

gathered hope that I might yet look upon the white face again, and

that I might live to rehearse the sad present in years to come. And

thus bright flashes of hope and dark gloom-clouds would chase each

other over the sky of my spirit, as if playing with my abandonment

and unmitigated distress. ‘And O,’ thought I, ‘those sisters, shall

I see them again? must they close their eyes among those ferocious

man-animals?’ I grew sick and faint, dizziness shook my brain, and my

senses fled. I again awoke from the delirium, partly standing, and

making a desperate effort. I felt the thrill of a strong resolution.

‘I will get up,’ said I, ‘and _will_ walk, or if not I will spend the

last remnant of my shattered strength to crawl out of this place.’

I started, and slowly moved toward the rocks above me. I crept,

snail-like, up the rock-stepped side of the table-land above me. As I

drew near the top, having crawled almost fifty feet, I came in sight of

the wagon wreck; then the scenes which had been wrought about it came

back with horror, and nearly unloosed my hold upon the rocks. I could

not look upon those faces and forms, yet they were within a few feet.

The boxes, opened and broken, with numerous articles, were in sight. I

could not trust my feelings to go further; ‘I have misery enough, why

should I add fuel to the fire now already consuming me!’

[Illustration: RETURNING TO THE PLACE OF MASSACRE.]

“I turned away, and began to crawl toward the east, round the brow

of the hill. After carefully, and with much pain, struggling all the

while against faintness, crawling some distance, I found myself at

the slope leading down to the Ford of the Gila, where I plainly saw

the wagon track we had made, as I supposed, the day before. The hot

sun affected me painfully; its burning rays kindled my fever, already

oppressive, to the boiling point. I felt a giant determination urging

me on. Frequently my weariness and faintness would bring me to the

ground several times in a few moments. Then I would crawl aside, (as

I did immediately after crossing the river,) drag myself under some

mountain shrub for escape from the sun, bathe my fevered head in its

friendly shade, and lay me to rest. Faint as I was from loss of blood,

and a raging inward thirst, these, even, were less afflicting than the

meditations and reflections that, unbidden, would at times steal upon

my mind, and lash it to a perfect phrenzy with agonizing remembrances.

The groans of those parents, brothers, and sisters, haunted me with the

grim, fiend-like faces of their murderers, and the flourishing of their

war-clubs; the convulsive throbs of little Mary Ann would fill my mind

with sensations as dreary as if my traveling had been among the tombs.

“‘O my God!’ said I, ‘am I alive? My poor father and mother, where are

they? And are my sisters alive? or are they suffering death by burning?

Shall I see them again?’

“Thus I cogitated, and wept, and sighed, until sleep kindly shut

out the harrowing thoughts. I must have slept for three hours, for

when I woke the sun was behind the western hills. I felt refreshed,

though suffering still from thirst. The road crosses the bend in the

river twice; to avoid this, I made my way over the bluff spur that

turns the road and river to the north. I succeeded after much effort

in sustaining myself upon my feet, with a cane. I walked slowly on,

and gained strength and courage that inspired within some hope of

my escape. I traveled on, only taking rest two or three times during

that evening and whole night. I made in all about fifteen miles by

the next day-break. About eleven o’clock of the next day I came to a

pool of standing water; I was nearly exhausted when I reached it and

lay me down by it, and drank freely, though the water was warm and

muddy. I had no sooner slaked my thirst than I fell asleep and slept

for some time. I awoke partially delirious, believing that my brain

was trying to jump out of my head, while my hands were pressed to my

head to keep it together, and prevent the exit of my excited brain.

When I had proceeded about ten miles, which I had made by the middle

of the afternoon, I suddenly became faint, my strength failed, and I

fell to the ground. I was at the time upon a high table-land, sandy

and barren. I marveled to know whether I might be dying; I was soon

unconscious. Late in the afternoon I was awakened by some strange

noise; I soon recollected my situation, and the noise, which I now

found to be the barking of dogs or wolves, grew louder and approached

nearer. In a few moments I was surrounded by an army of coyotes and

gray wolves. I was lying in the sun, and was faint from the effects

of its heat. I struggled to get to a small tree near by, but could

not. They were now near enough for me to almost reach them, smelling,

snuffing, and growling as if holding a meeting to see which should be

first to plunge his sharp teeth in my flesh, and first to gorge his

lank stomach upon my almost bloodless carcass. I was excited with fear,

and immediately sprang to my feet and raised a yell; and as I rose,

struck the one nearest me with my hand. He started back, and the rest

gave way a little. This was the first utterance I had made since the

massacre. These unprincipled gormandizers, on seeing me get up and

hurl a stone at them, ran off a short distance, then turned and faced

me; when they set up one of the most hideous, doleful howlings that I

ever heard from any source. As it rang out for several minutes upon the

still evening air, and echoed from crag to crag, it sent the most awful

sensations of dread and loneliness thrilling through my whole frame. ‘A

fit requiem for the dead,’ thought I. I tried to scatter them, but they

seemed bent upon supplying their stomachs by dividing my body between

them, and thus completing the work left unfinished by their brothers,

the Apaches.

[Illustration: ATTACKED BY COYOTES AND WOLVES.]

“I had come now to think enough of the chance for my life, to covet it

as a boon worth preserving. But I had serious fears when I saw with

what boldness and tenacity they kept upon my track, as I armed myself

with a few rocks and pushed on. The excitement of this scene fully

roused me, and developed physical strength that I had not been able

before to command. The sun had now reached the horizon, and the first

shades of lonely night lay upon the distant gorges and hill-sides. I

kept myself supplied with rocks, occasionally hurling one at the more

insolent of this second tribe of savages. They seemed determined,

however, to force an acquaintance. At times they would set up one

of their wild concerts, and grow furious as if newly enraged at my

escape. Then they would huddle about, fairly besetting my steps. I was

much frightened, but knew of only one course to take. After becoming

weary and faint with hunger and thirst, some time after dark I feared

I should faint, and before morning be devoured by them. Late in the

evening they called a halt, for a moment stood closely huddled in the

road behind me, as if wondering what blood-clad ghost from some other

sphere could be treading this unfriendly soil. They were soon away, to

my glad surprise; and ere midnight the last echo of their wild yells

had died upon the distant hills to the north. I traveled nearly all

night. The cool night much relieved the pain in my head, but compelled

me to keep up beyond my strength, to prevent suffering from cold. I

have no remembrance of aught from about two to four o’clock of that

night, until about nine of the next day, save the wild, troublous

dreams that disturbed my sleep. I dreamed of Indians, of bloodshed, of

my sisters, that they were being put to death by slow tortures, that

I was with them, and my turn was coming soon. When I came to myself I

had hardly strength to move a muscle; it was a long time before I could

get up. I concluded I must perish, and meditated seriously the eating

of the flesh from my arm to satisfy my hunger and prevent starvation.

I knew I had not sufficient of life to last to Pimole at this rate,

and concluded it as well to lie there and die, as to put forth more of

painful effort.

“In the midst of these musings, too dreadful and full of horror to

be described, I roused and started. About noon I was passing through

a dark cañon, nearly overhung with dripping rocks; here I slaked my

thirst, and was about turning a short corner, when two red-shirted

Pimoles, mounted upon fine American horses, came in sight. They

straightened in their stirrups, drew their bows, with arrows pointed at

me. I raised my hand to my head and beckoned to them, and speaking in

Spanish, begged them not to shoot. Quick as thought, when I spoke they

dropped their bows, and rode up to me. I soon recognized one of them

as an Indian with whom I had been acquainted at Pimole Village. They

eyed me closely for a few minutes, when my acquaintance discovering

through my disfigured features who it was, that I was one of the family

that had gone on a little before, dismounted, laid hold of me, and

embraced me with every expression of pity and condolence that could

throb in an American heart. Taking me by the hand they asked me what

could have happened. I told them as well as I could, and of the fate of

the rest of the family. They took me one side under a tree, and laid

me upon their blankets. They then took from their saddle a piece of

their ash-baked bread, and a gourd of water. I ate the piece of bread,

and have often thought of the mercy it was they had no more, for I

might have easily killed myself by eating too much; my cravings were

uncontrollable. They hung up the gourd of water in reach, and charged

me to remain until they might return, promising to carry me to Pimole.

After sleeping a short time I awoke, and became fearful to trust myself

with these Pimoles. They had gone on to the scene of the massacre; it

was near night; I adjusted their blankets and laid them one side, and

commenced the night’s travel refreshed, and not a little cheered. But

I soon found my body racked with more pain, and oppressed with more

weariness than ever. I kept up all night, most of the time traveling.

It was the loneliest, most horror-struck night of my life. Glad was I

to mark the first streaks of the fourth morning. Never did twilight

shine so bright, or seem empowered to chase so much of darkness away.

[Illustration: LORENZO RESCUED BY FRIENDLY INDIANS.]

“Cheered for a few moments, I hastened my steps, staggering as I went;

I found that I was compelled to rest oftener than usual, I plainly

saw I could not hold out much longer. My head was becoming inflamed

within and without, and in places on my scalp was putrid. About

mid-forenoon, after frequent attempts to proceed, I crawled under a

shrub and was soon asleep, I slept two or three hours undisturbed. ‘O

my God!’ were the words with which I woke, ‘could I get something to

eat, and some one to dress my wounds, I might yet live.’ I had now

a desire to sleep continually. I resisted this with all the power I

had. While thus musing I cast my eyes down upon a long winding valley

through which the road wandered, and plainly saw moving objects; I was

sure they were Indians, and at the thought my heart sank within me.

I meditated killing myself. For one hour I kept my aching eyes upon

the strange appearance, when, all at once, as they rose upon a slight

hill, I plainly recognized two white covered wagons. O what a moment

was that. Hope, joy, confidence, now for the first time seemed to mount

my soul, and hold glad empire over all my pains, doubts, and fears. In

the excitement I lost my consciousness, and waked not until disturbed

by some noise near me. I opened my eyes, and two covered wagons were

halting close to me, and Robert was approaching me. I knew him, but my

own appearance was so haggard and unnatural, it was some time before he

detected who that ‘strange-looking boy, covered with blood, hatless and

shoeless, could be, his visage scarred, and he pale as a ghost fresh

from Pandemonium.’ After looking for some time, slowly and cautiously

approaching, he broke out: ‘My God, Lorenzo! in the name of heaven,

what, Lorenzo, has happened?’ I felt my heart strangely swell in my

bosom, and I could scarcely believe my sight. ‘Can it be?’ I thought,

‘can it be that this is a familiar white face?’ I could not speak; my

heart could only pour out its emotions in the streaming tears that

flowed most freely over my face. When I recovered myself sufficiently,

I began to speak of the fate of the rest of the family. They could not

speak, some of them; those tender-hearted women wept most bitterly, and

sobbed aloud, begging me to desist, and hide the rest of the truth from

them.

“They immediately chose the course of prudence, and resolved not to

venture with so small a company, where we had met such a doom. Mr.

Wilder prepared me some bread and milk, which, without any necessity

for a sharpening process, my appetite, for some reason, relished very

well. They traveled a few miles on the back track that night, and

camped. I received every attention and kindness that a true sympathy

could minister. We camped where a gurgling spring sent the clear cold

water to the surface; and here I refreshed myself with draughts of the

purest of beverages, cleansed my wounds, and bathed my aching head and

bruised body in one of nature’s own baths. The next day we were safe at

Pimole ere night came on. When the Indians learned what had happened,

they, with much vehemence, charged it upon the Yumas; but for this we

made allowance, as a deadly hostility burned between these tribes. Mr.

Kelly and Mr. Wilder resolved upon proceeding immediately to the place

of massacre, and burying the dead.

“Accordingly, early the next day, with two Mexicans and several

Pimoles, they started. They returned after an absence of three days,

and reported that they could find but little more than the bones of six

persons, and that they were able to find and distinguish the bodies of

all but those of Olive and Mary Ann. If they had found the bodies of my

sisters the news would have been less dreadful to me than the tidings

that they had been carried off by the Indians. But my suspicions were

now confirmed, and I could only see them as the victims of a barbarous

captivity. During their absence, and for some time after, I was

severely and dangerously ill, but with the kind attention and nursing

rendered me I began after a week to revive. We were now only waiting

the coming that way of some persons who might be westward bound, to

accompany them to California. When we had been there two weeks, six men

came into Pimole, who, on learning of our situation, kindly consented

to keep with us until we could reach Fort Yuma. The Kellys and Wilders

had some time before abandoned their notion of a year’s stay at Pimole.

We were soon again upon that road, with every step of which I now had

a painful familiarity. On the sixth day we reached that place, of all

others the most deeply memory-written. I have no power to describe, nor

can tongue or pen proclaim the feelings that heaved my sorrowing heart

as I reached the fatal spot. I could hear still the echo of those wild

shrieks and hellish whoops, reverberating along the mountain cliffs!

those groans, _those awful groans_, could it be my imagination, or did

they yet live in pleading echo among the numerous caverns on either

hand? Every footfall startled me, and seemed to be an intruder upon the

chambers of the dead!

“There were dark thoughts in my mind, and I felt that this was a

charnel-house that had plundered our household of its bloom, its

childhood, and its stay! I marked the precise spot where the work of

death commenced. My eyes would then gaze anxiously and long upon the

high, wild mountains, with their forests and peaks that now embosomed

all of my blood that were still alive! I traced the footprints of

their captors, and of those who had laid my parents beneath my feet.

I sighed to wrap myself in their death-robe, and with them sleep my

long, last sleep! But it was haunted ground, and to tarry there alive

was more dreadful than the thought of sharing their repose. I hastened

away. I pray God to save me in future from the dark thoughts that

gloomed my mind on turning my back upon that spot; and the reader from

experiencing kindred sorrow. With the exception of about eighteen

miles of desert, we had a comfortable week of travel to Fort Yuma. I

still suffered much, at times was seriously worse, so that my life was

despaired of; but more acute were my mental than my physical sufferings.

“At the Fort every possible kindness, with the best of medical skill,

ministered to my comfort and hastened my recovery. To Dr. Hewitt I owe,

and must forever owe, a debt of gratitude which I can never return. The

sense of obligations I still cherish finds but a poor expression in

words. He became a parent to me; and kindly extended his guardianship

and unabating kindness, when the force was moved to San Diego, and then

he took me to San Francisco, at a time when, but for his counsel and

his affectionate oversight, I might have been turned out to wreck upon

the cold world.

“Here we found that Doctor Lecount had done all in his power to get

up and hasten a party of men to our relief; but he was prevented by

the commander, a Mr. Heinsalman, who was guilty of an unexplainable,

if not an inexcusable delay--a delay that was an affliction to the

doctor, and a calamity to us. He seemed deaf to every appeal for us

in our distressed condition. His conduct, if we had been a pack of

hungry wolves, could not have exhibited more total recklessness. The

fact of our condition reached the Fort at almost as early an hour as

it would if the animals of the doctor had been retained, and there

were a number of humane men at the Fort who volunteered to rush to our

relief; but no permission could be obtained from the commander. If

he still lives, it is to know and remember, that by a prompt action

at that time, according to the behests and impulse of a principle of

‘humanity to man,’ he would have averted our dreadful doom. No language

can fathom such cruelty. He was placed there to protect the defenseless

of his countrymen; and to suffer an almost destitute family, struggling

amid dangers and difficulties, to perish for want of relief that he

knew he might have extended, rolls upon him a responsibility in the

inhuman tragedy that followed his neglect, that will haunt him through

eternity. There were men there who nobly stepped forward to assume the

danger and labor of the prayed-for relief, and around them clusters the

light of gratitude, the incense of the good; but he who neglects the

destitute, the hungry, the imperiled, proclaims his companionship with

misanthropists, and hews his own road to a prejudged disgrace. After

several days he reluctantly sent out two men, who hastened on toward

Pimole until they came to the place of the massacre, and finding what

had happened, and that the delay had been followed by such a brutal

murder of the family for whose safety and rescue they had burned to

encounter the perils of this desert way, sick at heart, and indignant

at this cruel, let-alone policy, they returned to the Fort; though not

until they had exhausted their scant supply of provisions in search of

the girls, of whose captivity they had learned. May Heaven bless these

benefactors, and pour softening influences upon their hard-hearted

commander.”

The mind instinctively pauses, and, suspended between wonder and

horror, dwells with most intense interest upon a scene like the one

presented above. Look at the faint pointings to the reality, yet

the best that art can inscribe, furnished by the plate. Two timid

girls, one scarcely fourteen, the other a delicate, sweet-spirited

girl of not eight summers. Trembling with fear, swaying and reeling

under the wild storm of a catastrophe bursting upon them when they

had been lulled into the belief that their danger-thronged path

had been well-nigh passed, and the fury of which exceeded all that

the most excited imagination could have painted, these two girls,

eye-witnesses to a brutal, bloody affray which had smitten father,

mother, brothers, and sisters, robbing them in an instant of friends

and friendly protection, and cast themselves, they knew not where,

upon the perpetrators of all this butchery, whose tender mercies they

had only to expect would be cruelty itself. That brother, that oldest

brother, weltering in his blood, perfectly conscious of all that was

transpiring. The girls wishing that a kindred fate had ended their own

sufferings, and preserved them by a horrible death from a more horrible

after-part, placing them beyond the reach of savage arm and ferocity. O

what an hour was that! What a world of paralyzing agonies were pressed

into that one short hour! It was an “ocean in a tear, a whirlwind in a

sigh, an eternity in a moment.” Unoffending, innocent, yet their very

souls throbbing with woe they had never merited. See them but a little

before, wearied with the present, but happy in the prospect of a fast

approaching termination of their journey. A band of Indians, stalwart,

stout, and fierce-looking came into the camp, scantily clad, and what

covering they had borrowed from the wild beasts, as if to furnish an

appropriate badge of their savage nature and design. They cover their

weapons under their wolf-skins; they warily steal upon this unprotected

family, and by deceiving pretenses of friendship blunt their

apprehensions of danger, and make them oblivious of a gathering doom.

They smoke the pacific pipe, and call themselves Pimoles who are on

their way to Fort Yuma. Then secretly they concoct their hellish plot

in their own tongue, with naught but an involuntary glance of their

serpent eyes to flash or indicate the infernality of their treacherous

hearts. When every preparation is made by the family to proceed, no

defense studied or thought necessary, then these hideous man-animals

spring upon them with rough war-clubs and murder them in cold blood;

and, as if to strew their hellish way with the greatest possible amount

of anguish, they compel these two girls to witness all the barbarity

that broke upon the rest, and to read therein what horrors hung upon

their own future living death. O what depths and deeds of darkness and

crime are sometimes locked up in that heart where the harmonies of a

passion-restraining principle and reason have never been waked up! How

slender every foundation for any forecasting upon the character of its

doings, when trying emergences are left an appeal to its untamed and

unregulated propensities!

The work of plunder follows the work of slaughter. The dead bodies were

thrown about in the rudest manner, and pockets searched, boxes broken

and plundered, and soon as they are fully convinced that the work of

spoils-taking is completed, and they discover no signs of remaining

life (which they hunted for diligently) to awaken suspicions of

detection, they prepare with live spoils, human and brute, to depart.

“Soon after,” continues Olive, “we camped. A fire was struck by

means of flints and wild cotton, which they carried for the purpose.

The cattle were allowed to range upon the rock-feed, which abounded;

and even with this unnatural provision, they were secure against

being impelled by hunger far from camp, as they scarcely had strength

to move. Then came the solid dough, made of water and flour, baked

stone-hard in the hot ashes, and then soaked in bean-soup; then the

smoking of pipes by some, while others lounged lazily about the camp,

filled up the hour of our tarrying here. Food was offered me, but how

could I eat to prolong a life I now loathed. I felt neither sensations

of hunger nor a desire to live. Could I have done it, I should probably

have ended my life during moments of half-delirious, crushing anguish,

that some of the time rolled upon me with a force sufficient to divide

soul from body. But I was narrowly watched by those worse than fiends,

to whom every expression of my grief was occasion for merry-making.

I dwelt upon these awful realities, yet, at times, such I could not

think them to be, until my thoughts would become confused. Mangled as I

knew they were, I longed to go back and take one look, one long, last,

farewell look in the faces of my parents and those dear brothers. Could

I but go back and press the hands of those dear ones, though cold in

death, I would then consent to go on! There was Lucy, about seventeen

years of age, a dear girl of a sweet, mild spirit, never angry. She

had been a mother to me when our parents were absent or sick. She

had borne the peculiar burden falling upon the oldest of a family of

children, with evenness of temper and womanly fortitude. ‘Why,’ my

heart inquired, ‘should she be thus cut off and I left?’ Lorenzo I

supposed dead, for I saw him fall to the ground by the first blow that

was struck, and afterward saw them take from him hat and shoes, and

drag him to the brink of the hill by the feet. Supposing they would

dash him upon the rocks below, I turned away, unable to witness more!

Royse, a playful, gleeful boy, full of health and happiness, stood a

moment horror-struck as he witnessed the commencement of the carnage,

being furthest from the Indians. As they came up to him, he gave one

wild, piercing scream, and then sank to the earth under the club! I saw

him when the death-struggle drew his little frame into convulsions,

and then he seemed to swoon away; a low moan, a slight heaving of the

bosom, and he quietly sank into the arms of death. Little C. A. had not

as yet seen four summers; she was a cherub girl. She, with her little

brother, twenty months younger, had been saved the torments of fear

that had seized the rest of us from the time of the appearance of the

Indians. They were too young to catch the flashes of fear that played

upon the countenances of the elder children and their parents, and were

happily trustful when our father, with forced composure, bade us not

be afraid! The struggles of these two dear little ones were short. My

mother screamed, I turned, I saw her with her youngest child clasped in

her arms, and the blows of the war-club falling upon her and the child.

I sprang toward her, uttered a shriek, and found myself joining her in

calling most earnestly for help. But I had no sooner started toward

her than I was seized and thrown back by my overseer. I turned around,

found my head beginning to reel in dizziness, and fainting fell to the

ground.

“The reader can perhaps imagine the nature of my thoughts while

standing at that camp-fire, with my sister clinging to me in convulsive

sobs and groans. From fear of the Indians, whose frowns and threats,

mingled with hellish jests, were constantly glaring upon us, she

struggled to repress and prevent any outburst of the grief that seemed

to tear her little heart. And when her feelings became uncontrollable,

she would hide her head in my arms, and most piteously sob aloud, but

she was immediately hushed by the brandishing of a war-club over her

head.

[Illustration: THE CAPTIVES AT THE INDIAN CAMP-FIRE.]

“While in this camp, awaiting the finished meal, and just after

twilight, the full moon arose and looked in upon our rock-girt gorge

with a majesty and sereneness that seemed to mock our changeful doom.

Indeed a more beautiful moonrise I never saw. The sky was clear, the

wind had hushed its roar, and laid by its fury; the larger and more

brilliant of the starry throng stood out clear above, despite the

superior light of the moon, which had blushed the lesser ones into

obscurity. As that moon mounted the cloudless east, yet tinged with

the last stray beauties of twilight, and sent its first mild glories

along the surrounding peaks, the scene of illumined heights, and

dark, cavernous, shade-clad hill-sides and gorges, was grand, and to

a mind unfettered with woe would have lent the inspiration of song. I

looked upon those gorges and vales, with their deeps of gloom, and

then upon the moon-kissed ridges that formed boundaries of light to

limit their shadows! I thought the former a fit exponent of my heart’s

realizations, and the whole an impressive illustration of the contrast

between my present and the recent past. That moon, ordinarily so

welcome, and that seemed supernaturally empowered to clothe the barren

heights with a richer than nature’s verdure robes, and so cheering to

us only a few evenings previous while winding our way over that dusty

road, had now suddenly put on a robe of sackcloth. All was still, save

the chattering of our captors, and the sharp, irregular howling of the

coyotes, who perform most of their odes in the night, and frequently

made it hideous from twilight to twilight again.

“O how much crowded into that short hour spent at the first camp after

leaving the scene of death and sleeping previous! Ignorant of the

purposes of our own preservation, we could only wait in breathless

anxiety the movements of our merciless lords. I then began to meditate

upon leaving those parents, brothers and sisters; I looked up and

saw the uncovered bows strung over the wagon, the cloth of which had

been torn off by the Indians. I knew that it designated the spot

where horror and affection lingered. I meditated upon the past, the

present, and the future. The moon, gradually ascending the sky, was

fast breaking in upon the deep-shade spots that at her first rising

had contended with ridges of light spread about them. _That_ moon had

witnessed the night before my childish but sincerest vow, that I would

never be taken alive by Indian savages, and was now laughing at the

frailty of the resolution and the abruptness with which the fears to

which it pointed had become reality! _That_ moon had smiled on many,

very many hours spent in lands far away in childish glee, romps and

sports prolonged, near the home-hearth and grass-plotted door-yard,

long after the cool evening breezes had fanned away the sultry air of

the day. The very intonations of the voices that had swelled and echoed

in those uncaring hours of glee came back to me now, to rehearse in

the ears of a present, insupportable sorrow, the music of past, but

happier days. This hour, _this moon-lit hour_, was one most dear and

exclusive to the gushing forth of the heart’s unrestrained overflowings

of happiness. Where are now those girls and boys? where now are those

who gathered about me, and over whose sun-tanned but ruddy cheeks had

stolen the unbidden tear at the hour of parting; or, with an artless

simplicity, the heart’s ‘good-by’ was repeated o’er and o’er again?

Is this moon now bearing the same unmingled smile to them as when it

looked upon our mutual evening promenadings? or has it put on the

somber hues that seem to tinge its wonted brightness to me, heralding

the color of our fate, and hinting of our sorrow? These, all these,

and many more kindred reflections found way to, and strung the heart’s

saddest notes. And as memory and present consciousness told me of

those days and evenings gone--gone never to be repeated--I became sick

of life, and resolved upon stopping its currents with my own hands;

and but for the yearning anxiety that bent over little Mary Ann, I

should have only waited the opportunity to have executed my desperate

purpose. The strolls to school, arm-in-arm with the now remembered,

but abandoned partners of the blissful past, on the summer morn; the

windings and wanderings upon the distinctly remembered strawberry

patches at sultry noon; the evening walks for the cows, when the

setting sun and the coming on of cloudless, stormless, cool evenings,

clothed all nature with unwonted loveliness; together with the sad

present, that furnished so unexpected and tormenting a contrast with

all before, would rush again upon me, bringing the breath of dark,

suicidal thoughts to fire up the _first hour of a camp among the

Indians_!”

But these harrowing meditations are suddenly interrupted; cattle are

placed in order for traveling; five of the Indians are put in charge of

the girls, and welcome or unwelcome they must away they knew not where.

“We were started and kept upon a rapid pace for several hours. One of

the Indians takes the lead, Mary Ann and myself follow, bareheaded and

shoeless, the Indians having taken off our shoes and head covering.

We were traveling at a rate, as we soon learned, much beyond our

strength. Soon the light of the camp-fire was hid, and as my eye

turned, full of tears, in search of the sleeping-place of my kindred,

it could not be distinguished from the peaks and rocks about it.

Every slackening of our pace and utterance of grief, however, was the

signal for new threats, and the suspended war-club, with the fiendish

‘_Yokoa_’ in our ears, repressed all expression of sorrow, and pushed

us on up steeper ascents and bolder hills with a quickened step. We

must have traveled at the rate of four or five miles an hour. Our feet

were soon lacerated, as in shadowed places we were unable to pick our

way, and were frequently stumbling upon stones and rocks, which made

them bleed freely. Little Mary Ann soon became unable to proceed at

the rate we had been keeping, and sank down after a few miles, saying

she could not go. After threatening and beating her considerably,

and finding this treatment as well as my entreaties useless, they

threatened to dispatch and leave her, and showed by their movements

and gestures that they had fully come to this determination. At this I

knew not what to do; I only wished that if they should do this I might

be left with her. She seemed to have become utterly fearless of death,

and said she had rather die than live. These inhuman wretches sought by

every possible rudeness and abuse to rouse her fears and compel her on;

but all in vain. I resolved, in the event of her being left, to cling

to her, and thus compel them to dispose of us as they had the remainder

of the family, and leave us upon a neighboring hill. My fears were that

I could not succeed in my desperate purpose, and I fully believed they

would kill her, and probably compel me on with them. This fear induced

me to use every possible plea that I could make known to them to

preserve her life; besides, at every step a faint hope of release shone

upon my heart; that hope had a power to comfort and keep me up. While

thus halting, one of the stout Indians dislodged his pack, and putting

it upon the shoulders of another Indian, rudely threw Mary Ann across

his back, and with vengeance in his eye bounded on.

“Sometimes I meditated the desperate resolution to utterly refuse to

proceed, but was held back alone by my yearning for that helpless

sister. Again, I found my strength failing, and that unless a rest

could be soon granted I _must_ yield to faintness and weariness, and

bide the consequences; thus I passed the dreadful hours up to midnight.

The moanings and sobbings of Mary Ann had now ceased; not knowing but

she was dead, I managed to look in her face, and found her eyes opening

and shutting alternately, as if in an effort to wake, but still unable

to sleep; I spoke to her but received no answer. We could not converse

without exciting the fiendish rage of our enemies. Mary Ann seemed to

have become utterly indifferent to all about her; and, wrapped in a

dreamy reverie, relieved of all care of life or death, presenting the

appearance of one who had simply the consciousness that some strange,

unaccountable event had happened, and in its bewildering effects she

was content to remain. Our way had been mostly over a succession of

small bluff points of high mountain chains, these letting down to a

rough winding valley, running principally northeast. These small rock

hills that formed the bottom of the high cliffs on either side, were

rough, with no perceptible trail. We halted for a few moments about

the middle of the night; besides this we had no rest until about noon

of the next day, when we came to an open place of a few acres of

level, sandy soil, adorned with an occasional thrifty, beautiful tree,

but high and seemingly impassable mountains hemming us in on every

side. This appeared to be to our captors a familiar retreat. Almost

exhausted, and suffering extremely, I dragged myself up to the place

of halt, hoping that we had completed the travel of that day. We had

tarried about two hours when the rest of the band, who had taken the

stock in another direction, came up. They had with them two oxen and

the horse. The rest of the stock, we afterward learned, had been killed

and hung up to dry, awaiting the roving of this plundering band when

another expedition should lead them that way. Here they immediately

proceeded to kill the other two. This being done they sliced them

up, and closely packed the parcels in equalized packages for their

backs. They then broiled some of the meat on the fire, and prepared

another meal of this and burned dough and bean soup. They offered us

of their fare and we ate with a good appetite. Never did the tender,

well-prepared veal steak at home relish better than the tough, stringy

piece of meat about the size of the hand, given us by our captors, and

which with burned dough and a little bean soup constituted our meal.

We were very sleepy, but such was my pain and suffering I could not

sleep. They endeavored now to compel Mary Ann again to go on foot; but

this she could not do, and after beating her again, all of which she

took without a murmur, one of them again took her upon his shoulder and

we started. I had not gone far before I found it impossible to proceed

on account of the soreness of my feet. They then gave me something

very much of the substance of sole-leather which they tied upon the

bottom of my feet. This was a relief, and though suffering much from

thirst and the pain of over-exertion, I was enabled to keep up with the

heavy-laden Indians. We halted in a snug, dark ravine about ten o’clock

that night, and preparations were at once made for a night’s stay. My

present suffering had now made me almost callous as to the past, and

never did rest seem so sweet as when I saw they were about to encamp.

“During the last six hours they had whipped Mary Ann into walking.

We were now shown a soft place in the sand, and directed to it as the

place of our rest; and with two of our own blankets thrown over us, and

three savages encircling us, (for protection of course!) were soon,

despite our physical sufferings, in a dreamy and troubled sleep. The

most frightful scenes of butchery and suffering followed into every

moment’s slumber. We were not roused until a full twilight had shone in

upon our beautiful little ravine retreat. The breakfast was served up,

consisting of beef, burned dough, and beans, instead of beans, burned

dough, and beef, as usual. The sun was now fairly upon us when, like

cattle, we were driven forth to another day’s travel. The roughest

road (if road be a proper term) over which I ever passed, in all my

captivity, was that day’s route. Twice during the day, I gave up, and

told Mary I must consent to be murdered and left, for proceed I would

not. But this they were not inclined to allow. When I could not be

driven, I was pushed and hauled along. Stubs, rocks, and gravel-strewn

mountain sides hedged up and embittered the travel of the whole day.

_That day_ is among the few days of my dreary stay among the savages,

marked by the most pain and suffering ever endured. I have since

learned that they hurried for fear of the whites, emigrant trains of

whom were not unfrequently passing that way. For protection they kept a

close watch, having not less than three guards or sentinels stationed

at a little distance from each camp we made during the entire night. I

have since thought much upon the fear manifested by these reputed brave

barbarians. They indeed seem to be borne down with the most tormenting

fear for their personal safety at all times, at home, or roaming for

plunder or hunt. And yet courage is made a virtue among them, while

cowardice is the unpardonable sin. When compelled to meet death, they

seem to muster a sullen obstinate defiance of their doom, that makes

the most of a dreaded necessity, rather than seek a preparation to meet

it with a submission which they often dissemble but never possess.

“About noon we were suddenly surprised by coming upon a band of

Indians, eleven in number. They emerged from behind a rock point that

set out into a low, dark ravine, through which we were passing, and

every one of them was armed with bows and arrows. When they came up

they were jabbering and gesturing in the most excited manner, with

eyes fastened upon me. While some of them were earnestly conversing

with members of our band, two of them stealthily crept around us, and

one of them by his gestures and excited talk, plainly showed hostile

intentions toward us, which our captors watched with a close eye.

Suddenly one of them strung his bow, and let fly an arrow at me, which

pierced my dress, doing me no harm.

[Illustration: ATTEMPT TO SHOOT OLIVE AND MARY ANN.]

“He was in the act, as also the other, of hurling the second, when two

of our number sprang toward them with their clubs, while two others

snatched us one side, placing themselves between us and the drawn

bows. By this time a strong Apache had the Indian by a firm grasp, and

compelled him to desist. It was with difficulty they could be shaken

off, or their murderous purpose prevented. At one time there was likely

to be a general fight with this band (as I afterward learned them to

be) of land pirates.

“The reason, as I afterward came to know, of the conduct of this

Indian, was that he had lost a brother in an affray with the whites

upon this same Santa Fé route, and he had sworn not to allow the

first opportunity to escape without avenging his brother’s blood by

taking the life of an American. Had their number been larger a serious

engagement would have taken place, and my life have probably been

sacrificed to this fiend’s revenge. During the skirmish of words that

preceded and for some time followed this attempt upon my life, I felt

but little anxiety, for there was little reason to hope but that we

must both perish at the best, and to me it mattered little how soon.

Friends we had none; succor, or sympathy, or help, we had no reason

to think could follow us into this wild, unknown region; and the only

question was whether we should be murdered inch by inch, or find a

sudden though savage termination to our dreadful condition, and sleep

at once quietly beyond the reach or brutality of these fiends in

death’s embrace. Indeed death seemed the only release proffered from

any source. If I had before known that the arrow would lodge in life’s

vitals, I doubt whether it would have awakened a nerve or moved a

muscle.

“We traveled until about midnight, when our captors called a halt,

and gave us to understand we might sleep for the remainder of the

night. But, jaded as we were, and enduring as we were all manner of

pain, these were not more in the way of sleep than the wild current

of our anxious thoughts and meditations, which we found it impossible

to arrest or to leave with the dead bodies of our dear kindred. There

was scarcely a moment when the mind’s consent could be gained for

sleep. Well do I remember to have spent the larger proportion of that

half of a night in gazing upon the stars, counting those directly

over head, calling the names I had been taught to give to certain of

the planets, pointing out to my sister the old dipper, and seeking to

arrest and relieve her sadness by referring to the views we had taken

of these from the old grass-clad door-yard in front of our humble

cottage in Illinois. We spoke of the probability that these might

now be the objects of attention and sight to eyes far away; to eyes

familiar, the gleam of whose kindly radiance had so oft met ours,

and with the strength of whose vision we had so delightfully tried

our own in thus star-gazing. These scenes of a past yet unfinished

childhood came rushing upon the mind, bidding it away over the distance

that now separated them and their present occupants from us, and to

think mournfully of the still wider variance that separated their

allotment from ours. Strange as it may appear, scenes and woes like

those pressing upon us had a power to bind all sensitiveness about our

fate. Indeed, indifference is the last retreat of desperation. The

recklessness observed in the Indians, their habits of subsistence,

and all their manner and bearing toward their captives, could lead

them only to expect that by starvation or assassination they must soon

become the victims of a brutal fate.

“On the third day we came suddenly in sight of a cluster of low,

thatched huts, each having an opening near the ground leading into

them.”

It was soon visible from the flashing eyes and animated countenances of

the Indians, that they were nearing some place of attraction, and to

which anxious and interesting desire had been pointing. To two young

girls, having traveled on foot two hundred miles in three days; with

swollen feet and limbs, lame, exhausted, not yet four days remove from

the loss of parents, brothers, and sisters, and torn from them, too,

in the most brutal manner; away in the deeps of forests and mountains,

upon the desolation of which the glad light or sound of civilization

never yet broke; with no guides or protectors, rudely, inhumanly driven

by untutored, untamed savages, the sight of the dwelling-places of man,

however coarse or unseemly, was no very unwelcome scene. With all the

dread possibilities, therefore, that might await them at any moment,

nevertheless to get even into an Indian camp was home.

[Illustration]

“We were soon ushered into camp, amid shouts and song, wild dancing,

and the crudest, most irregular music that ever ranter sung, or

delighted the ear of an unrestrained superstition. They lifted us on

the top of a pile of brush and bark, then formed a circle about us

of men, women, and children of all ages and sizes, some naked, some

dressed in blankets, some in skins, some in bark. Music then commenced,

which consisted of pounding upon stones with clubs and horn, and the

drawing of a small string like a fiddle-bow across distended bark. They

ran, and jumped, and danced in the wildest and most furious manner

about us, but keeping a regular circle. Each, on coming to a certain

point in the circle, marked by a removed piece of turf in the ground,

would bend himself or herself nearly to the ground, uttering at the

same time a most frightful yell, and making a violent gesticulation

and stamping. Frequently on coming near us, as they would do in

each evolution, they would spit in our face, throw dirt upon us,

or slightly strike us with their hand, managing, by every possible

means, to give us an early and thorough impression of their barbarity,

cruelty, and obscenity. The little boys and girls, especially, would

make the older ones merry by thus taunting us. It seemed during all

this wild and disgusting performance, that their main ambition was to

exhibit their superiority over us, and the low, earnest, intense hate

they bore toward our race. And this they most effectually succeeded

in accomplishing, together with a disgusting view of the obscenity,

vulgarity, and grossness of their hearts, and the mean, despicable,

revengeful dispositions that burn with hellish fury within their

untamed bosoms.

“We soon saw that these bravadoes had made themselves great men at

home. They had made themselves a name by the exploits of the past

week. They had wantonly set upon a laboring family of nine persons,

unprotected, and worn to fatigue by the toils of a long journey,

without any mode of defense, and had inhumanly slaughtered seven

of them, taken two inoffensive girls into a barbarous captivity,

and drove them two hundred miles in three days without that mercy

which civilization awards to the brute; taken a few sacks of smoked,

soot-covered cow-meat, a few beans, a little clothing, and one horse!

By their account, and we afterward ascertained that they have a mode of

calculating distances with wonderful accuracy, we had come indeed over

two hundred and fifty miles, inside of eighty hours.

“This may seem incredible to the reader, but the rate at which we

were hurried on, the little rest that was granted, and subsequent

knowledge gained of their traveling rate, confirms the assertion made

by themselves as to the distance.

“We found the tribe to consist of about three hundred, living in all

the extremes of filth and degradation that the most abandoned humanity

ever fathomed. Little had the inexperience and totally different habits

of life, from which these reflections are made, of the knowledge or

judgment to imagine or picture the low grossness to which unrestrained,

uneducated passions can sink the human heart and life. Their mode of

dress, (but little dress they had!) was needlessly and shockingly

indecent, when the material of which their scanty clothing consists

would, by an industrious habit and hand, have clothed them to the

dictates of comfort and modesty.

“They subsisted principally upon deer, quail, and rabbit, with an

occasional mixture of roots from the ground. And even this dealt out

with the most sparing and parsimonious hand, and in quantity only up

to a stern necessity; and this, not because of poverty in the supply,

but to feed and gratify a laziness that would not gather or hunt it.

“It was only when the insatiable and half-starved appetite of the

members was satisfied, when unusual abundance chanced to come in,

that their captives could be allowed a morsel; and then their chance

was that of the dogs, with whom they might share the crumbs. Their

meat was boiled with water in a ‘Tusquin,’ (clay kettle,) and this

meat-mush or soup was the staple of food among them, and of this they

were frequently short, and obliged to quiet themselves with meted out

allowance; to their captives it was always thus meted out. At times

game in the immediate vicinity was scarce, and their indolence would

not let them go forth to the chase upon the mountains and in the

valleys a little distance, where they acknowledged it plenty, only

in cases of impending starvation. During the time of captivity among

them, very frequently were whole days spent without a morsel, and then

when the hunter returned with game, he was surrounded with crowds

hungry as a pack of wolves to devour it, and the bits and leavings

were tauntingly thrown to ‘Onatas,’ saying, ‘You have been fed too

well; we will teach you to live on little.’ Besides all this, they

were disbelievers in the propriety of treating female youth to meat,

or of allowing it to become their article of subsistence; which,

considering their main reliance as a tribe upon game, was equal to

dooming their females to starvation. And this result of their theory

became a mournful and constantly recurring fact. According to their

physiology the female, especially the young female, should be allowed

meat only when necessary to prevent starvation. Their own female

children frequently died, and those alive, old and young, were sickly

and dwarfish generally.

“Several times were their late captives brought near a horrid death ere

they could be persuaded to so waive their superstitious notions as to

give them a saving crumb.

“These Apaches were without any settled habits of industry. They tilled

not. It was a marvel to see how little was required to keep them alive;

yet they were capable of the greatest endurance when occasion taxed

their strength. They ate worms, grasshoppers, reptiles, _all flesh_,

and were, perhaps, living exhibitions of a certain theory by which

the nature of the animal eaten leaves its imprint upon the man or

human being who devours it. For whole days, when scarcely a morsel for

another meal was in the camp, would those stout, robust, lazy lumps

of a degraded humanity lounge in the sun or by the gurgling spring;

at noon in the shade or on the shelves of the mountains surrounding,

utterly reckless of their situation, or of the doom their idleness

might bring upon the whole tribe. Their women were the laborers and

principal burden-bearers, and during all our captivity,” says Olive,

“it was our lot to serve under these enslaved women, with a severity

more intolerable than that to which they were subjected by their

merciless lords. They invented modes, and seemed to create necessities

of labor, that they might gratify themselves by taxing us to the

utmost, and even took unwarranted delight in whipping us on beyond our

strength. And all their requests and exactions were couched in the most

insulting and taunting language and manner, as it then seemed, and as

they had the frankness soon to confess, to fume their hate against the

race to whom we belonged.

“Often under the frown and lash were we compelled to labor for whole

days upon an allowance amply sufficient to starve a common dandy

civilized idler, and those days of toil wrung out at the instance of

children younger than ourselves, who were set as our task-masters.

They knew nothing of cultivating the soil. After we had learned their

language enough to talk with them, we ventured to speak to them of the

way by which we had lived, of the tilling of the ground.

“They had soil that might have produced, but most of them had an

abhorrence of all that might be said of the superior blessings

of industry and the American civilization. Yet there were those,

especially among the females and the younger members of the tribe, who

asked frequent questions, and with eagerness, of our mode of life.

For some time after coming among them, Mary Ann was very ill. The

fatigue, the cruelties of the journey, nearly cost her her life; yet

in all her weakness, sickness, and pinings, they treated her with all

the heartlessness of a dog. She would often say to me: ‘Olive, I must

starve unless I can get something more to eat;’ yet it was only when

she was utterly disabled that they would allow her a respite from some

daily menial service. We have often taken the time which was given

to gather roots for our lazy captors, to gather and eat ourselves;

and had it not been for supplies obtained by such means, we must have

perished. But the physical sufferings of this state were light when

compared with the fear and anguish of mind; the bitter fate upon us,

the dismal remembrances that harassed us, the knowledge of a bright

past and a dark future by which we were compassed, these, all these

belabored every waking moment, and crowded the wonted hours of sleep

with terrible forebodings of a worse fate still ahead. Each day seemed

to be allotted its own peculiar woes; some circumstance, some new event

would arise, touching and enkindling its own class of bitter emotions.

We were compelled to heed every whimper and cry of their little urchins

with promptness, and fully, under no less penalty than a severe

beating, and that in the most severe manner. These every-day usages

and occurrences would awaken thorny reflections upon our changed and

prison life. There was no beauty, no loveliness, no attractions in the

country possessed by these unlovely creatures to make it pleasant, if

there had been the blotting out of all the dreadful realities that

had marked our way to it, or the absence of the cruelties that made

our stay a living death. Often has my little sister come to me with

a heart surcharged with grief, and the big tears standing in her

eye, or perhaps sobbing most convulsively over the maltreatment and

chastisement that had met her good intentions, for she ever tried to

please them, and most piteously would she say: ‘How long, O how long,

dear Olive, must we stay here; can we never get away? do you not think

they intend to kill us? O! they are so ugly and savage!’ Sometimes I

would tell her that I saw but little chance for escape; that we had

better be good and ready for any fate, and try to wait in submission

for our lot.

“She would dry her eyes, wipe the tears away, and not seldom have I

known her to return with a look of pensive thoughtfulness, and that

eye, bright and glistening with the light of a new-born thought, as

she would say: ‘I know what we can do; we can ask God. He can deliver

us, or give us grace to bear our troubles.’ It was our custom to go by

ourselves and commit ourselves to God in faithful prayer every day; and

this we would do after we laid our weary frames upon our sand bed to

rest, if no other opportunity offered. This custom had been inculcated

in us by a fond and devoted mother, and well now did we remember with

what affection she assured us that we would find it a comfort and

support to thus carry our trials and troubles to our heavenly Father

in after years; though little did she realize the exceedingly bitter

grief that would make these lessons of piety so sweet to our hearts.

Too sadly did they prove true. Often were the times when we were sent

some distance to bring water and wood for the comfort of lazy men,

selected for the grateful observance of this only joyful employment

that occupied any of those dark days.

“Seldom during our stay here were we cheered with any knowledge or

circumstance that bid us hope for our escape. Hours were spent by us

in talking of trying the experiment. Mary often would say: ‘I can find

the way out, and I can go the whole distance as quick as they.’ Several

times, after cruel treatment, or the passing of danger from starvation,

have we made the resolution, and set the time for executing it, but

were not bold enough to undertake it. Yet we were not without _all_ or

_any_ hope. A word dropped by our captors concerning their occasional

trips, made by small bands of them to some region of the whites, some

knowledge we would accidentally gain of our latitude and locality,

would animate our breasts with the hope of a future relief, breaking

like a small ray of light from some distant luminous object upon the

eye of our faith. But it was only when our minds dwelt upon the power

of the Highest, on an overruling Providence, that we could feel that

there was any possibility of an extrication from our uncheered prison

life.

“After we had been among these Apaches several months, their conduct

toward us somewhat changed. They became more lenient and merciful,

especially to my sister. She always met their abuse with a mild,

patient spirit and deportment, and with an intrepidity and fortitude

beyond what might have been expected from her age. This spirit,

which she always bore, I could plainly see was working its effect

upon some of them; so that, especially on the part of those females

connected in some way with the household of the chief, and who had

the principal control of us, we could plainly see more forbearance,

kindness, and interest exhibited toward their captives. This, slight

as was the change, was a great relief to my mind, and comfort to Mary

Ann. We had learned their language so as to hold converse with them

quite understandingly, after a few months among them. They were much

disposed at times to draw us into conversation; they asked our ages,

inquired after our former place of living, and when we told them of

the distance we had come to reach our home among them, they greatly

marveled. They would gather about us frequently in large numbers, and

ply their curious questions with eagerness and seeming interest,

asking how many of the white folks there were; how far the big ocean

extended; and on being told of the two main oceans, they asked if the

whites possessed the other big world on the east of the Atlantic; if

there were any Indians there; particularly they would question us as

to the number of the ‘Americanos,’ (this term they obtained among the

Mexicans, and it was the one by which they invariably designated our

people.) When we told them of the number of the whites, and of their

rapid increase, they were apparently incredulous, and some of them

would become angry, and accuse us of lying, and wishing to make them

believe a lie. They wanted to know how women were treated, and if a

man was allowed more than one wife; inquired particularly how and by

what means a subsistence was gained by us. In this latter question

we could discern an interest that did not inspire any of their other

queries. Bad as they are, they are very curious to know the secret of

the success and increase of the whites. We tried to tell them of the

knowledge the whites possessed, of the well-founded belief they had

that the stars above us were peopled by human beings, and of the fact

that the distance to these far-off worlds had been measured by the

whites. They wished to know if any of us had been there; this they

asked in a taunting manner, exhibiting in irony and sarcasm their

incredulity as to the statement, over which they made much sport and

ridicule. They said if the stars were inhabited, the people would

drop out, and hence they knew that this was a lie. I found the months

and years in which I had been kept in school, not altogether useless

in answering their questions. I told them that the earth turned round

every twenty-four hours, and also of its traveling about the sun every

year. Upon this they said we were just like all the Americanos, big

liars, and seemed to think that our parents had begun young with us to

learn us so perfectly the art of falsehood so early. But still we could

see, through all their accusations of falsehood, by their astonishment,

and discussion, and arguments upon the matter of our conversation,

they were not wholly unbelieving. They would tell us, however, that an

‘evil spirit’ reigned among the whites, and that he was leading them

on to destruction. They seemed sincere in their belief that there were

scarcely any of the whites that could be trusted, but that they had

evil assistance, which made them great and powerful. As to any system

of religion or morality, they seemed to be beneath it. But we found,

though the daily tasks upon us were not abated, yet our condition

was greatly mollified; and we had become objects of their growing

curiosity, mere playthings, over which they could make merry.

“They are much given to humor and fun, but it generally descends to

low obscenity and meanness. They had great contempt for one that would

complain under torture or suffering, even though of their own tribe,

and said a person that could not uncomplainingly endure suffering was

not fit to live. They asked us if we wanted to get away, and tried by

every stratagem to extort from us our feelings as to our captivity; but

we were not long in learning that any expression of discontent was the

signal for new toils, and tasks, and grievances. We made the resolution

between us to avoid any expression of discontent, which, at times, it

cost us no small effort to keep.

“We learned that this tribe was a detached parcel of the old and

more numerous tribe bearing their name, and whose locality was in

the regions of New-Mexico. They had become in years gone, impatient

of the restraint put upon them by the Catholic missionaries, and had

resolved upon emancipation from their control, and had accordingly

sought a home in the wild fastnesses of these northern mountains. The

old tribe had since given them the name of the ‘Touto Apaches,’ an

appellation signifying their unruliness, as well as their roving and

piratical habits. They said that the old tribe was much more wicked

than themselves, and that they would be destroyed by the whites.”

Beyond the manuscript touching the geography and appearance of the

country where the scenes of this book were laid, and which was prepared

for previous editions, there is considerable concerning the peculiar

superstitions and crude beliefs of these Indians, as well as upon

histories treasured up by them touching their tribes and individual

members of them, which we believe would be read with interest, but

scarcely a tithe of which can we give without swelling this book beyond

all due bounds. Of these histories it is not to be supposed that more

than mere scraps could have been gleaned by Olive, when we remember her

age, and that all that is remembered is from mere verbal recital.

The Indians would congregate on evenings set apart, when one of their

number, most in years and of prominent position, would entertain

the company with a narration, frequently long and tedious, of the

adventures of his youthful days. On one of these occasions an old

Indian spoke as follows: “I am the son of an Indian who was chief of

the Camanche tribe. I had heard often of the white people. I longed to

see one. I was told by my father one day that I might, with some of

the warriors of the tribe, go on a hunt to the north, and also that we

would probably find some white people; if so, that we must kill them,

and bring in their scalps with any white captive girls if we could find

them. We had so many (counting his fingers up to three) bows and so

many (forty-eight) arrows each.

“The most of my desire was to see and kill a white man, and take some

captives. We traveled a very long way. We passed through several tribes

of Indians. We found, according to the accounts of some Indians away

to the north, that there were white people near them, but that we must

not touch them; that they were friendly and traded with themselves;

that some of their squaws were married to them; that they (the whites)

came from the great _Auhah_ (sea) to the setting sun. One day, about

dark, we came in view of an object that we thought at first to be

a bear. We soon found it was a man. We waited and skulked for some

time to find out, if possible, whether it was a man, and how many

of them there were. We stayed all night in this condition, and it

was very cold. Just before fair day, we moved slowly round the place

where we had seen the object. As we thought we had got past it and

not espied anything, we concluded to go on, when we were suddenly met

by a huge-looking thing with a covering (skin) such as we had never

before seen. We were surprised and did not know what to do. It was

partly behind a rock, and we were too much scared to draw our bows.

After a word together, (there were four of us,) we concluded to run.

So we started. We had not gone far when an Indian jumped out after us,

threw an _umsupieque_ (white blanket) from his head, and called to us

to stop. We had never seen this umsupieque before. We were very much

ashamed. We thought at first, and when we ran, that some of our friends

had been killed and had come (or their ghosts) to meet us. The Indian,

a Chimowanan, came up to us, and began to laugh at our bravery! We were

much ashamed, but we could not help it now. We left the Indian, after

making him promise that he would not tell of us.

“When we had traveled one day, with no game or anything to eat, we came

to a small house built of wood. We thought it the house of a white man.

We skulked in the bushes, and thought we would watch it until they

should come out, or, if away, come home. We waited one day and two

nights, eating nothing but a few roots. We saw no one, so we set fire

to the house and went on. We were more afraid of the Indians than the

whites, for they had said they would kill us if we touched the whites.

A few days after this we saw another house; we watched that a long

time, then burned it, and started for home. This is all we did. When we

came home our tribe turned out to see us, and hear of our war-hunt. We

had but little to say.

“The next year, the Indian who had scared us with the white blanket,

came among us. I saw him, and made him promise not to tell my father

what a coward I had shown myself when I met him; but I soon found

that all the tribe knew all about it. When the tribe were gathered

together one day for a dance, they laughed at me and about me for my

running from the Indian. I found that the Indian had told some of the

tribe, and they had told my father. My father joined with the rest

in making fun of me for it. I blamed him, and felt mad enough to kill

him. He found it out, so, just before we separated, he called them

all together, and told them that he had displeased his son by what he

had said of me, and now he wanted to make it all right. He said, just

before he sat down, that if ever they should be attacked, he should

feel that they were safe, that he knew his son and those who went north

to kill white people would be safe, for they had shown themselves good

at running. This maddened me more than ever, and up to this day I have

not heard the last of my running from the Indian. I am now old, my head

is nearly bald, the hairs that have fallen from my head have grown up

to be some of these I now see about me. I shall soon go to yonder hill.

I want you to burn my bow and arrow with my body, so that I can hunt up

there.”

“The ‘Toutos’ had, however, for a long time occupied their present

position, and almost the only tribe with whom they had any intercourse

was the Mohaves, (Mo-ha-vays,) a tribe numbering about twelve hundred,

and located three hundred miles to the northwest.

“There were many, however, who had come from other and different

tribes. Some from the north, some from the south and southwest. Hence

there was a marked distinction among their features and appearance.

It seemed from what we could learn that this Touton tribe, or

secession fragment, had from their villainous propensities fled to

this hiding-place, and since their separation been joined by scattered

members and stray families from other tribes, persons whom Touton bands

had fallen in with during their depredating trips abroad, and who from

community of feeling and life had thus amalgamated together.

“For a few years constant traffic had been kept up between the Mohaves

and Toutons. The Mohaves made an expedition once a year, sometimes

oftener, to the Apaches, in small companies, bringing with them

vegetables, grain, and the various products of their soil, which

they would exchange with the Apaches for fur, skins of animals, and

all of the few articles that their different mode of life furnished.

During the autumn of 1851, late in the season, quite a large company

of Mohaves came among us on a trading expedition. But the whole

transactions of one of these expeditions did not comprise the amount of

wealth or business of one hour’s ordinary shopping of a country girl.

This was the first acquaintance we had with those superior Indians.

During their stay we had some faint hints that it was meditated to

sell us to the Mohaves in exchange for vegetables, which they no doubt

regarded as more useful for immediate consumption than their captives.

But still it was only a hint that had been given us, and the curiosity

and anxiety it created soon vanished, and we sank again into the

daily drudging routine of our dark prison life. Months rolled by,

finding us early and late at our burden-bearing and torturing labors,

plying hands and feet to heed the demands of our lazy lords, and the

taunts and exactions of a swarm of heathen urchins, sometimes set over

us. But since the coming of these Mohaves a new question had been

presented, and a new source of anxious solicitude had been opened.

Hours at a time were spent apart, dwelling upon and conversing about

the possibilities and probabilities, with all the gravity of men in the

council of state, of our being sold to another tribe, and what might be

its effects upon us. At times it was considered as the possible means

by which an utter and hopeless bondage might be sealed upon us for

life. It was seen plainly that the love of traffic predominated among

these barbarous hordes; that the lives of their captives would be but

a small weight in the balance, if they interfered with their lust of

war or conquest, if gain without toil might be gratified. It was feared

that the deep-seated hostility which they bore to the white race, the

contempt which they manifested to their captives, united with the fear

(which their conduct had more than once exhibited) that they might be

left without that constant, vigilant oversight that was so great a tax

upon their indolence to maintain over them, that they might return to

their own people and tell the tale of their sufferings and captivity,

and thus bring down upon them the vengeance of the whites; that all

these causes might induce them to sell their captives to the most

inaccessible tribe, and thus consign them to a captivity upon which the

light of hope or the prospect of escape could not shine.”

On a little mound, a short distance from the clustered, smoking

wigwams, constituting the Apache village, on a pleasant day, see these

two captive girls, their root baskets laid aside, and side by side upon

the ground, sitting down to a few moments’ conversation. They talk of

the year that has now nearly closed, the first of their captivity, the

bitterness that had mingled in the cup of its allotment, of their dead,

who had now slept one year of their last sleep, and with much concern

they are now querying about what might be the intentions of the Mohaves

in their daily expected coming again so soon among the Apaches.

Mary Ann says: “I believe they will sell us; I overheard one of the

chiefs say something the other day in his wigwam, about our going among

the Mohaves, and it was with some words about their expected return. I

do not know, but from what I saw of them I think they know more, and

live better than these miserable Apaches.”

Olive. “But may be they put on the best side when here, they might

treat us worse than the Apaches.”

M. A. “O, that will be impossible without they kill us, and if we

cannot escape, the sooner we die the better. I wish, Olive, you would

agree to it, and we will start to-night and try to make our escape.”

O. “But where shall we go? We know not the way we came, much of it was

traveled in the night, besides this, these Indians have their trails

well known to them, leading through all these mountains, and we could

not get upon one where they would not be sure to head us, and you know

they say they have spies continually out to let the tribe know when any

of their enemies come into the vicinity of their village.”

M. A. “Well, Olive, how often have you told me that were it not for a

very faint hope you have of getting away, and your concern for me, you

would rather die than live. And you know we both think they intend to

sell us, and if they sell us to these Mohaves we will have to travel

three hundred miles, and I can never live through it. I have a severe

cough now, and almost every night I take more cold. Ma always said ‘her

Mary Ann would die with consumption,’ but she did not think, I guess,

of such a consumption as this.”

“Poor girl,” thought Olive, half aloud, “how her eyes glisten, how her

cheeks every day become more spare and pale, and her black, flashing

eye is sinking into her head.” Olive turned her head carelessly, wiped

the tear from her eye, and looking again in the upturned face of her

sister, said: “Why, Mary, if you are afraid that you would perish in

traveling to the Mohave country, how could you stand the roving day and

night among the hills, and we should be obliged, you know, to travel

away from the trail for a week, perhaps a month, living on roots?”

M. A. “As for roots, they are about all we get now, and I had rather

live on them in trying to get away than in staying here, or being

driven like oxen again three hundred miles.”

By this time the little pale face of her sister kindled with such an

enthusiasm that Olive could hardly avoid expressing the effect it had

upon her own mind. Mary was about to continue when her sister, seeing

an Indian near them, bade her hush, and they were about to renew their

work when Mary said: “Look! who are those? they are Indians, they are

those very Mohaves! See! they have a horse, and there is a squaw among

them.”

[Illustration]

The Indian, who was approaching them, had by this time caught a view

of them, and was running to camp to spread the news. “I had,” says the

older, “now no doubt that the approaching company were Mohaves, and

I was half inclined to improve the excitement and carelessness that

would prevail for a while after their coming among us, to slip away,

taking good care to make sure of a piece of meat, a few roots, and

something to kill myself with if I should find myself about falling

into the hands of pursuers. But in more sober moments we thought it

well that this fear of being again caught, and of torture they would

be sure to inflict, if we should be unsuccessful, kept us from such

a desperate step. The Mohave party are now descending a slope to the

Apache village, and roaring, yelling, and dancing prevail through

the gathering crowd of Apaches. The party consisted of five men, and

a young woman under twenty years. It was not long ere two of the

chiefs came to us, and told us that these Mohaves had come after us,

according to a contract made with them at a previous visit; that the

party had been back to obtain the sanction of Espaniole, the Mohave

chief, to the contract, and that now the chief had sent his own

daughter to witness to his desire to purchase the white captives. The

chief had, however, left it with his daughter to approve or annul the

contract that had been made.”

This daughter of the chief was a beautiful, mild, and sympathizing

woman. Her conduct and behavior toward these Apache captives bespoke

a tutoring, and intelligence, and sweetness of disposition that won

their interest at once. She could use the Apache language with fluency,

and was thus enabled to talk with the captives for whom she had come.

She told her designs to them, and had soon settled it in her mind to

approve the contract previously made.

During that evening there was much disquiet and misrule throughout

the village. The agitated and interested captives, though having

been informed that all the negotiations had been completed for their

transfer, were much perplexed to learn the reasons of the excitement

still raging.

There was a studied effort, which was plainly perceived by them, to

cover the matter of the councils and heated debates, which occupied

the whole night from them; but, by remarks which reached them from

different ones, they learned that their destiny was in a very critical

suspense. There was a strong party who were angrily opposed to the

acceptance of the Mohave propositions, among whom were the murderers of

the Oatman family.

Different ones sought by every possible means to draw out the feelings

of their captives to the proposed removal. One in particular, a young

Indian woman, who had forced a disagreeable intimacy with Olive, sought

to make her say that she would rather go to the Mohaves. The discretion

of the captive girl, however, proved equal to the treachery of the

Indian mistress, and no words of complaint, or expressions of desire,

could the latter glean to make a perverted report of at head-quarters.

The artful Miss To-aquin had endeavored from the first, under friendly

pretenses, to acquaint herself with the American language, and

succeeded in acquiring a smattering of it. But her eaves-dropping

propensities had made the intended victims of her treachery wary,

since they had known, in several instances, of her false reports and

tale-bearings to the chief.

While sitting alone by a small fire in their wigwam, late in the night,

this Jezebel came and seated herself by them, and with her smiles and

rattling tongue, feigning an anxious interest in their welfare, said,

in substance:

“I suppose you are glad you are going to the Mohaves? But I always

hated them; they will steal, and lie, and cheat. Do you think you will

get away? I suppose you do. But these miserable Mohaves are going to

sell you to another tribe; if they do not, it will not be long ere they

will kill you. O, I am very sad because you are going away! I hoped to

see you free in a short time; but I know you will never get back to the

whites now. Suppose you will try, will you not?”

Olive replied: “We are captives, and since our parents and all our

kindred are dead, it matters little where we are, there or here. We are

treated better than we deserve, perhaps; and we shall try to behave

well, let them treat us as they may; and as to getting away, you know

it would be impossible and foolish for us to try.”

“The Mohave party professed that it was out of kindness to us that they

had come to take us with them; that they knew of the cruel treatment we

were suffering among the Apaches, and intended to use us well.

“This would all have been very comforting to us, and it was only to us

they made this plea, had we been prepared to give them credit for the

absence of that treachery which had been found, so far, as natural to

an Indian as his breath. But their natures do not grow sincerity, and

their words are to have no weight in judging of their characters. To us

it was only gloom that lay upon our way, whether to the Mohaves or to

stay in our present position. Their real design it was useless to seek

to read until its execution came.

“Sunrise, which greeted us ere we had a moment’s sleep, found the party

prepared to leave, and we were coolly informed by our captors that we

must go with them. Two horses, a few vegetables, a few pounds of beads,

and three blankets we found to be our price in that market.

“We found that there were those among the Apaches who were ready to

tear us in pieces when we left, and they only wanted a few more to

unite with them, to put an end to our lives at once. They now broke

forth in the most insulting language to us, and to the remainder of the

tribe for bargaining us away. Some laughed, a few among the children,

who had received a care and attention from us denied by their natural

parents, cried, and a general pow-wow rent the air as we started upon

another three hundred miles’ trip.”