This was too much for the equanimity of Mrs. Dagget. The moans of the guides, with broken limbs, which had already swelled to a frightful size, and the pain which Col. Ansley and her husband strove in vain to conceal, were too harrowing to her woman's nature to permit her to rest quietly in camp that night. She was not long in adopting the seemingly desperate resolution of riding to the Fort and bringing back a nurse and surgeon.
Whispering to her daughter, she informed her of her determination, and quickly saddling the swiftest and freshest of the horses, she led him softly out from the camp, and, mounting, set her face southward, and touched the horse lightly with the whip. The generous beast seemed, by instinct, to understand his rider's errand, and bounded over the wild plain with a kind of cheerful alacrity that rendered unnecessary any further urging.
The sky was overcast, so that she had no stars to guide her course, and was obliged to guess the route which the party had followed from the Fort. By-and-by she struck a trail, which she thought she recognized as the one over which they had come after leaving the Platte River. For four hours she rode forward, the horse not flagging in his steady gallop. According to her calculations, she must have made forty miles of her journey, and she was anticipating that by the break of day she would have made the Fort, when, turning her eyes upward to the left, she saw—through the clouds that had rifted for the first time—the great dipper, and knew at once that instead of riding southward, she had been riding eastward, and must be now at least seventy miles from the Fort, instead of being within twenty miles of it, as she had supposed.
Her horse began to show symptoms of fatigue. She slowed him to a walk as she turned his head to the southwest, and pursued her course sluggishly across the plains. Erelong the blackness of night faded into gray, and then came twilight streaks, which showed her the dreary country she was passing through. It was a vast sandy plain, thinly dotted with sage-bush and other stunted shrubs. The sun rose bright and hot, and, until ten o'clock, she pursued her way not faster than two miles an hour. Her horse now gave out, and refused to move a step. She dismounted and sat down on the sand beside a sage-bush, which partially sheltered her from the sun's rays.
We continue our narrative with Mrs. Dagget's own account of her perilous adventure:—
"For nearly two hours I sat on the ground, while my poor horse feebly staggered from bush to bush, and nibbled at the stunted herbage. I then remounted him and pursued my way, at a snail's pace, towards the Fort. The most serious apprehension I entertained at this moment was that of sun-stroke, as my head was only shielded from the rays by a white handkerchief; my hat had blown off in the conflict with the bears, and, in my distress and anxiety to start for assistance, I had not stopped to look for it. I felt no hunger, but a little after noon, when the burning heat of the sun was reflected with double violence from the hot sand, and the distant ridges of the hills, seen through the ascending vapor, seemed to wave and fluctuate like the unsettled sea, I became faint with thirst, and climbed a tree in hopes of seeing distant smoke or other appearance of a human habitation. But in vain; nothing appeared all around but thick underwood and hillocks of white sand.
"My thirst by this time became insufferable; my mouth was parched and inflamed; a sudden dimness would frequently come over my eyes with other symptoms of fainting; and my horse, being barely able to walk, I began seriously to apprehend that I should perish of thirst. To relieve the burning pain in my mouth or throat, I chewed the leaves of different shrubs, but found them all bitter, and of no real service to me.
"A little before sunset, having reached the top of a gentle rising, I climbed a high tree, from the topmost branches of which I cast a melancholy look over the barren wilderness, but without discovering the most distant trace of a human dwelling. The same dismal uniformity of shrubs and sand everywhere presented itself, and the horizon was as level and uninterrupted as that of the sea.
"Descending from the tree, I found my horse devouring the stubble and brushwood with great avidity, and as I was now too faint to attempt walking, and my horse too fatigued to carry me, I thought it but an act of humanity, and perhaps the last I should ever have it in my power to perform, to take off his bridle and let him shift for himself; in doing which I was suddenly affected with sickness and giddiness, and falling upon the sand, I felt as if the hour of death was fast approaching.
"'Here then,' thought I, after a short but ineffectual struggle, 'terminates all my hopes of being useful in my day and generation; here must the short span of my life come to an end!' I cast (as I believed) a last look on the surrounding scene, and whilst I reflected on the awful change that was to take place, this world with its enjoyments seemed to vanish from my recollection. Nature, however, at length resumed its functions; and on recovering my senses, I found myself stretched upon the sand, with the bridle still in my hand, and the sun just sinking behind the trees. I now summoned all my resolution, and determined to make another effort to prolong my existence. And as the evening was somewhat cool, I resolved to travel as far as my limbs would carry me, in hopes of reaching (my only resource) a watering place.