OLIVE OATMAN.

CAPTIVITY
OF THE
OATMAN GIRLS:

BEING AN

Interesting Narrative of Life

AMONG THE

APACHE AND MOHAVE INDIANS.

CONTAINING
AN INTERESTING ACCOUNT OF THE MASSACRE OF THE OATMAN FAMILY, BY THE APACHE INDIANS, IN 1851; THE NARROW ESCAPE OF LORENZO D. OATMAN; THE CAPTURE OF OLIVE A. AND MARY A. OATMAN; THE DEATH, BY STARVATION, OF THE LATTER; THE FIVE YEARS’ SUFFERING AND CAPTIVITY OF OLIVE A. OATMAN; ALSO, HER SINGULAR RECAPTURE IN 1856; AS GIVEN BY LORENZO D. AND OLIVE A. OATMAN, THE ONLY SURVIVING MEMBERS OF THE FAMILY, TO THE AUTHOR,

R. B. STRATTON.

TWENTIETH THOUSAND.

New-York:
PUBLISHED FOR THE AUTHOR,

BY CARLTON & PORTER, 200 MULBERRY-STREET.
FOR SALE BY INGHAM & BRAGG, 67 SUPERIOR-ST., CLEVELAND, O.
1858.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1857, by
LORENZO D. OATMAN,
in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the Northern District of the
State of California.

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.

During the year 1851 news reached California, that in the spring of that year a family by the name of Oatman, while endeavoring to reach California by the old Santa Fe route, had met with a most melancholy and terrible fate, about seventy miles from Fort Yuma. That while struggling with every difficulty imaginable, such as jaded teams, exhaustion of their stores of provisions, in a hostile and barren region, alone and unattended, they were brutally set upon by a horde of Apache savages; that seven of the nine persons composing their family were murdered, and that two of the smaller girls were taken into captivity.

One of the number, Lorenzo D. Oatman, a boy about fourteen, who was knocked down and left for dead, afterward escaped, but with severe wounds and serious injury.

But of the girls, Mary Ann and Olive Ann, nothing had since been heard, up to last March. By a singular and mysteriously providential train of circumstances, it was ascertained at that time, by persons living at Fort Yuma, that one of these girls was then living among the Mohave tribe, about four hundred miles from the fort. A ransom was offered for her by the ever-to-be-remembered and generous Mr. Grinell, then a mechanic at the fort; and through the agency and tact of a Yuma Indian, she was purchased and restored to civilized life, to her brother and friends. The younger of the girls, Mary Ann, died of starvation in 1852.

It is of the massacre of this family, the escape of Lorenzo, and the captivity of the two girls, that the following pages treat.

A few months since the author of this book was requested by the afflicted brother and son, who barely escaped with life, but not without much suffering, to write the past history of the family; especially to give a full and particular account of the dreadful and barbarous scenes of the captivity endured by his sisters. This I have tried to do. The facts and incidents have been received from the brother and sister, now living.

These pages have been penned under the conviction that in these facts, and in the sufferings and horrors that befell that unfortunate family, there is sufficient of interest, though of a melancholy character, to insure an attentive and interested perusal by every one into whose hands, and under whose eye this book may fall. Though, so far as book-making is concerned, there has been brought to this task no experience or fame upon which to base an expectation of its popularity, yet the writer has sought to adapt the style to the character of the narrative, and in a simple, plain, comprehensive manner to give to the reader facts, as they have been received from those of whose sad experiences in adversity these pages give a faithful delineation. In doing this he has sought plainness, brevity, and an unadorned style, deeming these the only excellences that could be appropriately adopted for such a narrative; the only ones that he expects will be awarded. It would be but a playing with sober, solemn, and terrible reality to put the tinselings of romance about a narrative of this kind. The intrinsic interest of the subject-matter here thrown together, must have the credit of any circulation that shall be given to the book. Upon this I am willing to rely; and that it will be sufficient to procure a wide and general perusal, remunerating and exciting, I have the fullest confidence. As for criticisms, while there will, no doubt, be found occasions for them, they are neither coveted nor dreaded. All that is asked is, that the reader will avail himself of the facts, and dismiss, as far as he can, the garb they wear, for it was not woven by one who has ever possessed a desire to become experienced or skilled in that ringing, empty style which can only charm for the moment, and the necessity for which is never felt but when real matter and thought are absent.

That all, or any considerable portion, of the distress, mental and physical, that befell that unfortunate family, the living as well as dead, can be written or spoken, it would be idle to claim. The desolation and privation to which little Mary Ann was consigned while yet but seven years old; the abuse, the anguish, the suffering that rested upon the nearly two years’ captivity through which she passed to an untimely grave; the unutterable anguish that shrouded with the darkness of despair five years of her older sister; the six years of perpetual tossing from transient hope to tormenting fears, and during which unceasing toil and endeavor was endured by the elder brother, who knew at that time, and has ever since known, that two of his sisters were taken into captivity by the Indians; these, all these are realities that are and must forever remain unwritten. We would not, if we could, give to these pages the power to lead the reader into all the paths of torture and woe through which the last five years have dragged that brother and sister, who yet live, and who, from hearts disciplined in affliction, have herein dictated all of what they have felt that can be transferred to the type. We would not, if we could, recall or hold up to the reader the weight of parental solicitude or heart-yearnings for their dear family that crowded upon the last few moments of reason allowed to those fond parents, while in the power and under the war-clubs of their Apache murderers. The heart’s deepest anguish, and its profoundest emotions have no language. There is no color so deep that pen dipped therein can portray the reality. If what may be here found written of these unspoken woes shall only lead the favored subjects of constant good fortune to appreciate their exempted allotment, and create in their hearts a more earnest and practical sympathy for those who tread the damp, uncheered paths of suffering and woe, then the moral and social use prayed for and intended in these pages will be secured.

Yreka, 1857.

R. B. Stratton.

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.

Since issuing the first edition of the “Captivity of the Oatman Girls,” which obtained a rapid and quick sale, the author has been in the northern part of the state, busy with engagements made previous to its publication, and which he considered he had ample time to meet, and return before another edition would be called for, if at all. But in this he was mistaken. Only two weeks had elapsed before orders were in the city for books, that could not be filled; and that but a few days after the whole edition was bound. The first five thousand was put out as an experiment, and with considerable abridgment from the original manuscript as at first prepared. Considerable matter referring to the customs of the Indians, and the geography and character of the country, was left out to avoid the expense of publishing. Could we have known that the first edition would have been exhausted so soon, this omitted matter might have been re-prepared and put into this edition, but the last books were sold when the author was five hundred miles from his present home, and on returning it was thought best to hurry this edition through the press, to meet orders already on hand. We trust the reader will find most, if not all, of the objectionable portions of the first edition expunged from this; besides the insertion in their proper places of some additions that were, without intention, left out of the former one. He will also find this printed upon superior paper and type; and in many ways improved in its appearance.

We must remind the reader, that in preparing a work like the present there is an utter impropriety in resorting to any other than the plainest matter-of-fact style. This book is not a romance. It is not dependent upon an exorbitant fictitiousness of expression for enlisting the attention or interest of the sober reader. The scene is a reality. The heroes of the tale are living. Let those, if any there are, to whom reality is a serious obstacle to engaged and sustained attention and interest, and whose morbidly created taste, has given a settled disrelish for marvels in the facts, while it unceasingly clamors for miracles of the fancy; to whom plain things, said in a plain way, have no attraction, whose reading heaven is a mountain of epithet on flashing epithet piled—let such lay aside the book.

The writer does not disclaim literary taste. Such a taste it is confidently felt is not herein violated. For its display these pages are not intended. These remarks are here penned for the reason that in a few instances, instead of an open criticism, founded upon the reading of the book, there has been a construing of the frank avowal of the real intention of this book, made in a former preface, into a confession of a literary weakness in the composition of this work. The writer for the last eleven years has been engaged in public speaking, and though moving contentedly in an humble sphere, is not without living testimonials to his diligence and fidelity, at least in application to those literary studies and helps to his calling which were within his reach. With a present consciousness of many imperfections in this respect, he is nevertheless not forbidden by a true modesty to say, that in a laudable ambition to acquire and command the pure English, from the root upward, he has not been wholly negligent nor unsuccessful; nor in the habit of earnest and particular observation of men and things has he been without his note-book and open eyes.

During the years spoken of he has seldom appeared before the public without a carefully written compendium, and often a full manuscript of the train of thought to be discoursed upon.

But still, if his attainments were far more than are here claimed, it would by some be judged a poor place to use them for the feasting of the reader of a book of the nature of this record of murder, wailing, captivity, and horrid separations.

The notices in the papers referred to have, no doubt, grown from a habit that prevails to a great extent, of writing a notice of a new book from a hasty glance at a preface. Hence, he who can gyrate in a brilliant circle of polished braggadocio in his first-born, is in a fair way to meet the echo of his own words, and be “puffed!”

But, unpretending as are these pages, the author, in his own behalf, and in behalf of those for and of whom he writes, is under many obligations to the press of the State. In many instances a careful perusal has preceded a public printed notice by an editor; and with some self-complacency he finds that such notices have been the most flattering and have done most to hasten the sale of these books.

The author, still making no pretensions to a serving up of a repast for the literary taste, yet with confidence assures the reader that he will find nothing upon these pages that can offend such a taste.

Let it be said further, that the profits accruing from the sale of this work are, so far as the brother and sister are concerned, to be applied to those who need help. It was with borrowed means that Mr. Oatman published the first edition, and it is to secure means to furnish himself and his sister with the advantages of that education which has been as yet denied, that the narrative of their five years’ privation is offered to the reading public. Certainly, if the eye or thought delights not to wander upon the page of their sufferings, the heart will delight to think of means expended for the purchase of the book that details them.

San Francisco, 1857.

PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION.

The second edition of this book (six thousand copies) was nearly exhausted in the California and Oregon trade within a few months after its publication. Numerous friends and relatives of Mr. and Miss Oatman, who had received copies of the work from friends in California, wrote to the writer, and also to the Oatmans, urgently requesting its publication for circulation in the Atlantic and Western States.

They had read the book, and loaned it to neighbors and friends, until each copy numbered a considerable circle of readers, and an almost unanimous opinion had been expressed that the book would meet with a large and ready sale if it could be put into the market at prices ruling on this side of the continent.

In behalf of those for whose special benefit the book is published, the writer can but feel grateful for the large sales that in a few weeks were effected in California. Eleven thousand were sold there in a short time, and the owner of the book has deeply regretted that it was not stereotyped at the first.

Recently, to meet demands for the book already existing, especially in some of the Western States, where the Oatman family were well known, it was resolved to publish the book in New-York, in an improved style, and with the addition of some incidents that were prepared for the California issue, but omitted from the necessity of the case.

The reader will find the book much improved in its intrinsic interest by the addition of these geographical, traditional, and historic items. The matter added is chiefly of the peculiar traditions and superstitions of the tribes who were the captors and possessors of Miss Oatman. Three new illustrations are also added, and the old ones newly drawn and engraved. Every plate has been enlarged, and the work done in a much improved and more perfect style.

The reader will find this book to be a record of facts; and these are of the most thrilling, some of them of the most horrid nature. Of all the records of Indian captivities we feel confident none have possessed more interest than this. Numerous have been the testimonies from California readers that it exceeds any of kindred tales that have preceded it. The Oatman family were well and favorably known in portions of Illinois and Pennsylvania, and a large circle of acquaintances are waiting, with much anxiety, the issue from the press of this narrative of the tragical allotment that they met after starting for the Colorado in 1850. Seven of their number have fallen by the cruelties of the Indian; two, a brother and sister, are now in this city.

There are sketches and delineations in this volume touching the region lying to the West and Southwest, as also of the large aboriginal tribes that have so long held exclusive possession there, which, in these times of the unparalleled westward-pushing propensities of our people, are clothed with new and startling interest day by day.

In the purchase of this book the reader will add to his private or family library a volume whose chief attraction will not be merely in the detail of horrors, of suffering, of cruel captivity, which it brings to him; but one which his children will find valuable for reference in the years they may live to see, and which are to be crowded, doubtless, with an almost total revolution in the humanities that people the region lying between the Pacific and Texas, and between Oregon and Mexico. These dark Indian tribes are fast wasting before the rising sun of our civilization; and into that history that is yet to be written of their past, and of their destiny, and of the many interlacing events that are to contribute to the fulfilling of the wise intent of Providence concerning them and their only dreaded foe, the white race, facts and incidents contained in this unpretending volume will enter and be appreciated.

R. B. Stratton.

New-York, April, 1858.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.

The first Encampment—The Oatman Family—Their checkered Allotment up to the Time of their Emigration—Mr. Oatman—His Ill-health—Proposes to join the Party organized to form an American Colony near the Gulf of California, in 1849—The 10th of August—Discord in Camp, owing to the religious Prejudices of a few—First Danger from Indians—The Camanche Band—Two Girls taken for “Injins”—The Grape Dumpling—Mexican Settlements—The Hunt for Antelopes, and its tragical End—Charles refuses to fight “Injins” with Prayer—Moro—Scarcity of Provisions—Discontent and Murmurings—Mr. Lane—His Death—Loss of Animals by the Apaches—Mrs. M. in the Well—Santa Cruz and Tukjon—Some of the Company remain here—Pimole—The only traveling Companions of the Oatman Family resolve to remain—Mr. Oatman, in Perplexity, resolves to proceed

Page [21]

CHAPTER II.

Mr. and Mrs. Oatman in Perplexity—Interview with Dr. Lecount—Advises them to proceed—They start alone—Teams begin to fail—The Roads are bad—The Country rough and mountainous—Compelled to carry the Baggage up the Hills by Hand—Overtaken by Dr. Lecount on his way to Fort Yuma—He promises them Assistance from the Fort—The next Night the Horses of Dr. Lecount are stolen by the Apaches—He posts a Card, warning Mr. Oatman of Danger, and starts on Foot for the Fort—Reach the Gila River—Camp on the Island late at Night—Their dreary Situation, and the Conversation of the Children—The Morning of the 29th of March—Their Struggle to ascend the Hill on the 29th—Reach the Summit about Sunset—The Despondence and Presentiments of Mr. Oatman—Nineteen Apaches approach them Profess Friendliness—The Massacre—Lorenzo left for dead, but is preserved—The Capture of Olive and Mary Ann

[61]

CHAPTER III.

Lorenzo Oatman—Conscious of most of the Scenes of the Massacre—The next Day he finds himself at the Foot of a rocky Declivity, over which he had fallen—Makes an Effort to walk—Starts for Pimole—His Feelings and Sufferings—Is attacked by Wolves—Then by two Indians, who are about to shoot him down—Their subsequent Kindness—They go on to the Place of Massacre—He meets the Wilders and Kellys—They take him back to Pimole—In about one Month gets well, and starts for Fort Yuma—Visits the Place of Massacre—His Feelings—Burial of the Dead—Reflections—The two Girls—Their Thoughts of Home and Friends—Conduct of their Captors—Disposition of the Stock—Cruelty to the Girls to hurry them on—Girls resolve not to proceed—Meet eleven Indians, who seek to kill Olive—Reasons for—Apaches defend her—Their Habits of Fear for their own Safety—Their Reception at the Apache Village—One Year—The Mohaves—Their second coming among the Apaches—Conversation of Olive and Mary—Purchased by the Mohaves—Avowed Reasons—Their Price—Danger during the Debate

[90]

CHAPTER IV.

The Journey of three hundred and fifty Miles to the Mohave Valley—The Means of Subsistence during the Time—The Conduct of the Mohaves compared with the Apaches—Arrive at the Valley—The Village—The Chief’s Residence—Their Joy at the Return of Topeka, their Daughter—The Greeting of the new Captives—One Year of Labor and Suffering—The Overflowing of the Colorado—Their Dependence upon it—Their Habits—Cultivation of the Soil—Scarcity of Provisions—Starvation—Mary Ann—Her Decline—Olive’s Care, Grief, and Efforts to save her Life—Dies of Famine—Many of the Indian Children die—Burial of Mary Ann—The Sympathy and Sorrow of the Chief’s Wife—The great Feast—The killing of the two Captives as a Sacrifice

[160]

CHAPTER V.

The Mohaves—Their Sports—An Expedition of Hostility against the Cochopas—Its Design—Tradition concerning it—The Preparation—Their Custom of sacrificing a Prisoner on the Death in War of one of their own Number—The Anxiety of Olive—They depart—Their Return—The Fruit of the Expedition—The Five Cochopa Captives—Nowereha—Her Attempt to escape—Her Recapture and horrid Death—The Physicians—Evil Spirits—The Mohave Mode of Doctoring—The Yumas—“Francisco,” the Yuma Indian—Hopes of Escape

[216]

CHAPTER VI.

Lorenzo Oatman—His Stay at Fort Yuma—Goes with Dr. Hewit to San Francisco—His constant Misery on Account of his Sisters—Dark Thoughts—Cold Sympathy—Goes to the Mines—Resolves to go to Los Angeles to learn, if possible, of his Sisters—His earnest but fruitless Endeavors—The Lesson—Report brought by Mr. Roulit of two Captives among the Mohaves—The false Report of Mr. Black—Mr. Grinell—Petitions the Governor—Petitions Congress—The Report of the Rescue of Olive—Mr. Low

[238]

CHAPTER VII.

Francisco goes over the River, and spends the Night—Persuades some of the Sub-Chiefs to apply again for Permission to let Olive go free—His Threats—The Chiefs return with him—Secret Council—Another General Council—Danger of a Fight among themselves—Francisco has a Letter from the Whites—Olive present—Francisco gains Permission to give her the Letter—Its Contents—Much alarmed—Speeches of the Indians—Advice to kill their Captive—Determine to release her—Daughter of the Chief goes with them—Their Journey—At Fort Yuma

[251]

Illustrations.

CAPTIVITY OF THE OATMAN GIRLS.

CHAPTER I.

The first Encampment—The Oatman Family—Their checkered Allotment up to the Time of their Emigration—Mr. Oatman—His Ill-health—Proposes to join the Party organized to form an American Colony near the Gulf of California, in 1849—The 10th of August—Discord in Camp, owing to the religious Prejudices of a few—First Danger from Indians—The Camanche Band—Two Girls taken for “Injins”—The Grape Dumpling—Mexican Settlements—The Hunt for Antelopes, and its tragical End—Charles refuses to fight “Injins” with Prayer—Moro—Scarcity of Provisions—Discontent and Murmurings—Mr. Lane—His Death—Loss of Animals by the Apaches—Mrs. M. in the Well—Santa Cruz and Tukjon—Some of the Company remain here—Pimole—The only traveling Companions of the Oatman Family resolve to remain—Mr. Oatman, in Perplexity, resolves to proceed.

The 9th of August, 1850, was a lovely day. The sun had looked upon the beautiful plains surrounding Independence, Missouri, with a full, unclouded face, for thirteen hours of that day; when, standing about four miles south of westward from the throbbing city of Independence, alive with the influx and efflux of emigrant men and women, the reader, could he have occupied that stand, might have seen, about one half hour before sunset, an emigrant train slowly approaching him from the city. This train consisted of about twenty wagons, a band of emigrant cattle, and about fifty souls, men, women, and children. Attended by the music of lowing cattle, and the chatter of happy children, it was slowly traversing a few miles, at this late hour of the day, to seek a place of sufficient seclusion to enable them to hold the first and preparatory night’s camp away from the bustle and confusion of the town.

Just as the sun was gladdening the clear west, and throwing its golden farewells upon the innumerable peaks that stretched into a forest of mountains gradually rising until they seemed to lean against the sun-clad shoulders of the Rocky Range, imparadising the whole plain and mountain country in its radiant embrace, the shrill horn of the leader and captain suddenly pealed through the moving village, a circle was formed, and the heads of the several families were in presence of the commander, waiting orders for the camping arrangements for the night.

Soon teams were detached from the wagons, and with the cattle (being driven for commencement in a new country) were turned forth upon the grass. Rich and abundant pasturage was stretching from the place of their halt westward, seemingly until it bordered against the foot-hills of the Indian territory in the distance.

Among the fifty souls that composed that emigrant band, some were total strangers. Independence had been selected as the gathering-place of all who might heed a call that had been published and circulated for months, beating up for volunteers to an emigrant company about seeking a home in the Southwest. It was intended, as the object and destination of this company, to establish an American colony near the mouth of the Gulf of California. Inducements had been held out, that if the region lying about the juncture of the Colorado and Gila Rivers could thus be colonized, every facility should be guaranteed the colonists for making to themselves a comfortable and luxuriant home.

After a frugal meal, served throughout the various divisions of the camp, the evening of the 9th was spent in perfecting regulations for the long and dangerous trip, and in the forming of acquaintances, and the interchange of salutations and gratulations.

Little groups, now larger and now smaller, by the constant moving to and fro of members of the camp, had chatted the evening up to a seasonable bedtime. Then, at the call of the “crier,” all were collected around one camp-fire for the observance of public worship, which was conducted by a clergyman present. Into that hour of earnest worship were crowded memories of the home-land and friends now forever abandoned for a settlement in the “far-off Southwest.” There flowed and mingled the tear of regret and of hope; there and then rose the earnest prayer for Providential guidance; and at that hour there swelled out upon the soft, clear air of as lovely an evening as ever threw its star-lit curtain upon hill and vale, the song of praise and the shout of triumph, not alone in the prospect of a home by the Colorado of the South, but of glad exultation in the prospect of a home hard by the “River of Life,” which rose to view as the final termination of the journeyings and toil incident to mortality’s pilgrimage.

FIRST NIGHT’S ENCAMPMENT.

Now the hush of sleep’s wonted hour has stolen slowly over the entire encampment, and nothing without indicates remaining life, save the occasional growl of the ever-faithful watch-dog, or the outburst of some infant member of that villa-camp, wearied and worn, and overtasked by the hurry and bustle of the previous day.

Reader, we now wish you to go with us into that camp, and receive an introduction to an interesting family consisting of father, mother, and seven children; the oldest of this juvenile group a girl of sixteen, the youngest a bright little boy of one year. Silence is here, but to that household sleep has no welcome. The giant undertaking upon which they are now fairly launched is so freighted with interest to themselves and their little domestic kingdom, as to leave no hour during the long night for the senses to yield to the soft dominion of sleep. Besides, this journey now before them has been preceded by lesser ones, and these had been so frequent and of such trivial result as that vanity seemed written upon all the deep and checkered past, with its world of toil and journeyings. In a subdued whisper, but with speaking countenances and sparkling eyes, these parents are dwelling upon this many-colored by-gone.

Mr. Oatman is a medium-sized man, about five feet in height, black hair, with a round face, and yet in the very prime of life. Forty-one winters had scarcely been able to plow the first furrow of age upon his manly cheek. Vigorous, healthy, and of a jovial turn of mind, predisposed to look only upon the bright side of everything, he was happy; of a sanguine temperament, he was given to but little fear, and seemed ever drinking from the fresh fountains of a living buoyant hope. From his boyhood he had been of a restless, roving disposition, fond of novelty, and anxious that nothing within all the circuit of habitable earth should be left out of the field of his ever curious and prying vision.

He had been favored with rare educational advantages during his boyhood, in Western New-York. These advantages he had improved with a promising vigilance until about nineteen years of age. He then became anxious to see, and try his fortune in, the then far away West. The thought of emigrating had not been long cogitated by his quick and ready mind, ere he came to a firm resolution to plant his feet upon one of the wild prairies of Illinois.

He was now of age, and his father and mother, Lyman and Lucy Oatman, had spent scarcely one year keeping hotel in Laharpe, Illinois, ere they were joined by their son Royse.

Soon after going to Illinois, Royse was joined in marriage to Miss Mary Ann Sperry, of Laharpe. Miss Sperry was an intelligent girl of about eighteen, and, by nature and educational advantages, abundantly qualified to make her husband happy and his home an attraction. She was sedate, confiding, and affectionate, and in social accomplishments placed, by her peculiar advantages, above most of those around her. From childhood she had been the pride of fond and wealthy parents; and it was their boast that she had never merited a rebuke for any wrong. The first two years of this happy couple was spent on a farm near Laharpe. During this time some little means had been accumulated by an honest industry and economy, and these means Mr. Oatman collected, and with them embarked in mercantile business in Laharpe.

Honesty, industry, and a number of years of thorough business application, won for him the esteem of those around him, procured a comfortable home for his family, and placed him in possession of a handsome fortune, with every arrangement for its rapid increase. At that time the country was rapidly filling up; farmers were becoming rich, and substantial improvements were taking the place of temporary modes of living which had prevailed as yet.

Paper money became plenty, the products of the soil had found a ready and remunerative market, and many were induced to invest beyond their means in real estate improvements.

The banks chartered about the years 1832 and 1840, had issued bills beyond their charters, presuming upon the continued rapid growth of the country to keep themselves above disaster. But business, especially in times of speculation, like material substance, is of a gravitating tendency, and without a basis soon falls. A severe reverse in the tendency of the markets spread rapidly over the entire West during the year 1842. Prices of produce fell to a low figure. An abundance had been raised, and the market was glutted. Debts of long standing became due, and the demand for their payment became more imperative, as the inability of creditors became more and more apparent and appalling. The merchant found his store empty, his goods having been credited to parties whose sole reliance was the usual ready market for the products of their soil.

Thus, dispossessed of goods and destitute of money, the trading portion of community were thrown into a panic, and business of all kinds came to a stand-still. The producing classes were straitened; their grain would not meet current expenses, for it had no market value; and with many of them mortgages, bearing high interest, were preying like vultures upon their already declining realities.

Specie was scarce. Bills were returned to the banks, and while a great many of them were yet out the specie was exhausted, and a general crash came upon the banks, while the country was yet flooded with what was appropriately termed “the wild-cat money.” The day of reckoning to these spurious money fountains suddenly weighed them in the balances and found them wanting. Mr. Oatman had collected in a large amount of this paper currency, and was about to go South to replenish his mercantile establishment, when lo! the banks began to fail, and in a few weeks he found himself sunk by the weight of several thousands into utter insolvency.

He was disappointed but not disheartened. To him a reverse was the watchword for a renewal of energy. For two or three years he had been in correspondence with relatives residing in Cumberland Valley, Pennsylvania, who had been constantly holding up that section of country as one of the most inviting and desirable for new settlers.

In a few weeks he had disposed of the fragments of a suddenly shattered fortune to the greatest possible advantage to his creditors, and resolved upon an immediate removal to that valley. In two months preparations were made, and in three months, with a family of five children, he arrived among his friends in Cumberland Valley, with a view of making that a permanent settlement.

True to the domineering traits of his character, he was still resolute and undaunted. His wife was the same trusting, cheerful companion as when the nuptial vow was plighted, and the sun of prosperity shone full upon and crowned their mutual toils. Retired, patient, and persevering, she was a faithful wife and a fond mother, in whom centered deservingly the love of a growing and interesting juvenile group. She became more and more endeared to her fortune-taunted husband as adverse vicissitudes had developed her real worth, and her full competence to brave and profit by the stern battles of life.

She had seen her husband when prospered, and flattered by those whose attachments had taken root in worldly considerations only; she had stood by him also when the chilling gusts of temporary adversity had blown the cold damps of cruel reserve and fiendish suspicion about his name and character; and

“When envy’s sneer would coldly blight his name,

And busy tongues were sporting with his fame,

She solved each doubt, and clear’d each mist away,

And made him radiant in the face of day.”

They had spent but a few months in Pennsylvania, the place of their anticipated abode for life, ere Mr. Oatman found it, to him, an unfit and unsuitable place, as also an unpromising region in which to rear a family. He sighed again for the wide, wild prairie lands of the West. He began to regret that a financial reversion should have been allowed so soon to drive him from a country where he had been accustomed to behold the elements and foundation of a glorious and prosperous future; and where those very religious and educational advantages—to him the indispensable accompaniments of social progress—were already beginning to shoot forth in all the vigor and promise of a healthful and undaunted growth. He was not of that class who can persist in an enterprise merely from pride that is so weak as to scorn the confession of a weakness; though he was slow to change his purpose, only as a good reason might discover itself under the light and teachings of multiplying circumstances around him.

He resolved to retrace his steps, and again to try his hands and skill upon some new and unbroken portion of the State where he had already made and lost. Early in 1845 these parents, with a family of five children, destitute but courageous, landed in Chicago. There, for one year, they supported with toil of head and hand (the father was an experienced school teacher) their growing family.

In the spring of 1846 there might have been seen standing, at about five miles from Fulton, Ill., and about fifteen from New-Albany, alone in the prairie, a temporary, rude cabin. Miles of unimproved land stretched away on either side, save a small spot, rudely fenced, near the cabin, as the commencement of a home. At the door of this tent, in April of that year, and about sunset, a wagon drawn by oxen, and driven by the father of a family, a man about thirty-seven, and his son, a lad about ten years, halted. That wagon contained a mother—a woman of thirty-three years—toil-worn but contented, with five of her children. The oldest son, Lorenzo, who had been plodding on at the father’s side, dragged his weary limbs up to the cabin door, and begged admittance for the night. This was readily and hospitably granted. Soon the family were transported from the movable to the staid habitation. Here they rested their stomachs upon “Johnny cake” and Irish potatoes, and their weary, complaining bodies upon the soft side of a white oak board for the night.

Twenty-four hours had not passed ere the father had staked out a “claim;” a tent had been erected; the cattle turned forth, were grazing upon the hitherto untrodden prairie land, and preparations made and measures put into vigorous operation for spring sowing. Here, with that same elasticity of mind and prudent energy that had inspired his earliest efforts for self-support, Mr. Oatman commenced to provide himself a home, and to surround his family with all the comforts and conveniences of a subsistence. Before his energetic and well-directed endeavors, the desert soon began to blossom; and beauty and fruitfulness gradually stole upon these hitherto wild and useless regions. He always managed to provide his family with a plain, frugal, and plenteous support.

Four years and over Mr. and Mrs. Oatman toiled early and late, clearing, subduing, and improving. And during this time they readily and cheerfully turned their hands to any laudable calling, manual or intellectual, that gave promise of a just remuneration for their services. Although accustomed, for the most part of their united life, to a competence that had placed them above the necessity of menial service, yet they scorned a dependence upon past position, as also that pride and utter recklessness of principle which can consent to keep up the exterior of opulence, while its expenses must come from unsecured and deceived creditors. They contentedly adapted themselves to a manner and style that was intended to give a true index to their real means and resources.

It was this principle of noble self-reliance, and unbending integrity, that won for them the warmest regards of the good, and crowned their checkered allotment with appreciative esteem wherever their stay had been sufficient to make them known.

While the family remained at this place, now called Henly, they toiled early and late, at home or abroad, as opportunity might offer. During much of this time, however, Mr. Oatman was laboring under and battling with a serious bodily infirmity and indisposition.

Early in the second year of their stay at Henly, while lifting a stone, in digging a well for a neighbor, he injured himself, and from the effects of that injury he never fully recovered.

At this time improvements around him had been conducted to a stage of advancement that demanded a strict and vigilant oversight and guidance. And though by these demands, and his unflagging ambition, he was impelled to constant, and at times to severe labors, yet they were labors for which he had been disabled, and from which he should have ceased. Each damp or cold season of the year, after receiving this injury to his back and spine, would place him upon a rack of pain, and at times render life a torture. The winters, always severe in that section of the country, that had blasted and swept away frailer constitutions about him, had as yet left no discernible effects upon his vigorous physical system. But now their return almost disabled him for work, and kindled anew the torturing local inflammation that his injury had brought with it to his system.

He became convinced that if he would live to bless and educate his family, or would enjoy even tolerable health, he must immediately seek a climate free from the sudden and extreme changes so common to the region in which he had spent the last few years.

In the summer of 1849 an effort was made to induce a party to organize, for the purpose of emigration to that part of the New-Mexican Territory lying about the mouth of the Rio Colorado and Gila Rivers. Considerable excitement extended over the northern and western portions of Illinois concerning it. There were a few men, men of travel and information, who were well acquainted with the state of the country lying along the east side of the northern end of the Gulf of California, and they had received the most flattering inducements to form there a colony of the Anglo-Saxon people.

Accordingly notices were circulated of the number desired and of the intention and destiny of the undertaking. The country was represented as of a mild, bland climate, where the extremes of a hot summer and severe winter were unknown. Mr. Oatman, after considerable deliberation upon the state of his health, the necessity for a change of climate, the reliability of the information that had come from this new quarter, and other circumstances having an intimate connection with the welfare of those dependent upon him, sent in his name, as one who, with a family, nine in all, was ready to join the colony; and again he determined to attempt his fortune in a new land.

He felt cheered in the prospect of a location where he might again enjoy the possibility of a recovery of his health. And he hoped that the journey itself might aid the return of his wonted vigor and strength.

After he had proposed a union with this projected colony, and his proposition had been favorably received, he immediately sold out. The sum total of the sales of his earthly possessions amounted to fifteen hundred dollars. With this he purchased an outfit, and was enabled to reserve to himself sufficient, as he hoped, to meet all incidental expenses of the tedious trip.

In the spring of 1850, accompanied by some of his neighbors, who had also thrown their lots into this scheme, he started for Independence, the place selected for the gathering of the scattered members of the colony, preparatory to a united travel for the point of destination. Every precaution had been taken to secure unanimity of feeling, purpose, and intention among those who should propose to cast in their lot with the emigrating colony. All were bound for the same place; all were inspired by the same object; all should enter the band on an equality; and it was agreed that every measure of importance to the emigrant army, should be brought to the consideration and consultation of every member of the train.

It was intended to form a new settlement, remote from the prejudices, pride, arrogance, and caste that obtain in the more opulent and less sympathizing portions of a stern civilization. Many of the number thought they saw in the locality selected many advantages that were peculiar to it alone. They looked upon it as the way by which emigration would principally reach this western gold-land, furnishing for the colony a market for their produce; that thus remote they could mold, fashion, and direct the education, habits, customs, and progress of the young and growing colony, after a model superior to that under which some of them had been discontentedly raised, and one that should receive tincture, form, and adaptation from the opening and multiplying necessities of the experiment in progress.

As above stated, this colony, composed of more than fifty souls, encamped on the lovely evening of August 9, 1850, about four miles from Independence.

The following are the names of those who were the most active in projecting the movement, and their names are herein given, because they may be again alluded to in the following pages; besides, many of them are now living, and this may be the first notice they shall receive of the fate of the unfortunate family, the captivity and sufferings of the only two surviving members of which are the themes of these pages. Mutual perils and mutual adventures have a power to cement worthy hearts that is not found in unmingled prosperity. And it has been the privilege of the author to know, from personal acquaintance, in one instance, of a family to whom the “Oatman Family” were bound by the tie of mutuality of suffering and geniality of spirit.

Mr. Ira Thompson and family.

A. W. Lane and family.

R. and John Kelly and their families.

Mr. Mutere and family.

Mr. Wilder and family.

Mr. Brinshall and family.

We have thus rapidly sketched the outlines of the history of the Oatman family, for a few years preceding their departure from the eastern side of the continent, and glanced at the nature and cast of their allotment, because of members of that family these pages are designed mainly to treat. This remove, the steps to which have been traced above, proved their last; for though bright, and full of promise and hope, at the outset, tragedy of the most painful and gloomy character settles down upon it at an early period, and with fearfully portentous gloom, thickens and deepens upon its every step, until the day, so bright at dawn, gradually closes in all the horror and desolation of a night of plunder, murder, and worse than murderous and barbarous captivity. And though no pleasant task to bring this sad afterpart to the notice of the reader, it is nevertheless a tale that may be interesting for him to ponder; and instructive, as affording matter for the employment of reflection, and instituting a heartier sympathy with those upon whose life the clouds and pangs of severe reverses and misfortunes have rested.

Ere yet twilight had lifted the deepest shades of night from plain and hill-side, on the morning of the 10th of August, 1850, there was stir and bustle, and hurrying to and fro throughout that camp. As beautiful a sunrise as ever mantled the east, or threw its first, purest glories upon a long and gladdened West, found all things in order, and that itinerant colony arranged, prepared, and in march for the “Big Bend” of the Arkansas River. Their course at first lay due west, toward the Indian territory. One week passed pleasantly away. Fine weather, vigorous teams, social, cheerful chit-chat, in which the evenings were passed by men, women, and children, who had been thrown into their first acquaintance under circumstances so well calculated to create identity of interest and aim, all contributed to the comfort of this anxious company during the “first week upon the plains,” and to render the prospect for the future free from the first tint of evil adversity. At the end of a week, and when they had made about one hundred miles, a halt was called at a place known as the “Council Grove.” This place is on the old Santa Fé road, and is well suited for a place of rest, and for recruiting. Up to this time naught but harmony and good feeling prevailed throughout the ranks of this emigrant company. While tarrying at this place, owing to the peculiarities in the religious notions and prejudices of a few restless spirits, the first note of discord and jarring element was introduced among them.

Some resolved to return, but the more sober (and such seemed in the majority) persisted in the resolve to accomplish the endeared object of the undertaking. Owing to their wise counsels, and moderate, dignified management, peace and quiet returned; and after a tarry of about one week’s duration, they were again upon their journey. From Council Grove the road bore a little south of west, over a beautiful level plain, covered with the richest pasturage; and in the distance bordering on every hand against high, picturesque ranges of mountains, seeming like so many huge blue bulwarks, and forming natural boundaries between the abodes of the respective races, each claiming, separately and apart, the one the mountain, the other the vale.

The weather was beautiful; the evenings, cool and invigorating, furnishing to the jaded band a perfect elysium for the recruiting of tired nature, at the close of each day’s sultry and dusty toil. Good feeling restored, all causes of irritation shut out, joyfully, merrily, hopefully, the pilgrim band moved on to the Big Bend, on the Arkansas River. Nothing as yet had been met to excite fear for personal safety; nothing to darken for a moment the cloudless prospect that had inspired and shone upon their first westward movings.

“It was our custom,” says Lorenzo Oatman, “to lay by on the Sabbath, both to rest physical nature, and also, by proper religious services, to keep alive in our minds the remembrance of our obligations to our great and kind Creator and Preserver, and to remind ourselves that we were each travelers upon that great level of time, to a bourne from whence no traveler returns.”

One Saturday night the tents were pitched upon the hither bank of the Arkansas River. On the next morning Divine service was conducted in the usual manner, and at the usual hour. Scarcely had the service terminated ere a scene was presented calculated to interrupt the general monotony, as well as awaken some not very agreeable apprehensions for their personal safety. A Mr. Mutere was a short way from the camp, on the other side of the river, looking after the stock. While standing and gazing about him, the sound of crude, wild music broke upon his ear. He soon perceived it proceeded from a band of Indians, whom he espied dancing and singing in the wildest manner in a grove near by. They were making merry, as if in exultation over some splendid victory. He soon ascertained that they were of the Camanche tribe, and about them were a number of very beautiful American horses and mules. He knew them to be stolen stock, from the saddle and harness marks, yet fresh and plainly to be seen. While Mr. Mutere stood looking at them his eye suddenly fell upon a huge, hideous looking “buck,” partly concealed behind a tree, out from which he was leveling a gun at himself. He sprang into a run, much frightened, and trusted to leg bail for a safe arrival at camp.

At this the Indian came out, hallooed to Mutere, and made the most vehement professions of friendship, and of the absence of all evil design toward him. But Mutere chose not to tarry for any reassurance of his kindly interest in his welfare. As soon as Mutere was in camp, several Indians appeared upon the opposite side of the river, hallooing, and asking the privilege of coming into camp, avowing friendliness. After a little their request was granted, and about a score of them came up near the camp. The party soon had occasion to mark their folly in yielding to the request of the Indians, who were not long in their vicinity ere they were observed in secret council a little apart, also at the same time bending their bows and making ready their arrows, as if upon the eve of some malicious intent. “At this,” says L. Oatman, “our boys were instantly to their guns, and upon the opposite side of the wagon, preparing them for the emergence. But we took good care to so hide us, as to let our motions plainly appear to the enemy, that they might take warning from our courage and not be apprised of our fears. Our real intention was immediately guessed at, as we could see by the change in the conduct of our new enemy. They, by this time, lowered their bows, and their few guns, and modestly made a request for a cow. This roused our resolution, and the demand was quickly resisted. We plainly saw unmistakable signs of fear, and a suspicion that they were standing a poor show for cow-beef from that quarter. Such was the first abrupt close that religious services had been brought to on our whole route as yet. These evil-designing wretches soon made off, with more dispatch evidently than was agreeable. A few hours after they again appeared upon the opposite bank, with about a score of fine animals, which they drove to water in our sight. As soon as the stock had drank, they raised a whoop, gave us some hearty cheering, and were away to the south at a tremendous speed. On Monday we crossed the river, and toward evening met a government train, who had been out to the fort and were now on their return. We related to them what we had seen. They told us that they had, a day or two before, come upon the remnant of a government train who were on their way to the fort, that their stock had been taken from them, and they were left in distress, and without means of return. They also informed us that during the next day we would enter upon a desert, where for ninety miles we would be without wood and water. This information, though sad, was timely. We at once made all possible preparations to traverse this old ‘Sahara’ of the Santa Fé road. But these preparations as to water proved unnecessary, for while we were crossing this desolate and verdureless waste, the kindly clouds poured upon us abundance of fresh water, and each day’s travel for this ninety miles was as pleasant as any of our trip to us, though to the stock it was severe.”

While at the camp on the river one very tragical (?) event occurred, which must not be omitted. One Mr. M. A. M., Jun., had stepped down to the river bank, leisurely whistling along his way, in quest of a favorable place to draw upon the Arkansas for a pail of water. Suddenly two small girls, who had been a little absent from camp, with aprons upon their heads, rose above a little mound, and presented themselves to his view. His busy brain must have been preoccupied with “Injins,” for he soon came running, puffing, and yelling into camp. As he went headlong over the wagon-tongue, his tin pail as it rolled starting a half-score of dogs to their feet, and setting them upon a yell, he lustily, and at the topmost pitch of voice, cried, “Injins! Injins!” He soon recovered his wits, however, and the pleasant little lasses came into camp with a hearty laugh that they had so unexpectedly been made the occasion of a rich piece of “fun.”

From the river bend or crossing, on to Moro, the first settlement we reached in New Mexico, was about five hundred miles. During this time nothing of special interest occurred to break the almost painful monotony of our way, or ruffle the quiet of our sociale, save an occasional family jar, the frequent crossing of pointed opinions, the now-and-then prophecies of “Injins ahead,” etc., except one “Grape Dumpling” affair, which must be related by leaving a severe part untold. At one of our camps, on one of those fine water-courses that frequently set upon our way, from the mountains, we suddenly found ourselves near neighbors to a bounteously burdened grape orchard. Of these we ate freely. One of our principal and physically talented matrons, however, like the distrustful Israelites, determined not to trust to to-morrow for to-morrow’s manna. She accordingly laid in a more than night’s supply. The over-supply was, for safe keeping, done up “brown,” in the form of well-prepared and thoroughly-cooked dumplings, and these deposited in a cellar-like stern end of the “big wagon.” Unfortunate woman! if she had only performed these hiding ceremonies when the lank eye of one of our invalids, (?) Mr. A. P., had been turned the other way, she might have prevented a calamity, kindred to that which befell the ancient emigrants when they sought to lay by more than was demanded by immediate wants.

Now this A. P. had started out sick, and since his restoration had been constantly beleaguered by one of those dubious blessings, common as vultures upon the plains, a voracious appetite, an appetite that, like the grave, was constantly receiving yet never found a place to say, “Enough.” Slowly he crawled from his bed, after he was sure that sleep had made Mrs. M. oblivious of her darling dumplings, and the rest of the camp unheedful of his movements, and, standing at the stern of the wagon, he deliberately emptied almost the entire contents of this huge dumpling pan into his ever-craving interior.

It seems that they had been safely stored in the wagon by this provident matron, to furnish a feast for the passengers when their travels might be along some grapeless waste; and but for the unnatural cravings of the unregulated appetite of A. P., might still have remained for that purpose. It was evident the next day that the invalid had been indulging in undue gluttony. He was “sick again,” and, to use his own phrase, “like all backsliders, through worldly or stomach prosperity and repletion.”

Madam M. now seized a stake, and thoroughly caned him through the camp, until dumpling strength was low, very low in the market.

After crossing the big desert, one day, while traveling, some of our company had their notions of our personal safety suddenly revolutionized under the following circumstances. A Mr. J. Thompson and a young man, C. M., had gone one side of the road some distance, hunting antelope. Among the hills, and when they were some distance in advance of the camp, they came upon a large drove of antelopes. They were ignorant at the time of their whereabouts, and the routed game started directly toward the train; but, to the hunters, the train seemed to be in directly the opposite direction. In the chase the antelopes soon came in sight of the train, and several little girls and boys, seeing them, and seeing their pursuers, ran upon a slight elevation to frighten the antelopes back upon the hunters; whereupon, by some unaccountable mirage deception, these little girls and boys were suddenly transformed into huge Indians to the eyes of the hunters. They were at once forgetful of their anticipated game, and regarding themselves as set upon by a band of some giant race, began to devise for their own escape. Mr. T., thinking that no mortal arm could rescue them, turned at once, and with much perturbation, to the young man, and vehemently cried out: “Charles, let us pray.” Said Charles, “No, I’ll be d—d if I’ll pray; let us run;” and at this he tried the valor of running. All the exhortations of the old man to Charles “to drop his gun” were as fruitless as his entreaties to prayer. But when Mr. T. saw that Charles was making such rapid escape, he dropped his notions of praying, and took to the pursuit of the path left by the running but unpraying Charles. He soon outstripped the young man, and made him beg most lustily of the old man “to wait, and not run away and leave him there with the Injins alone.”

The chagrin of the brave hunters, after they had reached camp by a long and circuitous route, may well be imagined, when they found that they had been running from their own children; and that their fright, and the running and fatigue it had cost them, had been well understood by those of the camp who had been the innocent occasion of their chase for antelopes suddenly being changed into a flight from “Injins.”

When we came into the Mexican settlements our store of meats was well-nigh exhausted, and we were gratefully surprised to find that at every stopping place abundance of mutton was in market, fresh, and of superior quality, and to be purchased at low rates. This constituted our principal article of subsistence during the time we were traversing several hundred miles in this region.

Slowly, but with unmistakable indications of a melancholy character, disaffection and disorder crept into our camp. Disagreements had occurred among families. Those who had taken the lead in originating the project had fallen under the ban and censure of those who, having passed the novelty of the trip, were beginning to feel the pressure of its dark, unwelcome, and unanticipated realities. And, in some instances, a conduct was exhibited by those whose years and rank, as well as professions made at the outset, created expectation and confidence that in them would be found benefactors and wise counselors, that tended to disgrace their position, expose the unworthiness of their motives, and blast the bright future that seemed to hang over the first steps of our journeyings. As a consequence, feelings of discord were engendered, which gained strength by unwise and injudicious counsels, until their pestilential effects spread throughout the camp.

At Moro we tarried one night. This is a small Mexican town, of about three hundred inhabitants, containing, as the only objects of interest, a Catholic Mission station, now in a dilapidated state; a Fort, well-garrisoned by Mexican soldiers, and a fine stream of water, that comes, cool and clear, bounding down the mountain side, beautifying and reviving this finely located village.

The next day after leaving this place we came to the Natural, or Santa Fe Pass, and camped that night at the well-known place called the Forks. From this point there is one road leading in a more southerly direction, and frequently selected by emigrants after arriving at the Forks, though the other road is said, by those best acquainted, to possess many advantages. At this place we found that the disaffection, which had appeared for some time before, was growing more and more incurable; and it began to break out into a general storm. Several of our number resolved upon taking the south road; but this resolution was reached only as a means of separating themselves from the remainder of the train; for the intention really was to become detached from the restraints and counsels that they found interfering with their uncontrollable selfishness. There seemed to be no possible method by which these disturbing elements could be quelled. The matter gave rise to an earnest consultation and discussion upon the part of the sober and prudent portion of our little band; but all means and measures proposed for an amicable adjustment of variances and divisions, seemed powerless when brought in contact with the unmitigated selfishness that, among a certain few, had blotted out from their view the one object and system of regulation that they had been instrumental in throwing around the undertaking at first.

We now saw a sad illustration of the adage that “it is not all gold that glitters.” The novelty of the scene, together with every facility for personal comfort and enjoyment, may suffice to spread the glad light of good cheer about the first few days or weeks of an emigrating tour upon these dreary plains; but let its pathway be found among hostile tribes for a number of weeks; let a scarcity of provisions be felt; let teams begin to fail, with no time or pasturage to recruit them; let inclement weather and swollen streams begin to hedge up the way; these, and more that frequently becomes a dreadful reality, have at once a wonderful power to turn every man into a kingdom by himself, and to develop the real nature of the most hidden motives of his being.

Several of those who had, with unwonted diligence and forbearance, sought to restore quiet and satisfaction, but to no purpose, resolved upon remaining here until the disaffected portion had selected the direction and order of their own movements, and then quietly pursue their way westward by the other route. After some delay, and much disagreeable discussion among themselves, the northern route was selected by the malcontents, and they commenced their travels apart. The remainder of us started upon the south road; and though our animals were greatly reduced, our social condition was greatly improved.

We journeyed on pleasantly for about one hundred miles, when we reached Socoro, a beautiful and somewhat thrifty Mexican settlement. Our teams were now considerably jaded, and we found it necessary to make frequent halts and tarryings for the purpose of recruiting them. And this we found it the more difficult to do, as we were reaching a season of the year, and section of country, that furnished a scanty supply of feed. We spent one week at Socoro, for the purpose of rest to ourselves and teams, as also to replenish, if possible, our fast diminishing store of supplies. We found that food was becoming more scarce among the settlements that lay along our line of travel; that quality and price were likewise serious difficulties, and that our wherewith to purchase even these was well-nigh exhausted.

We journeyed from Socoro to the Rio Grande amid many and disheartening embarrassments and troubles. Sections of the country were almost barren; teams were failing, and indications of hostility among the tribes of Indians (representatives of whom frequently gave us the most unwelcome greetings) were becoming more frequent and alarming.

Just before reaching the Rio Grande, two fine horses were stolen from Mr. Oatman. We afterward learned that they had been soon after seen among the Mexicans, though by them the theft was attributed to unfriendly neighboring tribes; and it was asserted that horses, stolen from trains of emigrants, were frequently brought into Mexican settlements and offered for sale. It is proper here to apprise the reader, that the project of a settlement in New-Mexico had now been entirely abandoned since the division mentioned above, and that California had become the place where we looked for a termination of our travel, and the land where we hoped soon to reach and find a home. At the Rio Grande we rested our teams one week, as a matter of necessary mercy, for every day we tarried was only increasing the probability of the exhaustion of our provisions, ere we could reach a place of permanent supply. We took from this point the “Cook and Kearney” route, and found the grass for our teams for a while more plentiful than for hundreds of miles previous. Our train now consisted of eight wagons and twenty persons. We now came into a mountainous country, and we found the frequent and severe ascents and declivities wearing upon our teams beyond any of our previous travel. We often consumed whole days in making less than one quarter of the usual day’s advance. A few days after leaving the Rio Grande, one Mr. Lane died of the mountain fever. He was a man highly esteemed among the members of the train, and we felt his loss severely. We dug a grave upon one of the foot hills, and with appropriate funeral obsequies we lowered his remains into the same. Some of the female members of our company planted a flower upon the mound that lifted itself over his lonely grave. A rude stake, with his name and date of his death inscribed upon it, was all we left to mark the spot of his last resting-place. One morning, after spending a cool night in a bleak and barren place, we awoke with several inches of snow lying about us upon the hills in the distance. We had spent the night and a part of the previous day without water. Our stock were scattered during the night, and our first object, after looking them up, was to find some friendly place where we might slake our thirst.

The morning was cold, with a fierce bleak wind setting in from the north. Added to the pains of thirst, was the severity of the cold. We found that the weather is subject, in this region, to sudden changes, from one to the other extreme. While in this distressed condition some of our party espied in the distance a streak of timber letting down from the mountains, indicative of running living water. To go to this timber we immediately made preparation, with the greatest possible dispatch, as our only resort. And our half-wavering expectations were more than realized; for after a most fatiguing trip of nearly a day, during which many of us were suffering severely from thirst, we reached the place, and found not only timber and water in abundance, but a plentiful supply of game. Turkeys, deer, antelope, and wild sheep were dancing through every part of the beautiful woodland that lured us from our bleak mountain camp. As the weather continued extremely cold we must have suffered severely, if we had not lost our lives, even, by the severity of the weather, as there was not a particle of anything with which to kindle a fire, unless we had used our wagon timber for that purpose, had we not sought the shelter of this friendly grove. We soon resolved upon at least one week’s rest in this place, and arrangements were made accordingly. During the week we feasted upon the most excellent wild meat, and spent most of our time in hunting and fishing. Excepting the fear we constantly entertained concerning the Indians of the neighborhood, we spent the week here very pleasantly. One morning three large, fierce-looking Apaches came into camp at an early hour. They put on all possible pretensions of friendship; but from the first their movements were suspicious. They for a time surveyed narrowly our wagon and teams, and, so far as allowed to do so, our articles of food, clothing, guns, etc. Suspecting their intentions we bade them be off, upon which they reluctantly left our retreat. That night the dogs kept up a barking nearly the whole night, and at seasons of the night would run to their masters, and then a short distance into the wood, as if to warn us of the nearness of danger. We put out our fires, and each man, with his arms, kept vigilant guard. There is no doubt that by this means our lives were preserved. Tracks of a large number of Indians were seen near the camp next morning; and on going out we found that twenty head of stock had been driven away, some of which belonged to the teams. By this several of our teams were so reduced that we found extreme difficulty in getting along. Some of our wagons and baggage were left at a short distance from this in consequence of what we here lost. We traced the animals some distance, until we found the trail leading into the wild, difficult mountain fastnesses, where it was dangerous and useless to follow.

We were soon gathered up, and en route again for “Ta Bac,” another Mexican settlement, of which we had learned as presenting inducements for a short recruiting halt.

We found ourselves again traveling through a rich pasturage country, abounding with the most enchanting, charming scenery that had greeted us since we had left the “Big Bend.” We came into “Ta Bac” with better spirits, and more vigorous teams, than was allowed us during the last few hundred miles.

At this place one of our number became the unwilling subject of a most remarkable and dampening transaction. Mrs. M., of “grape dumpling” notoriety, while bearing her two hundred and forty of avoirdupois about the camp at rather a too rapid rate, suddenly came in sight of a well that had been dug years before by the Mexican settlers.

While guiding her steps so as to shun this huge-looking hole, suddenly she felt old earth giving way beneath her. It proved that a well of more ancient date than the one she was seeking to shun had been dug directly in her way, but had accumulated a fine covering of grass during the lapse of years. The members of the camp, who were lazily whiling away the hours on the down hill-side of the well’s mouth, were soon apprised of the fact that some momentous cause had interfered with nature’s laws, and opened some new and hitherto unseen fountains in her bosom. With the sudden disappearance of Mrs. M., there came a large current of clear cold water flowing through the camp, greatly dampening our joys, and starting us upon the alert to inquire into the cause of this strange phenomenon. Mrs. M. we soon found safely lodged in the old well, but perfectly secure, as the water, on the principle that two bodies cannot occupy the same space at the same time, had leaped out as Mrs. M.’s mammoth proportions had suddenly laid an imperative possessory injunction upon the entire dimensions of the “hole in the ground.”

We found, after leaving Ta Bac, the road uneven; the rains had set in; the nights were cold; and evidences of the constant nearness and evil designs of savage tribes were manifested every few miles that we passed over. Several once rich, but now evacuated, Mexican towns were passed, from which the rightful owners of the soil had been driven by the Apaches. At “Santa Cruz” we found a Mexican settlement of about one hundred inhabitants, friendly, and rejoiced to see us come among them, as they were living constantly in fear of the implacable Apaches, whose depredations were frequent and of most daring and outrageous character. Almost every day bands of these miscreant wretches were in sight upon the surrounding hills waiting favorable opportunities for the perpetration of deeds of plunder and death. They would at times appear near to the Mexican herdsmen, and tauntingly command them “to herd and take care of those cattle for the Apaches.” We found the country rich and desirable, but for its being infested by these desperadoes. We learned, both from the Mexicans and the conduct of the Indians themselves, that one American placed them under more dread and fear than a score of Mexicans. If along this road we were furnished with a fair representation, these Mexicans are an imbecile, frail, cowardly, and fast declining race. By the friendliness and generosity of the settlers at this point, we made a fine recruit while tarrying there. For a while we entertained the project of remaining for a year. Probably, had it not been for the prowling savages, whose thieving, murdering banditti infest field and woodland, we might have entered into negotiations with the Mexicans to this effect; but we were now en route for the Eureka of the Pacific Slope, and we thought we had no time to waste between us and the realization of our golden dreams. Every inducement that fear and generosity could invent, and that was in the power of these Mexicans to control, was, however, presented and urged in favor of our taking up a residence among them. But we had no certainty that our small number, though of the race most their dread, would be sufficient to warrant us in the successful cultivation of the rich and improved soil that was proffered us. Nothing but a constant guard of the most vigilant kind could promise any safety to fields of grain, or herds of cattle.

We next, and at about eighty miles from Santa Cruz, came to Tukjon, another larger town than Santa Cruz, and more pleasantly, as well as more securely situated. Here again the same propositions were renewed as had been plied so vehemently at the last stopping-place. Such were the advantages that our hosts held out for the raising of a crop of grain, and fattening our cattle, that some of our party immediately resolved upon at least one year’s stay. The whole train halted here one month. During that time, those of our party who could not be prevailed upon to proceed, had arrangements made and operations commenced for a year of agricultural and farming employment.

At the end of one month the family of Wilders, Kellys, and ourselves, started. We urged on amid multiplying difficulties for several days. Our provisions had been but poorly replenished at the last place, as the whole of their crops had been destroyed by their one common and relentless foe, during the year. With all their generosity, it was out of their power to aid us as much as they would have done. Frequently after this, for several nights, we were waked to arm ourselves against the approaching Apaches, who hung in front and rear of our camp for nights and days.

Wearied, heart-sick, and nearly destitute, we arrived at the Pimo Village, on or about the 16th of February, 1851. Here we found a settlement of Indians, who were in open hostility to the Apaches, and by whose skill and disciplined strength they were kept from pushing their depredations further in that direction. But so long had open and active hostilities been kept up, that they were short of provisions and in nearly a destitute situation. They had been wont to turn their attention and energies considerably to farming, but during the last two years, their habits in this respect had been greatly interfered with. We found the ninety miles that divides Tukjon from Pimole to be the most dismal, desolate, and unfruitful of all the regions over which our way had led us as yet. We could find nothing that could, to a sound judgment, furnish matter of contention, such as had been raging between the rival claimants of its blighted peaks and crags.

Poor and desolate as were the war-hunted Pimoles, and unpromising as seemed every project surveyed by our anxious eyes for relief, and a supply of our almost drained stores of provisions, yet it was soon apparent to our family, that if we would proceed further we must venture the journey alone. Soon, and after a brief consultation, a full resolution was reached by the Wilders and Kellys to remain, and stake their existence upon traffic with the Pimoles, or upon a sufficient tarrying to produce for themselves; until from government or friends, they might be supplied with sufficient to reach Fort Yuma.

To Mr. Oatman this resolution brought a trial of a darker hue than any that had cast its shadows upon him as yet. He believed that starvation, or the hand of the treacherous savage, would soon bring them to an awful fate if they tarried; and with much reluctance he resolved to proceed, with no attendants or companions save his exposed and depressed family.

CHAPTER II.

Mrs. and Mrs. Oatman in Perplexity—Interview with Dr. Lecount—Advises them to proceed—They start alone—Teams begin to fail—The Roads are bad—The Country rough and mountainous—Compelled to carry the Baggage up the Hills by Hand—Overtaken by Dr. Lecount on his way to Fort Yuma—He promises them Assistance from the Fort—The next Night the Horses of Dr. Lecount are stolen by the Apaches—He posts a Card, warning Mr. Oatman of Danger, and starts on Foot for the Fort—Reach the Gila River—Camp on the Island late at Night—Their dreary Situation, and the Conversation of the Children—The Morning of the 29th of March—Their Struggle to ascend the Hill on the 29th—Reach the Summit about Sunset—The Despondence and Presentiments of Mr. Oatman—Nineteen Apaches approach them Profess Friendliness—The Massacre—Lorenzo left for Dead, but is preserved—The Capture of Olive and Mary Ann.

The reader should here be apprised that, as the entire narrative that follows has an almost exclusive reference to those members of the family who alone survive to tell this sad tale of their sufferings and privations, it has been thought the most appropriate that it be given in the first person.

Lorenzo D. Oatman has given to the author the following facts, reaching on to the moment when he was made senseless, and in that condition left by the Apache murderers.

“We were left to the severe alternative of starting with a meagre supply, which any considerable delay would exhaust ere we could reach a place of re-supply, or to stay among the apparently friendly Indians, who also were but poorly supplied at best to furnish us; and of whose real intentions it was impossible to form any reliable conclusion. The statement that I have since seen in the ‘Ladies’ Repository,’ made by a traveling correspondent who was at Pimole village at the time of writing, concerning the needlessness and absence of all plausible reason for the course resolved upon by my father, is incorrect. There were reasons for the tarrying of the Wilders and Kellys that had no pertinence when considered in connection with the peculiarities of the condition of my father’s family. The judgment of those who remained, approved of the course elected by my father.

“One of the many circumstances that conspired to spread a gloom over the way that was before us, was the jaded condition of our team, which by this time consisted of two yoke of cows and one yoke of oxen. My parents were in distress and perplexity for some time to determine the true course dictated by prudence, and their responsibility in the premises. One hundred and ninety miles of desert and mountain, each alike barren and verdureless, save now and then a diminutive gorge (water-coursed and grass-fringed, that miles apart led down from the high mountain ranges across the dreary road) stretched out between us and the next settlement or habitation of man. We felt, deeply felt, the hazardous character of our undertaking; and for a time lingered in painful suspense over the proposed adventure. We felt and feared that a road stretching to such a distance, through an uninhabited and wild region, might be infested with marauding bands of the Indians who were known to roam over the mountains that were piled up to the north of us; who, though they might be persuaded or intimidated to spare us the fate of falling by their savage hands, yet might plunder us of all we had as means for life’s subsistence. While in this dreadful suspense, one Dr. Lecount, attended by a Mexican guide, came into the Pimole village. He was on his return from a tour that had been pushed westward, almost to the Pacific Ocean. As soon as we learned of his presence among us, father sought and obtained an interview with him. And it was upon information gained from him, that the decision to proceed was finally made.

“He had passed the whole distance to Fort Yuma, and returned, all within a few months, unharmed; and stated that he had not witnessed indications of even the neighborhood of Indians. Accordingly on the 11th of March, finding provisions becoming scarce among the Pimoles, and our own rapidly wasting, unattended, in a country and upon a road where the residence, or even the trace of one of our own nation would be sought in vain, save that of the hurrying traveler who was upon some official mission, or, as in the case of Dr. Lecount, some scientific pursuit requiring dispatch, we resumed our travel. Our teams were reduced; we were disappointed in being abandoned by our fellow-travelers, and wearied, almost to exhaustion, by the long and fatiguing march that had conducted us to this point. We were lengthening out a toilsome journey for an object and destination quite foreign to the one that had pushed us upon the wild scheme at first. And this solitary commencement on our travel upon a devious way, dismal as it was in every aspect, seemed the only alternative that gave any promise of an extrication from the dark and frowning perils and sufferings that were every day threatening about us, and with every step of advance into the increasing wildness pressing more and more heavily upon us.”

Let the imagination of the reader awake and dwell upon the probable feelings of those fond parents at this trying juncture of circumstances; and when it shall have drawn upon the resources that familiarity with the heart’s deepest anguish may furnish, it will fail to paint them with any of that poignant accuracy that will bring him into stern sympathy with their condition.

Attended by a family, a family which, in the event of their being overtaken by any of the catastrophes that reason and prudence bade them beware of on the route, must be helpless; if they did not, even by their presence and peculiar exposure, give point and power to the sense and presence of danger; a family entirely dependent upon them for that daily bread of which they were liable to be left destitute at any moment; far from human abodes, and with the possibility that, beyond the reach of relief, they might be set upon by the grim, ghastly demon of famine, or be made the victims of the blood-thirstiness and slow tortures of those human devils who, with savage ferocity, lurk for prey, when least their presence is anticipated; the faint prospect at best there was for accomplishing all that must be performed ere they could count upon safety; these, all these, and a thousand kindred considerations, crowded upon those lonely hours of travel, and furnished attendant reflections that burned through the whole being of these parents with the intensity of desperation. O! how many noble hearts have been turned out upon these dismal, death-marked by-ways, that have as yet formed the only land connection between the Atlantic and Pacific slopes, to bleed, and moan, and sigh, for weeks, and even months, suspended in painful uncertainty, between life and death at every moment. Apprehensions for their own safety, or the safety of dependent ones, like ghosts infernal, haunting them at every step. Fear, fear worse than death, if possible, lest sickness, famine, or the sudden onslaught of merciless savages, that infest the mountain fastnesses, and prowl and skulk through the innumerable hiding-places furnished by the wide sage-fields and chaparral, might intercept a journey, the first stages of which glowed with the glitter and charm of novelty, and beamed with the light of hope, but was now persisted in, through unforeseen and deepening gloom, as a last and severe alternative of self-preservation, oppressed their hearts.

Monuments! monuments, blood-written, of these uncounted miseries, that will survive the longest lived of those most recently escaped, are inscribed upon the bleached and bleaching bones of our common humanity and nationality; are written upon the rude graves of our countrymen and kin, that strew these highways of death; written upon the moldering timbers of decaying vehicles of transport; written in blood that now beats and pulsates in the veins of solitary and scathed survivors, as well as in the stain of kindred blood that still preserves its tale-telling, unbleached hue, upon scattered grass-plots, and Sahara sand mounds; written upon favored retreats, sought at the close of a dusty day’s toil for nourishment, but suddenly turned into one of the unattended, unchronicled deathbeds, already and before frequenting these highways of carnage and wrecks; written, ah! too sadly, deeply engraven upon the tablet of memories that keep alive the scenes of butcheries and captive-making that have rent and mangled whole households, and are now preserved to embitter the whole gloom-clad afterpart of the miraculously preserved survivors.

If there be an instance of one family having experienced trials that with peculiar pungency may suggest a train of reflection like the above, that family is the one presented to the reader’s notice in these pages. Seven of them have fallen under the extreme of the dark picture; two only live to tell herein the tale of their own narrow escape, and the agonies which marked the process by which it came.

“For six days,” says one of these, “our course was due southwest, at a slow and patience-trying rate. We were pressing through many difficulties, with which our minds were so occupied that they could neither gather nor retain any distinct impression of the country over which this first week of our solitary travel bore us. While thus, on the seventh day from Pimole, we were struggling and battling with the tide of opposition that, with the increasing force of multiplying embarrassments and drawbacks, was setting in against us, our teams failing and sometimes in the most difficult and dangerous places utterly refusing to proceed, we were overtaken by Dr. Lecount, who with his Mexican guide was on his way back to Fort Yuma. The doctor saw our condition, and his large, generous heart poured upon us a flood of sympathy, which, with the words of good cheer he addressed us, was the only relief it was in his power to administer. Father sent by him, and at his own suggestion, to the fort for immediate assistance. This message the doctor promised should be conveyed to the fort, (we were about ninety miles distant from it at the time,) with all possible dispatch, also kindly assuring us that all within his power should be done to procure us help at once. We were all transiently elated with the prospect thus suddenly opening upon us of a relief from this source, and especially as we were confident that Dr. Lecount would be prompted to every office and work in our behalf, that he might command at the fort, where he was well and favorably known. But soon a dark cloud threw its shadow upon all these hopes, and again our wonted troubles rolled upon us with an augmented force. Our minds became anxious, and our limbs were jaded. The roads had been made bad, at places almost impassable, by recent rains, and for the first time the strength and courage of my parents gave signs of exhaustion. It seemed, and indeed was thus spoken of among us, that the dark wing of some terrible calamity was spread over us, and casting the shadows of evil ominously and thickly upon our path. The only method by which we could make the ascent of the frequent high hills that hedged our way, was by unloading the wagon and carrying the contents piece by piece to the top; and even then we were often compelled to aid a team of four cows and two oxen to lift the empty wagon. It was well for us, perhaps, that there was not added to the burden of these long and weary hours, a knowledge of the mishap that had befallen the messenger gone on before. About sunset of the day after Dr. Lecount left us, he camped about thirty miles ahead of us, turned his horses into a small valley hemmed in by high mountains, and with his guide slept until about daybreak. Just as the day was breaking and preparations were being made to gather up for a ride to the fort that day, twelve Indians suddenly emerged from behind a bluff hill near by and entered the camp. Dr. Lecount, taken by surprise by the presence of these unexpected visitants, seized his arms, and with his guide kept a close eye upon their movements, which he soon discovered wore a very suspicious appearance. One of the Indians would draw the doctor into a conversation, which they held in the Mexican tongue; during which others of the band would with an air of carelessness edge about, encircling the doctor and his guide, until in a few moments, despite their friendly professions, their treacherous intentions were plainly read. At the suggestion of his bold, intrepid, and experienced guide, they both sprang to one side, the guide presenting to the Indians his knife, and the doctor his pistol. The Indians then put on the attitude of fight, but feared to strike. They still continued their efforts to beguile the doctor into carelessness, by introducing questions and topics of conversation, but they could not manage to cover with this thin gauze the murder of their hearts. Soon the avenging ferocity of the Mexican began to burn, he violently sprang into the air, rushed toward them brandishing his knife, and beckoning to the doctor to come on; he was about in the act of plunging his knife into the leader of the band, but was restrained by the coolness and prudence of Doctor Lecount. Manuel (the guide) was perfectly enraged at their insolence, and would again and again spring, tiger-like toward them, crying at the top of his voice, “terrily, terrily!” The Indians soon made off. On going into the valley for their animals they soon found that the twelve Indians had enacted the above scene in the camp, merely as a ruse to engage their attention, while another party of the same rascal band were driving their mules and horse beyond their reach. They found evidences that this had been done within the last hour. The doctor returned to camp, packed his saddle and packages in a convenient, secluded place near by, and gave orders to his guide to proceed immediately to the fort, himself resolving to await his return. Soon after Manuel had left, however, he bethought him of the Oatman family, of their imminent peril, and of the pledge he had put himself under to them, to secure them the earliest possible assistance; and he now had become painfully apprised of reasons for the most prompt and punctual fulfillment of that pledge. He immediately prepared, and at a short distance toward us posted upon a tree near the road a card, warning us of the nearness of the Apaches, and relating therein in brief what had befallen himself at their hands; reassuring us also of his determined diligence to secure us protection, and declaring his purpose, contrary to a resolution he had formed on dismissing his guide, to proceed immediately to the fort, there in person to plead our case and necessities. This card we missed, though it was afterward found by those whom we had left at Pimole Village. What “might have been,” could our eyes have fallen upon that small piece of paper, though it is now useless to conjecture, cannot but recur to the mind. It might have preserved fond parents, endeared brothers and sisters, to gladden and cheer a now embittered and bereft existence. But the card, and the saddle and packages of the doctor, we saw not until weeks after, as the sequel will show, though we spent a night at the same camp where the scenes had been enacted.

“Toward evening of the eighteenth day of March, we reached the Gila River, at a point over eighty miles from Pimole, and about the same distance from Fort Yuma.

“We descended to the ford from a high, bluff hill, and found it leading across at a point where the river armed, leaving a small island sand-bar in the middle of the stream. We frequently found places on our road upon which the sun shines not, and for hours together the road led through a region as wild and rough as the imagination ever painted any portion of our earth. It was impossible, save for a few steps at a time, to see at a distance in any direction; and although we were yet inspirited at seasons with the report of Dr. Lecount, upon which we had started, yet we could not blind our eyes or senses to the possibilities that might lurk unseen and near, and to the advantages over us that the nature of the country about us would furnish the evil-designing foe of the white race, whose habitations we knew were locked up somewhere within these huge, irregular mountain ranges. Much less could we be indifferent to the probable inability of our teams to bear us over the distance still separating us from the place and stay of our hope. We attempted to cross the Gila about sunset; the stream was rapid, and swollen to an unusual width and depth. After struggling with danger and every possible hinderance until long after dark, we reached the sand island in the middle of the stream. Here our teams mired, our wagon dragged heavily, and we found it impossible to proceed.

“After reaching the center and driest portion of the island, with the wagon mired in the rear of us, we proceeded to detach the teams, and as best, we could made preparations to spend the night. Well do I remember the forlorn countenance and dejected and jaded appearance of my father as he started to wade the lesser branch of the river ahead of us to gather material for a fire. At a late hour of that cold, clear, wind-swept night, a camp-fire was struck, and our shivering group encircled it to await the preparation of our stinted allowance. At times the wind, which was blowing furiously most of the night, would lift the slight surges of the Gila quite to our camp-fire.”

Let the mind of the reader pause and ponder upon the situation of that forlorn family at this time. Still unattended and unbefriended; without a white person or his habitation within the wide range of nearly a hundred miles; the Gila, a branch of which separated them from either shore, keeping up a ceaseless, mournful murmuring through the entire night; the wild wind, as it swept unheeding by, sighing among the distant trees and rolling along the forest of mountain peaks, kept up a perpetual moan solemn as a funeral dirge. The imagination can but faintly picture the feelings of those fond parents upon whom hung such a fearful responsibility as was presented to their minds and thoughts by the gathering of this little loved family group about them.

“A large part of the night was spent by the children (for sleep we could not) in conversation upon our trying situation; the dangers, though unseen, that might be impending over our heads; of the past, the present, and the cloud-wrapt future; of the perils of our undertaking, which were but little realized under the light of novelty and hope that inspired our first setting out—an undertaking well-intentioned but now shaping itself so rudely and unseemly.

“We were compelled frequently to shift our position, as the fickle wind would change the point at which the light surges of the Gila would attack our camp-fire, in the center of that little island of about two hundred square feet, upon which we had of necessity halted for the night. While our parents were in conversation a little apart, which, too, they were conducting in a subdued tone for purposes of concealment, the curiosity of the elder children, restless and inquisitive, was employed in guessing at the probable import of their councils. We talked, with the artlessness and eagerness of our unrealizing age, of the dangers possibly near us, of the advantage that our situation gave to the savages, who were our only dread; and each in his or her turn would speak, as we shiveringly gathered around that little, threatened, sickly camp-fire, of his or her intentions in case of the appearance of the foe. Each had to give a map of the course to be pursued if the cruel Apaches should set upon us, and no two agreed; one saying, ‘I shall run;’ another, ‘I will fight and die fighting;’ and still another, ‘I will take the gun or a club and keep them off;’ and last, Miss Olive says, ‘Well, there is one thing; I shall not be taken by these miserable brutes. I will fight as long as I can, and if I see that I am about to be taken, I will kill myself. I do not care to die, but it would be worse than death to me to be taken a captive among them.’”

How apprehensive, how timid, how frail a thing is the human mind, especially when yet untutored, and uninured to the severe allotments that are in this state incident to lengthened years. Experience alone can test the wisdom of the resolutions with which we arm ourselves for anticipated trials, or our ability to carry them out. How little it knows of its power or skill to triumph in the hour of sudden and trying emergency, only as the reality itself shall test and call it forth. Olive lives to-day to dictate a narrative of five gloomy years of captivity, that followed upon a totally different issue of an event that during that night, as a possibility merely, was the matter of vows and resolutions, but which in its reality mocked and taunted the plans and purposes that had been formed for its control.

“The longed-for twilight at length sent its earliest stray beams along the distant peaks, stole in upon our sand-bar camp, and gradually lifted the darkness from our dreary situation. As the curtain of that burdensome night departed, it seemed to bear with it those deep and awful shades that had rested upon our minds during its stay, and which we now began to feel had taken their gloomiest hue from the literal darkness and solitude that has a strange power to nurse a morbid apprehension.

“Before us, and separating the shore from us, was a part of the river yet to be forded. At an early hour the teams were brought from the valley-neck of land, where they had found scant pasturage for the night, and attached to the wagon. We soon made the opposite bank. Before us was quite a steep declivity of some two hundred feet, by the way of the road. We had proceeded but a short distance when our galled and disarranged teams refused to go. We were again compelled to unload, and with our own hands and strength to bear the last parcel to the top of the hill. After this we found it next to impossible to compel the teams to drag the empty wagon to the summit.

“After reaching the other bank we camped, and remained through the heat of the day intending to travel the next night by moonlight. About two hours and a half before sunset we started, and just before the sun sank behind the western hills we had made the ascent of the hill and about one mile advance. Here we halted to reload the remainder of our baggage.

“The entire ascent was not indeed made until we reached this point, and to it some of our baggage had been conveyed by hand. I now plainly saw a sad, foreboding change in my father’s manner and feelings. Hitherto, amid the most fatiguing labor and giant difficulties, he had seemed generally armed for the occasion with a hopeful countenance and cheerful spirit and manner, the very sight of which had a power to dispel our childish fears and spread contentment and resignation upon our little group. While ascending this hill I saw, too plainly saw, (being familiar, young as I was, with my father’s aptness to express, by the tone of his action and manner, his mental state,) as did my mother also, that a change had come over him. Disheartening and soul-crushing apprehensions were written upon his manner, as if preying upon his mind in all the mercilessness of a conquering despair. There seemed to be a dark picture hung up before him, upon which the eye of his thought rested with a monomaniac intensity; and written thereon he seemed to behold a sad afterpart for himself, as if some terrible event had loomed suddenly upon the field of his mental vision, and though unprophesied and unheralded by any palpable notice, yet gradually wrapping its folds about him, and coming in, as it were, to fill his cup of anguish to the brim. Surely,

“‘Coming events cast their shadows before them.

Who hath companioned a visit from the horn or ivory gate?

Who hath propounded the law that renders calamities gregarious?

Pressing down with yet more woe the heavy laden mourner;

Yea, a palpable notice warneth of an instant danger;

For the soul hath its feelers, cobwebs upon the wings of the wind,

That catch events, in their approach, with sure and sad presentiment.’

“Whether my father had read that notice left for our warning by Dr. Lecount, and had from prudence concealed it, with the impression it may have made upon his own mind, from us, to prevent the torment of fear it would have enkindled; or whether a camp-fire might have been discerned by him in the distance the night before, warning of the nearness of the savage Apaches; or whether by spirit law or the appointment of Providence the gloom of his waiting doom had been sent on before to set his mind in readiness for the breaking storm, are questions that have been indulged and involuntarily urged by his fond, bereaved children; but no answer to which has broke upon their ear from mountain, from dale, or from spirit-land. For one hour the night before my father had wept bitterly, while in the wagon thinking himself concealed from his family, but of which I was ignorant until it was told me by my eldest sister during the day. My mother was calm, cool, and collected; patient to endure, and diligent to do, that she might administer to the comfort of the rest of us. Of the real throbbings of the affectionate and indulgent heart of that beloved mother, her children must ever remain ignorant. But of her noble bearing under these trying circumstances angels might speak; and her children, who survive to cherish her name with an ardent, though sorrowing affection, may be pardoned for not keeping silence. True to the instincts that had ever governed her in all trying situations, and true to the dictates of a noble and courageous heart, she wisely attributed these shadows (the wing of which flitted over her own sky as well) to the harassings and exhaustion of the hour; she called them the accustomed creations of an over-tasked mind, and then, with cheerful heart and ready hand, plied herself to all and any labors that might hie us upon our way. At one time, during the severest part of the toil and efforts of that day to make the summit of that hill, my father suddenly sank down upon a stone near the wagon, and exclaimed, ‘Mother, mother, in the name of God, I know that something dreadful is about to happen!’ In reply, our dear mother had no expressions but those of calm, patient trust, and a vigorous, resolute purpose.

“‘O, Mother? bless’d sharer of our joys and woes,

E’en in the darkest hours of earthly ill,

Untarnish’d yet thy fond affection glow’d,

When sorrow rent the heart, when feverish pain

Wrung the hot drops of anguish from the brow;

To soothe the soul, to cool the burning brain,

O who so welcome and so prompt as thou?’

“We found ourselves now upon the summit, which proved to be the east edge of a long table-land, stretching upon a level, a long distance westward, and lying between two deep gorges, one on the right, the other on the left; the former coursed by the Gila River. We had hastily taken our refreshment, consisting of a few parcels of dry bread, and some bean-soup, preparatory to a night’s travel. This purpose of night travel had been made out of mercy to our famished teams, so weak that it was with difficulty they could be driven during the extreme sultry heat of the day. Besides this, the moon was nearly in full, giving us light nearly the entire night; the nights were cool, and better for travel to man and beast, and the shortness of our provisions made it imperative that we should make the most of our time.”

Up, upon an elevated, narrow table-land, formed principally of lime rock, look now at this family; the scattered rough stones about them forming their seats, upon which they sit them down in haste to receive the frugal meal to strengthen them for the night’s travel. From two years old and upward, that group of children, unconscious of danger, but dreading the lone, long hours of the night’s journey before them. To the south of them, a wild, uninhabited, and uninhabitable region, made up of a succession of table-lands, varying in size and in height, with rough, verdureless sides, and separated by deep gorges and dark cañons, without any vegetation save an occasional scrub-tree standing out from the general sterility. Around them, not a green spot to charm, to cheer, to enliven the tame, tasteless desolation and barrenness; at the foot of the bold elevation, that gives them a wider view than was granted while winding the difficult defiles of the crooked road left behind them, murmurs on the ceaseless Gila, upon which they gaze, over a bold precipice at the right. To the east and north, mountain ranges rising skyward until they seem to lean against the firmament. But within all the extended field swept by their curious, anxious vision, no smoking chimney of a friendly habitation appears to temper the sense of loneliness, or apprise them of the accessibleness of friendly sympathy or aid. Before them, a dusty, stony road points to the scene of anticipated hardships, and the land of their destination. The sun had scarcely concealed his burning face behind the western hills, ere the full-orbed moon peers from the craggy mountain chain in the rear, as if to mock at the sun weltering in his fading gore, and proffering the reign of her chastened, mellow light for the whole dreaded night.

“Though the sun had hid its glittering, dazzling face from us behind a tall peak in the distance, yet its rays lingered upon the summits that stretched away between us and the moon, and daylight was full upon us. Our hasty meal had been served. My father, sad, and seemingly spell-bound with his own struggling emotions, was a little on one side, as if oblivious of all immediately about him, and was about in the act of lifting some of the baggage to the wagon, that had as yet remained unloaded since the ascent of the hill, when, casting my eyes down the hill by the way we had come, I saw several Indians slowly and leisurely approaching us in the road. I was greatly alarmed, and for a moment dared not to speak. At the time, my father’s back was turned. I spoke to him, at the same time pointing to the Indians. What I saw in my father’s countenance excited in me a great fear, and took a deeper hold upon my feelings of the danger we were in, than the sight of the Indians. They were now approaching near us. The blood rushed to my father’s face. For a moment his face would burn and flash as it crimsoned with the tide from within; then a death-like paleness would spread over his countenance, as if his whole frame was suddenly stiffened with horror. I saw too plainly the effort that it cost him to attempt a concealment of his emotions. He succeeded, however, in controlling the jerking of his muscles and his mental agitations, so as to tell us, in mild and composed accents, ‘not to fear; the Indians would not harm us.’ He had always been led to believe that the Indians could be so treated as to avoid difficulty with them. He had been among them much in the Western states, and so often tried his theory of leniency with success that he often censured the whites for their severity toward them; and was disposed to attribute injury received from them to the unwise and cruel treatment of them by the whites. It had long been his pride and boast that he could manage the Indians so that it would do to trust them. Often had he thrown himself wholly in their power, while traveling and doing business in Iowa, and that, too, in times of excitement and hostility, relying upon his coolness, self-possession, and urbanity toward them to tame and disarm their ferocity. As yet, his theory had worked no injury to himself, though often practiced against the remonstrances of friends. But what might serve for the treatment of the Iowa Indians, might need modification for these fierce Apaches. Besides, his wonted coolness and fearlessness seemed, as the Indians approached, to have forsaken him; and I have never been able to account for the conduct of my father at this time, only by reducing to reality the seemings of the past few days or hours, to wit, that a dark doom had been written out or read to him before.

“After the Indians approached, he became collected, and kindly motioned them to sit down; spoke to them in Spanish, to which they replied. They immediately sat down upon the stones about us, and still conversing with father in Spanish, made the most vehement professions of friendship. They asked for tobacco and a pipe, that they might smoke in token of their sincerity and of their friendly feelings toward us. This my father immediately prepared, took a whiff himself, then passed it around, even to the last. But amid all this, the appearance and conduct of father was strange. The discerning and interested eye of his agitated family could too plainly discover the uncontrollable, unspoken mental convulsions that would steal the march upon the forced appearances of composure that his better judgment, as well as yearnings for his family, dictated for the occasion. His movements were a reflecting glass, in which we could as plainly read some dire catastrophe was breeding for us, as well as in the flashes and glances that flew from face to face of our savage-looking visitants.

“After smoking, these Indians asked for something to eat. Father told them of our destitute condition, and that he could not feed them without robbing his family; that unless we could soon reach a place of new supplies we must suffer. To all this they seemed to yield only a reluctant hearing. They became earnest and rather imperative, and every plea that we made to them of our distress, but increased their wild and furious clamors. Father reluctantly took some bread from the wagon and gave it to them, saying that it was robbery, and perhaps starvation to his family. As soon as this was devoured they asked for more, meanwhile surveying us narrowly, and prying and looking into every part of the wagon. They were told that we could spare them no more. They immediately packed themselves into a secret council a little on one side, which they conducted in the Apache language, wholly unintelligible to us. We were totally in the dark as to their designs, save that their appearance and actions wore the threatening of some hellish deed. We were now about ready to start. Father had again returned to complete the reloading of the remainder of the articles; mother was in the wagon arranging them; Olive, with my older sister, was standing upon the opposite side of the wagon; Mary Ann, a little girl about seven years old, sat upon a stone holding to a rope attached to the horns of the foremost team; the rest of the children were on the opposite side of the wagon from the Indians. My eyes were turned away from the Indians.

“Though each of the family was engaged in repairing the wagon, none were without manifestations of fear. For some time every movement of the Indians was closely watched by us. I well remember, however, that after a few moments my own fears were partially quieted, and from their appearance I judged it was so with the rest.

“In a subdued tone frequent expressions were made concerning the Indians, and their possible intentions; but we were guarded and cautious, lest they might understand our real dread and be emboldened to violence. Several minutes did they thus remain a few feet from us, occasionally turning an eye upon us, and constantly keeping up a low earnest babbling among themselves. At times they gazed eagerly in various directions, especially down the road by which we had come, as if struggling to discern the approach of some object or person either dreaded or expected by them.

“Suddenly, as a clap of thunder from a clear sky, a deafening yell broke upon us, the Indians jumping into the air, and uttering the most frightful shrieks, and at the same time springing toward us flourishing their war-clubs, which had hitherto been concealed under their wolf-skins. I was struck upon the top and back of my head, came to my knees, when with another blow, I was struck blind and senseless.” One of their number seized and jerked Olive one side, ere they had dealt the first blow.

THE MASSACRE.

“As soon,” continues Olive, “as they had taken me one side, and while one of the Indians was leading me off, I saw them strike Lorenzo, and almost at the same instant my father also. I was so bewildered and taken by surprise by the suddenness of their movements, and their deafening yells, that it was some little time before I could realize the horrors of my situation. When I turned around, opened my eyes, and collected my thoughts, I saw my father, my own dear father! struggling, bleeding, and moaning in the most pitiful manner. Lorenzo was lying with his face in the dust, the top of his head covered with blood, and his ears and mouth bleeding profusely. I looked around and saw my poor mother, with her youngest child clasped in her arms, and both of them still, as if the work of death had already been completed; a little distance on the opposite side of the wagon, stood little Mary Ann, with her face covered with her hands, sobbing aloud, and a huge-looking Indian standing over her; the rest were motionless, save a younger brother and my father, all upon the ground dead or dying. At this sight a thrill of icy coldness passed over me; I thought I had been struck; my thoughts began to reel and became irregular and confused; I fainted and sank to the earth, and for a while, I know not how long, I was insensible.

“When I recovered my thoughts I could hardly realize where I was, though I remembered to have considered myself as having also been struck to the earth, and thought I was probably dying. I knew that all, or nearly all of the family had been murdered; thus bewildered, confused, half conscious and half insensible, I remained a short time, I know not how long, when suddenly I seemed awakened to the dreadful realities around me. My little sister was standing by my side, sobbing and crying, saying: ‘Mother, O mother! Olive, mother and father are killed, with all our poor brothers and sisters.’ I could no longer look upon the scene. Occasionally a low, piteous moan would come from some one of the family as in a dying state. I distinguished the groans of my poor mother, and sprang wildly toward her, but was held back by the merciless savage holding me in his cruel grasp, and lifting a club over my head, threatening me in the most taunting, barbarous manner. I longed to have him put an end to my life. ‘O,’ thought I, ‘must I know that my poor parents have been killed by these savages and I remain alive!’ I asked them to kill me, pleaded with them to take my life, but all my pleas and prayers only excited to laughter and taunts the two wretches to whose charge we had been committed.

“After these cruel brutes had consummated their work of slaughter, which they did in a few moments, they then commenced to plunder our wagon, and the persons of the family whom they had killed. They broke open the boxes with stones and clubs, plundering them of such of their contents as they could make serviceable to themselves. They took off the wagon wheels, or a part of them, tore the wagon covering off from its frame, unyoked the teams and detached them from the wagons, and commenced to pack the little food, with many articles of their plunder, as if preparatory to start on a long journey. Coming to a feather bed, they seized it, tore it open, scattering its contents to the winds, manifesting meanwhile much wonder and surprise, as if in doubt what certain articles of furniture, and conveniences for the journey we had with us, could be intended for. Such of these as they selected, with the little food we had with us that they could conveniently pack, they tied up in bundles, and started down the hill by the way they had come, driving us on before them. We descended the hill, not knowing their intentions concerning us, but under the expectation that they would probably take our lives by slow torture. After we had descended the hill and crossed the river, and traveled about one half of a mile by a dim trail leading through a dark, rough, and narrow defile in the hills, we came to an open place where there had been an Indian camp before, and halted. The Indians took off their packs, struck a fire, and began in their own way to make preparations for a meal. They boiled some of the beans just from our wagon, mixed some flour with water, and baked it in the ashes. They offered us some food, but in the most insulting and taunting manner, continually making merry over every indication of grief in us, and with which our hearts were ready to break. We could not eat. After the meal, and about an hour’s rest, they began to repack and make preparations to proceed.”

CHAPTER III.

Lorenzo Oatman—Conscious of most of the Scenes of the Massacre—The next Day he finds himself at the Foot of a rocky Declivity, over which he had fallen—Makes an Effort to walk—Starts for Pimole—His Feelings and Sufferings—Is attacked by Wolves—Then by two Indians, who are about to shoot him down—Their subsequent Kindness—They go on to the Place of Massacre—He meets the Wilders and Kellys—They take him back to Pimole—In about one Month gets well, and starts for Fort Yuma—Visits the Place of Massacre—His Feelings—Burial of the Dead—Reflections—The two Girls—Their Thoughts of Home and Friends—Conduct of their Captors—Disposition of the Stock—Cruelty to the Girls to hurry them on—Girls resolve not to proceed—Meet eleven Indians, who seek to kill Olive—Reasons for—Apaches defend her—Their Habits of Fear for their own Safety—Their Reception at the Apache Village—One Year—The Mohaves—Their second coming among the Apaches—Conversation of Olive and Mary—Purchased by the Mohaves—Avowed Reasons—Their Price—Danger during the Debate.

In this chapter we ask the reader to trace with us the narrow and miraculous escape of Lorenzo Oatman, after being left for dead by the Apaches. He was the first to receive the death-dealing blow of the perpetrators of that horrid deed by which most of the family were taken from him. The last mention we made of him left him, under the effects of that blow, weltering in his blood. He shall tell his own story of the dreadful after-part. It has in it a candor, a freedom from the tinselings so often borrowed from a morbid imagination, and thrown about artificial romance, that commends it to the reader, especially to the juvenile reader. It exhibits a presence of mind, courage, and resoluteness that, as an example, may serve as a light to cheer and inspirit that boy whose eye is now tracing this record, when he shall find himself stumbling amid mishaps and pitfalls in the future, and when seasons of darkness, like the deep, deep midnight, shall close upon his path:

“I soon must have recovered my consciousness after I had been struck down, for I heard distinctly the repeated yells of those fiendish Apaches. And these I heard mingling in the most terrible confusion with the shrieks and cries of my dear parents, brothers, and sisters, calling, in the most pitiful, heart-rending tones, for ‘Help, help! In the name of God, cannot any one help us?’

“To this day the loud wail sent up by our dear mother from that rough death-bed still rings in my ears. I heard the scream, shrill, and sharp, and long, of these defenseless, unoffending brothers and sisters, distinguishing the younger from the older as well as I could have done by their natural voice; and these constantly blending with the brutal, coarse laugh, and the wild, raving whooping of their murderers. Well do I remember coming to myself, with sensations as of waking from a long sleep, but which soon gave place to the dreadful reality; at which time all would be silent for a moment, and then the silence broken by the low, subdued, but unintelligible gibberings of the Indians, intermingled with an occasional low, faint moan from some one of the family, as if in the last agonies of death. I could not move. I thought of trying to get up, but found I could not command a muscle or a nerve. I heard their preparations for leaving, and distinctly remember to have thought, at the time, that my heart had ceased to beat, and that I was about giving my last breath. I heard the sighs and moans of my sisters, heard them speak, knew the voice of Olive, but could not tell whether one or more was preserved with her.

“While lying in this state, two of the wretches came up to me, rolling me over with their feet; they examined and rifled my pockets, took off my shoes and hat in a hurried manner; then laid hold of my feet and roughly dragged me a short distance, and then seemed to leave me for dead. During all this, except for a moment at a time, occasionally, I was perfectly conscious, but could not see. I thought each moment would be my last. I tried to move again and again, but was under the belief that life had gone from my body and limbs, and that a few more breathings would shut up my senses. There seemed a light spot directly over my head, which was gradually growing smaller, dwindling to a point. During this time I was conscious of emotions and thoughts peculiar and singular, aside from their relation to the horrors about me. At one time (and it seemed hours) I was ranging through undefined, open space, with paintings and pictures of all imaginable sizes and shapes hung about me, as if at an immense distance, and suspended upon walls of ether. At another, strange and discordant sounds would grate on my ear, so unlike any that my ear ever caught, that it would be useless endeavoring to give a description of them. Then these would gradually die away, and there rolled upon my ear such strains of sweet music as completely ravished all my thoughts, and I was perfectly happy. And in all this I could not define myself; I knew not who I was, save that I knew, or supposed I knew, I had come from some far-off region, only a faint remembrance of which was borne along with me. But to attempt to depict all of what seemed a strange, actual experience, and that I now know to have been crowded into a few hours, would only excite ridicule; though there was something so fascinating and absorbing to my engaged mind, that I frequently long to reproduce its unearthly music and sights.

“After being left by the Indians, the thoughts I had, traces of which are still in my memory, were of opening my eyes, knowing perfectly my situation, and thinking still that each breath would be the last. The full moon was shining upon rock, and hill, and shrub about me; a more lovely evening indeed I never witnessed. I made an effort to turn my eye in search of the place where I supposed my kindred were cold in death, but could not stir. I felt the blood upon my mouth, and found it still flowing from my ears and nose. All was still as the grave. Of the fate of the rest of the family I could not now determine accurately to myself, but supposed all of them, except two of the girls, either dead or in my situation. But no sound, no voice broke the stillness of these few minutes of consciousness; though upon them there rested the weight of an anguish, the torture and horror of which pen cannot report. I had a clear knowledge that two or more of my sisters were taken away alive. Olive I saw them snatch one side ere they commenced the general slaughter, and I had a faint consciousness of having heard the voice and sighs of little Mary Ann, after all else was hushed, save the hurrying to and fro of the Indians, while at their work of plunder.

“The next period, the recollection of which conveys any distinct impression to my mind at this distance of time, was of again coming to myself, blind, but thinking my eyes were some way tied from without. As I rubbed them, and removed the clotted blood from my eyelids, I gathered strength to open them. The sun, seemingly from mid-heaven, was looking me full in the face. My head was beating, and at times reeling under the grasp of a most torturing pain. I looked at my worn and tattered clothes, and they were besmeared with blood. I felt my head and found my scalp torn across the top. I found I had strength to turn my head, and it surprised me. I made an effort to get up, and succeeded in rising to my hands and knees; but then my strength gave way. I saw myself at the foot of a steep, rugged declivity of rocks, and all about me new. On looking up upon the rocks I discovered traces of blood marking the way by which I had reached my present situation from the brow above me. At seasons there would be a return of partial aberration, and derangement of my intellect. Against these I sought to brace myself, and study the where and wherefore of my awful situation. And I wish to record my gratitude to God for enabling me then and there to collect my thoughts, and retain my sanity.

“I soon determined in my mind that I had either fallen, or been hurled down to my present position, from the place where I was first struck down. At first I concluded I had fallen myself, as I remembered to have made several efforts to get upon my hands and knees, but was baffled each time, and that during this I saw myself near a precipice of rocks, like that brow of the steep near me now, and that I plainly recognized as the same place, and now sixty feet or more above me. My consciousness now fully returned, and with it a painful appreciation of the dreadful tragedies of which my reaching my present situation had formed a part. I dwelt upon what had overtaken my family-kin, and though I had no certain mode of determining, yet I concluded it must have been the day before. Especially would my heart beat toward my fond parents, and dwell upon their tragical and awful end: I thought of the weary weeks and months by which they had, at the dint of every possible exertion, borne us to this point; of the comparatively short distance that would have placed them beyond anxiety; of the bloody, horrid night that had closed in upon the troublous day of their lives.

“And then my thoughts would wander after those dear sisters; and scarcely could I retain steadiness of mind when I saw them, in thought, led away I knew not where, to undergo every ill and hardship, to suffer a thousand deaths at the hands of their heathen captors. I thought at times (being, I have no doubt, partially delirious) that my brain was loose, and was keeping up a constant rattling in my head, and accordingly I pressed my head tightly between my hands, that if possible I might retain it to gather a resolution for my own escape. When did so much crowd into so small a space or reflection before? Friends, that were, now re-presented themselves; but from them, now, my most earnest implorings for help brought out no hand of relief; and as I viewed them, surrounded with the pleasures and joys of their safe home-retreats, the contrast only plunged me deeper in despair. My old playmates now danced before me again, those with whom I had caroled away the hours so merrily, and whom I had bidden the laughing, merry ‘adieu,’ only pitying them that they were denied the elysium of a romantic trip over the Plains. The scenes of sighs, and tears, and regrets that shrouded the hour of our departure from kindred and friends, and the weeping appeals they plied so earnestly to persuade us to desist from an undertaking so freighted with hazard, now rolled upon me to lacerate and torture these moments of suffocating gaspings for breath.

“Then my own condition would come up, with new views of the unbroken gloom and despair that walled it in on every side, more impenetrable to the first ray of hope than the granite bulwarks about me to the light of the sun.

“A boy of fourteen years, with the mangled remains of my own parents lying near by, my scalp torn open, my person covered with blood, alone, friendless, in a wild, mountain, dismal, wilderness region, exposed to the ravenous beasts, and more, to the ferocity of more than brutal savages and human-shaped demons! I had no strength to walk, my spirits crushed, my ambition paralyzed, my body mangled. At times I despaired, and prayed for death; again I revived, and prayed God for help. Sometimes, while lying flat on my back, my hands pressing my torn and blood-clothed head, with the hot sun pouring a full tide of its unwelcome heat upon me, the very air a hot breath in my face, I gathered hope that I might yet look upon the white face again, and that I might live to rehearse the sad present in years to come. And thus bright flashes of hope and dark gloom-clouds would chase each other over the sky of my spirit, as if playing with my abandonment and unmitigated distress. ‘And O,’ thought I, ‘those sisters, shall I see them again? must they close their eyes among those ferocious man-animals?’ I grew sick and faint, dizziness shook my brain, and my senses fled. I again awoke from the delirium, partly standing, and making a desperate effort. I felt the thrill of a strong resolution. ‘I will get up,’ said I, ‘and will walk, or if not I will spend the last remnant of my shattered strength to crawl out of this place.’ I started, and slowly moved toward the rocks above me. I crept, snail-like, up the rock-stepped side of the table-land above me. As I drew near the top, having crawled almost fifty feet, I came in sight of the wagon wreck; then the scenes which had been wrought about it came back with horror, and nearly unloosed my hold upon the rocks. I could not look upon those faces and forms, yet they were within a few feet. The boxes, opened and broken, with numerous articles, were in sight. I could not trust my feelings to go further; ‘I have misery enough, why should I add fuel to the fire now already consuming me!’

RETURNING TO THE PLACE OF MASSACRE.

“I turned away, and began to crawl toward the east, round the brow of the hill. After carefully, and with much pain, struggling all the while against faintness, crawling some distance, I found myself at the slope leading down to the Ford of the Gila, where I plainly saw the wagon track we had made, as I supposed, the day before. The hot sun affected me painfully; its burning rays kindled my fever, already oppressive, to the boiling point. I felt a giant determination urging me on. Frequently my weariness and faintness would bring me to the ground several times in a few moments. Then I would crawl aside, (as I did immediately after crossing the river,) drag myself under some mountain shrub for escape from the sun, bathe my fevered head in its friendly shade, and lay me to rest. Faint as I was from loss of blood, and a raging inward thirst, these, even, were less afflicting than the meditations and reflections that, unbidden, would at times steal upon my mind, and lash it to a perfect phrenzy with agonizing remembrances. The groans of those parents, brothers, and sisters, haunted me with the grim, fiend-like faces of their murderers, and the flourishing of their war-clubs; the convulsive throbs of little Mary Ann would fill my mind with sensations as dreary as if my traveling had been among the tombs.

“‘O my God!’ said I, ‘am I alive? My poor father and mother, where are they? And are my sisters alive? or are they suffering death by burning? Shall I see them again?’

“Thus I cogitated, and wept, and sighed, until sleep kindly shut out the harrowing thoughts. I must have slept for three hours, for when I woke the sun was behind the western hills. I felt refreshed, though suffering still from thirst. The road crosses the bend in the river twice; to avoid this, I made my way over the bluff spur that turns the road and river to the north. I succeeded after much effort in sustaining myself upon my feet, with a cane. I walked slowly on, and gained strength and courage that inspired within some hope of my escape. I traveled on, only taking rest two or three times during that evening and whole night. I made in all about fifteen miles by the next day-break. About eleven o’clock of the next day I came to a pool of standing water; I was nearly exhausted when I reached it and lay me down by it, and drank freely, though the water was warm and muddy. I had no sooner slaked my thirst than I fell asleep and slept for some time. I awoke partially delirious, believing that my brain was trying to jump out of my head, while my hands were pressed to my head to keep it together, and prevent the exit of my excited brain. When I had proceeded about ten miles, which I had made by the middle of the afternoon, I suddenly became faint, my strength failed, and I fell to the ground. I was at the time upon a high table-land, sandy and barren. I marveled to know whether I might be dying; I was soon unconscious. Late in the afternoon I was awakened by some strange noise; I soon recollected my situation, and the noise, which I now found to be the barking of dogs or wolves, grew louder and approached nearer. In a few moments I was surrounded by an army of coyotes and gray wolves. I was lying in the sun, and was faint from the effects of its heat. I struggled to get to a small tree near by, but could not. They were now near enough for me to almost reach them, smelling, snuffing, and growling as if holding a meeting to see which should be first to plunge his sharp teeth in my flesh, and first to gorge his lank stomach upon my almost bloodless carcass. I was excited with fear, and immediately sprang to my feet and raised a yell; and as I rose, struck the one nearest me with my hand. He started back, and the rest gave way a little. This was the first utterance I had made since the massacre. These unprincipled gormandizers, on seeing me get up and hurl a stone at them, ran off a short distance, then turned and faced me; when they set up one of the most hideous, doleful howlings that I ever heard from any source. As it rang out for several minutes upon the still evening air, and echoed from crag to crag, it sent the most awful sensations of dread and loneliness thrilling through my whole frame. ‘A fit requiem for the dead,’ thought I. I tried to scatter them, but they seemed bent upon supplying their stomachs by dividing my body between them, and thus completing the work left unfinished by their brothers, the Apaches.

ATTACKED BY COYOTES AND WOLVES.

“I had come now to think enough of the chance for my life, to covet it as a boon worth preserving. But I had serious fears when I saw with what boldness and tenacity they kept upon my track, as I armed myself with a few rocks and pushed on. The excitement of this scene fully roused me, and developed physical strength that I had not been able before to command. The sun had now reached the horizon, and the first shades of lonely night lay upon the distant gorges and hill-sides. I kept myself supplied with rocks, occasionally hurling one at the more insolent of this second tribe of savages. They seemed determined, however, to force an acquaintance. At times they would set up one of their wild concerts, and grow furious as if newly enraged at my escape. Then they would huddle about, fairly besetting my steps. I was much frightened, but knew of only one course to take. After becoming weary and faint with hunger and thirst, some time after dark I feared I should faint, and before morning be devoured by them. Late in the evening they called a halt, for a moment stood closely huddled in the road behind me, as if wondering what blood-clad ghost from some other sphere could be treading this unfriendly soil. They were soon away, to my glad surprise; and ere midnight the last echo of their wild yells had died upon the distant hills to the north. I traveled nearly all night. The cool night much relieved the pain in my head, but compelled me to keep up beyond my strength, to prevent suffering from cold. I have no remembrance of aught from about two to four o’clock of that night, until about nine of the next day, save the wild, troublous dreams that disturbed my sleep. I dreamed of Indians, of bloodshed, of my sisters, that they were being put to death by slow tortures, that I was with them, and my turn was coming soon. When I came to myself I had hardly strength to move a muscle; it was a long time before I could get up. I concluded I must perish, and meditated seriously the eating of the flesh from my arm to satisfy my hunger and prevent starvation. I knew I had not sufficient of life to last to Pimole at this rate, and concluded it as well to lie there and die, as to put forth more of painful effort.

“In the midst of these musings, too dreadful and full of horror to be described, I roused and started. About noon I was passing through a dark cañon, nearly overhung with dripping rocks; here I slaked my thirst, and was about turning a short corner, when two red-shirted Pimoles, mounted upon fine American horses, came in sight. They straightened in their stirrups, drew their bows, with arrows pointed at me. I raised my hand to my head and beckoned to them, and speaking in Spanish, begged them not to shoot. Quick as thought, when I spoke they dropped their bows, and rode up to me. I soon recognized one of them as an Indian with whom I had been acquainted at Pimole Village. They eyed me closely for a few minutes, when my acquaintance discovering through my disfigured features who it was, that I was one of the family that had gone on a little before, dismounted, laid hold of me, and embraced me with every expression of pity and condolence that could throb in an American heart. Taking me by the hand they asked me what could have happened. I told them as well as I could, and of the fate of the rest of the family. They took me one side under a tree, and laid me upon their blankets. They then took from their saddle a piece of their ash-baked bread, and a gourd of water. I ate the piece of bread, and have often thought of the mercy it was they had no more, for I might have easily killed myself by eating too much; my cravings were uncontrollable. They hung up the gourd of water in reach, and charged me to remain until they might return, promising to carry me to Pimole. After sleeping a short time I awoke, and became fearful to trust myself with these Pimoles. They had gone on to the scene of the massacre; it was near night; I adjusted their blankets and laid them one side, and commenced the night’s travel refreshed, and not a little cheered. But I soon found my body racked with more pain, and oppressed with more weariness than ever. I kept up all night, most of the time traveling. It was the loneliest, most horror-struck night of my life. Glad was I to mark the first streaks of the fourth morning. Never did twilight shine so bright, or seem empowered to chase so much of darkness away.

LORENZO RESCUED BY FRIENDLY INDIANS.

“Cheered for a few moments, I hastened my steps, staggering as I went; I found that I was compelled to rest oftener than usual, I plainly saw I could not hold out much longer. My head was becoming inflamed within and without, and in places on my scalp was putrid. About mid-forenoon, after frequent attempts to proceed, I crawled under a shrub and was soon asleep, I slept two or three hours undisturbed. ‘O my God!’ were the words with which I woke, ‘could I get something to eat, and some one to dress my wounds, I might yet live.’ I had now a desire to sleep continually. I resisted this with all the power I had. While thus musing I cast my eyes down upon a long winding valley through which the road wandered, and plainly saw moving objects; I was sure they were Indians, and at the thought my heart sank within me. I meditated killing myself. For one hour I kept my aching eyes upon the strange appearance, when, all at once, as they rose upon a slight hill, I plainly recognized two white covered wagons. O what a moment was that. Hope, joy, confidence, now for the first time seemed to mount my soul, and hold glad empire over all my pains, doubts, and fears. In the excitement I lost my consciousness, and waked not until disturbed by some noise near me. I opened my eyes, and two covered wagons were halting close to me, and Robert was approaching me. I knew him, but my own appearance was so haggard and unnatural, it was some time before he detected who that ‘strange-looking boy, covered with blood, hatless and shoeless, could be, his visage scarred, and he pale as a ghost fresh from Pandemonium.’ After looking for some time, slowly and cautiously approaching, he broke out: ‘My God, Lorenzo! in the name of heaven, what, Lorenzo, has happened?’ I felt my heart strangely swell in my bosom, and I could scarcely believe my sight. ‘Can it be?’ I thought, ‘can it be that this is a familiar white face?’ I could not speak; my heart could only pour out its emotions in the streaming tears that flowed most freely over my face. When I recovered myself sufficiently, I began to speak of the fate of the rest of the family. They could not speak, some of them; those tender-hearted women wept most bitterly, and sobbed aloud, begging me to desist, and hide the rest of the truth from them.

“They immediately chose the course of prudence, and resolved not to venture with so small a company, where we had met such a doom. Mr. Wilder prepared me some bread and milk, which, without any necessity for a sharpening process, my appetite, for some reason, relished very well. They traveled a few miles on the back track that night, and camped. I received every attention and kindness that a true sympathy could minister. We camped where a gurgling spring sent the clear cold water to the surface; and here I refreshed myself with draughts of the purest of beverages, cleansed my wounds, and bathed my aching head and bruised body in one of nature’s own baths. The next day we were safe at Pimole ere night came on. When the Indians learned what had happened, they, with much vehemence, charged it upon the Yumas; but for this we made allowance, as a deadly hostility burned between these tribes. Mr. Kelly and Mr. Wilder resolved upon proceeding immediately to the place of massacre, and burying the dead.

“Accordingly, early the next day, with two Mexicans and several Pimoles, they started. They returned after an absence of three days, and reported that they could find but little more than the bones of six persons, and that they were able to find and distinguish the bodies of all but those of Olive and Mary Ann. If they had found the bodies of my sisters the news would have been less dreadful to me than the tidings that they had been carried off by the Indians. But my suspicions were now confirmed, and I could only see them as the victims of a barbarous captivity. During their absence, and for some time after, I was severely and dangerously ill, but with the kind attention and nursing rendered me I began after a week to revive. We were now only waiting the coming that way of some persons who might be westward bound, to accompany them to California. When we had been there two weeks, six men came into Pimole, who, on learning of our situation, kindly consented to keep with us until we could reach Fort Yuma. The Kellys and Wilders had some time before abandoned their notion of a year’s stay at Pimole. We were soon again upon that road, with every step of which I now had a painful familiarity. On the sixth day we reached that place, of all others the most deeply memory-written. I have no power to describe, nor can tongue or pen proclaim the feelings that heaved my sorrowing heart as I reached the fatal spot. I could hear still the echo of those wild shrieks and hellish whoops, reverberating along the mountain cliffs! those groans, those awful groans, could it be my imagination, or did they yet live in pleading echo among the numerous caverns on either hand? Every footfall startled me, and seemed to be an intruder upon the chambers of the dead!

“There were dark thoughts in my mind, and I felt that this was a charnel-house that had plundered our household of its bloom, its childhood, and its stay! I marked the precise spot where the work of death commenced. My eyes would then gaze anxiously and long upon the high, wild mountains, with their forests and peaks that now embosomed all of my blood that were still alive! I traced the footprints of their captors, and of those who had laid my parents beneath my feet. I sighed to wrap myself in their death-robe, and with them sleep my long, last sleep! But it was haunted ground, and to tarry there alive was more dreadful than the thought of sharing their repose. I hastened away. I pray God to save me in future from the dark thoughts that gloomed my mind on turning my back upon that spot; and the reader from experiencing kindred sorrow. With the exception of about eighteen miles of desert, we had a comfortable week of travel to Fort Yuma. I still suffered much, at times was seriously worse, so that my life was despaired of; but more acute were my mental than my physical sufferings.

“At the Fort every possible kindness, with the best of medical skill, ministered to my comfort and hastened my recovery. To Dr. Hewitt I owe, and must forever owe, a debt of gratitude which I can never return. The sense of obligations I still cherish finds but a poor expression in words. He became a parent to me; and kindly extended his guardianship and unabating kindness, when the force was moved to San Diego, and then he took me to San Francisco, at a time when, but for his counsel and his affectionate oversight, I might have been turned out to wreck upon the cold world.

“Here we found that Doctor Lecount had done all in his power to get up and hasten a party of men to our relief; but he was prevented by the commander, a Mr. Heinsalman, who was guilty of an unexplainable, if not an inexcusable delay—a delay that was an affliction to the doctor, and a calamity to us. He seemed deaf to every appeal for us in our distressed condition. His conduct, if we had been a pack of hungry wolves, could not have exhibited more total recklessness. The fact of our condition reached the Fort at almost as early an hour as it would if the animals of the doctor had been retained, and there were a number of humane men at the Fort who volunteered to rush to our relief; but no permission could be obtained from the commander. If he still lives, it is to know and remember, that by a prompt action at that time, according to the behests and impulse of a principle of ‘humanity to man,’ he would have averted our dreadful doom. No language can fathom such cruelty. He was placed there to protect the defenseless of his countrymen; and to suffer an almost destitute family, struggling amid dangers and difficulties, to perish for want of relief that he knew he might have extended, rolls upon him a responsibility in the inhuman tragedy that followed his neglect, that will haunt him through eternity. There were men there who nobly stepped forward to assume the danger and labor of the prayed-for relief, and around them clusters the light of gratitude, the incense of the good; but he who neglects the destitute, the hungry, the imperiled, proclaims his companionship with misanthropists, and hews his own road to a prejudged disgrace. After several days he reluctantly sent out two men, who hastened on toward Pimole until they came to the place of the massacre, and finding what had happened, and that the delay had been followed by such a brutal murder of the family for whose safety and rescue they had burned to encounter the perils of this desert way, sick at heart, and indignant at this cruel, let-alone policy, they returned to the Fort; though not until they had exhausted their scant supply of provisions in search of the girls, of whose captivity they had learned. May Heaven bless these benefactors, and pour softening influences upon their hard-hearted commander.”

The mind instinctively pauses, and, suspended between wonder and horror, dwells with most intense interest upon a scene like the one presented above. Look at the faint pointings to the reality, yet the best that art can inscribe, furnished by the plate. Two timid girls, one scarcely fourteen, the other a delicate, sweet-spirited girl of not eight summers. Trembling with fear, swaying and reeling under the wild storm of a catastrophe bursting upon them when they had been lulled into the belief that their danger-thronged path had been well-nigh passed, and the fury of which exceeded all that the most excited imagination could have painted, these two girls, eye-witnesses to a brutal, bloody affray which had smitten father, mother, brothers, and sisters, robbing them in an instant of friends and friendly protection, and cast themselves, they knew not where, upon the perpetrators of all this butchery, whose tender mercies they had only to expect would be cruelty itself. That brother, that oldest brother, weltering in his blood, perfectly conscious of all that was transpiring. The girls wishing that a kindred fate had ended their own sufferings, and preserved them by a horrible death from a more horrible after-part, placing them beyond the reach of savage arm and ferocity. O what an hour was that! What a world of paralyzing agonies were pressed into that one short hour! It was an “ocean in a tear, a whirlwind in a sigh, an eternity in a moment.” Unoffending, innocent, yet their very souls throbbing with woe they had never merited. See them but a little before, wearied with the present, but happy in the prospect of a fast approaching termination of their journey. A band of Indians, stalwart, stout, and fierce-looking came into the camp, scantily clad, and what covering they had borrowed from the wild beasts, as if to furnish an appropriate badge of their savage nature and design. They cover their weapons under their wolf-skins; they warily steal upon this unprotected family, and by deceiving pretenses of friendship blunt their apprehensions of danger, and make them oblivious of a gathering doom. They smoke the pacific pipe, and call themselves Pimoles who are on their way to Fort Yuma. Then secretly they concoct their hellish plot in their own tongue, with naught but an involuntary glance of their serpent eyes to flash or indicate the infernality of their treacherous hearts. When every preparation is made by the family to proceed, no defense studied or thought necessary, then these hideous man-animals spring upon them with rough war-clubs and murder them in cold blood; and, as if to strew their hellish way with the greatest possible amount of anguish, they compel these two girls to witness all the barbarity that broke upon the rest, and to read therein what horrors hung upon their own future living death. O what depths and deeds of darkness and crime are sometimes locked up in that heart where the harmonies of a passion-restraining principle and reason have never been waked up! How slender every foundation for any forecasting upon the character of its doings, when trying emergences are left an appeal to its untamed and unregulated propensities!

The work of plunder follows the work of slaughter. The dead bodies were thrown about in the rudest manner, and pockets searched, boxes broken and plundered, and soon as they are fully convinced that the work of spoils-taking is completed, and they discover no signs of remaining life (which they hunted for diligently) to awaken suspicions of detection, they prepare with live spoils, human and brute, to depart.

“Soon after,” continues Olive, “we camped. A fire was struck by means of flints and wild cotton, which they carried for the purpose. The cattle were allowed to range upon the rock-feed, which abounded; and even with this unnatural provision, they were secure against being impelled by hunger far from camp, as they scarcely had strength to move. Then came the solid dough, made of water and flour, baked stone-hard in the hot ashes, and then soaked in bean-soup; then the smoking of pipes by some, while others lounged lazily about the camp, filled up the hour of our tarrying here. Food was offered me, but how could I eat to prolong a life I now loathed. I felt neither sensations of hunger nor a desire to live. Could I have done it, I should probably have ended my life during moments of half-delirious, crushing anguish, that some of the time rolled upon me with a force sufficient to divide soul from body. But I was narrowly watched by those worse than fiends, to whom every expression of my grief was occasion for merry-making. I dwelt upon these awful realities, yet, at times, such I could not think them to be, until my thoughts would become confused. Mangled as I knew they were, I longed to go back and take one look, one long, last, farewell look in the faces of my parents and those dear brothers. Could I but go back and press the hands of those dear ones, though cold in death, I would then consent to go on! There was Lucy, about seventeen years of age, a dear girl of a sweet, mild spirit, never angry. She had been a mother to me when our parents were absent or sick. She had borne the peculiar burden falling upon the oldest of a family of children, with evenness of temper and womanly fortitude. ‘Why,’ my heart inquired, ‘should she be thus cut off and I left?’ Lorenzo I supposed dead, for I saw him fall to the ground by the first blow that was struck, and afterward saw them take from him hat and shoes, and drag him to the brink of the hill by the feet. Supposing they would dash him upon the rocks below, I turned away, unable to witness more! Royse, a playful, gleeful boy, full of health and happiness, stood a moment horror-struck as he witnessed the commencement of the carnage, being furthest from the Indians. As they came up to him, he gave one wild, piercing scream, and then sank to the earth under the club! I saw him when the death-struggle drew his little frame into convulsions, and then he seemed to swoon away; a low moan, a slight heaving of the bosom, and he quietly sank into the arms of death. Little C. A. had not as yet seen four summers; she was a cherub girl. She, with her little brother, twenty months younger, had been saved the torments of fear that had seized the rest of us from the time of the appearance of the Indians. They were too young to catch the flashes of fear that played upon the countenances of the elder children and their parents, and were happily trustful when our father, with forced composure, bade us not be afraid! The struggles of these two dear little ones were short. My mother screamed, I turned, I saw her with her youngest child clasped in her arms, and the blows of the war-club falling upon her and the child. I sprang toward her, uttered a shriek, and found myself joining her in calling most earnestly for help. But I had no sooner started toward her than I was seized and thrown back by my overseer. I turned around, found my head beginning to reel in dizziness, and fainting fell to the ground.

“The reader can perhaps imagine the nature of my thoughts while standing at that camp-fire, with my sister clinging to me in convulsive sobs and groans. From fear of the Indians, whose frowns and threats, mingled with hellish jests, were constantly glaring upon us, she struggled to repress and prevent any outburst of the grief that seemed to tear her little heart. And when her feelings became uncontrollable, she would hide her head in my arms, and most piteously sob aloud, but she was immediately hushed by the brandishing of a war-club over her head.

THE CAPTIVES AT THE INDIAN CAMP-FIRE.

“While in this camp, awaiting the finished meal, and just after twilight, the full moon arose and looked in upon our rock-girt gorge with a majesty and sereneness that seemed to mock our changeful doom. Indeed a more beautiful moonrise I never saw. The sky was clear, the wind had hushed its roar, and laid by its fury; the larger and more brilliant of the starry throng stood out clear above, despite the superior light of the moon, which had blushed the lesser ones into obscurity. As that moon mounted the cloudless east, yet tinged with the last stray beauties of twilight, and sent its first mild glories along the surrounding peaks, the scene of illumined heights, and dark, cavernous, shade-clad hill-sides and gorges, was grand, and to a mind unfettered with woe would have lent the inspiration of song. I looked upon those gorges and vales, with their deeps of gloom, and then upon the moon-kissed ridges that formed boundaries of light to limit their shadows! I thought the former a fit exponent of my heart’s realizations, and the whole an impressive illustration of the contrast between my present and the recent past. That moon, ordinarily so welcome, and that seemed supernaturally empowered to clothe the barren heights with a richer than nature’s verdure robes, and so cheering to us only a few evenings previous while winding our way over that dusty road, had now suddenly put on a robe of sackcloth. All was still, save the chattering of our captors, and the sharp, irregular howling of the coyotes, who perform most of their odes in the night, and frequently made it hideous from twilight to twilight again.

“O how much crowded into that short hour spent at the first camp after leaving the scene of death and sleeping previous! Ignorant of the purposes of our own preservation, we could only wait in breathless anxiety the movements of our merciless lords. I then began to meditate upon leaving those parents, brothers and sisters; I looked up and saw the uncovered bows strung over the wagon, the cloth of which had been torn off by the Indians. I knew that it designated the spot where horror and affection lingered. I meditated upon the past, the present, and the future. The moon, gradually ascending the sky, was fast breaking in upon the deep-shade spots that at her first rising had contended with ridges of light spread about them. That moon had witnessed the night before my childish but sincerest vow, that I would never be taken alive by Indian savages, and was now laughing at the frailty of the resolution and the abruptness with which the fears to which it pointed had become reality! That moon had smiled on many, very many hours spent in lands far away in childish glee, romps and sports prolonged, near the home-hearth and grass-plotted door-yard, long after the cool evening breezes had fanned away the sultry air of the day. The very intonations of the voices that had swelled and echoed in those uncaring hours of glee came back to me now, to rehearse in the ears of a present, insupportable sorrow, the music of past, but happier days. This hour, this moon-lit hour, was one most dear and exclusive to the gushing forth of the heart’s unrestrained overflowings of happiness. Where are now those girls and boys? where now are those who gathered about me, and over whose sun-tanned but ruddy cheeks had stolen the unbidden tear at the hour of parting; or, with an artless simplicity, the heart’s ‘good-by’ was repeated o’er and o’er again? Is this moon now bearing the same unmingled smile to them as when it looked upon our mutual evening promenadings? or has it put on the somber hues that seem to tinge its wonted brightness to me, heralding the color of our fate, and hinting of our sorrow? These, all these, and many more kindred reflections found way to, and strung the heart’s saddest notes. And as memory and present consciousness told me of those days and evenings gone—gone never to be repeated—I became sick of life, and resolved upon stopping its currents with my own hands; and but for the yearning anxiety that bent over little Mary Ann, I should have only waited the opportunity to have executed my desperate purpose. The strolls to school, arm-in-arm with the now remembered, but abandoned partners of the blissful past, on the summer morn; the windings and wanderings upon the distinctly remembered strawberry patches at sultry noon; the evening walks for the cows, when the setting sun and the coming on of cloudless, stormless, cool evenings, clothed all nature with unwonted loveliness; together with the sad present, that furnished so unexpected and tormenting a contrast with all before, would rush again upon me, bringing the breath of dark, suicidal thoughts to fire up the first hour of a camp among the Indians!”

But these harrowing meditations are suddenly interrupted; cattle are placed in order for traveling; five of the Indians are put in charge of the girls, and welcome or unwelcome they must away they knew not where.

“We were started and kept upon a rapid pace for several hours. One of the Indians takes the lead, Mary Ann and myself follow, bareheaded and shoeless, the Indians having taken off our shoes and head covering. We were traveling at a rate, as we soon learned, much beyond our strength. Soon the light of the camp-fire was hid, and as my eye turned, full of tears, in search of the sleeping-place of my kindred, it could not be distinguished from the peaks and rocks about it. Every slackening of our pace and utterance of grief, however, was the signal for new threats, and the suspended war-club, with the fiendish ‘Yokoa’ in our ears, repressed all expression of sorrow, and pushed us on up steeper ascents and bolder hills with a quickened step. We must have traveled at the rate of four or five miles an hour. Our feet were soon lacerated, as in shadowed places we were unable to pick our way, and were frequently stumbling upon stones and rocks, which made them bleed freely. Little Mary Ann soon became unable to proceed at the rate we had been keeping, and sank down after a few miles, saying she could not go. After threatening and beating her considerably, and finding this treatment as well as my entreaties useless, they threatened to dispatch and leave her, and showed by their movements and gestures that they had fully come to this determination. At this I knew not what to do; I only wished that if they should do this I might be left with her. She seemed to have become utterly fearless of death, and said she had rather die than live. These inhuman wretches sought by every possible rudeness and abuse to rouse her fears and compel her on; but all in vain. I resolved, in the event of her being left, to cling to her, and thus compel them to dispose of us as they had the remainder of the family, and leave us upon a neighboring hill. My fears were that I could not succeed in my desperate purpose, and I fully believed they would kill her, and probably compel me on with them. This fear induced me to use every possible plea that I could make known to them to preserve her life; besides, at every step a faint hope of release shone upon my heart; that hope had a power to comfort and keep me up. While thus halting, one of the stout Indians dislodged his pack, and putting it upon the shoulders of another Indian, rudely threw Mary Ann across his back, and with vengeance in his eye bounded on.

“Sometimes I meditated the desperate resolution to utterly refuse to proceed, but was held back alone by my yearning for that helpless sister. Again, I found my strength failing, and that unless a rest could be soon granted I must yield to faintness and weariness, and bide the consequences; thus I passed the dreadful hours up to midnight. The moanings and sobbings of Mary Ann had now ceased; not knowing but she was dead, I managed to look in her face, and found her eyes opening and shutting alternately, as if in an effort to wake, but still unable to sleep; I spoke to her but received no answer. We could not converse without exciting the fiendish rage of our enemies. Mary Ann seemed to have become utterly indifferent to all about her; and, wrapped in a dreamy reverie, relieved of all care of life or death, presenting the appearance of one who had simply the consciousness that some strange, unaccountable event had happened, and in its bewildering effects she was content to remain. Our way had been mostly over a succession of small bluff points of high mountain chains, these letting down to a rough winding valley, running principally northeast. These small rock hills that formed the bottom of the high cliffs on either side, were rough, with no perceptible trail. We halted for a few moments about the middle of the night; besides this we had no rest until about noon of the next day, when we came to an open place of a few acres of level, sandy soil, adorned with an occasional thrifty, beautiful tree, but high and seemingly impassable mountains hemming us in on every side. This appeared to be to our captors a familiar retreat. Almost exhausted, and suffering extremely, I dragged myself up to the place of halt, hoping that we had completed the travel of that day. We had tarried about two hours when the rest of the band, who had taken the stock in another direction, came up. They had with them two oxen and the horse. The rest of the stock, we afterward learned, had been killed and hung up to dry, awaiting the roving of this plundering band when another expedition should lead them that way. Here they immediately proceeded to kill the other two. This being done they sliced them up, and closely packed the parcels in equalized packages for their backs. They then broiled some of the meat on the fire, and prepared another meal of this and burned dough and bean soup. They offered us of their fare and we ate with a good appetite. Never did the tender, well-prepared veal steak at home relish better than the tough, stringy piece of meat about the size of the hand, given us by our captors, and which with burned dough and a little bean soup constituted our meal. We were very sleepy, but such was my pain and suffering I could not sleep. They endeavored now to compel Mary Ann again to go on foot; but this she could not do, and after beating her again, all of which she took without a murmur, one of them again took her upon his shoulder and we started. I had not gone far before I found it impossible to proceed on account of the soreness of my feet. They then gave me something very much of the substance of sole-leather which they tied upon the bottom of my feet. This was a relief, and though suffering much from thirst and the pain of over-exertion, I was enabled to keep up with the heavy-laden Indians. We halted in a snug, dark ravine about ten o’clock that night, and preparations were at once made for a night’s stay. My present suffering had now made me almost callous as to the past, and never did rest seem so sweet as when I saw they were about to encamp.

“During the last six hours they had whipped Mary Ann into walking. We were now shown a soft place in the sand, and directed to it as the place of our rest; and with two of our own blankets thrown over us, and three savages encircling us, (for protection of course!) were soon, despite our physical sufferings, in a dreamy and troubled sleep. The most frightful scenes of butchery and suffering followed into every moment’s slumber. We were not roused until a full twilight had shone in upon our beautiful little ravine retreat. The breakfast was served up, consisting of beef, burned dough, and beans, instead of beans, burned dough, and beef, as usual. The sun was now fairly upon us when, like cattle, we were driven forth to another day’s travel. The roughest road (if road be a proper term) over which I ever passed, in all my captivity, was that day’s route. Twice during the day, I gave up, and told Mary I must consent to be murdered and left, for proceed I would not. But this they were not inclined to allow. When I could not be driven, I was pushed and hauled along. Stubs, rocks, and gravel-strewn mountain sides hedged up and embittered the travel of the whole day. That day is among the few days of my dreary stay among the savages, marked by the most pain and suffering ever endured. I have since learned that they hurried for fear of the whites, emigrant trains of whom were not unfrequently passing that way. For protection they kept a close watch, having not less than three guards or sentinels stationed at a little distance from each camp we made during the entire night. I have since thought much upon the fear manifested by these reputed brave barbarians. They indeed seem to be borne down with the most tormenting fear for their personal safety at all times, at home, or roaming for plunder or hunt. And yet courage is made a virtue among them, while cowardice is the unpardonable sin. When compelled to meet death, they seem to muster a sullen obstinate defiance of their doom, that makes the most of a dreaded necessity, rather than seek a preparation to meet it with a submission which they often dissemble but never possess.

“About noon we were suddenly surprised by coming upon a band of Indians, eleven in number. They emerged from behind a rock point that set out into a low, dark ravine, through which we were passing, and every one of them was armed with bows and arrows. When they came up they were jabbering and gesturing in the most excited manner, with eyes fastened upon me. While some of them were earnestly conversing with members of our band, two of them stealthily crept around us, and one of them by his gestures and excited talk, plainly showed hostile intentions toward us, which our captors watched with a close eye. Suddenly one of them strung his bow, and let fly an arrow at me, which pierced my dress, doing me no harm.

ATTEMPT TO SHOOT OLIVE AND MARY ANN.

“He was in the act, as also the other, of hurling the second, when two of our number sprang toward them with their clubs, while two others snatched us one side, placing themselves between us and the drawn bows. By this time a strong Apache had the Indian by a firm grasp, and compelled him to desist. It was with difficulty they could be shaken off, or their murderous purpose prevented. At one time there was likely to be a general fight with this band (as I afterward learned them to be) of land pirates.

“The reason, as I afterward came to know, of the conduct of this Indian, was that he had lost a brother in an affray with the whites upon this same Santa Fé route, and he had sworn not to allow the first opportunity to escape without avenging his brother’s blood by taking the life of an American. Had their number been larger a serious engagement would have taken place, and my life have probably been sacrificed to this fiend’s revenge. During the skirmish of words that preceded and for some time followed this attempt upon my life, I felt but little anxiety, for there was little reason to hope but that we must both perish at the best, and to me it mattered little how soon. Friends we had none; succor, or sympathy, or help, we had no reason to think could follow us into this wild, unknown region; and the only question was whether we should be murdered inch by inch, or find a sudden though savage termination to our dreadful condition, and sleep at once quietly beyond the reach or brutality of these fiends in death’s embrace. Indeed death seemed the only release proffered from any source. If I had before known that the arrow would lodge in life’s vitals, I doubt whether it would have awakened a nerve or moved a muscle.

“We traveled until about midnight, when our captors called a halt, and gave us to understand we might sleep for the remainder of the night. But, jaded as we were, and enduring as we were all manner of pain, these were not more in the way of sleep than the wild current of our anxious thoughts and meditations, which we found it impossible to arrest or to leave with the dead bodies of our dear kindred. There was scarcely a moment when the mind’s consent could be gained for sleep. Well do I remember to have spent the larger proportion of that half of a night in gazing upon the stars, counting those directly over head, calling the names I had been taught to give to certain of the planets, pointing out to my sister the old dipper, and seeking to arrest and relieve her sadness by referring to the views we had taken of these from the old grass-clad door-yard in front of our humble cottage in Illinois. We spoke of the probability that these might now be the objects of attention and sight to eyes far away; to eyes familiar, the gleam of whose kindly radiance had so oft met ours, and with the strength of whose vision we had so delightfully tried our own in thus star-gazing. These scenes of a past yet unfinished childhood came rushing upon the mind, bidding it away over the distance that now separated them and their present occupants from us, and to think mournfully of the still wider variance that separated their allotment from ours. Strange as it may appear, scenes and woes like those pressing upon us had a power to bind all sensitiveness about our fate. Indeed, indifference is the last retreat of desperation. The recklessness observed in the Indians, their habits of subsistence, and all their manner and bearing toward their captives, could lead them only to expect that by starvation or assassination they must soon become the victims of a brutal fate.

“On the third day we came suddenly in sight of a cluster of low, thatched huts, each having an opening near the ground leading into them.”

It was soon visible from the flashing eyes and animated countenances of the Indians, that they were nearing some place of attraction, and to which anxious and interesting desire had been pointing. To two young girls, having traveled on foot two hundred miles in three days; with swollen feet and limbs, lame, exhausted, not yet four days remove from the loss of parents, brothers, and sisters, and torn from them, too, in the most brutal manner; away in the deeps of forests and mountains, upon the desolation of which the glad light or sound of civilization never yet broke; with no guides or protectors, rudely, inhumanly driven by untutored, untamed savages, the sight of the dwelling-places of man, however coarse or unseemly, was no very unwelcome scene. With all the dread possibilities, therefore, that might await them at any moment, nevertheless to get even into an Indian camp was home.

“We were soon ushered into camp, amid shouts and song, wild dancing, and the crudest, most irregular music that ever ranter sung, or delighted the ear of an unrestrained superstition. They lifted us on the top of a pile of brush and bark, then formed a circle about us of men, women, and children of all ages and sizes, some naked, some dressed in blankets, some in skins, some in bark. Music then commenced, which consisted of pounding upon stones with clubs and horn, and the drawing of a small string like a fiddle-bow across distended bark. They ran, and jumped, and danced in the wildest and most furious manner about us, but keeping a regular circle. Each, on coming to a certain point in the circle, marked by a removed piece of turf in the ground, would bend himself or herself nearly to the ground, uttering at the same time a most frightful yell, and making a violent gesticulation and stamping. Frequently on coming near us, as they would do in each evolution, they would spit in our face, throw dirt upon us, or slightly strike us with their hand, managing, by every possible means, to give us an early and thorough impression of their barbarity, cruelty, and obscenity. The little boys and girls, especially, would make the older ones merry by thus taunting us. It seemed during all this wild and disgusting performance, that their main ambition was to exhibit their superiority over us, and the low, earnest, intense hate they bore toward our race. And this they most effectually succeeded in accomplishing, together with a disgusting view of the obscenity, vulgarity, and grossness of their hearts, and the mean, despicable, revengeful dispositions that burn with hellish fury within their untamed bosoms.

“We soon saw that these bravadoes had made themselves great men at home. They had made themselves a name by the exploits of the past week. They had wantonly set upon a laboring family of nine persons, unprotected, and worn to fatigue by the toils of a long journey, without any mode of defense, and had inhumanly slaughtered seven of them, taken two inoffensive girls into a barbarous captivity, and drove them two hundred miles in three days without that mercy which civilization awards to the brute; taken a few sacks of smoked, soot-covered cow-meat, a few beans, a little clothing, and one horse! By their account, and we afterward ascertained that they have a mode of calculating distances with wonderful accuracy, we had come indeed over two hundred and fifty miles, inside of eighty hours.

“This may seem incredible to the reader, but the rate at which we were hurried on, the little rest that was granted, and subsequent knowledge gained of their traveling rate, confirms the assertion made by themselves as to the distance.

“We found the tribe to consist of about three hundred, living in all the extremes of filth and degradation that the most abandoned humanity ever fathomed. Little had the inexperience and totally different habits of life, from which these reflections are made, of the knowledge or judgment to imagine or picture the low grossness to which unrestrained, uneducated passions can sink the human heart and life. Their mode of dress, (but little dress they had!) was needlessly and shockingly indecent, when the material of which their scanty clothing consists would, by an industrious habit and hand, have clothed them to the dictates of comfort and modesty.

“They subsisted principally upon deer, quail, and rabbit, with an occasional mixture of roots from the ground. And even this dealt out with the most sparing and parsimonious hand, and in quantity only up to a stern necessity; and this, not because of poverty in the supply, but to feed and gratify a laziness that would not gather or hunt it.

“It was only when the insatiable and half-starved appetite of the members was satisfied, when unusual abundance chanced to come in, that their captives could be allowed a morsel; and then their chance was that of the dogs, with whom they might share the crumbs. Their meat was boiled with water in a ‘Tusquin,’ (clay kettle,) and this meat-mush or soup was the staple of food among them, and of this they were frequently short, and obliged to quiet themselves with meted out allowance; to their captives it was always thus meted out. At times game in the immediate vicinity was scarce, and their indolence would not let them go forth to the chase upon the mountains and in the valleys a little distance, where they acknowledged it plenty, only in cases of impending starvation. During the time of captivity among them, very frequently were whole days spent without a morsel, and then when the hunter returned with game, he was surrounded with crowds hungry as a pack of wolves to devour it, and the bits and leavings were tauntingly thrown to ‘Onatas,’ saying, ‘You have been fed too well; we will teach you to live on little.’ Besides all this, they were disbelievers in the propriety of treating female youth to meat, or of allowing it to become their article of subsistence; which, considering their main reliance as a tribe upon game, was equal to dooming their females to starvation. And this result of their theory became a mournful and constantly recurring fact. According to their physiology the female, especially the young female, should be allowed meat only when necessary to prevent starvation. Their own female children frequently died, and those alive, old and young, were sickly and dwarfish generally.

“Several times were their late captives brought near a horrid death ere they could be persuaded to so waive their superstitious notions as to give them a saving crumb.

“These Apaches were without any settled habits of industry. They tilled not. It was a marvel to see how little was required to keep them alive; yet they were capable of the greatest endurance when occasion taxed their strength. They ate worms, grasshoppers, reptiles, all flesh, and were, perhaps, living exhibitions of a certain theory by which the nature of the animal eaten leaves its imprint upon the man or human being who devours it. For whole days, when scarcely a morsel for another meal was in the camp, would those stout, robust, lazy lumps of a degraded humanity lounge in the sun or by the gurgling spring; at noon in the shade or on the shelves of the mountains surrounding, utterly reckless of their situation, or of the doom their idleness might bring upon the whole tribe. Their women were the laborers and principal burden-bearers, and during all our captivity,” says Olive, “it was our lot to serve under these enslaved women, with a severity more intolerable than that to which they were subjected by their merciless lords. They invented modes, and seemed to create necessities of labor, that they might gratify themselves by taxing us to the utmost, and even took unwarranted delight in whipping us on beyond our strength. And all their requests and exactions were couched in the most insulting and taunting language and manner, as it then seemed, and as they had the frankness soon to confess, to fume their hate against the race to whom we belonged.

“Often under the frown and lash were we compelled to labor for whole days upon an allowance amply sufficient to starve a common dandy civilized idler, and those days of toil wrung out at the instance of children younger than ourselves, who were set as our task-masters. They knew nothing of cultivating the soil. After we had learned their language enough to talk with them, we ventured to speak to them of the way by which we had lived, of the tilling of the ground.

“They had soil that might have produced, but most of them had an abhorrence of all that might be said of the superior blessings of industry and the American civilization. Yet there were those, especially among the females and the younger members of the tribe, who asked frequent questions, and with eagerness, of our mode of life. For some time after coming among them, Mary Ann was very ill. The fatigue, the cruelties of the journey, nearly cost her her life; yet in all her weakness, sickness, and pinings, they treated her with all the heartlessness of a dog. She would often say to me: ‘Olive, I must starve unless I can get something more to eat;’ yet it was only when she was utterly disabled that they would allow her a respite from some daily menial service. We have often taken the time which was given to gather roots for our lazy captors, to gather and eat ourselves; and had it not been for supplies obtained by such means, we must have perished. But the physical sufferings of this state were light when compared with the fear and anguish of mind; the bitter fate upon us, the dismal remembrances that harassed us, the knowledge of a bright past and a dark future by which we were compassed, these, all these belabored every waking moment, and crowded the wonted hours of sleep with terrible forebodings of a worse fate still ahead. Each day seemed to be allotted its own peculiar woes; some circumstance, some new event would arise, touching and enkindling its own class of bitter emotions. We were compelled to heed every whimper and cry of their little urchins with promptness, and fully, under no less penalty than a severe beating, and that in the most severe manner. These every-day usages and occurrences would awaken thorny reflections upon our changed and prison life. There was no beauty, no loveliness, no attractions in the country possessed by these unlovely creatures to make it pleasant, if there had been the blotting out of all the dreadful realities that had marked our way to it, or the absence of the cruelties that made our stay a living death. Often has my little sister come to me with a heart surcharged with grief, and the big tears standing in her eye, or perhaps sobbing most convulsively over the maltreatment and chastisement that had met her good intentions, for she ever tried to please them, and most piteously would she say: ‘How long, O how long, dear Olive, must we stay here; can we never get away? do you not think they intend to kill us? O! they are so ugly and savage!’ Sometimes I would tell her that I saw but little chance for escape; that we had better be good and ready for any fate, and try to wait in submission for our lot.

“She would dry her eyes, wipe the tears away, and not seldom have I known her to return with a look of pensive thoughtfulness, and that eye, bright and glistening with the light of a new-born thought, as she would say: ‘I know what we can do; we can ask God. He can deliver us, or give us grace to bear our troubles.’ It was our custom to go by ourselves and commit ourselves to God in faithful prayer every day; and this we would do after we laid our weary frames upon our sand bed to rest, if no other opportunity offered. This custom had been inculcated in us by a fond and devoted mother, and well now did we remember with what affection she assured us that we would find it a comfort and support to thus carry our trials and troubles to our heavenly Father in after years; though little did she realize the exceedingly bitter grief that would make these lessons of piety so sweet to our hearts. Too sadly did they prove true. Often were the times when we were sent some distance to bring water and wood for the comfort of lazy men, selected for the grateful observance of this only joyful employment that occupied any of those dark days.

“Seldom during our stay here were we cheered with any knowledge or circumstance that bid us hope for our escape. Hours were spent by us in talking of trying the experiment. Mary often would say: ‘I can find the way out, and I can go the whole distance as quick as they.’ Several times, after cruel treatment, or the passing of danger from starvation, have we made the resolution, and set the time for executing it, but were not bold enough to undertake it. Yet we were not without all or any hope. A word dropped by our captors concerning their occasional trips, made by small bands of them to some region of the whites, some knowledge we would accidentally gain of our latitude and locality, would animate our breasts with the hope of a future relief, breaking like a small ray of light from some distant luminous object upon the eye of our faith. But it was only when our minds dwelt upon the power of the Highest, on an overruling Providence, that we could feel that there was any possibility of an extrication from our uncheered prison life.

“After we had been among these Apaches several months, their conduct toward us somewhat changed. They became more lenient and merciful, especially to my sister. She always met their abuse with a mild, patient spirit and deportment, and with an intrepidity and fortitude beyond what might have been expected from her age. This spirit, which she always bore, I could plainly see was working its effect upon some of them; so that, especially on the part of those females connected in some way with the household of the chief, and who had the principal control of us, we could plainly see more forbearance, kindness, and interest exhibited toward their captives. This, slight as was the change, was a great relief to my mind, and comfort to Mary Ann. We had learned their language so as to hold converse with them quite understandingly, after a few months among them. They were much disposed at times to draw us into conversation; they asked our ages, inquired after our former place of living, and when we told them of the distance we had come to reach our home among them, they greatly marveled. They would gather about us frequently in large numbers, and ply their curious questions with eagerness and seeming interest, asking how many of the white folks there were; how far the big ocean extended; and on being told of the two main oceans, they asked if the whites possessed the other big world on the east of the Atlantic; if there were any Indians there; particularly they would question us as to the number of the ‘Americanos,’ (this term they obtained among the Mexicans, and it was the one by which they invariably designated our people.) When we told them of the number of the whites, and of their rapid increase, they were apparently incredulous, and some of them would become angry, and accuse us of lying, and wishing to make them believe a lie. They wanted to know how women were treated, and if a man was allowed more than one wife; inquired particularly how and by what means a subsistence was gained by us. In this latter question we could discern an interest that did not inspire any of their other queries. Bad as they are, they are very curious to know the secret of the success and increase of the whites. We tried to tell them of the knowledge the whites possessed, of the well-founded belief they had that the stars above us were peopled by human beings, and of the fact that the distance to these far-off worlds had been measured by the whites. They wished to know if any of us had been there; this they asked in a taunting manner, exhibiting in irony and sarcasm their incredulity as to the statement, over which they made much sport and ridicule. They said if the stars were inhabited, the people would drop out, and hence they knew that this was a lie. I found the months and years in which I had been kept in school, not altogether useless in answering their questions. I told them that the earth turned round every twenty-four hours, and also of its traveling about the sun every year. Upon this they said we were just like all the Americanos, big liars, and seemed to think that our parents had begun young with us to learn us so perfectly the art of falsehood so early. But still we could see, through all their accusations of falsehood, by their astonishment, and discussion, and arguments upon the matter of our conversation, they were not wholly unbelieving. They would tell us, however, that an ‘evil spirit’ reigned among the whites, and that he was leading them on to destruction. They seemed sincere in their belief that there were scarcely any of the whites that could be trusted, but that they had evil assistance, which made them great and powerful. As to any system of religion or morality, they seemed to be beneath it. But we found, though the daily tasks upon us were not abated, yet our condition was greatly mollified; and we had become objects of their growing curiosity, mere playthings, over which they could make merry.

“They are much given to humor and fun, but it generally descends to low obscenity and meanness. They had great contempt for one that would complain under torture or suffering, even though of their own tribe, and said a person that could not uncomplainingly endure suffering was not fit to live. They asked us if we wanted to get away, and tried by every stratagem to extort from us our feelings as to our captivity; but we were not long in learning that any expression of discontent was the signal for new toils, and tasks, and grievances. We made the resolution between us to avoid any expression of discontent, which, at times, it cost us no small effort to keep.

“We learned that this tribe was a detached parcel of the old and more numerous tribe bearing their name, and whose locality was in the regions of New-Mexico. They had become in years gone, impatient of the restraint put upon them by the Catholic missionaries, and had resolved upon emancipation from their control, and had accordingly sought a home in the wild fastnesses of these northern mountains. The old tribe had since given them the name of the ‘Touto Apaches,’ an appellation signifying their unruliness, as well as their roving and piratical habits. They said that the old tribe was much more wicked than themselves, and that they would be destroyed by the whites.”

Beyond the manuscript touching the geography and appearance of the country where the scenes of this book were laid, and which was prepared for previous editions, there is considerable concerning the peculiar superstitions and crude beliefs of these Indians, as well as upon histories treasured up by them touching their tribes and individual members of them, which we believe would be read with interest, but scarcely a tithe of which can we give without swelling this book beyond all due bounds. Of these histories it is not to be supposed that more than mere scraps could have been gleaned by Olive, when we remember her age, and that all that is remembered is from mere verbal recital.