"The Doctor is ill—is dead," added the priest reluctantly.
"And Mrs. Whitman?" gasped Spalding.
"Is dead also. The Indians have killed them."
"My daughter?" murmured the agonized questioner.
"Is safe, with the other prisoners," answered Brouillet.
"And then," says Spalding in speaking of that moment of infinite horror, when in his imagination a picture of the massacre, of the anguish of his child, the suffering of the prisoners, of the probable destruction of his own family and mission, and his surely impending fate, all rose up before him—"I felt the world all blotted out at once, and sat on my horse as rigid as a stone, not knowing or feeling anything."
While this conversation had been going on the half-breed interpreter had kept a sinister watch over the communication, and his actions had so suspicious a look that the priest ordered him to ride on ahead. When he had obeyed, Brouillet gave some rapid instructions to Spalding; not to go near the mission, where he could do no good, but would be certainly murdered; but to fly, to hide himself until the excitement was over. The men at the mission were probably all killed; the women and children would be spared; nothing could be done at present but to try to save his own life, which the Indians were resolved to take.
The conversation was hurried, for there was no time to lose. Spalding gave his pack-horse to Brouillet, to avoid being encumbered by it; and taking some provisions which the priest offered, struck off into the woods there to hide until dark. Nearly a week from this night he arrived at the Lapwai mission, starved, torn, with bleeding feet as well as broken heart. Obliged to secrete himself by day, his horse had escaped from him, leaving him to perform his night journeys on foot over the sharp rocks and prickly cactus plants, until not only his shoes had been worn out, but his feet had become cruelly lacerated. The constant fear which had preyed upon his heart of finding his family murdered, had produced fearful havoc in the life-forces; and although Mr. Spalding had the happiness of finding that the Nez Perces had been true to Mrs. Spalding, defending her from destruction, yet so great had been the first shock, and so long continued the strain, that his nervous system remained a wreck ever afterward.
