tions I had received: for Jack had said, after the
decision was made, to go through the Pass, "Now, Mattie, I don't think
for a minute that there are any Injuns in that Pass, and you must not be
afraid. We have got to go through it any way; but"--he hesitated,--"we
may be mistaken; there may be a few of them in there, and they'll have a
mighty good chance to get in a shot or two. And now listen: if I'm hit,
you'll know what to do. You have your derringer; and when you see that
there is no help for it, if they get away with the whole outfit, why,
there's only one thing to be done. Don't let them get the baby, for they
will carry you both off and--well, you know the squaws are much more
cruel than the bucks. Don't let them get either of you alive. Now"--to
the driver--"go on."

Jack was a man of few words, and seldom spoke much in times like that.

So I lay very quiet in the bottom of the ambulance. I realized that we
were in great danger. My thoughts flew back to the East, and I saw, as
in a flash, my father and mother, sisters and brother; I think I tried
to say a short prayer for them, and that they might never know the
worst. I fixed my eyes upon my husband's face. There he sat, rifle in
hand, his features motionless, his eyes keenly watching out from one
side of the ambulance, while a stalwart cavalry-man, carbine in hand,
watched the other side of the narrow defile. The minutes seemed like
hours.

The driver kept his animals steady, and we rattled along.

At last, as I perceived the steep slope of the road, I looked out, and
saw that the Pass was widening out, and we must be nearing the end of
it. "Keep still," said Jack, without moving a feature. My heart seemed
then to stop beating, and I dared not move again, until I heard him say,
"Thank God, we're out of it! Get up, Mattie! See the river yonder? We'll
cross that to-night, and then we'll be out of their God d----d country!"

This was Jack's way of working off his excitement, and I did not mind
it. I knew he was not afraid of Apaches for himself, but for his wife
and child. And if I had been a man, I should have said just as much and
perhaps more.

We were now down in a flat country, and low alkali plains lay between us
and the river. My nerves gradually recovered from the tension in which
they had been held; the driver stopped his team for a moment, the other
ambulance drove up alongside of us, and Ella Bailey and I looked at each
other; we did not talk an