"'Bout the last of September we reached Bent's Old Fort, on the Arkansas, where the Santa Fe Trail crosses the river into New Mexico, and we camped there the night we got to it.
"I know'd they had cows up to the fort; so just before we was ready for supper, I took Paul and started to see if we couldn't get some milk for our coffee. It wasn't far, and we was camped a few hundred yards from the gate, just outside the wall. Well, we went into the kitchen, Paul right alongside of me, and there I seen a white woman leaning over the adobe hearth a cooking—they had always only been squaws before. She naturally looked up to find out who was coming in, and when she seen the kid, all at once she give a scream, dropped the dish-cloth she had in her hand, made a break for Paul, throw'd her arms around him, nigh upsetting me, and says, while she was a sobbing and taking on dreadful,—
"'My boy! My boy! Then I hain't prayed and begged the good Lord all these days and nights for nothing!' Then she kind o' choked again, while Paul, he says, as he hung on to her,—
"'O mamma! O mamma! I know'd you'd come back! I know'd you'd come back!'
"Well, there, boys, I just walked out of that kitchen a heap faster than I'd come into it, and shut the door. When I got outside, for a few minutes I couldn't see nothing, I was worked up so. As soon as I come to, I went through the gate down to camp as quick as my legs would carry me, to tell Thorpe and Curtis that Paul had found his ma. They wanted to know all about it, but I couldn't tell them nothing, I was so dumfounded at the way things had turned out. We talked among ourselves a moment, then reckoned it was the best to go up to the fort together, and ask the woman how on earth she'd got shet of the Ingins what had took her off, and how it come she was cooking there. We started out and when we got into the kitchen, there was Paul and Mrs. Dale, and you never see no people so happy. They was just as wild as a stampeded steer; she seemed to have growed ten years younger than when I first went up there, and as for Paul, he was in heaven for certain.
"First we had to tell her how we'd got the kid, and how we'd learned to love him. All the time we was telling of it, and our scrimmages with the Ingins, she was a crying and hugging Paul as if her heart was broke. After we'd told all we know'd, we asked her to tell us her story, which she did, and it showed she was a woman of grit and education.
"She said the Ingins what had captured her took her up to their camp on the Saw Log, a little creek north of Fort Dodge—you all know where it is—and there she staid that night. Early in the morning they all started for the north. She watched their ponies mighty close as they rid along that day, so as to find out which was the fastest; for she had made up her mind to make her escape the first chance she got. She looked at the sun once in a while, to learn what course they was taking; so that she could go back when she got ready, strike the Sante Fe Trail, and get to some ranch, as she had seen several while passing through the foot-hills of the Raton Range when she was with the Mexican train.
"It was on the night of the fourth day after they had left Saw Log, and had rid a long distance—was more than a hundred miles on their journey—when she determined to try and light out. The whole camp was fast asleep, for the Ingins was monstrous tired. She crawled out of the lodge where she'd been put with some old squaws, and going to where the ponies had been picketed, she took a little iron-gray she'd had her eye on, jumped on his back, with only the lariat for a bridle and without any saddle, not even a blanket, took her bearings from the north star, and cautiously moved out. She started on a walk, until she'd got 'bout four miles from camp, and then struck a lope, keeping it up all night. By next morning she'd made some forty miles, and then for the first time since she'd left her lodge, pulled up and looked back, to see if any of the Ingins was following her. When she seen there wasn't a living thing in sight, she got off her pony, watered him out of a small branch, took a drink herself, but not daring to rest yet, mounted her animal again and rid on as fast as she could without wearing him out too quickly.
"Hour after hour she rid on, the pony appearing to have miraculous endurance, until sundown. By that time she'd crossed the Saline, the Smoky Hill, and got to the top of the divide between that river and the Arkansas, or not more than forty miles from the Santa Fe Trail. Then her wonderful animal seemed to weaken; she couldn't even make him trot, and she was so nearly played out herself, she could hardly set steady. What to do, she didn't know. The pony was barely able to move at a slow walk. She was afraid he would drop dead under her, and she was compelled to dismount, and in almost a minute, as soon as she laid down on the prairie, was fast asleep.
"She had no idee how long she had slept when she woke up. The sun was only 'bout two hours high. Then she know'd she had been unconscious since sundown of the day before, or nigh twenty-four hours. Rubbing her eyes, for she was kind o' bewildered, and looking around, there she saw her pony as fresh, seemingly, as when she'd started. He'd had plenty to eat, for the grass was good, but she'd had nothing. She pulled a little piece of dried buffalo-meat out of her bosom, which she'd brought along, all she could find at the lodge, and now nibbled at that, for she was mighty hungry. She was terribly sore and stiff too, but she mounted at once and pushed on, loping and walking him by spells. Just at daylight she could make out the Arkansas right in front of her in the dim gray of the early morning, not very far off. On the west, the Raton Mountains loomed up like a great pile of blue clouds, the sight of which cheered her; for she know'd she would soon reach the Trail.