M. A. “O, that will be impossible without they kill us, and if we cannot escape, the sooner we die the better. I wish, Olive, you would agree to it, and we will start to-night and try to make our escape.”
O. “But where shall we go? We know not the way we came, much of it was traveled in the night, besides this, these Indians have their trails well known to them, leading through all these mountains, and we could not get upon one where they would not be sure to head us, and you know they say they have spies continually out to let the tribe know when any of their enemies come into the vicinity of their village.”
M. A. “Well, Olive, how often have you told me that were it not for a very faint hope you have of getting away, and your concern for me, you would rather die than live. And you know we both think they intend to sell us, and if they sell us to these Mohaves we will have to travel three hundred miles, and I can never live through it. I have a severe cough now, and almost every night I take more cold. Ma always said ‘her Mary Ann would die with consumption,’ but she did not think, I guess, of such a consumption as this.”
“Poor girl,” thought Olive, half aloud, “how her eyes glisten, how her cheeks every day become more spare and pale, and her black, flashing eye is sinking into her head.” Olive turned her head carelessly, wiped the tear from her eye, and looking again in the upturned face of her sister, said: “Why, Mary, if you are afraid that you would perish in traveling to the Mohave country, how could you stand the roving day and night among the hills, and we should be obliged, you know, to travel away from the trail for a week, perhaps a month, living on roots?”
M. A. “As for roots, they are about all we get now, and I had rather live on them in trying to get away than in staying here, or being driven like oxen again three hundred miles.”
By this time the little pale face of her sister kindled with such an enthusiasm that Olive could hardly avoid expressing the effect it had upon her own mind. Mary was about to continue when her sister, seeing an Indian near them, bade her hush, and they were about to renew their work when Mary said: “Look! who are those? they are Indians, they are those very Mohaves! See! they have a horse, and there is a squaw among them.”
The Indian, who was approaching them, had by this time caught a view of them, and was running to camp to spread the news. “I had,” says the older, “now no doubt that the approaching company were Mohaves, and I was half inclined to improve the excitement and carelessness that would prevail for a while after their coming among us, to slip away, taking good care to make sure of a piece of meat, a few roots, and something to kill myself with if I should find myself about falling into the hands of pursuers. But in more sober moments we thought it well that this fear of being again caught, and of torture they would be sure to inflict, if we should be unsuccessful, kept us from such a desperate step. The Mohave party are now descending a slope to the Apache village, and roaring, yelling, and dancing prevail through the gathering crowd of Apaches. The party consisted of five men, and a young woman under twenty years. It was not long ere two of the chiefs came to us, and told us that these Mohaves had come after us, according to a contract made with them at a previous visit; that the party had been back to obtain the sanction of Espaniole, the Mohave chief, to the contract, and that now the chief had sent his own daughter to witness to his desire to purchase the white captives. The chief had, however, left it with his daughter to approve or annul the contract that had been made.”
This daughter of the chief was a beautiful, mild, and sympathizing woman. Her conduct and behavior toward these Apache captives bespoke a tutoring, and intelligence, and sweetness of disposition that won their interest at once. She could use the Apache language with fluency, and was thus enabled to talk with the captives for whom she had come. She told her designs to them, and had soon settled it in her mind to approve the contract previously made.