maddened by strong
drink, stand over the kneeling figure of my mother, their eyes inflamed
with satanic passion. Holding together her torn garments with one hand,
she parries with feeble and fast declining strength their revolting
advances. With a mighty effort she reaches up and snatches a knife from
the belt of the savage nearest her, and with the rapidity of thought
plunges it into his body. He reels and falls against his companion. It
is her last act on earth. With a yell of rage the tomahawk is lifted
above her murderer's head, and descending is buried in her brain with a
dull thud. A mist passes over my eyes; my brain reels, and the last
thing of which I am conscious is the white tresses of my saintly mother,
held high in air by this monster in human guise. God grant that it may
never be my fate to pass through such scenes again.

During the next twenty-four hours, my existence is that of an automaton
merely. I know I am being conducted away from the spot where this awful
tragedy was enacted. I am mounted behind my guard, to whose waist I am
firmly bound by raw hide thongs. We encamp in a belt of cotton woods,
near a small stream. Fires are lighted, food prepared; some is offered
me, but I turn away from it in disgust; the hand that proffers the
smoking meat seems covered with blood.

I am taken from my couch of skins at the foot of a tall tree, and led
through the underbrush into an open space, where the main party are
assembled. Emerging into this clearing, my eyes fall upon my husband,
who is approaching me from the other side of the encampment. It was as
if I saw one who had arisen from the dead; with an effort I free myself,
rush past the guard, and am in my husband's arms. Leaning my head on his
shoulder, I give expression to my feelings in tears; they are the first
I have shed, and seem to break the spell which has encircled me like an
iron band. I am not long permitted to remain in my husband's embrace, as
the Indian with an ugh! expressive of displeasure, grasps Edwin by the
arm, and rudely separates us; we are led to opposite corners of the
enclosure, there to await our departure, preparations for which are
being rapidly completed. The lariats are coiled, blankets adjusted, and
at a signal from the chief we mount, and defiling through the wood,
emerge on the open prairie, pursuing our journey in Indian file. Before
starting, one of our mules is brought up, on which I am mounted, a
warrior riding by my s