“Night came on and with it the gathering of a large concourse of Indians, their brown, stout wives and daughters, and swarms of little ones whose faces and bare limbs would have suggested anything else sooner than the near vicinity of clear water, or their knowledge of its use for purifying purposes.
“The Indians were mostly tall, stout, with large heads, broad faces, and of a much more intelligent appearance than the Apaches. Bark-clad, where clad at all, the scarcity of their covering indicating either a warm climate or a great destitution of the clothing material, or something else.
“Their conduct during that night of wild excitement, was very different from that by which our coming among the Apaches was celebrated. That was one of selfish iron-hearted fiends, glutting over a murderous, barbarous deed of death and plunder; this was that of a company of indolent, superstitious, and lazy heathen, adopting the only method which their darkness and ignorance would allow to signify their joy over the return of kindred and the delighted purchase of two foreign captives. They placed us out upon the green, and in the light of a large, brisk fire, and kept up their dancing, singing, jumping, and shouting, until near the break of day.
“After they had dispersed, and that night of tears, and the bitterest emotions, and most torturing remembrances of the past, and reflections of our present had nearly worn away, with bleeding feet, worn in places almost to the bone, with aching limbs, beneath a thin covering, side by side, little Mary Ann and myself lay us down upon a sand bed to meditate upon sleep. A few hours were spent in conversation, conducted in a low whisper, with occasional moments of partial drowsiness, haunted with wild, frantic dreams.”
Though five years separate that time and the present, where is the heart but throbs sensitive to the dark, prison-like condition of these two girls. Look at their situation, the scenes around; having reached a strange tribe by a toilsome, painful ten days’ journey, the sufferings of which were almost insupportable and life consuming, having been for nearly the whole night of their introduction to a new captivity made the subjects of shouting and confusion, heathenish, indelicate, and indecent, and toward morning hiding themselves under a scanty covering, surrounded by unknown savages; whispering into each other’s ears the hopes, fears, and impressions of their new condition. Coveting sleep, but every touch of its soft hand upon their moistened eyelids turned to torture and hideousness by scary visions and dreams; harassed in mind over the uncertainty and doubt haunting their imaginations, as to the probable purposes of their new possessors in all their painstaking to secure a transfer of the captives to them. It is true that less of barbarity had marked the few days of their dependence upon their new owners, than their Apache hardships; but they had sadly learned already that under friendly guises their possible treachery might be wrapping and nursing some foul and murderous design.
Plunged now into the depths of a wild country, where the traces of a white foot would be sought in vain for hundreds of miles, and at such a distance from the nearest route of the hurrying emigrant, as to preclude almost the traveling of hope to their exile and gloom; it is no marvel that these few hours allotted to sleep at the latter part of the night, were disturbed by such questions as these: Why have they purchased us? What labor or service do they intend subjecting us to? Have they connived with our former masters to remove us still further from the habitations of our countrymen, and sought to plunge us so deep in these mountain defiles, that they may solace themselves with that insatiate revenge upon our race which will encounter any hardship rather than allow us the happiness of a return to our native land? No marvel that they could not drive away such thoughts, though a lacerated body was praying for balmy sleep, “nature’s sweet restorer.”
Mary Ann, the youngest, a little girl of eight years, had been declining in health and strength for some time. She had almost starved on that long road, kept up principally by a small piece of meat. For over three hundred miles had she come, climbing rocks, traversing sun-burned gravel and sand, marking the way by bleeding feet, sighs, and piteous moanings; well-nigh breaking the heart of her older sister, whose deepest anguish was the witnessing of these sufferings that she could not relieve. She was not inclined to complain; nay, she was given to a patient reserve that would bear her grief alone, sooner than trouble her loved sister with it. She had from infancy been the favorite child of the family; the only one of a frail constitution, quickest to learn, and best to remember; and often, when at home, and the subject of disease and pain, exhibiting a meekness, judgment, and fortitude beyond her years. She was tenderly loved by the whole family; nursed by her fond mother with a delicacy and concern bestowed on none of the rest; and now bound to the heart of her only sister by a tie strengthened by mutual sufferings, and that made her every woe and sigh a dagger to the heart of Olive. No marvel that the latter should say: “Poor girl, I love her tenderly, ardently; and now to see her driven forth whole days, with declining health, at a pace kept up by these able-bodied Indians; to see her climb rugged cliffs, at times upon her hands and knees, struggling up where others could walk, the sweat coursing down freely from her pearly-white forehead; to hear her heave those half-suppressed sighs; to see the steps of those little bleeding feet totter and falter; to see the big tears standing out of her eyes, glistening as if in the borrowed light of a purer home; to see her turn at times and bury her head in some of the tattered furs wrapped about a part of her person, and weeping alone, and then come to me, saying: ‘How far, dear Olive, must we yet go?’ To hear her ask, and ask in vain, for bread, for meat, for water, for something to eat, when nothing but their laziness denied her request; these were sights and scenes I pray God to deliver me from in future! O that I could blot out the impression they have indelibly written upon my mind!
“‘But we are now here, and must make the best of it,’ was the interruption made the next morning to memories and thoughts like the above. We were narrowly watched, and with an eye and jealousy that seemed to indicate some design beyond and unlike the one that was avowed to move them to purchase us, and to shut out all knowledge of the way back to our race. We found the location and scenery of our new home much pleasanter than the one last occupied. The valley extended about thirty or forty miles, northeast by southwest, and varying from two to five miles in width. Through its whole length flowed the beautiful Colorado, in places a rapid, leaping stream, in others making its way quietly, noiselessly over a deeper bed. It varied, like all streams whose sources are in immediate mountains, in depth, at different seasons of the year. During the melting of the snows that clothed the mountain-tops to the north, when we came among the Mohaves, it came roaring and thundering along its rock-bound banks, threatening the whole valley, and doing some damage.
“We found the Mohaves accustomed to the tillage of the soil to a limited extent, and in a peculiar way. And it was a season of great rejoicing when the Colorado overflowed, as it was only after overflows that they could rely upon their soil for a crop. In the autumn they planted the wheat carefully in hills with their fingers, and in the spring they planted corn, melons, and a few garden vegetables. They had, however, but a few notions, and these were crude, about agriculture. They were utterly without skill or art in any useful calling. When we first arrived among them the wheat sown the previous fall had come up, and looked green and thrifty, though it did not appear, nor was it, sufficient to maintain one-fifth of their population. They spent more time in raising twenty spears of wheat from one hill, than was necessary to have cultivated one acre, with the improvements they might and should have learned in the method of doing it. It was to us, however, an enlivening sight to see even these scattered parcels of grain growing, clothing sections of their valley. It was a remembrancer, and reminded us of home, (now no more ours,) and placed us in a nearness to the customs of a civilized mode of life that we had not realized before.