Who can attempt to measure the deep horror and anguish of soul, of a young woman in such hands! May kind Heaven prevent a like affliction to any of his sinful children. Her bitter weeping whenever the Indian spoke of killing her father had the effect only to induce him to propose to exchange her to another Indian who held another of the captive young women as a wife.
Why Mr. Kimble did not attempt to make his escape on Monday night, or why, after having livd out the day on Tuesday, he did not remain in his retreat till dark and then escape, is not known. He was heard to say on Monday night, “It matters but little when we die if we are but prepard.” Perhaps the pain of his arm took away the strength of resolution. Perhaps he chose rather to die in the bosom of his family, than to make the uncertain attempt to save his life, which could only be a living death while wife and children remaind captives in the hands of the murderers, the sport of their beastly passions, the victims of their cruelty. For a stranger to reach my place one hundred and twenty miles, traveling nights, there was no reasonable hope, and if he could, he might end the nights of travel and pain and days of watching and hunger only to mingle his own with the dead bodies of the slain of that station—for what mind could divine where the work of superstition would end, which had no power to fear, and many inducements to go forward?
The Dalls were equally hopeless for like reasons.
Fort Walla-walla could afford a safe retreat, but unfortunately it was in the hands of Papists, for whom Mr. K. had the strongest fears as he expresd himself to me the week before his death—for no other reason can we account for his not fleeing to that fort Monday night. Had he done so, it is not probable the fate of poor Mr. Hall would have stood alone upon the page of history, to teach our children that Romanism is in practice what it is in theory, UNCHANGEABLE.
No horse arriving, Mr. Camfield left his hiding-place, and wound his way up the narrow skirt of brush till he came to what he supposd to be the trail to my place, about dark. In a country cut up with trails, Providence directed his feet to the right one, which he pursued that night and the next day, when Wednesday night found him in the deep valley of the Taka-nan, where he slept.
Thursday he followd the fresh tracks of cattle, which brought him at night to the brink of Snake River bluffs, some miles below the regular route.
Friday morning he came to the river, and having no fear from the Nez Perces, he calld to their camp on the opposite side and was crossd over. The Indian driving the cattle conducted Mr. C. to my house upon one of his horses, for which he requird his buffalo robe. That night they staid in a camp on the Clear Water, nine miles below my house.
Intelligence of the massacre had not yet reachd the Nez Perces, and Mr. C. was careful to avoid any intimation. Had it been known in any of these camps, he would have been killd.
Saturday late in the afternoon, Mr. C. reachd my house and communicated to Mrs. Spalding the horrible intelligence of the massacre, aggravated by the probability that the body of her husband had been added to the slain, as he supposd, from the report of the guns on Tuesday. If not slain at that time, there was no human probability that I could escape. Five days had already elapsd and I had not arrivd, which made it quite certain that I had been killd.
The case, of itself sufficient to overwhelm the stoutest soul, was greatly aggravated by the fact, that her daughter was a captive in the hands of the murderers of her husband, who would proceed immediately to that defenseless station, to add her brother and the other Americans at the station, to the number of the dead, and herself and remaining children, to the already long catalogue of living victims of the savage cruelties.