I had but little time for thought, for the Indians quickly sprang into our wagons, tearing off covers, breaking, crushing, and smashing all hinderances to plunder, breaking open locks, trunks, and boxes, and distributing or destroying our goods with great rapidity, using their tomahawks to pry open boxes, which they split up in savage recklessness.
Oh, what horrible sights met my view! Pen is powerless to portray the scenes occurring around me. They filled the air with the fearful war-whoops and hideous shouts. I endeavored to keep my fears quiet as possible, knowing that an indiscreet act on my part might result in jeopardizing our lives, though I felt certain that we two helpless women would share death by their hands; but with as much of an air of indifference as I could command, I kept still, hoping to prolong our lives, even if but a few moments. I was not allowed this quiet but a moment, when two of the most savage-looking of the party rushed up into my wagon, with tomahawks drawn in their right hands, and with their left seized me by both hands and pulled me violently to the ground, injuring my limbs very severely, almost breaking them, from the effects of which I afterward suffered a great deal. I turned to my little Mary, who, with outstretched hands, was standing in the wagon, took her in my arms and helped her to the ground. I then turned to the chief, put my hand upon his arm, and implored his protection for my fellow-prisoner and our children. At first he gave me no hope, but seemed utterly indifferent to my prayers. Partly in words and partly by signs, he ordered me to remain quiet, placing his hand upon his revolver, that hung in a belt at his side, as an argument to enforce obedience.
A short distance in the rear of our train a wagon was in sight. The chief immediately dispatched a detachment of his band to capture or to cut it off from us, and I saw them ride furiously off in pursuit of the small party, which consisted only of one family and a man who rode in advance of the single wagon. The horseman was almost instantly surrounded and killed by a volley of arrows. The husband of the family quickly turned his team around and started them at full speed, gave the whip and lines to his wife, who held close in her arms her youngest child. He then went to the back end of his wagon and threw out boxes, trunks, every thing that he possessed. His wife meantime gave all her mind and strength to urging the horses forward on their flight from death. The Indians had by this time come very near, so that they riddled the wagon-cover with bullets and arrows, one passing through the sleeve of the child’s dress in its mother’s arms, but doing it no personal injury.
The terrified man kept the Indians at bay with his revolver, and finally they left him and rode furiously back to the scene of the murder of our train.
CHAPTER III.
MY HUSBAND’S ESCAPE—BURIAL OF THE DEAD—ARRIVAL OF THE SURVIVORS AT DEER CREEK—AN ILL-TIMED BALL.
When the Indians fired their fatal volley into the midst of our little company, while yet they were preparing to entertain them with a hospitable supper, my husband was some distance from the scene of horror; but, startled by the unexpected report, he hurriedly glanced around, saw the pale, terror-stricken faces of his wife and child, and the fall of Rev. Mr. Sharp from the wagon, while in the act of reaching for sugar and other articles of food with which to conciliate our savage guests. The hopelessness of the situation struck a chill to his heart. Having laid down his gun to assist in the preparation of the feast, the utter futility of contending single-handed against such a host of infuriated demons was too apparent. His only hope, and that a slight one indeed, was that the Indians might spare the lives of his wife and child, to obtain a ransom. In this hope he resolved upon efforts for the preservation of his own life, that he might afterward put forth efforts for our rescue, either by pursuit and strategy, or by purchase.
He was shot at, and the barbed arrows whizzed past him, some passing through his clothing. He saw Mr. Wakefield fall, and knew that he was wounded, if not killed. Mr. Larimer passed him in his flight for life toward some neighboring timber.
Mr. Kelly then ran for some tall grass and sage brush, where he concealed himself, favored by the fast approaching darkness. Scarcely daring to breathe, his mind tortured with agonizing fears for the fate of his wife and child, he seemed to hear from them the cry for help, and at one time resolved to rush to their rescue, or die with them; any fate seemed better than such torturing doubt. But, realizing at last the utter hopelessness of an attempt at rescue, and knowing that it was a custom of the Indians, sometimes, to spare the lives of white women and children taken captive, for ransom, he again resolved, if possible, to save his own life, that he might devote all his energies, and the remnant of fortune the savages had not despoiled him of, to the accomplishment of the rescue of his wife and child.