Their demeanor, at first friendly, changes to insolence and then to fierceness. They demand powder and shot, and when they are refused begin to brandish their tomahawks. A tall chief, motioning to the band to keep back, now accosts Mr. Chase, and through Antoine as an interpreter, informs him that unless the demands of his braves are complied with he will not be responsible for the consequences; that they are out on the war-trail and their eyes red with blood so that they cannot distinguish between white man's and Utah's scalps; that the party and all their women and wagons are in the power of the Indian braves; and therefore that the white chief's best plan will be to make what terms he can; that all they require is that they shall give up their guns and ammunition on the prairie and all their mules and horses, retaining only the medicine-buffaloes (the oxen) to draw their wagons. By this time the oxen have been yoked to the teams and the teamsters stand whip in hand ready for the order to start. Old Chase trembles with rage at the insolent demand. "Not a grain of powder to save my life," he yells; "put out boys!" As he turns to mount his horse which stands ready saddled, the Indians leap upon the wagons and others rush against the men who make a brave fight in their defence. Mary, who sees her father struck to the ground, springs with a shrill cry to his assistance at the moment when a savage, crimson with paint and looking like a red demon, bestrides his prostrate body, brandishing a glittering knife in the air preparatory to plunging it into the old man's heart. All is wild confusion. The whites are struggling heroically against overpowering numbers. A single volley of rifles is heard and three Indians bite the dust. A moment later and the brave defenders are disarmed amid the shrieks of the women and the children and the triumphant whoops of the savages.

Mary, flying to her father's rescue, has been overtaken by a huge Indian, who throws his lasso over her shoulders and drags her to the earth, then drawing his scalping-knife he is about to tear the gory trophy from her head. The girl, rising upon her knees, struggles towards the spot where her father lies, now bathed in blood. The Indian jerks the lariat violently and drags her on her face, and with a wild yell rushes to complete the bloody work.

At that instant a yell as fierce as his own is echoed from the bluff, and looking up he sees La Bonte charging down the declivity, his long hair and the fringes of his garments waving in the breeze, his trusty rifle supported in his right arm, and hard after him Kilbuck and the stranger galloping with loud shouts to the scene of action. As La Bonte races madly down the side of the bluff, he catches sight of the girl as the ferocious savage is dragging her over the ground. A cry of horror and vengeance escapes his lips, as driving his spurs to the rowels into his steed he bounds like an arrow to the rescue. Another instant and he is upon his foe; pushing the muzzle of his rifle against the broad chest of the Indian he pulled the trigger, literally blowing out the savage's heart. Cropping his rifle, he wheels his trained horse and drawing a pistol from his belt he charges the enemy among whom Kilbuck and the stranger are dealing death-blows. The Indians, panic-stricken by the suddenness of the attack, turn and flee, leaving several of their number dead upon the field.

Mary, with her arms bound to her body by the lasso, and with her eyes closed to receive the fatal stroke, hears the defiant shout of La Bonte, and glancing up between her half-opened eyelids, sees the wild figure of the mountaineer as he sends the bullet to the heart of her foe. When the Indians flee, La Bonte, the first to run to her aid, cuts the skin-rope, raises her from the ground, looks long and intently in her face, and sees his never-to-be-forgotten Mary Chase. "What! can it be you, Mary?" he exclaims, gazing at the trembling maiden, who hardly believes her eyes as she returns his gaze and recognizes in her deliverer her former lover. She only sobs and clings closer to him in speechless gratitude and love.

Turning from these lovers reunited so miraculously, we see stretched on the battle-field the two grandsons of Mr. Chase, fine lads of fourteen or fifteen, who after fighting like men fall dead pierced with arrows and lances. Old Chase and his sons are slightly wounded, and Antoine shot through the neck and half scalped. The dead boys are laid tenderly beneath the prairie-sod, the wounds of the others are dressed, and the following morning the party continue their journey to the Platte. The three hunters guide and guard them on their way, Mary riding on horseback by the side of her lover.

For many days they pursued their journey, but with feelings far different from those with which they had made its earlier stages. Old Mr. Chase marches on doggedly and in silence; his resolution to seek a new home on the banks of the Columbia has been shaken more by the loss of his grandsons, than by the fatigues and privations incident to the march. The unbidden tears often steal down the cheeks of the women, who cast many a longing look behind them towards the southeastern horizon, far beyond whose purple rim lay their old home. The South Fork of the Platte has been passed, Laramie reached, and for a fortnight the lofty summits of the mountains which overhang the "pass" to California have been in sight; but when they strike the broad trail which would conduct them to their promised land in the valley of the Columbia, the party pause, gaze for a moment steadfastly at the mountain-summits, and then as if by a common impulse, the heads of the horses and oxen are faced to the east, and men, women, and children toss their hats and bonnets in the air, hurrahing lustily for home as the huge wagons roll down along the banks of the river Platte. The closing scene in this romantic melodrama was the marriage of Mary and La Bonte, in Tennessee, four months after the rescue of the Chase family from the Indians.

The following "romance of the forest" we believe has never before been published. The substance of it was communicated to the writer by a gentleman who received it from his grandfather, one of the early settlers of Michigan.

In the year 1762 the Great Pontiac, the Indian Napoleon of the Northwest, had his headquarters in a small secluded island at the opening of Lake St. Clair. Here he organized, with wonderful ability and secrecy, a wide-reaching conspiracy, having for its object the destruction of every English garrison and settlement in Michigan. His envoys, with blood-stained hatchets, had been despatched to the various Indian tribes of the region, and wherever these emblems of butchery had been accepted the savage hordes were gathering, and around their bale-fires in the midnight pantomimes of murder were concentrating their excitable natures into a burning focus which would light their path to carnage and rapine.

While these lurid clouds, charged with death and destruction, were gathering, unseen, about the heads of the adventurous pioneers, who had penetrated that beautiful region, a family of eastern settlers, named Rouse, arrived in the territory, and, disregarding the admonitions of the officers in the fort at Detroit, pushed on twenty miles farther west and planted themselves in the heart of one of those magnificent oak-openings which the Almighty seems to have designed as parks and pleasure-grounds for the sons and daughters of the forest.

Miss Anna Rouse, the only daughter of the family, had been betrothed before her departure from New York State to a young man named James Philbrick, who had afterward gone to fight the French and Indians. It was understood that upon his return he was to follow the Rouse family to Michigan, where, upon his arrival, the marriage was to take place.

In a few months young Philbrick reached the appointed place, and in the following week married Miss Rouse in the presence of a numerous assemblage of soldiers and settlers, who had come from the military posts and the nearest plantations to join in the festivities.

All was gladness and hilarity; the hospitality was bounteous, the company joyous, the bridegroom brave and manly, and the bride lovely as a wild rose. When the banquet was ready the guests trooped into the room where it was spread, and even the sentinels who had been posted beside the muskets in the door-yard, seeing no signs of prowling savages, had entered the house and were enjoying the feast. Scarcely had they abandoned their post when an ear-piercing war-whoop silenced in a moment the joyous sound of the revelers. The soldiers rushed to the door only to be shot down. A few succeeded in recovering their arms, and made a desperate fight. Meanwhile the savages battered down the doors, and leaped in at the windows. The bridegroom was shot, and left for dead, as he was assisting to conceal his bride, and a gigantic warrior, seizing the latter, bore her away into the darkness. After a short but terrific struggle, the savages were driven out of the house, but the defenders were so crippled by their losses and by the want of arms which the enemy had carried away, that it was judged best not to attempt to pursue the Indians, who had disappeared as suddenly as they came.

When the body of the bridegroom was lifted up it was discovered that his heart still beat, though but faintly. Restoratives were administered, and he slowly came back to life, and to the sad consciousness that all that could make life happy to him was gone for ever.

The family soon after abandoned their new home and moved to Detroit, owing to the danger of fresh attacks from Pontiac and his confederates. Years rolled away; young Philbrick, as soon as he recovered from his wounds, took part in the stirring scenes of the war, and strove to forget, in turmoil and excitement, the loss of his fair young bride. But in vain. Her remembrance in the fray nerved his arm to strike, and steadied his eye to launch the bullet at the heart of the hated foes who had bereft him of his dearest treasure; and in the stillness of the night his imagination pictured her, the cruel victim of her barbarous captors.

Peace came in 1763, and he then learned that she had been carried to Canada. He hastened down the St. Lawrence and passed from settlement to settlement, but could gain no tidings of her. After two years, spent in unavailing search, he came back a sad and almost broken-hearted man.

Her image, as she appeared when last he saw her, all radiant in youth and beauty, haunted his waking hours, and in his dreams she was with him as a visible presence. Months, years rolled away; he gave her up as dead, but he did not forget his long-lost bride.

One summer's day, while sitting in his cabin in Michigan, in one of those beautiful natural parks, where he had chosen his abode, he heard a light step, and, looking up, saw his bride standing before him, beautiful still, but with a chastened beauty which told of years of separation and grief.

Her story was a long one. When she was borne away from the marriage feast by her savage captor, she was seen by an old squaw, the wife of a famous chief who had just lost her own daughter, and being attracted by the beauty of Miss Rouse, she protected her from violence, and finally adopted her. Twice she escaped, but was recaptured. The old squaw afterwards took her a thousand miles into the wilderness, and watched her with the ferocious tenderness that the tigress shows for her young. At length, after nearly six years, her Indian mother died. She succeeded then in making her escape, traveled four hundred miles on foot, reached the St. Lawrence, and after passing through great perils and hardships, arrived at Detroit. There she soon found friends, who relieved her wants and conveyed her to her husband, whom she had remembered with fondness and loved with constancy during all the weary years of her captivity.



CHAPTER XI.

PATHETIC PASSAGES OF PIONEER LIFE.

A hundred ills brood over the cabin in the wilderness. Some are ever-present; others lie in wait, and start forth at intervals.

Labor, Solitude, Fear; these are the companions of woman on the border: to these come other visitants—weariness, and that longing, yearning, pining of the heart which the Germans so beautifully term sehn-sucht—hunger, vigils, bodily pain and sickness, the biting cold, the drenching storm, the fierce heat, with savage eyes of man and beast glaring from the thicket. Then sorrow takes bodily shape and enters the house; loved ones are borne away—the child, or the father, or saddest of all, the mother; the long struggle is over, and the devoted woman of the household lays her wasted form beneath the grassy sod of the cabin yard.

Bereavement is hard to bear in even the houses where comfort, ease, and luxury surround the occupants, where friends and kinsfolk crowd to pour out sympathy and consolation. But what must it be in the rude cabin on the lonely border? The grave hollowed out in the hard soil of the little inclosure, the rough shell-coffin hewn with tears from the forest tree, the sorrowing household ranged in silence beside the form which will gladden the loneliness of that stricken family no longer, and then the mourners turn away and go back to their homely toils.

If from the time of the landing we could recall the long procession of the actors and the events of border-life, and pass them before the eye in one great moving panorama, how somber would be the colors of that picture! All along the grand march what scenes of captivity, suffering, bereavement, sorrow, and in these scenes, woman the most prominent figure, for she was the constant actress in this great drama of woe!

The carrying away and the return of captives in war has furnished themes by which poets and artists in all ages have moved the heart of man. The breaking up of homes, the violent separations of those who are kindred by blood, and the sundering for ever of family ties were ordinary and every day incidents in the border-wars of our country: but the frequency of such occurrences does not detract from the mournful interest with which they are always fraught.

At the close of the old French and Indian War, Colonel Henry Bouquet stipulated with the Indian tribes on the Ohio frontier as one of the conditions of peace that they should restore all the captives which they had taken. This was agreed to, and on his return march he was met by a great company of settlers in search of their lost relatives. "Husbands found their wives and parents their children, from whom they had been separated for years. Women frantic between hope and fear, were running hither and thither, looking piercingly into the face of every child, to find their own, which, perhaps, had died—and then such shrieks of agony! Some of the little captives shrank from their own forgotten mothers, and hid in terror in the blankets of the squaws that had adopted them. Some that had been taken away young, had grown up and married Indian husbands or Indian wives, and now stood utterly bewildered with conflicting emotions. A young Virginian had found his wife; but his little boy, not two years old when captured, had been torn from her, and had been carried off, no one knew whither. One day a warrior came in, leading a child. No one seemed to own it. But soon the mother knew her offspring and screaming with joy, folded her son to her bosom. An old woman had lost her granddaughter in the French war, nine years before. All her other relatives had died under the knife. Searching, with trembling eagerness, in each face, she at last recognized the altered features of her child. But the girl who had forgotten her native tongue, returned no answer, and made no sign. The old woman groaned, wept, and complained bitterly, that the daughter she had so often sung to sleep on her knees, had forgotten her in her old age. Soldiers and officers were alike overcome. 'Sing,' whispered Bouquet, 'sing the song you used to sing.' As the low, trembling tones began to ascend, the wild girl gave one sudden start, then listening for a moment longer, her frame shaking like an ague, she burst into a passionate flood of tears. That was sufficient. She was the lost child. All else had been effaced from her memory, but the music of the nursery-song. During her captivity she had heard it in her dreams."

Another story of the same character is that of Frances Slocum, the "Lost child of Wyoming," which though perhaps familiar to some of our readers, will bear repeating.

In the time of the Revolution the house of Mr. Slocum in the Wyoming valley, was attacked by a party of Delawares. The inmates of the house, at the moment of the surprise, were Mrs. Slocum and four young children, the eldest of whom was a son aged thirteen, the second, a daughter aged nine, the third, Frances Slocum, aged five, and a little son aged two and a half.

The girl, aged nine years old, appears to have had the most presence of mind, for while the mother ran into a copse of wood near by, and Frances attempted to secrete herself behind a staircase, the former seized her little brother, the youngest above mentioned, and ran off in the direction of the fort. True she could not make rapid progress, for she clung to the child, and not even the pursuit of the savages could induce her to drop her charge. The Indians did not pursue her far, and laughed heartily at the panic of the little girl, while they could not but admire her resolution. Allowing her to make her escape, they returned to the house, and after helping themselves to such articles as they chose, prepared to depart.

The mother seems to have been unobserved by them, although, with a yearning bosom, she had so disposed of herself that while she was screened from observation she could notice all that occurred. But judge of her feelings at the moment when they were about to depart, as she saw her little Frances taken from her hiding place, and preparations made to carry her away into captivity. The sight was too much for maternal tenderness to endure. Rushing from her place of concealment, she threw herself upon her knees at the feet of the captors, and with the most earnest entreaties pleaded for the restoration of the child. But their bosoms were made of sterner stuff than to yield even to the most eloquent and affectionate entreaties of a mother, and with characteristic stoicism they prepared to depart. Deaf alike to the cries of the mother, and the shrieks of the child, Frances was slung over the shoulder of a stalwart Indian with as much indifference as though she were a slaughtered fawn.

The long, lingering look which the mother gave to her child, as her captors disappeared in the forest, was the last glimpse of her sweet features that she ever had. But the vision was for many a long year ever present to her fancy. As the Indian threw the child over his shoulder, her hair fell over her face, and the mother could never forget how the tears streamed down her cheeks, when she brushed it away as if to catch a last sad look of the mother from whom, her little arms outstretched, she implored assistance in vain.

These events cast a shadow over the remaining years of Mrs. Slocum. She lived to see many bright and sunny days in that beautiful valley—bright and sunny, alas! to her no longer. She mourned for the lost one, of whom no tidings, at least during her pilgrimage, could be obtained. After her sons grew up, the youngest of whom, by the way, was born but a few months subsequent to the events already narrated, obedient to the charge of their mother, the most unwearied efforts were made to ascertain what had been the fate of the lost sister. The forest between the Susquehanna and the Great Lakes, and even the most distant wilds of Canada, were traversed by the brothers in vain, nor could any information respecting her be derived from the Indians. Once, indeed, during an excursion of one of the brothers into the vast wilds of the West, a white woman, long ago captive, came to him in the hopes of finding a brother; but after many anxious efforts to discover evidences of relationship, the failure was as decisive as it was mutually sad.

There was yet another kindred occurrence, still more painful. One of the many hapless female captives in the Indian country becoming acquainted with the inquiries prosecuted by the Slocum family, presented herself to Mrs. Slocum, trusting that in her she might find her long lost mother. Mrs. Slocum was touched by her appearance, and fain would have claimed her. She led the stranger about the house and yards to see if there were any recollections by which she could be identified as her own lost one. But there was nothing written upon the pages of memory to warrant the desired conclusion, and the hapless captive returned in bitter disappointment to her forest home. In process of time these efforts were all relinquished as hopeless. The lost Frances might have fallen beneath the tomahawk or might have proved too tender a flower for transplantation into the wilderness. Conjecture was baffled, and the mother, with a sad heart, sank into the grave, as did also the father, believing with the Hebrew patriarch that the "child was not."

Long years passed away and the memory of little Frances was forgotten, save by two brothers and a sister, who, though advanced in the vale of life, could not forget the family tradition of the lost one. Indeed it had been the dying charge of their mother that they must never relinquish their exertions to discover Frances.

Fifty years and more had passed since the disappearance of little Frances, when news came to the surviving members of the bereaved family that she was still alive. She had been adopted into the tribe of the Miami Indians, and was passing her days as a squaw in the lodges of that people.

The two surviving brothers and their sister undertook a journey to see, and if possible, to reclaim, the long lost Frances. Accompanied by an interpreter whom they had engaged in the Indian country, they reached at last the designated place and found their sister. But alas! how changed! Instead of the fair-haired and laughing girl, the picture yet living in their imagination, they found her an aged and thoroughbred squaw in everything but complexion. She was sitting when they entered her lodge, composed of two large log-houses connected by a shed, with her two daughters, the one about twenty-three years old, and the other about thirty-three, and three or four pretty grandchildren. The closing hours of the journey had been made in perfect silence, deep thoughts struggling in the bosoms of all. On entering the lodge, the first exclamation of one of the brothers was,—"Oh, God! is that my sister!" A moment afterward, and the sight of her thumb, disfigured in childhood, left no doubt as to her identity. The following colloquy, conducted through the interpreter, ensued:

"What was your name when a child?"

"I do not recollect."

"What do you remember?"

"My father, my mother, the long river, the staircase under which I hid when they came."

"How came you to lose your thumb-nail?"

"My brother hammered it off a long time ago, when I was a very little girl at my father's house."

"Do you know how many brothers and sisters you had?"

She then mentioned them, and in the order of their ages.

"Would you know your name if you should hear it repeated?"

"It is a long time since, and perhaps I should not."

"Was it Frances?"

At once a smile played upon her features, and for a moment there seemed to pass over the face what might be called the shadow of an emotion, as she answered, "Yes."

Other reminiscences were awakened, and the recognition was complete. But how different were the emotions of the parties! The brothers paced the lodge in agitation. The civilized sister was in tears. The other, obedient to the affected stoicism of her adopted race, was as cold, unmoved, and passionless as marble.

The brothers and sister returned unable, after urgent and loving entreaties, to win back their tawny sister from her wilds. Her Indian husband and children were there; there was the free, open forest, and she clung to these; and yet the love of her kinsfolk for her, and her's for them, was not quenched.



Transporting ourselves far from the beautiful valley of Wyoming, where the grief-stricken mother will wake never more to the consciousness of the loss of her sweet Frances, we stand on the prairies of Kansas. The time is 1856. One of the settlers who, with his wife, was seeking to build up a community in the turmoil, which then made that beautiful region such dangerous ground, has met his death at the hands of a rival faction. We enter the widow's desolated home. A shelter rather than a house, with but two wretched rooms, it stands alone upon the prairie. The darkness of a stormy winter's evening was gathering over the snow-clad slopes of the wide, bare prairie, as, in company with a sympathizing friend, we enter that lonely dwelling.

In the scantily-furnished apartment into which we are shown, two or three women and as many children are crowding around a stove, for the night is bitter cold, and even the large wood-fire scarcely heated a space so thinly walled. Behind a heavy pine table, on which stands a flickering tallow-candle, and leaning against a half-curtained window on which the sleet and winter's blast beat drearily, sits a woman of some forty years of age, clad in a dress of dark, coarse stuff, resting her head on her hand, and seeming unmindful of all about her.

She was the widow of Thomas W. Barber, one of the victims of the Kansas war. The attenuated hand supporting the aching head, and half shielding the tear-dimmed eyes, the silent drops trickling down the wasted cheeks, told but too well the sad story.

"They have left me," she cried, "a poor, forsaken creature, to mourn all my days! Oh, my husband, my husband, they have taken from me all that I hold dear! one that I loved better than I loved my own life!"

Thomas W. Barber was a careful and painstaking farmer, a kind neighbor, and an inoffensive, amiable man. His "untimely taking off" was indeed a sad loss to the community at large, but how much more to his wife! She had loved him with a love that amounted to idolatry. When he was returning from his daily toil she would go forth to meet him. When absent from home, if his stay was prolonged, she would pass the whole night in tears; and when ill, she would hang over his bed like a mother over her child. With a presentiment of evil, when he left his home for the last time, after exhausting every argument to prevent him from going, she had said to him, "Oh, Thomas! if you should be shot, I shall be left all alone, with no child and nothing in the wide world to fill your place!" This was their last parting.

The intelligence of his death was kept in mercy from her, through the kindness of friends, who hoped to break it to her gently. This thoughtful and sympathetic purpose was marred by the unthinking act of a young man, who had been sent with a carriage to convey her to the hotel where her husband's body lay. As he rode up he shouted, "Thomas Barber is killed!" His widow half-caught the dreadful words, and rushing to the door cried, "Oh, God! What do I hear?" Seeing the mournful and sympathetic faces of the bystanders, she knew the truth and filled the house with her shrieks. When they brought her into the apartment where her husband lay, she threw herself upon his corpse, and kissing the dead man's face, called down imprecations on the heads of those who had bereaved her of all she held dear.

The prairies of the great West resemble the ocean in more respects than in their level vastness, and the travelers who pass over them are like mariners who guide themselves only by the constellations and the great luminaries of heaven. The trail of the emigrant, like the track of the ship, is often uncrossed for days by others who are voyaging over this mighty expanse. Distance becomes delusive, and after journeying for days and failing to reach the foot-hills of the mountains, whose peaks have shone to his eyes in so many morning suns, the tired emigrant is tempted by the abounding richness of the country to pause. He is one hundred miles from the nearest settlement. Beside a stream he builds his cabin. He is like a voyager whose ship has been burned, leaving him in a strange land which he must conquer or die.

Such was the situation of that household on the prairie of Illinois, concerning whom is told a story full of mournful pathos. We should note, in passing on to our story, one of the dangers to which prairie-dwellers are exposed. They live two or three months every year in a magazine of combustibles. One of the peculiarities of the climate in those regions is the dryness of its summers and autumns. A drought often commences in August which, with the exception of a few showers towards the close of that month, continues, with little interruption, throughout the full season. The immense mass of vegetation with which the fertile soil loads itself during the summer is suddenly withered, and the whole earth is covered with combustible materials. A single spark of fire falling anywhere upon these plains at such a time, instantly kindles a blaze that spreads on every side, and continues its destructive course as long as it finds fuel, these fires sweeping on with a rapidity which renders it hazardous even to fly before them.

The flames often extend across a wide prairie and advance in a long line; no sight can be more sublime than to behold at night a stream of fire several miles in breadth advancing across these plains, leaving behind it a black cloud of smoke, and throwing before it a vivid glare which lights up the whole landscape with the brilliancy of noonday. A roaring and crackling sound is heard like the rushing of the hurricane; the flame, which, in general, rises to the height of about twenty feet, is seen sinking and darting upward in spires precisely as the waves dash against each other, and as the spray flies up into the air; the whole appearance is often that of a boiling and flaming sea violently agitated. Woe to the farmer whose ripe corn-field extends into the prairie, and who has carelessly suffered the tall grass to grow in contact with his fences; the whole labor of a year is swept away in a few hours.

More than sixty years since, and before the beautiful wild gardens of Illinois had been tilled by the hand of the white man, an emigrant with his family came thither from the East in search of a spot whereon to make his home. One bright spring day his white-topped wagon entered a prairie richer in its verdure and more brilliant in its flowers, than any that had yet met his eyes. At night-fall it halted beside a clump of trees not far from a creek. On this site a log-cabin soon rose and sent its smoke curling through the overhanging boughs.

The only neighbors of the pioneers were the rambling Indians. Their habitation was the center of a vast circle not dwelt in, and rarely even crossed by white settlers; oxen, cows, and a dog were their only domestic animals. For many months after their cabin was built they depended on wild game and fruits for subsistence; the rifle of the father, and traps set by the boys, brought them an abundant supply of meat. The wife and mother wrought patiently for those she loved. Her busy hands kept a well-ordered house by day, and at night she plied the needle to repair the wardrobe of her little household band. It was already growing scanty, and materials to replace it could only be procured at a distance, and means to procure it were limited. Patching and darning until their garments were beyond repair, she then supplied their place with skins stripped from the deer which the father had shot. Far into the night, by the flickering light of a single candle, this gentle housewife plied "her busy care," while her husband, worn out with his day's work, and her children, tired by their rambles, were slumbering in the single chamber of the cabin.

October came, and a journey to the nearest settlement for winter goods and stores, must be made. After due preparation the father and his eldest son started in the emigrant wagon, and expected to be absent many days, during which the mother and her children, with only the dog for their protection, looked hourly forth upon the now frost-embrowned prairie, and fondly hoped for their return.

Day after day passed, and no sign of life was visible upon the plain save the deer bounding over the sere herbage, or the wolf loping stealthily against the wind which bore the scent of his prey. A rising haze began to envelope the landscape, betokening the approach of the Indian summer,

"The melancholy days had come, The saddest of the year,"

and the desolation of nature found an answering mood in the soul of that lone woman. One day she was visited by a party of Indian warriors, and from them she learned that there was a war between the tribes through whose country the journey of her husband lay. A boding fear for his safety took possession of her, and after the warriors had partaken of her hospitality and departed, and night came, she laid her little ones in their bed, and sat for hours on the threshold of the cabin door, looking out through the darkness and praying silently for the return of her loved ones. The wind was rising and driving across the sky black masses of clouds which looked like misshapen specters of evil. The blast whistled through the leafless trees and howled round the cabin. Hours passed, and still the sorrowful wife and mother sat gazing into the gloom as if her eyes would pierce it and lighten on the wished-for object.

But what is that strange light which far to the north gleams on the blackened sky? It was not the lightning's flash, for it was a steady brightening glow. It was not the weird flash of the aurora borealis, but a redder and more lurid sheen; nor was it the harbinger of the rising sun which lit that northern sky. From a tinge it brightens to a gleam, and deepened at last into a broad glare. That lonely heart was overwhelmed with the dreadful truth. The prairie is on fire! Often had they talked of prairie fires as a spectacle of grandeur. But never had she dreamed of the red demon as an enemy to be encountered in that dreadful solitude.

Her heart sank within her as she saw the danger leaping toward her like some fiery and maddened race-horse. Was there no escape? Her children were sweetly sleeping, and the faithful dog, her only guardian, was gazing as if with mute sympathy into her face. Within an hour she calculates the conflagration would be at her very door. All around her is one dry ocean of combustibles. She cannot reach the tree-tops, and if she could, to cling there would be impossible amid those towering flames. The elements seemed to grow madder as the fire approached; fiercer blew the blast, intermitting for a moment only to gather fresh potency and mingle its own strength with that of the flames. She still had a faint hope that a creek a few miles away would be a barrier over which the blaze could not leap. She saw by the broad light which made even the distant prairie like noonday, the tops of the trees that fringed the creek but for a few moments, and then they were swallowed up in that crimson furnace. Alas! the stream had been crossed by the resistless flames, and her last hope died away.

Bewildered and half stupefied by the terrors of her situation, she had not yet wakened her children. But now no time was to be lost. Already in imagination she felt the hot breath of her relentless foe. It was with much difficulty that she awoke them and aroused them to a sense of their awful danger. Hastily dressing them she encircled them in her arms and kissed and fondled them as if for a last farewell. Now for the first time she missed the dog, the faithful companion and guardian of her solitude, and on whose aid she still counted in the hour of supreme peril. She called him loudly, but in vain. Turning her face northward she saw one unbroken line of flame as far as the eye could reach, and forcing its way towards her like an infuriated demon, roaring, crackling, sending up columns of dun-colored smoke as it tore along over the plain. A few minutes more and her fate would be decided. Falling on her knees she poured out her heart in prayer, supplicating for mercy and commending herself and her helpless babes to Almighty God. As she rose calmed and stayed by that fervent supplication a low wistful bark fell on her ear; the dog came bounding to her side; seizing her by the dress as if he would drag her from the spot, he leaped away from her, barking and whining, looking back towards her as he ran. Following him a few steps and seeing nothing, she returned and resumed her seat, awaiting death beside her children.

Again the dog returned, pawing, whining, howling, and trying in every way to attract her attention. What could he mean? Then for the first time flashed upon her the thought which had already occurred to the sagacious instinct of the dumb brute! The ploughed field! Yes, there alone was hope of safety! Clasping the two youngest children with one arm she almost dragged the eldest boy as she fled along the trodden path, the dog going before them showing every token of delight. The fire was at their heels, and its hot breath almost scorched their clothes as they ran. They gained the herbless ploughed field and took their station in its center just as the flames darted round on each side of them.

The exhausted mother, faint with the sudden deliverance, dropped on the ground among her helpless babes. Father of mercies! what an escape!

In a few moments the flames attacked the haystack, which was but a morsel to its fury, and then seizing the house devoured it more slowly, while the great volume of the fire swept around over the plain. Long did the light of the burning home blight the eye of the lone woman after the flames had done their worst on the prairie around her and gone on bearing ruin and devastation to the southern plains and groves.

The vigils and the terrors of that fearful night wrought their work on the lonely woman, and she sank into a trance-like slumber upon the naked earth, with her babes nestling in her lap and the dog, her noble guardian, crouching at her feet. She awoke with the first light of morning to the terrible realities from which for a few brief hours she had had a blessed oblivion. She arose as from a dream and cast a dazed look southward over a charred and blackened expanse stretching to the horizon, over which the smoke was hanging like a pall. Turning away, stunned by the fearful recollection, her eyes fell upon the smouldering ruins of her once happy home. She tottered with her chilled and hungry children towards the heap of smoking rafters and still glowing embers of the cabin, with which the morning breezes were toying as in merry pastime, and sat down upon a mound which stood before what had once been the door. Here, at least, was warmth, but whither should she go for shelter and food. There was no house within forty miles and the cruel flames had spared neither grain nor meat. There was no shelter but the canopy of heaven and no food but roots and half-burned nuts.

Wandering hither and thither under the charred and leafless trees, she picked up with her numb and nerveless fingers the relics of the autumn nuts or feebly dug in the frost-stiffened ground for roots. But these were rare; here and there she found a nut shielded by a decayed log, and the edible roots were almost hidden by the ashes of the grass. She returned to the fire, around which her innocent children had begun to frolic with childlike thoughtlessness. The coarse morsels which she gave them seemed for the moment to quiet their cravings, and the strange sight of their home in ruins diverted their minds. The mother saw with joy that they were amusing themselves with merry games and had no part in her bitter sorrows and fears. Long and earnestly did she bend her eyes on the wide, black plains to see if she could discern the white-topped wagon moving over that dark expanse. Noon came and passed but brought not the sight for which she yearned: only the brown deer gamboling and the prairie hen wheeling her flight over the scorched waste!

Night came with its cold, its darkness, its hunger, its dreadful solitude! The chilled and shelterless woman sat with the heads of her sleeping children pillowed in her lap, and listened to the howling of the starved wolves, the dog her only guardian. She had discovered a few ground-nuts, which she had divided among the children, reserving none for herself; she had stripped off nearly all her clothing in order to wrap them up warmly against the frosty air, and with pleasant words, while her head was bursting, she had soothed them to sleep beside the burning pile; and there, through the watches of the long night, she gazed fondly at them and prayed to the Father of mercies that they, at least, might be spared.

The night was dark: beyond the circle of the burning embers nothing could be discerned. At intervals, her blood was curdled by the long, mournful howl of the gaunt gray wolf calling his companions to their prey. The cold wind whistled around her thinly clad frame and chilled it to the core. As the night grew stiller a drowsiness against which she contended in vain, overcame her, her eyelids drooped, her shivering body swayed to and fro, until by the tumbling down of the embers she was again aroused, and would brace herself for another hour's vigil. At last the darkness became profoundly silent and even the wind ceased to whisper, the nocturnal marauders stole away, and night held her undisputed reign. Then came a heavy dreamless sleep and overpowered the frame of the watcher, chilled as it was, and faint with hunger, and worn with fatigue and vigils: she curled her shivering limbs around her loved ones and became oblivious to all.

It was the cry of her babes that waked her from slumber. The fire was slowly dying; the sun was looking down coldly from the leaden sky; slowly his beams were obscured by dark, sullen masses of vapor, which at last curtained the whole heavens. Rain! When she sat watching in the darkness, a few hours before, she thought nothing could make her condition worse. But an impending rain-storm which, thirty-six hours before, would have been hailed as merciful and saving, would now only aggravate their situation. Darker and darker grew the sky. She must hasten for food ere the clouds should burst. Her limbs were stiff with cold, her sight was dim, and her brain reeled as she rose to her feet and tottered to the grove to search for sustenance to keep her wailing babes alive. Her own desire for food was gone, but all exhausted as she was she could not resist the pleadings of the loved ones who hung upon her garments and begged for food.

Gleaning a few more coarse morsels on the ground so often searched, she tottered back to the spot which still seemed home though naught of home was there. Strange, racking pains wrung her wasted body, and sinking down beside her children she felt as if her last hour had come. Yes! she would perish there beside those consecrated ashes with her little ones around her. A drizzling rain was falling faster and faster. The fire was dying and she pushed the brands together, and gathered her trembling babes about her knees, and between the periods of her agony told them not to forget their mamma nor how they had lost her; she gave the eldest boy many tender messages to carry to her husband and to her first born. With wondering and tearful face he promised to do as she desired, but begged her to tell him where she would be when his father came and whether his little brother would go with her and leave him all alone.

The rain poured down mercilessly and chilly blew the blast. The embers hissed and blackened and shed no more warmth on the suffering group. Keener and heavier grew the mother's pangs, and there beside the smoking ruins of her home, prone on the drenched soil, with the pitiless sky bending above her, her helpless children wailing around her writhing form, the hapless woman gave birth to a little babe, whose eyes were never opened to the desolation of its natal home.

Unconscious alike to the cries of the terror stricken children and of the moaning caresses of her dumb friend, that poor mother's eyes were only opened on the dreadful scene when day was far advanced. Through the cold rain, still pouring steadily down, the twilight seemed to her faint eyes to be creeping over the earth. Sweet sounds were ringing in her ears. These were but dreams that deluded her weakened mind and senses. She strove to rise, but fell back and again relapsed into insensibility. Once again her eyes opened. This time it was no illusion. The eldest of the little watchers was shouting, in her ear, "Mother, I see father's wagon!" There it was close at hand. All day it had been slowly moving across the blackened prairie. The turf had been softened by the rain and the last few miles had been inconceivably tedious. The charred surface of the plain had filled the heart of both father and son with terror, which increased as they advanced.

When they were within a mile of the spot where the cabin stood and could see no house, they both abandoned the wagon, and leaving the animals to follow as they chose, they flew shouting loudly as they sped on till they stood over the perishing group. They could not for the moment comprehend the dreadful calamity, but stared at the wasted faces of the children, the infant corpse, the dying wife, the desolate home.

Cursing the day that he had been lured by the festal beauty of those prairies, the father lifted the dying woman in his arms, gazed with an agonized face upon her glassy eyes, and felt the faint fluttering in her breast that foretold the last and worst that could befall him. Slowly, word by word, with weak sepulchral voice, she told the dreadful story.

He slipped off his outer garments and wrapped them around her, and wiping off the rain-drops from her face drew her to his heart. But storm or shelter was all the same to her now, and the death-damp on her brow was colder than the pelting shower. He accused himself of her cruel murder and wildly prayed her forgiveness. From these accusations she vindicated him, besought him not to grieve for her, and with many prayers for her dear children and their father, she resigned her breath with the parting light of that sad autumnal day.

After two days and nights of weeping and watching, he laid her remains deep down below the prairie sod, beside the home which she had loved and made bright by her presence.



CHAPTER XII.

THE HEROINES OF THE SOUTHWEST

No portion of our country has been the scene of more romantic and dangerous adventures than that region described under the broad and vague term the "Southwest." Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona, are vast, remote, and varied fields with which danger and hardship, wonder and mystery are ever associated. The country itself embraces great contrarieties of scenery and topography—the rich farm, the expansive cattle ranch, the broad lonely prairie watered by majestic rivers, the barren desert, the lofty plateau, the secluded mining settlement, and vast mountain ranges furrowed by torrents into black caons where sands of gold lie heaped in inaccessible, useless riches.

The forms of human society are almost equally diverse. Strange and mysterious tribes, each with different characteristics, here live side by side. Vile mongrel breeds of men multiply to astonish the ethnologist and the moralist. Here roam the Comanches and the Apaches, the most remorseless and bloodthirsty of all the North American aboriginal tribes. Mexican bandits traverse the plains and lurk in the mountain passes, and American outlaws and desperadoes here find a refuge from justice.

As the Anglo-Saxon after fording the Sabine, the Brazos, and the Colorado River of Texas, advances westward, he is brought face to face with these different races with whom is mixed in greater or less proportion the blood of the old Castilian conquerors. Each of these races is widely alien from, and most of them instinctively antagonistic to the North European people.

Taking into view the immense distances to be traversed, the natural difficulties presented by the face of the country, the remoteness of the region from civilization, and the mixed, incongruous and hostile character of the inhabitants, we might naturally expect that its occupation by peaceful settlers,—by those forms of household life in which woman is an essential element—would be indefinitely postponed. But that energy and ardor which marks alike the men and the women of our race has carried the family, that germ of the state, over all obstacles and planted it in the inhospitable soil of the most remote corners of this region, and there it will flourish and germinate doubtless till it has uprooted every neighboring and noxious product.

The northeastern section of this extensive country is composed of that stupendous level tract known as the "Llano Estacado," or "Staked Plain." Stretching hundreds of miles in every direction, this sandy plain, treeless, arid, with only here and there patches of stunted herbage, whitened by the bones of horses and mules, and by the more ghastly skeletons of too adventurous travelers, presents an area of desolation scarcely more than paralleled by the great African Desert.

In the year 1846, after news had reached the States that our troops were in peaceful occupation of New Mexico, a party of men and women set out from the upper valley of the Red River of Louisiana, with the intention of settling in the valley of the river Pecos, in the eastern part of the newly conquered territory. The company consisted of seven persons, viz.: Mr. and Mrs. Benham and their child of seven years, Mr. and Mrs. Braxton and two sons of fifteen and eighteen years respectively.

They made rapid and comfortable progress through the valley of the Red River, and in two weeks reached the edge of the "Staked Plain," which they now made preparations to cross, for the difficulties and dangers of the route were not unknown to them. Disencumbering their pack-mules of all useless burdens and supplying themselves with water for two days, they pushed forward on their first stage which brought them on the evening of the second day to a kind of oasis in this desert where they found wood, water, and grass. From this point there was a stretch of ninety miles perfectly bare of wood and water, and with rare intervals of scanty herbage for the beasts. After this desolate region had been passed they would have a comparatively easy journey to their destination.

On the evening of the second day of their passage across this arid tract they had the misfortune to burst their only remaining water cask, and to see the thirsty sands drink up in a moment every drop of the precious liquid. They were then forty miles from the nearest water. Their beasts were jaded and suffering from thirst. The two men were incapacitated for exertion by slight sun-strokes received that day, and one of the boys had been bitten in the hand by a rattlesnake while taking from its burrow a prairie dog which he had shot.

The next day they pursued their march only with the utmost difficulty; the two men were barely able to sit on their horses, and the boy which had been bitten was faint and nerveless from the effect of the poison. The heat was felt very severely by the party as they dragged themselves slowly across the white expanse of sand, which reflected the rays of the sun with a painful glare into the haggard eyes of the wretched wanderers. Before they had made fifteen miles, or little more than one-third of the distance that would have to be accomplished before reaching water, the horses and mules gave out and at three o'clock in the afternoon the party dismounted and panting with heat and thirst stretched themselves on the sand. The sky above them was like brass and the soil was coated with a fine alkali deposit which rose in clouds at their slightest motion, filling their nostrils and eyes, and increasing the agonies they were suffering.

Their only hope was that they would be discovered by some passing train of hunters or emigrants. This hope faded away as the sun declined and nothing but the sky and the long dreary dazzling expanse of sand met their eyes.

The painful glare slowly softened, and with sunset came coolness; this was some slight mitigation to their sufferings; sleep too, promised to bring oblivion; and hope, which a merciful Providence has ordained to cast its halo over the darkest hours, told its flattering tale of possible relief on the morrow.

The air of that desert is pellucid as crystal, and the last beams of the sun left on the unclouded azure of the sky a soft glow, through which every thing in the western horizon was outlined as if drawn by some magic pencil. Casting their eyes in that direction the wretched wayfarers saw far away a dun-colored haze through which small black specks seemed to be moving. Growing larger and more distinct it approached them slowly over the vast expanse until its true nature was apparent. It was a cloud of dust such as a party of horsemen make when in rapid motion over a soil as fine and light as ashes. Was it friend or foe? Was it American cavalry or was it a band of Mexican guerrillas that was galloping so fiercely over that arid plain? These torturing doubts were soon solved. Skimming over the ground like swallows, six sunburnt men with hair as black as the crow's wing, gaily dressed, and bearing long lances, soon reined in their mustangs within twenty paces of the party and gazed curiously at them. One of the band then rode up and asked in broken English if they were "Americans:" having thus made a reconnoisance and seeing their helplessness, without waiting for a reply, he beckoned to his companions who approached and demanded the surrender of the party. Under other circumstances a stout resistance would have been made; but in their present forlorn condition they could do nothing.

Their guns, a part of their money, and whatever the unfortunate families had that pleased the guerrillas, was speedily appropriated, the throats of their horses and mules were cut, Mrs. Braxton and Mrs. Benham were seized, and in spite of their struggles and shrieks each of them was placed in front of a swarthy bandit, and then the Mexicans rode away cursing "Los Americanos," and barbarously leaving them to die of hunger and thirst.

After a four hours' gallop, the marauders reached an adobe house on Picosa Creek, a tributary of the Rio Pecos. This was the headquarters of the gang, and here they kept relays of fresh horses, mustangs, fiery, and full of speed and bottom. Mrs. Benham and Mrs. Braxton were placed in a room by themselves on the second story, and the door was barricaded so that escape by that avenue was impossible; but the windows were only guarded by stout oaken bars, which the women, by their united strength, succeeded in removing. Their captors were plunged in a profound slumber, when Mrs. Benham and her companion dropped themselves out of the window and succeeded in reaching the stable without discovery. Here they found six fresh horses ready saddled and bridled, the others on which the bandits had made their raid being loose in the enclosure.

It was a cruel necessity which impelled our brave heroines to draw their knives across the hamstrings of the tired horses, thus disabling them so as to prevent pursuit. Then softly leading out the six fresh mustangs, each of our heroines mounted one of the horses man-fashion and led the others lashed together with lariats; walking the beasts until out of hearing, they then put them to a gallop, and, riding all night, came, at sunrise, to the spot where their suffering friends lay stretched on the sand, having abandoned all hope.

After a brief rest, the whole party pushed rapidly forward on their journey, arriving that evening at a place of safety. Two days after, they reached the headwaters of the Pecos. Here they purchased a large adobe house, and an extensive tract, suitable both for grazing and tillage.

These events occurred early in the autumn. During the following winter the Mexicans revolted, and massacred Governor Bent and his military household. On the same day seven Americans were killed at Arroyo Hondo; a large Mexican force was preparing to march on Santa F, and for a time it seemed as if the handful of American soldiers would be driven out of the territory. This conspiracy was made known to the authorities by an American girl, who was the wife of one of the Mexican conspirators, and becoming, through her husband, acquainted with the plan of operations, divulged them to General Price in season to prevent a more general outbreak. As it was, the American settlers were in great danger.

The strong and spacious house in which the Benhams and Braxtons lived had formerly been used as a stockade and fortification against Indian attack. Its thick walls were pierced with loop-holes, and its doors, of double oak planks, were studded with wrought-iron spikes, which made it bullet-proof. A detachment of United States troops were stationed a short distance from their ranch, and the two families, in spite of the disturbed condition of the country, felt reasonably secure. The troops were withdrawn, however, after the revolt commenced, leaving the new settlers dependent upon their own resources for protection. Their cattle and horses were driven into the enclosure, and the inmates of the house kept a sharp lookout against hostile parties of marauders, whether Indian or Mexican.

Early on the morning of January 24th a mounted party of twelve Mexicans made their appearance in front of the enclosure, which they quickly scaled, and discharged a volley of balls, one of which passed through a loop-hole, and, entering Mr. Braxton's eye as he was aiming a rifle at the assailants, laid him dead at the feet of his wife. Mrs. Braxton, with streaming eyes, laid the head of her husband in her lap and watched his expiring throes with agony, such as only a wife and mother can feel when she sees the dear partner of her life and the father of her sons torn in an instant from her embrace. Seeing that her husband was no more, she dried her tears and thought only of vengeance on his murderers.

The number of the besieged was twelve at the start, viz.: Mr. and Mrs. Braxton, Mr. and Mrs. Benham and their children, three Irish herders, and a half-breed Mexican and his wife, who were house servants. The death of Mr. Braxton had reduced their number to eleven. A few moments later the Mexican half-breed disappeared, but was not missed in the excitement of the defense.

The besieged returned with vigor the fire of their assailants, two of whom had already bit the dust. The women loaded the guns and passed them to the men, who kept the Mexicans at a respectful distance by the rapidity of their fire. Mrs. Benham was the first to mark the absence of Juan the Mexican half-breed, and, suspecting treachery, flew to the loft with a hatchet in one hand and a revolver in the other. Her suspicion was correct. Juan had opened an upper window, and, letting down a ladder, had assisted two of the attacking party to ascend, and they were preparing to make an assault on those below by firing through the cracks in the floor, when the intrepid woman despatched Juan with a shot from her revolver and clove the skull of another Mexican; the third leaped from the window and escaped.

As Mrs. Benham was about to descend from the loft, after drawing up the ladder and closing the window, she was met by the wife of the treacherous half-breed, who aimed a stroke at her breast with a machete or large knife, such as the Mexicans use. She received a flesh wound in the left arm as she parried the blow, and it was only with the mixed strength of Mrs. Braxton and one of the herders, who had now ascended to the loft, that the infuriated Mexican whom Mrs. Benham had made a widow, could be mastered and bound.

Three of the attacking party had now been killed and three others placed hors de combat; the remnant were apparently about to retire from the siege, when six more swarthy desperadoes, mounted on black mustangs, came galloping up and halted on a hill just out of rifle shot.

Mrs. Braxton and Mrs. Benham, looking through a field glass, at once recognized them as the band which had made them captives a few months before.

After a few moments of consultation one of the band, who appeared to be only armed with a bow and arrow, advanced towards the house waving a white flag. Within thirty paces of the door stood a large tree, and behind this the envoy, bearing the white flag, ensconced himself, and, striking a light, twanged his bow and sent a burning arrow upon the roof of the house, which, being dry as tinder, in a moment was in a blaze.

Both of the women immediately carried water to the roof and extinguished the flames. Another arrow, wrapped in cotton steeped in turpentine, again set the roof on fire, and as one of the intrepid matrons threw a bucket of water upon the blaze, the dastard stepped from behind the tree and sent a pistol ball through her right arm, but at the same moment received two rifle balls in his breast, and fell a corpse.

Mrs. Benham, for it was she who had been struck, was assisted by her husband to the ground floor, where her wound was examined and found to be fortunately not a dangerous one. A new peril, however, now struck terror to their hearts; the water was all exhausted. The fire began to make headway. Mrs. Braxton, calling loudly for water to extinguish it, and meeting no response, descended to the ground floor, where the defenders were about to give up all hope, and either resign themselves to the flames, or by emerging from the house, submit to massacre at the hands of the now infuriated foe. As Mrs. Braxton rolled her eyes hither and thither in search of some substitute for water, they fell on the corpse of her husband. His coat and vest were completely saturated with blood. It was only the sad but terrible necessity which immediately suggested to her the use to which these garments could be put. Shuddering, she removed them quickly but tenderly from the body, flew to the roof and succeeded, by these dripping and ghastly tokens of her widowhood, in finally extinguishing the flames.

The attack ceased at night-fall, and the Mexicans withdrew. The outbreak having been soon quelled by the United States forces, the territory was brought again into a condition of peace and comparative security.

At the close of the war in 1848, Mrs. Braxton married a discharged volunteer named Whitley, and having disposed of the late Mr. Braxton's interest in the New Mexican ranche, removed, in 1851, with her husband and family, to California, where they lived for two years in the Sacramento valley.

Whitley was possessed of one of those roving and adventurous spirits which is never happy in repose, and when he was informed by John Crossman, an old comrade, of the discovery of a rich placer which he had made during his march as a United States soldier across the territory of Arizona, at that time known as the Gadsden purchase, he eagerly formed a partnership with the discoverer, who was no longer in the army, and announced to his wife his resolution to settle in Arizona. She endeavored by every argument she could command to dissuade him from this rash step, but in vain, and finding all her representations and entreaties of no avail, she consented, though with the utmost reluctance, to accompany him. They accordingly sold their place and took vessel with their household goods, for San Diego, from which point they purposed to advance across the country three hundred miles to the point where Crossman had located his placer.

The territory of Arizona may be likened to that wild and rugged mountain region in Central Asia, where, according to Persian myth, untold treasures are guarded by the malign legions of Ahriman, the spirit of evil. Two of the great elemental forces have employed their destructive agencies upon the surface of the country until it might serve for an ideal picture of desolation. For countless centuries the water has seamed and gashed the face of the hills, stripping them of soil, and cutting deep gorges and caons through the rocks. The water then flowed away or disappeared in the sands, and the sun came with its parching heat to complete the work of ruin. Famine and thirst stalk over those arid plains, or lurk in the waterless and gloomy caons; as if to compensate for these evils, the soil of the territory teems with mineral wealth. Grains of gold glisten in the sandy dbris of ancient torrents, and nuggets are wedged in the faces of the precipices. Mountains of silver and copper are waiting for the miner who is bold enough to venture through that desolate region in quest of these metals.

The journey from San Diego was made with pack mules and occupied thirty days, during which nearly every hardship and obstacle in the pioneer's catalogue was encountered. When they reached the spot described by Crossman they found the place, which lay at the bottom of a deep ravine, had been covered with boulders and thirty feet of sand by the rapid torrents of five rainy seasons. They immediately commenced "prospecting." Mrs. Braxton had the good fortune to discover a large "pocket," from which Crossman and her husband took out in a few weeks thirty thousand dollars in gold. This contented the adventurers, and being disgusted with the appearance of the country, they decided to go back to California.

Instead of returning on the same route by which they came, they resolved to cross the Colorado river higher up and in the neighborhood of the Santa Maria. They reached the Colorado river after a toilsome march, but while searching for a place to pass over, Crossman lost his footing and fell sixty feet down a precipice, surviving only long enough to bequeath his share of the treasure to his partner. Here, too, they had the misfortune to lose one of their four pack-mules, which strayed away. Pressing on in a northwesterly direction they passed through a series of deep valleys and gorges where the only water they could find was brackish and bitter, and reached the edge of the California desert. They had meanwhile lost another mule which had been dashed to pieces by falling down a caon. Mr. Whitley's strength becoming exhausted his wife gave up to him the beast she had been riding, and pursued her way on foot, driving before her the other mule, which bore the gold-dust with their scanty supply of food and their only remaining cooking utensils. Their tents and camp furniture having been lost they had suffered much from the chilly nights in the mountains, and after they had entered the desert, from the rays of the sun. Before they could reach the Mohave river Mr. Whitley became insane from thirst and hunger, and nothing but incessant watchfulness on the part of his wife could prevent him from doing injury to himself. Once while she was gathering cactus-leaves to wet his lips with the moisture they contained, he bit his arm and sucked the blood. Upon reaching the river he drank immoderately of the water and in an hour expired, regaining his consciousness before death, and blessing his devoted wife with his last breath. Ten days later the brave woman had succeeded in reaching Techichipa in so wasted a condition that she looked like a specter risen from the grave. Here by careful nursing she was at length restored to health. The gold-dust which had cost so dearly was found after a long search, beneath the carcass of the mule, twenty miles from Techichipa.

The extraordinary exploits of Mrs. Braxton can only be explained by supposing her to be naturally endowed with a larger share of nerve and hardihood than usually falls to the lot of her sex. Some influence, too, must be ascribed to the peculiarly wild and free life that prevails in the southwest. Living so much of the time in the open air in a climate peculiarly luxuriant and yet bracing, and environed with dangers in manifold guise, all the latent heroism in woman's nature is brought out to view, her muscular and nervous tissues are hardened, and her moral endurance by constant training in the school of hardship and danger, rests upon a strong and healthy physique. Upon this theory we may also explain the following incident which is related of another border-woman of the southwest.

[Footnote: Marcy's Border Reminiscences.] Beyond the extreme outer line of settlements in western Texas, near the head waters of the Colorado River, and in one of the remotest and most sequestered sections of that sparsely populated district, there lived in 1867, an enterprising pioneer by the name of Babb, whose besetting propensity and ambition consisted in pushing his fortunes a little farther toward the setting sun than any of his neighbors, the nearest of whom, at the time specified, was some fifteen miles in his rear.

The household of the borderer consisted of his wife, three small children, and a female friend by the name of L———, who, having previously lost her husband, was passing the summer with the family. She was a veritable type of those vigorous, self-reliant border women, who encounter danger or the vicissitudes of weather without quailing.

Born and nurtured upon the remotest frontier, she inherited a robust constitution, and her active life in the exhilarating prairie air served to develop and mature a healthy womanly physique. From an early age she had been a fearless rider, and her life on the frontier had habituated her to the constant use of the horse until she felt almost more at home in the saddle than in a chair.

Upon one bright and lovely morning in June, 1867, the adventurous borderer before mentioned, set out from his home with some cattle for a distant market, leaving his family in possession of the ranch, without any male protectors from Indian marauders.

They did not, however, entertain any serious apprehensions of molestation in his absence, as no hostile Indians had as yet made their appearance in that locality, and everything passed on quietly for several days, until one morning, while the women were busily occupied with their domestic affairs in the house, the two oldest children, who were playing outside, called to their mother, and informed her that some mounted men were approaching from the prairie. On looking out, she perceived, to her astonishment, that they were Indians coming upon the gallop, and already very near the house. This gave her no time to make arrangements for defense; but she screamed to the children to run in for their lives, as she desired to bar the door, being conscious of the fact that the prairie warriors seldom attack a house that is closed, fearing, doubtless, that it may be occupied by armed men, who might give them an unwelcome reception.

The children did not, however, obey the command of their mother, believing the strangers to be white men, and the door was left open. As soon as the alarm was given, Mrs. L——— sprang up a ladder into the loft, and concealed herself in such a position that she could, through cracks in the floor, see all that passed beneath.

Meantime the savages came up, seized and bound the two children outdoors, and, entering the house, rushed toward the young child, which the terror-stricken mother struggled frantically to rescue from their clutches; but they were too much for her, and tearing the infant from her arms, they dashed it upon the floor; then seizing her by the hair, they wrenched back her head and cut her throat from ear to ear, putting her to death instantaneously.

Mrs. L———, who was anxiously watching their proceedings from the loft, witnessed the fiendish tragedy, and uttered an involuntary shriek of horror, which disclosed her hiding-place to the barbarians, and they instantly vaulted up the ladder, overpowered and tied her; then dragging her rudely down, they placed her, with the two elder children, upon horses, and hurriedly set off to the north, leaving the infant child unharmed, and clasping the murdered corpse of its mangled parent.

In accordance with their usual practice, they traveled as rapidly as their horses could carry them for several consecutive days and nights, only making occasional short halts to graze and rest their animals, and get a little sleep themselves, so that the unfortunate captives necessarily suffered indescribable tortures from harsh treatment, fatigue, and want of sleep and food. Yet they were forced by the savages to continue on day after day, and night after night, for many, many weary miles toward the "Staked Plain," crossing en route the Brazos, Wachita, Red, Canadian, and Arkansas Rivers, several of which were at swimming stages.

The warriors guarded their captives very closely, until they had gone so great a distance from the settlements that they imagined it impossible for them to make their escape and find their way home, when they relapsed their vigilance slightly, and they were permitted to walk about a little within short limits from the bivouacs; but they were given to understand by unmistakable pantomime that death would be the certain penalty of the first attempt to escape.

In spite of this, Mrs. L———, who possessed a firmness of purpose truly heroic, resolved to seize the first favorable opportunity to get away, and with this resolution in view, she carefully observed the relative speed and powers of endurance of the different horses in the party, and noted the manner in which they were grazed, guarded, and caught; and upon a dark night, after a long, fatiguing day's ride, and while the Indians were sleeping soundly, she noiselessly and cautiously crawled away from the bed of her young companions, who were also buried in profound slumber, and going to the pasture-ground of the horses, selected the best, leaped upon his back la garon, with only a lariat around his neck, and without saddle or bridle, quietly started off at a slow walk in the direction of the north star, believing that this course would lead her to the nearest white habitations. As soon as she had gone out of hearing from the bivouac, without detection or pursuit, she accelerated the speed of the horse into a trot, then to a gallop, and urged him rapidly forward during the entire night.

At dawn of day on the following morning she rose upon the crest of an eminence overlooking a vast area of bald prairie country, where, for the first time since leaving the Indians, she halted, and, turning round, tremblingly cast a rapid glance to the rear, expecting to see the savage blood-hounds upon her track; but, to her great relief, not a single indication of a living object could be discerned within the extended scope of her vision. She breathed more freely now, but still did not feel safe from pursuit; and the total absence of all knowledge of her whereabouts in the midst of the wide expanse of dreary prairie around her, with the uncertainty of ever again looking upon a friendly face, caused her to realize most vividly her own weakness and entire dependence upon the Almighty, and she raised her thoughts to Heaven in fervent supplication.

The majesty and sublimity of the stupendous works of the great Author and Creator of the Universe, when contrasted with the insignificance of the powers and achievements of a vivified atom of earth modeled into human form, are probably under no circumstances more strikingly exhibited and felt than when one becomes bewildered and lost in the almost limitless amplitude of our great North American "pampas," where not a single foot-mark or other trace of man's presence or action can be discovered, and where the solitary wanderer is startled at the sound even of his own voice.

The sensation of loneliness and despondency resulting from the appalling consciousness of being really and absolutely lost, with the realization of the fact that but two or three of the innumerable different points of direction embraced within the circle of the horizon will serve to extricate the bewildered victim from the awful doom of death by starvation, and in entire ignorance as to which of these particular directions should be followed, without a single road, trail, tree, bush, or other landmark to guide or direct—the effects upon the imagination of this formidable array of disheartening circumstances can be fully appreciated only by those who have been personally subjected to their influence.

A faint perception of the intensity of the mental torture experienced by these unfortunate victims may, however, be conjectured from the fact that their senses at such junctures become so completely absorbed and overpowered by the cheerless prospect before them, that they oftentimes wander about in a state of temporary lunacy, without the power of exercising the slightest volition of the reasoning faculties.

The inflexible spirit of the heroine of this narrative did not, however, succumb in the least to the imminent perils of the situation in which she found herself, and her purposes were carried out with a determination as resolute and unflinching as those of the Israelites in their protracted pilgrimage through the wilderness, and without the guidance of pillars of fire and cloud.

The aid of the sun and the broad leaves of the pilot-plant by day, with the light of Polaris by night, enabled her to pursue her undeviating course to the north with as much accuracy as if she had been guided by the magnetic needle.

She continued to urge forward the generous steed she bestrode, who, in obedience to the will of his rider, coursed swiftly on hour after hour during the greater part of the day, without the least apparent labor or exhaustion.

It was a contest for life and liberty that she had undertaken, a struggle in which she resolved to triumph or perish in the effort: and still the brave-hearted woman pressed on, until at length her horse began to show signs of exhaustion, and as the shadows of evening began to appear he became so much jaded that it was difficult to coax or force him into a trot, and the poor woman began to entertain serious apprehensions that he might soon give out altogether and leave her on foot.

At this time she was herself so much wearied and in want of sleep that she would have given all she possessed to have been allowed to dismount and rest; but, unfortunately for her, those piratical quadrupeds of the plains, the wolves, advised by their carnivorous instincts that she and her exhausted horse might soon fall an easy sacrifice to their voracious appetites, followed upon her track, and came howling in great numbers about her, so that she dared not set her feet upon the ground, fearing they would devour her; and her only alternative was to continue urging the poor beast to struggle forward during the dark and gloomy hours of the long night, until at length she became so exhausted that it was only with the utmost effort of her iron will that she was enabled to preserve her balance upon the horse.

Meantime the ravenous pack of wolves, becoming more and more emboldened and impatient as the speed of her horse relaxed, approached nearer and nearer, until, with their eyes flashing fire, they snapped savagely at the heels of the terrified horse, while at the same time they kept up their hideous concert like the howlings of ten thousand fiends from the infernal regions.

Every element in her nature was at this fearful juncture taxed to its greatest tension, and impelled her to concentrate the force of all her remaining energies in urging and coaxing forward the wearied horse, until, finally, he was barely able to reel and stagger along at a slow walk; and when she was about to give up in despair, expecting every instant that the animal would drop down dead under her, the welcome light of day dawned in the eastern horizon, and imparted a more cheerful and encouraging influence over her, and, on looking around, to her great joy, there were no wolves in sight.

She now, for the first time in about thirty-six hours, dismounted, and knowing that sleep would soon overpower her, and the horse, if not secured, might escape or wander away, and there being no tree or other object to which he could be fastened, she, with great presence of mind, tied one end of the long lariat to his neck, and, with the other end around her waist, dropped down upon the ground in a deep sleep, while the famished horse eagerly cropped the herbage around her.

She was unconscious as to the duration of her slumber, but it must have been very protracted to have compensated the demands of nature, for the exhaustion induced by her prodigious ride.

Her sleep was sweet, and she dreamed of happiness and home, losing all consciousness of her actual situation until she was suddenly startled and aroused by the pattering sound of horses' feet, beating the earth on every side.

Springing to her feet in the greatest possible alarm, she found herself surrounded by a large band of savages, who commenced dancing around, flouting their war-clubs in terrible proximity to her head, while giving utterance to the, most diabolical shouts of exultation.

Her exceedingly weak and debilitated condition at this time, resulting from long abstinence from food, and unprecedented mental and physical trials, had wrought upon her nervous system to such an extent that she imagined the moment of her death had arrived, and fainted.

The Indians then approached, and, after she revived, placed her again upon a horse, and rode away with her to their camp, which, fortunately, was not far distant. They then turned their prisoner over to the squaws, who gave her food and put her to bed; but it was several days before she was sufficiently recovered to be able to walk about the camp.

She learned that her last captors belonged to "Lone Wolf's" band of Kiowas.

Although these Indians treated her with more kindness than the Comanches had done, yet she did not for an instant entertain the thought that they would ever voluntarily release her from bondage; neither had she the remotest conception of her present locality, or of the direction or distance to any white settlement; but she had no idea of remaining a slave for life, and resolved to make her escape the first practicable moment that offered.

During the time she remained with these Indians a party of men went away to the north, and were absent six days, bringing with them, on their return, some ears of green corn. She knew the prairie tribes never planted a seed of any description, and was therefore confident the party had visited a white settlement, and that it was not over three days' journey distant. This was encouraging intelligence for her, and she anxiously bided her time to depart.

Late one night, after all had become hushed and quiet throughout the camp, and every thing seemed auspicious for the consummation of her purposes, she stole carefully away from her bed, crept softly out to the herd of horses, and after having caught and saddled one, was in the act of mounting, when a number of dogs rushed out after her, and by their barking, created such a disturbance among the Indians that she was forced, for the time, to forego her designs and crawl hastily back to her lodge.

On a subsequent occasion, however, fortune favored her. She secured an excellent horse and rode away in the direction from which she had seen the Indians returning to camp with the green corn. Under the certain guidance of the sun and stars she was enabled to pursue a direct bearing, and after three consecutive days of rapid riding, anxiety, fatigue, and hunger, she arrived upon the border of a large river, flowing directly across her track. The stream was swollen to the top of its banks; the water coursed like a torrent through its channel, and she feared her horse might not be able to stem the powerful current; but after surmounting the numerous perils and hardships she had already encountered, the dauntless woman was not to be turned aside from her inflexible purpose by this formidable obstacle, and she instantly dashed into the foaming torrent, and, by dint of encouragement and punishment, forced her horse through the stream and landed safely upon the opposite bank.

After giving her horse a few moments' rest, she again set forward, and had ridden but a short distance when, to her inexpressible astonishment and delight, she struck a broad and well-beaten wagon-road, the first and only evidence or trace of civilization she had seen since leaving her home in Texas.

Up to this joyful moment the indomitable inflexibility of purpose of our heroine had not faltered for an instant, neither had she suffered the slightest despondency, in view of the terrible array of disheartening circumstances that had continually confronted her, but when she realized the hopeful prospect before her of a speedy escape from the reach of her barbarous captors, and a reasonable certainty of an early reunion with people of her own sympathizing race, the feminine elements of her nature preponderated, her stoical fortitude yielded to the delightful anticipation, and her joy was intensified and confirmed by seeing, at this moment, a long train of wagons approaching over the distant prairie.

The spectacle overwhelmed her with ecstasy, and she wept tears of joy while offering up sincere and heartfelt thanks to the Almighty for delivering her from a bondage more dreadful than death.

She then proceeded on until she met the wagons in charge of Mr. Robert Bent, whom she entreated to give her food instantly, as she was in a state bordering upon absolute starvation. He kindly complied with her request, and after the cravings of her appetite had been appeased he desired to gratify his curiosity, which had been not a little excited at the unusual exhibition of a beautiful white woman appearing alone in that wild country, riding upon an Indian saddle, with no covering on her head save her long natural hair, which was hanging loosely and disorderly about her shoulders. Accordingly, he inquired of her where she lived, to which she replied, "In Texas." Mr. B. gave an incredulous shake of his head at this response, remarking at the same time that he thought she must be mistaken, as Texas happened to be situated some five or six hundred miles distant. She reiterated the assurance of her statement, and described to him briefly the leading incidents attending her capture and escape; but still he was inclined to doubt, believing that she might possibly be insane.

He informed her that the river she had just crossed was the Arkansas, and that she was then on the old Santa F road, about fifteen miles west of Big Turkey Creek, where she would find the most remote frontier house. Then, after thanking him for his kindness, she bade him adieu, and started away in a walk toward the settlements, while he continued his journey in the opposite direction.

On the arrival of Mr. Bent at Fort Zara, he called upon the Indian agent, and reported the circumstance of meeting Mrs. L———, and, by a singular coincidence, it so happened that the agent was at that very time holding a council with the chiefs of the identical band of Indians from whom she had last escaped, and they had just given a full history of the entire affair, which seemed so improbable to the agent that he was not disposed to credit it until he received its confirmation through Mr. Bent. He at once dispatched a man to follow the woman and conduct her to Council Grove, where she was kindly received, and remained for some time, hoping through the efforts of the agents to gain intelligence of the two children she had left with the Comanches, as she desired to take them back to their father in Texas; but no tidings were gained for a long while.

The two captive children were afterwards ransomed and sent home to their father.

It will readily be seen, by a reference to the map of the country over which Mrs. L——— passed, that the distance from the place of her capture to the point where she struck the Arkansas river could not have been short of about five hundred miles, and the greater part of this immense expanse of desert plain she traversed alone, without seeing a single civilized human habitation.

It may well be questioned whether any woman either in ancient or modern times ever performed such a remarkable equestrian feat, and the story itself would be almost incredible were we not in possession of so many well authenticated instances of the hardihood and powers of endurance shown by woman on the frontiers of our country.



CHAPTER XIII.

WOMAN'S EXPERIENCE ON THE NORTHERN BORDER.

The vanguard of the "Great Army" which for nearly three centuries has been hewing its pathway across the continent, may be divided into certain corps d'arme, each of which moves on a different line, thus acting on the Napoleonic tactics, and subjugating in detail the various regions through which it passes. One corps, spreading out in broad battalions, marches across the great prairies and winding through the gorges of the Rocky mountains, encamps on the shore of Peaceful sea: another, skirting the waves of the gulfs and fording the wide rivers of the South, plants its outposts on the Rio Grande; a third cuts its way through the trackless forests on the northern border till it strikes the lakes, and then crossing these inland seas or passing round them, pauses and breathes for a season in that great expanse known as the country of the Red River of the North.

Each of these mighty pioneer divisions has its common toils, dangers, and sufferings. Each, too, has toils, dangers, and sufferings peculiar to itself. The climate is the deadly foe of the northern pioneer. The scorching air of a brief summer is followed closely by the biting frost of a long winter. The snow, piled in drifts, blocks his passage and binds him to his threshold. Sometimes by a sudden change in the temperature a thaw converts the vast frozen mass into slush. In the depth of those arctic winters sometimes fire, that necessary but dangerous serf, breaks its chains and devastates its master's dwelling; then frost allies its power to that of fire, and the household often succumbs to disaster, or barely survives it.

Fire, frost, starvation, and wild beasts made frantic by winter's hunger, are the imminent perils of the northern pioneer!

The record of woman in these regions on the northern frontier is crowded with incidents which display a heroism as stern, a hardihood as rugged, a fortitude as steadfast, as was ever shown by her sex under the most trying situations into which she is brought by the exigencies of border life.

Such a record is that of Mrs. Dalton, who spent her life from early womanhood in that region.

Naturally of a frail and delicate organization, reared in the ease and luxury of an eastern home, and possessed of those strong local attachments which are characteristic of females of her temperament, it was with the utmost reluctance that she consented to follow her husband into the wilderness. Having at last consented, she showed the greatest firmness in carrying out a resolution which involved the loss of a happy home at the place of her nativity, and consigned her to a life of hardship and danger.

Her first experience in this life was in the wilds of northern New York, her husband having purchased a small clearing and a log-cabin in that region on the banks of the Black river. She was transported thither, reaching her destination one cold rainy evening early in May, after a wearisome journey, for this was before the days of rapid transit.