“Vengeance is allowable,” sententiously remarked Mahpeah (The Sky).
Another old chief, Ottawa, arose and said, “It is the undoubted right of the weak and oppressed; and yet it ought to be proportioned to the injury received. Then why should we put this young, innocent woman to death? Has she not always been kind to us, smiled upon us, and sang for us? Do not all our children love her as a tender sister? Why, then, should we put her to so cruel a death for the crimes of others, if they are of her nation? Why should we punish the innocent for the guilty?”
I looked to Heaven for mercy and protection, offering up those earnest prayers that are never offered in vain; and oh! how thankful I was when I knew their decision was to spare my life. Though terrible were my surroundings, life always became sweet to me, when I felt that I was about to part with it.
A terrible time ensued, and many dogs, and horses, even, died of starvation. Their bodies were eaten immediately; and the slow but constant march was daily kept up, in hope of game and better facilities for fish and fruit.
Many days in succession I tasted no food, save what I could gather on my way; a few rose leaves and blossoms was all I could find, except the grass I would gather and chew, for nourishment. Fear, fatigue, and long-continued abstinence were wearing heavily on my already shattered frame. Women and children were crying for food; it was a painful sight to witness their sufferings, with no means of alleviating them, and no hope of relief save by traveling and hunting. We had no shelter save the canopy of heaven, and no alternative but to travel on, and at night lie down on the cold, damp ground, for a resting place.
If I could but present to my readers a truthful picture of that Indian home at that time, with all its sorrowful accompaniments! They are certainly engraved upon faithful memory, to last forever; but no touch of pen could give any semblance of the realities to another.
What exhibitions of their pride and passion I have seen; what ideas of their intelligence and humanity I have been compelled to form; what manifestations of their power and ability to govern had been thrust upon me. The treatment received was not such as to enhance in any wise a woman’s admiration for the so-called noble red man, but rather to make one pray to be delivered from their power.
Compelled to travel many days in succession, and to experience the gnawings of hunger without mitigation, every day had its share of toil and fear. Yet while my temporal wants were thus poorly supplied, I was not wholly denied spiritual food. It was a blessed consolation that no earthly foe could interrupt my communion with the heavenly world. In my midnight, wakeful hours, I was visited with many bright visions.
He walks with thee, that angel kind,
And gently whispers, be resigned;