A few Indians aiming their arrows at Olive and Mary Ann while other Indians block themATTEMPT TO SHOOT OLIVE AND MARY ANN.
ATTEMPT TO SHOOT OLIVE AND MARY ANN.
ATTEMPT TO SHOOT OLIVE AND MARY ANN.
“He was in the act, as also the other, of hurling the second, when two of our number sprang toward them with their clubs, while two others snatched us one side, placing themselves between us and the drawn bows. By this time a strong Apache had the Indian by a firm grasp, and compelled him to desist. It was with difficulty they could be shaken off, or their murderous purpose prevented. At one time there was likely to be a general fight with this band (as I afterward learned them to be) of land pirates.
“The reason, as I afterward came to know, of the conduct of this Indian, was that he had lost a brother in an affray with the whites upon this same Santa Fé route, and he had sworn not to allow the first opportunity to escape without avenging his brother’s blood by taking the life of an American. Had their number been larger a serious engagement would have taken place, and my life have probably been sacrificed to this fiend’s revenge. During the skirmish of words that preceded and for some time followed this attempt upon my life, I felt but little anxiety, for there was little reason to hope but that we must both perish at the best, and to me it mattered little how soon. Friends we had none; succor, or sympathy, or help, we had no reason to think could follow us into this wild, unknown region; and the only question was whether we should be murdered inch by inch, or find a sudden though savage termination to our dreadful condition, and sleep at once quietly beyond the reach or brutality of these fiends in death’s embrace. Indeed death seemed the only release proffered from any source. If I had before known that the arrow would lodge in life’s vitals, I doubt whether it would have awakened a nerve or moved a muscle.
“We traveled until about midnight, when our captors called a halt, and gave us to understand we might sleep for the remainder of the night. But, jaded as we were, and enduring as we wereall manner of pain, these were not more in the way of sleep than the wild current of our anxious thoughts and meditations, which we found it impossible to arrest or to leave with the dead bodies of our dear kindred. There was scarcely a moment when the mind’s consent could be gained for sleep. Well do I remember to have spent the larger proportion of that half of a night in gazing upon the stars, counting those directly over head, calling the names I had been taught to give to certain of the planets, pointing out to my sister the old dipper, and seeking to arrest and relieve her sadness by referring to the views we had taken of these from the old grass-clad door-yard in front of our humble cottage in Illinois. We spoke of the probability that these might now be the objects of attention and sight to eyes far away; to eyes familiar, the gleam of whose kindly radiance had so oft met ours, and with the strength of whose vision we had so delightfully tried our own in thus star-gazing. These scenes of a past yet unfinished childhood came rushing upon the mind, bidding it away over the distance that now separated them and their present occupants from us, and to think mournfully of the still wider variance that separated their allotment from ours. Strange as it may appear, scenes and woes like those pressing upon us had a power to bind all sensitiveness about our fate. Indeed, indifference is the last retreat of desperation. The recklessness observed in the Indians, their habitsof subsistence, and all their manner and bearing toward their captives, could lead them only to expect that by starvation or assassination they must soon become the victims of a brutal fate.
“On the third day we came suddenly in sight of a cluster of low, thatched huts, each having an opening near the ground leading into them.â€
It was soon visible from the flashing eyes and animated countenances of the Indians, that they were nearing some place of attraction, and to which anxious and interesting desire had been pointing. To two young girls, having traveled on foot two hundred miles in three days; with swollen feet and limbs, lame, exhausted, not yet four days remove from the loss of parents, brothers, and sisters, and torn from them, too, in the most brutal manner; away in the deeps of forests and mountains, upon the desolation of which the glad light or sound of civilization never yet broke; with no guides or protectors, rudely, inhumanly driven by untutored, untamed savages, the sight of the dwelling-places of man, however coarse or unseemly, was no very unwelcome scene. With all the dread possibilities, therefore, that might await them at any moment, nevertheless to get even into an Indian camp was home.
Several Indians with hatchets, knives, and clubs dancing around Olive and Mary Ann
“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 earof an unrestrained superstition. They lifted us on the top of a pile of brush and bark, then formed a circle about us of men, women, and children of all ages and sizes, some naked, some dressed in blankets, some in skins, some in bark. Music then commenced, which consisted of pounding upon stones with clubs and horn, and the drawing of a small string like a fiddle-bow across distended bark. They ran, and jumped, and danced in the wildest and most furious manner about us, but keeping a regular circle.Each, on coming to a certain point in the circle, marked by a removed piece of turf in the ground, would bend himself or herself nearly to the ground, uttering at the same time a most frightful yell, and making a violent gesticulation and stamping. Frequently on coming near us, as they would do in each evolution, they would spit in our face, throw dirt upon us, or slightly strike us with their hand, managing, by every possible means, to give us an early and thorough impression of their barbarity, cruelty, and obscenity. The little boys and girls, especially, would make the older ones merry by thus taunting us. It seemed during all this wild and disgusting performance, that their main ambition was to exhibit their superiority over us, and the low, earnest, intense hate they bore toward our race. And this they most effectually succeeded in accomplishing, together with a disgusting view of the obscenity, vulgarity, and grossness of their hearts, and the mean, despicable, revengeful dispositions that burn with hellish fury within their untamed bosoms.
“We soon saw that these bravadoes had made themselves great men at home. They had made themselves a name by the exploits of the past week. They had wantonly set upon a laboring family of nine persons, unprotected, and worn to fatigue by the toils of a long journey, without any mode of defense, and had inhumanly slaughtered seven of them, taken two inoffensive girls into a barbarous captivity, anddrove 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 mostsparing 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 laborersand principal burden-bearers, and during all our captivity,†says Olive, “it was our lot to serve under these enslaved women, with a severity more intolerable than that to which they were subjected by their merciless lords. They invented modes, and seemed to create necessities of labor, that they might gratify themselves by taxing us to the utmost, and even took unwarranted delight in whipping us on beyond our strength. And all their requests and exactions were couched in the most insulting and taunting language and manner, as it then seemed, and as they had the frankness soon to confess, to fume their hate against the race to whom we belonged.
“Often under the frown and lash were we compelled to labor for whole days upon an allowance amply sufficient to starve a common dandy civilized idler, and those days of toil wrung out at the instance of children younger than ourselves, who were set as our task-masters. They knew nothing of cultivating the soil. After we had learned their language enough to talk with them, we ventured to speak to them of the way by which we had lived, of the tilling of the ground.
“They had soil that might have produced, but most of them had an abhorrence of all that might be said of the superior blessings of industry and the American civilization. Yet there were those, especially among the females and the younger members of the tribe, who asked frequent questions, and with eagerness,of our mode of life. For some time after coming among them, Mary Ann was very ill. The fatigue, the cruelties of the journey, nearly cost her her life; yet in all her weakness, sickness, and pinings, they treated her with all the heartlessness of a dog. She would often say to me: ‘Olive, I must starve unless I can get something more to eat;’ yet it was only when she was utterly disabled that they would allow her a respite from some daily menial service. We have often taken the time which was given to gather roots for our lazy captors, to gather and eat ourselves; and had it not been for supplies obtained by such means, we must have perished. But the physical sufferings of this state were light when compared with the fear and anguish of mind; the bitter fate upon us, the dismal remembrances that harassed us, the knowledge of a bright past and a dark future by which we were compassed, these, all these belabored every waking moment, and crowded the wonted hours of sleep with terrible forebodings of a worse fate still ahead. Each day seemed to be allotted its own peculiar woes; some circumstance, some new event would arise, touching and enkindling its own class of bitter emotions. We were compelled to heed every whimper and cry of their little urchins with promptness, and fully, under no less penalty than a severe beating, and that in the most severe manner. These every-day usages and occurrences would awaken thorny reflectionsupon 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 opportunityoffered. 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 withoutalloranyhope. A word dropped by our captors concerning their occasional trips, made by small bands of them to some region of the whites, some knowledge we would accidentally gain of our latitude and locality, would animate our breasts with the hope of a future relief, breaking like a small ray of light from some distantluminous object upon the eye of our faith. But it was only when our minds dwelt upon the power of the Highest, on an overruling Providence, that we could feel that there was any possibility of an extrication from our uncheered prison life.
“After we had been among these Apaches several months, their conduct toward us somewhat changed. They became more lenient and merciful, especially to my sister. She always met their abuse with a mild, patient spirit and deportment, and with an intrepidity and fortitude beyond what might have been expected from her age. This spirit, which she always bore, I could plainly see was working its effect upon some of them; so that, especially on the part of those females connected in some way with the household of the chief, and who had the principal control of us, we could plainly see more forbearance, kindness, and interest exhibited toward their captives. This, slight as was the change, was a great relief to my mind, and comfort to Mary Ann. We had learned their language so as to hold converse with them quite understandingly, after a few months among them. They were much disposed at times to draw us into conversation; they asked our ages, inquired after our former place of living, and when we told them of the distance we had come to reach our home among them, they greatly marveled. They would gather about us frequently in large numbers, and ply their curious questions with eagerness and seeminginterest, asking how many of the white folks there were; how far the big ocean extended; and on being told of the two main oceans, they asked if the whites possessed the other big world on the east of the Atlantic; if there were any Indians there; particularly they would question us as to the number of the ‘Americanos,’ (this term they obtained among the Mexicans, and it was the one by which they invariably designated our people.) When we told them of the number of the whites, and of their rapid increase, they were apparently incredulous, and some of them would become angry, and accuse us of lying, and wishing to make them believe a lie. They wanted to know how women were treated, and if a man was allowed more than one wife; inquired particularly how and by what means a subsistence was gained by us. In this latter question we could discern an interest that did not inspire any of their other queries. Bad as they are, they are very curious to know the secret of the success and increase of the whites. We tried to tell them of the knowledge the whites possessed, of the well-founded belief they had that the stars above us were peopled by human beings, and of the fact that the distance to these far-off worlds had been measured by the whites. They wished to know if any of us had been there; this they asked in a taunting manner, exhibiting in irony and sarcasm their incredulity as to the statement, over which they made much sport and ridicule.They said if the stars were inhabited, the people would drop out, and hence they knew that this was a lie. I found the months and years in which I had been kept in school, not altogether useless in answering their questions. I told them that the earth turned round every twenty-four hours, and also of its traveling about the sun every year. Upon this they said we were just like all the Americanos, big liars, and seemed to think that our parents had begun young with us to learn us so perfectly the art of falsehood so early. But still we could see, through all their accusations of falsehood, by their astonishment, and discussion, and arguments upon the matter of our conversation, they were not wholly unbelieving. They would tell us, however, that an ‘evil spirit’ reigned among the whites, and that he was leading them on to destruction. They seemed sincere in their belief that there were scarcely any of the whites that could be trusted, but that they had evil assistance, which made them great and powerful. As to any system of religion or morality, they seemed to be beneath it. But we found, though the daily tasks upon us were not abated, yet our condition was greatly mollified; and we had become objects of their growing curiosity, mere playthings, over which they could make merry.
“They are much given to humor and fun, but it generally descends to low obscenity and meanness. They had great contempt for one that would complainunder torture or suffering, even though of their own tribe, and said a person that could not uncomplainingly endure suffering was not fit to live. They asked us if we wanted to get away, and tried by every stratagem to extort from us our feelings as to our captivity; but we were not long in learning that any expression of discontent was the signal for new toils, and tasks, and grievances. We made the resolution between us to avoid any expression of discontent, which, at times, it cost us no small effort to keep.
“We learned that this tribe was a detached parcel of the old and more numerous tribe bearing their name, and whose locality was in the regions of New-Mexico. They had become in years gone, impatient of the restraint put upon them by the Catholic missionaries, and had resolved upon emancipation from their control, and had accordingly sought a home in the wild fastnesses of these northern mountains. The old tribe had since given them the name of the ‘Touto Apaches,’ an appellation signifying their unruliness, as well as their roving and piratical habits. They said that the old tribe was much more wicked than themselves, and that they would be destroyed by the whites.â€
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 thepeculiar 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 greatAuhah(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 anumsupieque(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.â€
“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 learnthat this Touton tribe, or secession fragment, had from their villainous propensities fled to this hiding-place, and since their separation been joined by scattered members and stray families from other tribes, persons whom Touton bands had fallen in with during their depredating trips abroad, and who from community of feeling and life had thus amalgamated together.
“For a few years constant traffic had been kept up between the Mohaves and Toutons. The Mohaves made an expedition once a year, sometimes oftener, to the Apaches, in small companies, bringing with them vegetables, grain, and the various products of their soil, which they would exchange with the Apaches for fur, skins of animals, and all of the few articles that their different mode of life furnished. During the autumn of 1851, late in the season, quite a large company of Mohaves came among us on a trading expedition. But the whole transactions of one of these expeditions did not comprise the amount of wealth or business of one hour’s ordinary shopping of a country girl. This was the first acquaintance we had with those superior Indians. During their stay we had some faint hints that it was meditated to sell us to the Mohaves in exchange for vegetables, which they no doubt regarded as more useful for immediate consumption than their captives. But still it was only a hint that had been given us, and the curiosity and anxiety it created soon vanished,and we sank again into the daily drudging routine of our dark prison life. Months rolled by, finding us early and late at our burden-bearing and torturing labors, plying hands and feet to heed the demands of our lazy lords, and the taunts and exactions of a swarm of heathen urchins, sometimes set over us. But since the coming of these Mohaves a new question had been presented, and a new source of anxious solicitude had been opened. Hours at a time were spent apart, dwelling upon and conversing about the possibilities and probabilities, with all the gravity of men in the council of state, of our being sold to another tribe, and what might be its effects upon us. At times it was considered as the possible means by which an utter and hopeless bondage might be sealed upon us for life. It was seen plainly that the love of traffic predominated among these barbarous hordes; that the lives of their captives would be but a small weight in the balance, if they interfered with their lust of war or conquest, if gain without toil might be gratified. It was feared that the deep-seated hostility which they bore to the white race, the contempt which they manifested to their captives, united with the fear (which their conduct had more than once exhibited) that they might be left without that constant, vigilant oversight that was so great a tax upon their indolence to maintain over them, that they might return to their own people and tell the tale of their sufferings and captivity,and thus bring down upon them the vengeance of the whites; that all these causes might induce them to sell their captives to the most inaccessible tribe, and thus consign them to a captivity upon which the light of hope or the prospect of escape could not shine.â€
On a little mound, a short distance from the clustered, smoking wigwams, constituting the Apache village, on a pleasant day, see these two captive girls, their root baskets laid aside, and side by side upon the ground, sitting down to a few moments’ conversation. They talk of the year that has now nearly closed, the first of their captivity, the bitterness that had mingled in the cup of its allotment, of their dead, who had now slept one year of their last sleep, and with much concern they are now querying about what might be the intentions of the Mohaves in their daily expected coming again so soon among the Apaches.
Mary Ann says: “I believe they will sell us; I overheard one of the chiefs say something the other day in his wigwam, about our going among the Mohaves, and it was with some words about their expected return. I do not know, but from what I saw of them I think they know more, and live better than these miserable Apaches.â€
Olive. “But may be they put on the best side when here, they might treat us worse than the Apaches.â€
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.â€
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.â€
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.â€
“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 inthe 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?â€
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.â€
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.â€
Olive and Mary Ann sitting by a tree and talking while an Indians peer around from the other side
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 ofpursuers. 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 Mohaveshad 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.â€
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 strongparty who were angrily opposed to the acceptance of the Mohave propositions, among whom were the murderers of the Oatman family.
Different ones sought by every possible means to draw out the feelings of their captives to the proposed removal. One in particular, a young Indian woman, who had forced a disagreeable intimacy with Olive, sought to make her say that she would rather go to the Mohaves. The discretion of the captive girl, however, proved equal to the treachery of the Indian mistress, and no words of complaint, or expressions of desire, could the latter glean to make a perverted report of at head-quarters. The artful Miss To-aquin had endeavored from the first, under friendly pretenses, to acquaint herself with the American language, and succeeded in acquiring a smattering of it. But her eaves-dropping propensities had made the intended victims of her treachery wary, since they had known, in several instances, of her false reports and tale-bearings to the chief.
While sitting alone by a small fire in their wigwam, late in the night, this Jezebel came and seated herself by them, and with her smiles and rattling tongue, feigning an anxious interest in their welfare, said, in substance:
“I suppose you are glad you are going to the Mohaves? But I always hated them; they will steal, and lie, and cheat. Do you think you will get away? I suppose you do. But these miserable Mohavesare going to sell you to another tribe; if they do not, it will not be long ere they will kill you. O, I am very sad because you are going away! I hoped to see you free in a short time; but I know you will never get back to the whites now. Suppose you will try, will you not?â€
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.â€
“The Mohave party professed that it was out of kindness to us that they had come to take us with them; that they knew of the cruel treatment we were suffering among the Apaches, and intended to use us well.
“This would all have been very comforting to us, and it was only to us they made this plea, had we been prepared to give them credit for the absence of that treachery which had been found, so far, as natural to an Indian as his breath. But their natures do not grow sincerity, and their words are to have no weight in judging of their characters. To us it was only gloom that lay upon our way, whether to the Mohaves or to stay in our present position. Their real design it was useless to seek to read until its execution came.
“Sunrise, which greeted us ere we had a moment’s sleep, found the party prepared to leave, and we were coolly informed by our captors that we must go with them. Two horses, a few vegetables, a few pounds of beads, and three blankets we found to be our price in that market.
“We found that there were those among the Apaches who were ready to tear us in pieces when we left, and they only wanted a few more to unite with them, to put an end to our lives at once. They now broke forth in the most insulting language to us, and to the remainder of the tribe for bargaining us away. Some laughed, a few among the children, who had received a care and attention from us denied by their natural parents, cried, and a general pow-wow rent the air as we started upon another three hundred miles’ trip.â€