SAD FATE OF LITTLE MARY.
The reader will please go back with me to that fearful first night of
my captivity, and to the moment when I put into execution the plan
for dear little Mary’s escape, which I prayed might result in her
restoration to our friends.
It must have been something more than a vague hope of liberty to be
lost or won that guided the feeble steps of the child back on the trail
to a bluff overlooking the road where, weary from the fatigue and
terror of a night passed alone on the prairie, she sat, anxious, but
hopeful, awaiting the coming of friends.
Rescue was seemingly near, now that she had reached the great road, and
she knew that there would be a passing train of emigrants ere long.
It was in this situation she was seen by some passing soldiers, holding
out her little trembling hands with eager joy and hope, imploring them
to save her.
It was a party of but three or four soldiers returning from Fort
Laramie, where they had been to meet the paymaster. They had been
pursued by Indians the day before; had also passed the scene of the
destruction of our train; and believed the country swarming with
Indians. Their apprehensions were, therefore, fully aroused, and,
fearing the little figure upon the distant bluff might be a decoy to
lead them into ambush, hesitated to approach. There was a large ravine
between, and it is not strange that their imagination should people it
with lurking savages. However, they were about crossing to the relief
of the little girl, when a party of Indians came in sight, and they
became convinced it was a decoy, and turned and fled.
They returned to Deer Creek Station, and related the circumstance. Mr.
Kelly, arriving soon after, heard it, and his heart sank within him at
the description of the child, for he thought he recognized in it the
form of our little Mary.
He applied to the officer in command for a detail of soldiers to go
with him to search for her, but all entreaty and argument were in vain.
The agony that poor child endured as the soldiers turned away, and the
war-whoop of the savage rang upon her terrified soul, is known only to
God. Instead of the rescue and friends which, in her trusting heart and
innocent faith, she had expected to find, fierce Indians stood before
her, stringing their bows to take her life, thus to win another trophy,
marking the Indian murderer.
The whizzing arrows were sent into the body of the helpless child, and
with the twang of the bow-strings, the delicate form of the heroic
child lay stretched upon the ground, and the bright angel spirit went
home to rest in the bosom of its Father.
On the morning of the 14th, two days after Mary was seen, Mr. Kelly
succeeded in obtaining a squad of soldiers at the station, and went out
to search for the child, and after a short march of eight miles, they
discovered the mutilated remains of the murdered girl.
Mr. Kelly’s grief and anguish knew no bounds.
Three arrows had pierced the body, and the tomahawk and scalping-knife
had done their work. When discovered, her body lay with its little
hands outstretched as if she had received, while running, the fatal
arrows.
Surely He who numbers the sparrows and feeds the ravens was not
unmindful of her in that awful hour, but allowed the heavenly kingdom,
to which her trembling soul was about to take its flight, to sweeten,
with a glimpse of its beatific glory, the bitterness of death, even as
the martyr Stephen, seeing the bliss above, could not be conscious of
the torture below.
Extracting the arrows from the wounds, and dividing her dress among the
soldiers, then tenderly wrapping her in a winding sheet, Mr. Kelly had
the sad satisfaction of smoothing the earth on the unconscious breast
that had ceased to suffer, and when this duty was performed, they left
the little grave all alone, far from the happy home of her childhood,
and the brothers, with whom she had played in her innocent joy.
Of all strange and terrible fates, no one who had seen her gentle face
in its loving sweetness, the joy and comfort of our hearts, would
have predicted such a barbarous fate for her. But it was only the
passage from death into life, from darkness into daylight, from doubt
and fear into endless love and joy. Those little ones, whose spirits
float upward from their downy pillows, amid the tears and prayers of
broken-hearted friends, are blest to enter in at heaven’s shining gate,
which lies as near little Mary’s rocky, blood-stained pillow in the
desolate waste as the palace of a king, and when she had once gained
the great and unspeakable bliss of heaven, it must have blotted out the
remembrance of the pain that won it, and made no price too great for
such delight.
In the far-off land of Indian homes,
Where western winds fan “hills of black,”
’Mid lovely flowers, and golden scenes,
They laid our loved one down to rest.
Where brightest birds, with silvery wings,
Sing their sweet songs upon her grave,
And the moonbeam’s soft and pearly beams
With prairie grasses o’er it wave.
No simple stone e’er marks the spot
Where Mary sleeps in dreamless sleep,
But the moaning wind, with mournful sound,
Doth nightly o’er it vigils keep.
The careless tread of savage feet,
And the weary travelers, pass it by,
Nor heed they her, who came so far
In her youth and innocence to die.
But her happy spirit soared away
To blissful climes above;
She found sweet rest and endless joy
In her bright home of love.