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The household of the borderer consisted of his
wife, three small children, and a female friend by the name of Mrs. L.,
who, having previously lost her husband, was passing the summer with the
family. She was a veritable type of those vigorous, self-reliant border
women, who encounter danger or the vicissitudes of weather without
quailing.
Born and nurtured upon
the remotest frontier, she inherited a robust constitution, and her active
life in the exhilarating prairie air served to develop and mature a
healthy womanly physique. From an early age she had been a fearless rider,
and her life on the frontier had habituated her to the constant use of the
horse until she felt almost more at home in the saddle than in a chair.
Upon one bright and
lovely morning in June, 1867, the adventurous borderer before mentioned,
set out from his home with some cattle for a distant market, leaving his
family in possession of the ranch, without any male protectors from Indian
marauders.
 They
did not, however, entertain any serious apprehensions of molestation in
his absence, as no hostile
Indians
had as yet made their appearance in that locality, and everything passed
on quietly for several days, until one morning, while the women were
busily occupied with their domestic affairs in the house, the two oldest
children, who were playing outside, called to their mother, and informed
her that some mounted men were approaching from the prairie. On
looking out, she perceived, to her astonishment, that they were
Indians
coming upon the gallop, and already very near the house. This gave her no
time to make arrangements for defense; but she screamed to the children to
run in for their lives, as she desired to bar the door, being conscious of
the fact that the prairie warriors seldom attack a house that is closed,
fearing, doubtless, that it may be occupied by armed men, who might give
them an unwelcome reception.
The children did not,
however, obey the command of their mother, believing the strangers to be
white men, and the door was left open. As soon as the alarm was given,
Mrs. L. sprang up a ladder into the loft, and concealed herself in such a
position that she could, through cracks in the floor, see all that passed
beneath.
Meantime the savages came
up, seized and bound the two children outdoors, and, entering the house,
rushed toward the young child, which the terror-stricken mother struggled
frantically to rescue from their clutches; but they were too much for her,
and tearing the infant from her arms, they dashed it upon the floor; then
seizing her by the hair, they wrenched back her head and cut her throat
from ear to ear, putting her to death instantaneously.
Mrs. L., who was
anxiously watching their proceedings from the loft, witnessed the fiendish
tragedy, and uttered an involuntary shriek of horror, which disclosed her
hiding-place to the barbarians, and they instantly vaulted up the ladder,
overpowered and tied her; then dragging her rudely down, they placed her,
with the two elder children, upon horses, and hurriedly set off to the
north, leaving the infant child unharmed, and clasping the murdered corpse
of its mangled parent.
In accordance with their
usual practice, they traveled as rapidly as their horses could carry them
for several consecutive days and nights, only making occasional short
halts to graze and rest their animals, and get a little sleep themselves,
so that the unfortunate captives necessarily suffered indescribable
tortures from harsh treatment, fatigue, and want of sleep and food. Yet
they were forced by the savages to continue on day after day, and night
after night, for many, many weary miles toward the "Staked Plain,"
crossing en route the Brazos, Wachita, Red, Canadian, and
Arkansas
Rivers, several of which were at swimming stages.
The warriors guarded
their captives very closely, until they had gone so great a distance from
the settlements that they imagined it impossible for them to make their
escape and find their way home, when they relapsed their vigilance
slightly, and they were permitted to walk about a little within short
limits from the bivouacs; but they were given to understand by
unmistakable pantomime that death would be the certain penalty of the
first attempt to escape.
In spite of this, Mrs.
L., who possessed a firmness of purpose truly heroic, resolved to seize
the first favorable opportunity to get away, and with this resolution in
view, she carefully observed the relative speed and powers of endurance of
the different horses in the party, and noted the manner in which they were
grazed, guarded, and caught; and upon a dark night, after a long,
fatiguing day's ride, and while the
Indians
were sleeping soundly, she noiselessly and cautiously crawled away from
the bed of her young companions, who were also buried in profound slumber,
and going to the pasture-ground of the horses, selected the best, leaped
upon his back à la garçon, with only a lariat around his neck, and without
saddle or bridle, quietly started off at a slow walk in the direction of
the north star, believing that this course would lead her to the nearest
white habitations. As soon as she had gone out of hearing from the
bivouac, without detection or pursuit, she accelerated the speed of the
horse into a trot, then to a gallop, and urged him rapidly forward during
the entire night.
At dawn of day on the
following morning she rose upon the crest of an eminence overlooking a
vast area of bald prairie country, where, for the first time since leaving
the
Indians, she halted, and, turning round, tremblingly cast a rapid
glance to the rear, expecting to see the savage blood-hounds upon her
track; but, to her great relief, not a single indication of a living
object could be discerned within the extended scope of her vision. She
breathed more freely now, but still did not feel safe from pursuit; and
the total absence of all knowledge of her whereabouts in the midst of the
wide expanse of dreary prairie around her, with the uncertainty of ever
again looking upon a friendly face, caused her to realize most vividly her
own weakness and entire dependence upon the Almighty, and she raised her
thoughts to Heaven in fervent supplication.
The majesty and sublimity
of the stupendous works of the great Author and Creator of the Universe,
when contrasted with the insignificance of the powers and achievements of
a vivified atom of earth modeled into human form, are probably under no
circumstances more strikingly exhibited and felt than when one becomes
bewildered and lost in the almost limitless amplitude of our great North
American "pampas," where not a single foot-mark or other trace of man's
presence or action can be discovered, and where the solitary wanderer is
startled at the sound even of his own voice.
The sensation of
loneliness and despondency resulting from the appalling consciousness of
being really and absolutely lost, with the realization of the fact that
but two or three of the innumerable different points of direction embraced
within the circle of the horizon will serve to extricate the bewildered
victim from the awful doom of death by starvation, and in entire ignorance
as to which of these particular directions should be followed, without a
single road, trail, tree, bush, or other landmark to guide or direct--the
effects upon the imagination of this formidable array of disheartening
circumstances can be fully appreciated only by those who have been
personally subjected to their influence.
A faint perception of the
intensity of the mental torture experienced by these unfortunate victims
may, however, be conjectured from the fact that their senses at such
junctures become so completely absorbed and overpowered by the cheerless
prospect before them, that they oftentimes wander about in a state of
temporary lunacy, without the power of exercising the slightest volition
of the reasoning faculties.
The inflexible spirit of
the heroine of this narrative did not, however, succumb in the least to
the imminent perils of the situation in which she found herself, and her
purposes were carried out with a determination as resolute and unflinching
as those of the Israelites in their protracted pilgrimage through the
wilderness, and without the guidance of pillars of fire and cloud.
The aid of the sun and
the broad leaves of the pilot-plant by day, with the light of Polaris by
night, enabled her to pursue her undeviating course to the north with as
much accuracy as if she had been guided by the magnetic needle.
She continued to urge
forward the generous steed she bestrode, who, in obedience to the will of
his rider, coursed swiftly on hour after hour during the greater part of
the day, without the least apparent labor or exhaustion.
It was a contest for life
and liberty that she had undertaken, a struggle in which she resolved to
triumph or perish in the effort: and still the brave-hearted woman pressed
on, until at length her horse began to show signs of exhaustion, and as
the shadows of evening began to appear he became so much jaded that it was
difficult to coax or force him into a trot, and the poor woman began to
entertain serious apprehensions that he might soon give out altogether and
leave her on foot.
At this time she was herself so much wearied
and in want of sleep that she would have given all she possessed to have
been allowed to dismount and rest; but, unfortunately for her, those
piratical quadrupeds of the plains, the wolves, advised by their
carnivorous instincts that she and her exhausted horse might soon fall an
easy sacrifice to their voracious appetites, followed upon her track, and
came howling in great numbers about her, so that she dared not set her
feet upon the ground, fearing they would devour her; and her only
alternative was to continue urging the poor beast to struggle forward
during the dark and gloomy hours of the long night, until at length she
became so exhausted that it was only with the utmost effort of her iron
will that she was enabled to preserve her balance upon the horse.
 Meantime
the ravenous pack of wolves, becoming more and more emboldened and
impatient as the speed of her horse relaxed, approached nearer and nearer,
until, with their eyes flashing fire, they snapped savagely at the heels
of the terrified horse, while at the same time they kept up their hideous
concert like the howlings of ten thousand fiends from the infernal
regions.
Every element in her
nature was at this fearful juncture taxed to its greatest tension, and
impelled her to concentrate the force of all her remaining energies in
urging and coaxing forward the wearied horse, until, finally, he was
barely able to reel and stagger along at a slow walk; and when she was
about to give up in despair, expecting every instant that the animal would
drop down dead under her, the welcome light of day dawned in the eastern
horizon, and imparted a more cheerful and encouraging influence over her,
and, on looking around, to her great joy, there were no wolves in sight.
She now, for the first
time in about thirty-six hours, dismounted, and knowing that sleep would
soon overpower her, and the horse, if not secured, might escape or wander
away, and there being no tree or other object to which he could be
fastened, she, with great presence of mind, tied one end of the long
lariat to his neck, and, with the other end around her waist, dropped down
upon the ground in a deep sleep, while the famished horse eagerly cropped
the herbage around her.
She was unconscious as to
the duration of her slumber, but it must have been very protracted to have
compensated the demands of nature, for the exhaustion induced by her
prodigious ride. Her sleep was sweet, and she dreamed of happiness and
home, losing all consciousness of her actual situation until she was
suddenly startled and aroused by the pattering sound of horses' feet,
beating the earth on every side.
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