Lorenzo Conscious of most of the Scenes of the Massacre

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, which 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 ;

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though there was something so fascinating and absorbing to my engaged mind, that I frequent 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 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 me, 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 re turned, 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; to 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 imploring 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 re mains of my own parents lying near by, my scalp torn open, my person covered with blood, alone, friend less, 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, l 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!'

"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 frenzy 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.

"'Oh 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 tli3 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 Bent 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.

" 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 fall of horror to be described, I roused and started. About noon I was passing through a dark canon. 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 Tillage. 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, arid 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.

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" 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 be coming 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 coining 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 Wild era 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 foot-fall 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 lie 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 afterpart--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 whirl wind 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 find 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 my self 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.

" "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 breath less 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 un-mingled 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 conscious ness 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 shoe less, 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 fear less 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 meanings 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 cur 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 sub stance 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 Fe 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 I 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 mourn fully 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. In deed, 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 Boon 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 1 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, un tamed 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, man aging, 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 tool- 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 |oil. 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 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 circum stance, 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 accident ally 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 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 false hood 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 'Toutos Apaches,' an appellation signifying their unruliness, as well as their roving and piratical habits. They said that the old tribe was much more wicked than themselves, and that they would be destroyed by the whites."

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

The Indians would congregate on evenings set apart, when one of their number, most in years and of prominent position, would entertain the company with a narration, frequently long and tedious, of the adventures of his youthful days. On one of these occasions an old Indian spoke as follows : " I am the son of an Indian who was chief of the Camanche tribe. I had heard often of the white people. I longed to see one. I was told by my father one day that I might, with some of the warriors of the tribe, go on a hunt to the north, and also that we would probably find some white people; if so, that we must kill them, and bring in their scalps with any white captive girls if we could find them. We had so many (counting his fingers up to three) bows and so many (forty-eight) arrows each.

"The most of my desire was to see and kill a white man, and take some captives. We traveled a very long way. We passed through several tribes of Indians. We found, according to the accounts of some Indians away to the north, that there were white people near them, but that we must not touch them ; that they were friendly and traded with themselves ; that some of their squaws were married to them; that they (the whites) came from the great Auhah (sea) to the setting sun. One day, about dark, we came in view of an object that we thought at first to be a bear. We soon found it was a man. We waited and skulked for some time to find out, if possible, whether it was a man, and how many of them there were. We stayed all night in this condition, and it was very cold. Just before fair day, we moved slowly round the place where we had seen the object. As we thought we had got past it and not espied anything, we concluded to , go on, when we were suddenly met by a huge-looking thing with a covering (skin) such as we had never before seen. We were surprised and did not know what to do. It was partly behind a rock, and we were too much scared to draw our bows. After a word together, (there were four of us,) we concluded to run. So we started. We had not gone far when an Indian jumped out after us, threw an umsupieque (white blanket) from his head, and called to us to stop. We had never seen this umsupieque before. We were very much ashamed. We thought at first, and when we ran, that some of our friends had been killed and had come (or their ghosts) to meet us. The Indian, a Chimowanan, came up to us, and began to laugh at our bravery! We were much ashamed, but we could not help it now. "We left the Indian, after making him promise that he would not tell of us.

"When we had traveled one day, with no game or anything to eat, we came to a small house built of wood. We thought it the house of a white man. We skulked in the bushes, and thought we would watch it until they should come out, or, if away, come home. We waited one day and two nights, eating nothing but a few roots. We saw no one, so we set fire to the house and went on. We were more afraid of the Indians than the whites, for they had said they would kill us if we touched the whites. A few days after this we saw another house ; we watched that a long time, then burned it, and started for home. This is all we did. When we came home our tribe turned out to see us, and hear of our war-hunt. We had but little to say.

" The next year, the Indian who had scared us with the white blanket, came among us. I saw him, and made him promise not to tell my father what a coward I had shown myself when I met him ; but I soon found that all the tribe knew all about it. When the tribe were gathered together one day for a dance, they laughed at me and about me for my running from the Indian. I found that the Indian had told some of the tribe, and they had told my father. My father joined with the rest in making fun of me for it. I blamed him, and felt mad enough to kill him. He found it out, so, just before we separated, he called them all together, and told them that he had displeased his son by what he had said of me, and now he wanted to make it all right. He said, just before he sat down, that if ever they should be attacked, he should feel that they were safe, that he knew his son and those who went north to kill white people would be safe, for they had shown themselves good at running. This maddened me more than ever, and up to this day I have not heard the last of my running from the Indian. I am now old, my head is nearly bald, the hairs that have fallen from my head have grown up to be some of these I now see about me. I shall soon go to yonder hill. I want you to burn my bow and arrow with my body, so that I can hunt up there."

"The 'Toutos' had, however, for a long time occupied their present position, and almost the only tribe with whom they had any intercourse was the Mohaves, (Mo-ha-vays,) a tribe numbering about twelve hundred, and located three hundred miles to the northwest.

" There were many, however, who had come from other and different tribes. Some from the north, some from the south and southwest. Hence there was a marked distinction among their features and appearance. It seemed from what we could learn that this Teuton tribe, or secession fragment, had from their villainous propensities fled to this hiding-place, and since their separation been joined by scattered members and stray families from other tribes, persons whom Touton bands had fallen in with during their depredating trips abroad, and who from community of feeling and life had thus amalgamated together.

" For a few years constant traffic had been kept up between the Mohaves and Teutons. The Mohaves made an expedition once a year, sometimes oftener, to the Apaches, in small companies, bringing with them vegetables, grain, and the various products of their soil, which they would exchange with the Apaches for fur, skins of animals, and all of the few articles that their different mode of life furnished. During the autumn of 1851, late in the season, quite a large company of Mohaves came among us on a trading expedition. But the whole transactions alone of these expeditions did not comprise the amount of wealth or business of one hour's ordinary shopping of a country girl. This was the first acquaintance we had with those superior Indians. During their stay we had some faint hints that it was meditated to sell us to the Mohaves in exchange for vegetables, which they no doubt regarded as more useful for immediate consumption than their captives. But still it was only a hint that had been given us, and the curiosity and anxiety it created soon vanished, and we sank again into the daily drudging routine of our dark prison life. Months rolled by, finding us early and late at our burden-bearing and torturing labors, plying hands and feet to heed the demands of our lazy lords, and the taunts and exactions of a swarm of heathen urchins, sometimes set over us. But since the coming of these Mohaves a new question had been, presented, and a new source of anxious solicitude had been opened. Hours at a time were spent apart, dwelling upon and conversing about the possibilities and probabilities, with all the gravity of men in the council of state, of our being sold to another tribe, and what might be its effects upon us. At times it was considered as the possible means by which an utter and hopeless bondage might be sealed upon us for life. It was seen plainly that the love of traffic predominated among these barbarous hordes; that the lives of their captives would be but a small weight in the balance, if they interfered with their lust of War or conquest, if gain without toil might be gratified. It was feared that the deep-seated hostility which they bore to the white race, the contempt which they manifested to their captives, united with the fear (which their conduct had more than once exhibited) that they might be left without that constant, vigilant oversight that was so great a tax upon their indolence to maintain over them, that they might return to their own people and tell the tale of their sufferings and captivity, and thus bring down upon them the vengeance of the whites; that all these causes might induce them to sell their captives to the most inaccessible tribe, and thus consign them to a captivity upon which the light of hope or the prospect of escape could not shine."

On a little mound, a short distance from the clustered, smoking wigwams, constituting the Apache village, on a pleasant day, see these two captive girls, their root baskets laid aside and side by side upon the ground, sitting down to a few moments' conversation. They talk of the year that has now nearly closed, the first of their captivity, the bitterness that had mingled in the cup of its allotment, of their dead, who had now slept one year of their last sleep, and with much concern they are now querying about what might be the intentions of the Mohaves in their daily expected coming again so soon among the Apaches.

Mary Ann says: "I believe they will sell us; I overheard one of the chiefs say something the other day in his wigwam, about our going among the Mo- haves, and it was with some words about their expected return. I do not know, but from what I saw of them I think they know more, and live better than these miserable Apaches."

Olive. "But may be they put on the best side when here, they might treat us worse than the Apaches."

M. A. "O, that will be impossible without they kill us, and if we cannot escape, the sooner we die the better. I wish, Olive, you would agree to it, and we will start to-night and try to make our escape,"

O. "But where shall we go? We know not the way we came, much of it was traveled in the night, besides this, these Indians have their trails well known to them, leading through all these mountains, and we could not get upon one where they would not be sure to head us, and you know they say they have spies continually out to let the tribe know when any of their enemies come into the vicinity of their village."

M. A. " "Well, Olive, how often have you told me that were it not for a very faint hope you have of getting away, and your concern for me, you would rather die than live. And you know we both think they intend to sell us, and if they sell us to these Mohaves we will have to travel three hundred miles, and I can never live through it. I have a severe cough now, and almost every night I take more cold. Ma always said 'her Mary Ann would die with consumption,' but she did not think, I guess, of such a consumption as this."

"Poor girl," thought Olive, half aloud, " how her eyes glisten, how her cheeks every day become more spare and pale, and her black, flashing eye is sinking into her head." Olive turned her head carelessly, wiped the tear from her eye, and looking again in the upturned face of her sister, said: "Why, Mary, if you are afraid that you would perish in traveling to the Mohave country, how could you stand the roving day and night among the hills, and we should be obliged, you know, to travel away from the trail for a week, perhaps a month, living on roots ?"

M. A. "As for roots, they are about all we get now, and I had rather live on them in trying to get away than in staying here, or being driven like oxen again three hundred miles."

By this time the little pale face of her sister kindled with such an enthusiasm that Olive could hardly avoid expressing the effect it had upon her own mind. Mary was about to continue when her sister, seeing an Indian near them, bade her hush, and they were about to renew their work when Mary said: "Look! Who are those? They are Indians, they are those very Mohaves! See ! They have a horse, and there is a squaw among them."

The Indian, who was approaching them, had by this time caught a view of them, and was running to camp to spread the news. "I had," says the older, " now no doubt that the approaching company were Mohaves, and I was half inclined to improve the excitement and carelessness that would prevail for a while after their coming among us, to slip away, taking good care to make sure of a piece of meat, a few roots, and something to kill myself with if I should find myself about falling into the hands of pursuers. But in more sober moments we thought it well that this fear of being again caught, and of torture they would be sure to inflict, if we should be unsuccessful, kept us from such a desperate step. The Mohave party are now descending a slope to the Apache village, and roaring, yelling, and dancing prevail through the gathering crowd of Apaches. The party consisted of five men and a young woman under twenty years. It was not long ere two of the chiefs came to us, and told us that these Mohaves had come after us, according to a contract made with them at a previous visit; that the party had been back to obtain the sanction of Espaniole, the Mohave chief, to the contract, and that now the chief had sent his own daughter to witness to his desire to purchase the white captives. The chief had, however, left it with his daughter to approve or annul the contract that had been made."

This daughter of the chief was a beautiful, mild, and sympathizing woman. Her conduct and behavior toward these Apache captives bespoke a tutoring, and intelligence, and sweetness of disposition that won their interest at once. She could use the Apache language with fluency, and was thus enabled to talk with the captives for whom she had come. She told her designs to them, and had soon settled it in her mind to approve the contract previously made.

During that evening there was much disquiet and misrule throughout the village. The agitated and interested captives, though having been informed that all the negotiations had been completed for their transfer, were much perplexed to learn the reasons of the excitement still raging.

There was a studied effort, which was plainly perceived by them, to cover the matter of the councils and heated debates, which occupied the whole night from them; but, by remarks which reached them from different ones, they learned that their destiny was in a very critical suspense. There was a strong party who were angrily opposed to the acceptance of the Mohave propositions, among whom were the murderers of the Oatman family.

Different ones sought by every possible means to draw out the feelings of their captives to the pro posed removal. One in particular, a young Indian woman, who had forced a disagreeable intimacy with Olive, sought to make her say that she would rather go to the Mohaves. The discretion of the captive girl, however, proved equal to the treachery of the Indian mistress, and no words of complaint, or expressions of desire, could the latter glean to make a perverted report of at head-quarters. The artful Miss To-aquin had endeavored from the first, under friendly pretenses, to acquaint herself with the American language, and succeeded in acquiring a smattering of it. But her eaves-dropping propensities had made the intended victims of her treachery wary, since they had known, in several instances, of her false reports and tale-bearings to the chief.

While sitting alone by a small fire in their wigwam, late in the night, this Jezebel came and seated herself by them, and with her smiles and rattling tongue, feigning an anxious interest in their welfare, said, in substance:

"I suppose you are glad you are going to the Mohaves? But I always hated them; they will steal, and lie, and cheat. Do you think you will get away? I suppose you do. But these miserable. Mohaves are going to sell you to another tribe ; if they do not, it will not be long ere they will kill you. O, I am very sad because you are going away ! I hoped to see yon free in a short time ; but I know you will never get back to the whites now. Suppose you will try, will you not ?"

Olive replied : " We are captives, and since our parents and all our kindred are dead, it matters little where we are, there or here. "We are treated better than we deserve, perhaps ; and we shall try to behave well, let them treat us as they may ; and as to getting away, you know it would be impossible and foolish for us to try."

" The Mohave party professed that it was out of kindness to us that they had come to take us with them; that they knew of the cruel treatment we were suffering among the Apaches, and intended to use us well.

" This would all have been very comforting to us, and it was only to us they made this plea, had we been prepared to give them credit for the absence of that treachery which had been found, so far, as natural to an Indian as his breath. But their natures do not grow sincerity, and their words are to have no weight in judging of their characters. To us it was only gloom that lay upon our way, whether to the Mohaves or to stay in our present position. Their real design it was useless to seek to road until its execution came.

" Sunrise, which greeted us ere we had a moment's sleep, found the party prepared to leave, and we were coolly informed by our captors that we must go with them. Two horses, a few vegetables, a few pounds of beads, and three blankets we found to be our price in that market.

"We found that there were those among the Apaches who were ready to tear us in pieces when we left, and they only wanted a few more to unite with them, to put an end to our lives at once. They now broke forth in the most insulting language to us, and to the remainder of the tribe for bargaining us away. Some laughed, a few among the children, who had received a care and attention from us denied by their natural parents, cried, and a general pow-wow rent the air as we started upon another three hundred miles' trip."

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