“J. Neely Johnson.”
Accordingly, and in accordance with the above suggestion, a preamble stating the facts, and a petition numerously signed, was drawn up and left at the office at the Steamer Landing to be forwarded to Washington. “Two days after,” says Lorenzo, “I had resigned myself to patient waiting for a return of that petition, and went to work at some distance from the Monte in the woods.” He was still musing upon the one object of the last five years’ solicitude. A new light had broken in upon his anxious heart. He had now some reliable information of the probable existence, though in a barbarous captivity, of those who were bound to him by the strongest ties.
He was left now to hope for their rescue, but not without painful fears lest something might yet intervene to prevent the realization of his new expectations. While thus engaged, alone and in the solitude of his thoughts, as well as of the wilderness, a friend rode up to him, and without speaking handed him a copy of the “Los Angeles Star,” pointing at the same time to a notice contained in it. He opened it, and read as follows:
“An American Woman rescued from the Indians!—A woman, giving her name as Miss Olive Oatman, has been recently rescued from the Mohaves, and is now at Fort Yuma.”
After getting this short note he took a horse and went immediately to Los Angeles. He went to the editor, and found that a letter had been received by him from Commander Burke, at Fort Yuma, stating that a young woman, calling herself “Olive Oatman,” had been recently brought into the fort by a Yuma Indian, who had been rescued from the Mohave tribe; also stating to the editor that she had a brother who had lately been in this vicinity, and requesting the editor to give the earliest possible notice to that brother of the rescue of his sister. Lorenzo says:
“I requested him to let me see the letter, which he did. When I came to the facts contained in it concerning my sister, I could read no further; I was completely overcome. I laughed, I cried, I half doubted, I believed. It did not seem to be a reality. I now thought I saw a speedy realization, in part, of my long cherished hopes. I saw no mention of Mary Ann, and at once concluded that the first report obtained by way of Fort Yuma, by Yuma Indians, was probably sadly true, that but one was alive. Too well founded were the fears I then had that poor Mary Ann had died among the savages, either by disease or cruelty.
“I was without money or means to get to the fort; but there were those who from the first had cherished a deep and active sympathy with me, and who were ready to do all in their power to aid me in my sorrow-strewn efforts for enslaved kindred.
“This same Mr. Low who had rode from Los Angeles to me near the Monte, kindly told me that he would assist me to obtain animals and get them ready for me, and that he would accompany me to Fort Yuma.”
Thus outfitted, though not without much trembling and anxiety, questioning as to the certainty and reality of the reports, and of the rescued person really being his sister, yet feeling it must be true; with good hope he and Mr. Low were away early on the bright morning of the 10th of March for Fort Yuma, a distance of two hundred and fifty miles.