
WOMAN ON THE AMERICAN FRONTIER.

A Valuable and Authentic History

OF THE HEROISM, ADVENTURES, PRIVATIONS, CAPTIVITIES, TRIALS, AND NOBLE
LIVES AND DEATHS OF THE "PIONEER MOTHERS OF THE REPUBLIC."

By WILLIAM W. FOWLER, M.A.

ILLUSTRATED WITH NUMEROUS ENGRAVINGS.




PREFACE.


The history of our race is the record mainly of men's achievements, in war,
in statecraft and diplomacy. If mention is made of woman it is of queens
and intriguing beauties who ruled and schemed for power and riches, and
often worked mischief and ruin by their wiles.

The story of woman's work in great migrations has been told only in lines
and passages where it ought instead to fill volumes. Here and there
incidents and anecdotes scattered through a thousand tomes give us glimpses
of the wife, the mother, or the daughter as a heroine or as an angel of
kindness and goodness, but most of her story is a blank which never will be
filled up. And yet it is precisely in her position as a pioneer and
colonizer that her influence is the most potent and her life story most
interesting.

The glory of a nation consists in its migrations and the colonies it plants
as well as in its wars of conquest. The warrior who wins a battle deserves
a laurel no more rightfully than the pioneer who leads his race into the
wilderness and builds there a new empire.

The movement which has carried our people from the Atlantic to the Pacific
Ocean and in the short space of two centuries and a half has founded the
greatest republic which the world ever saw, has already taken its place in
history as one of the grandest achievements of humanity since the world
began. It is a moral as well as a physical triumph, and forms an epoch in
the advance of civilization. In this grand achievement, in this triumph of
physical and moral endurance, woman must be allowed her share of the honor.

It would be a truism, if we were to say that our Republic would not have
been founded without her aid. We need not enlarge on the necessary position
which she fills in human society every where. We are to speak of her now as
a soldier and laborer, a heroine and comforter in a peculiar set of dangers
and difficulties such as are met with in our American wilderness. The
crossing of a stormy ocean, the reclamation of the soil from nature, the
fighting with savage men are mere generalities wherein some vague idea may
be gained of true pioneer life. But it is only by following woman in her
wanderings and standing beside her in the forest or in the cabin and by
marking in detail the thousand trials and perils which surround her in such
a position that we can obtain the true picture of the heroine in so many
unmentioned battles.

The recorded sum total of an observation like this would be a noble
history of human effort. It would show us the latent causes from which
have come extraordinary effects. It would teach us how much this republic
owes to its pioneer mothers, and would fill us with gratitude and
self-congratulation--gratitude for their inestimable services to our
country and to mankind, self-congratulation in that we are the lawful
inheritors of their work, and as Americans are partakers in their glory.

In the preparation of this work particular pains have been taken to avoid
what was trite and hackneyed, and at the same time preserve historic truth
and accuracy. Use has been made to a limited extent of the ancient border
books, selecting the most note-worthy incidents which never grow old
because they illustrate a heroism, that like "renown and grace cannot die."
Thanks are due to Mrs. Ellet, from whose interesting book entitled "Women
of the Revolution," a few passages have been culled. The stories of Mrs.
Van Alstine, of Mrs. Slocum, Mrs. McCalla, and Dicey Langston, and of
Deborah Samson, are condensed from her accounts of those heroines.

A large portion of the work is, however, composed of incidents which will
be new to the reader. The eye-witnesses of scenes which have been lately
enacted upon the border have furnished the writer with materials for many
of the most thrilling stories of frontier life, and which it has been his
aim to spread before the reader in this work.




ILLUSTRATIONS.


A VIRGINIA MATRON ENCOURAGING THE PATRIOTISM OF HER SONS AT THE DEATH-BED
OF THEIR FATHER,

LOST IN A SNOW STORM,

THE HUNTRESS OF THE LAKES SURPRISED BY INDIANS,

A HEROIC EXPLOIT IN SUPPLYING WITH POWDER A BLOCK-HOUSE BESIEGED BY
INDIANS,

DARING EXPLOIT OF MISS VAN ALSTINE,

FOOD AND CLOTHING SUPPLIED TO THE REVOLUTIONARY ARMY BY PATRIOTIC WOMEN,

PERILOUS CROSSING OF THE ALLEGHANY RIVER,

WAGON TRAIN ON THE PRAIRIE,

STRATAGEM OF MRS. DAVIESS IN CAPTURING A KENTUCKY ROBBER,

TWO KENTUCKY GIRLS CAPTURED BY INDIANS,

PARTED FOR EVER,

AN EQUESTRIAN FEAT,

TREED BY A BEAR,

RESCUING A HUSBAND FROM WOLVES,

DEFEAT OF GUERILLAS,

MASTERING BANDITS,




CONTENTS


CHAPTER I.

WOMAN AS A PIONEER,
 America's Unnamed Heroines.
 Maids and Matrons of the "<i>Mayflower</i>."
 Woman's Work in Early Days.
 Devotion and Self-sacrifice.
 Strange Story of Mrs. Hendee.
 Face to Face with the Indians.
 A Mother's Love Triumphant
 Woman among the Savages.
 The Massacre of Wyoming.
 Sufferings of a Forsaken Household.
 The Patriot Matron and her Children.
 The Acmé of Heroism.
 Adventures of an English Traveler.
 Woman in the Rocky Mountains.
 A Story of a Lonely Life.
 Nocturnal Visitors and their Reception.
 Life in the Far West.
 Mrs. Manning's Home in Montana,
 Female Emigrants on the Plains.
 A True Heroine.


CHAPTER II.

WOMAN'S WORK IN FLOODS AND STORMS,
 The Frontier two Centuries ago.
 The Pioneer Army.
 The Pilgrim "Mothers."
 Story of Margaret Winthrop.
 Danger in the Wilderness.
 A Reckless Husband and a Watchful Wife.
 Lost in a Snow-storm.
 The Beacon-fire at Midnight.
 Saved by a Woman.
 Mrs. Noble's Terrible Story.
 Alone with Famine and Death.
 A Legend of the Connecticut.
 What befel the Nash Family.
 Three Heroic Women.
 In Flood and Storm.
 A Tale of the Prairies.
 A Western Settler and her Fate.
 Battling with an Unseen Enemy.
 Emerging from the Valley of the Shadow.
 Heartbroken and Alone.


CHAPTER III.

EARLY PIONEERS.--WOMAN'S ADVENTURES AND HEROISM,
 In the Maine Wilderness.
 Voyaging up the Kennebec.
 The Huntress of the Lakes.
 Extraordinary Story of Mrs. Trevor.
 Two Hundred Miles from Civilization.
 Sleeping in a Birch-bark Canoe.
 A Fight with Five Savages.
 A Victorious Heroine.
 The Trail of a Lost Husband.
 Only just in Time.
 A Narrow Escape,
 Voyaging in an Ice-boat.
 Snow-bound in a Cave.
 Fighting for Food.
 Grappling with a Forest Monster.
 Mrs. Storey, the Forester.
 Alida Johnson's Thrilling Narrative.
 Caught in a Death-trap.
 A Desperate Measure and its Result.
 The Connecticut Settlers.
 Their Courage and Heroism.


CHAPTER IV.

ON THE INDIAN TRAIL
 A Block-house Attacked.
 Wild Pictures of Indian Warfare.
 Exploits of Mrs. Howe.
 A Pioneer Woman's Record.
 Holding the Fort alone.
 Treacherous "Lo."
 Witnessing a Husband's Tortures.
 The Beautiful Victim.
 Forced to Carry a Mother's Scalp.
 The Fate of the Glendennings.
 A Feast and a Massacre.
 Led into Captivity.
 Elizabeth Lane's Adventures.
 In Ambush.
 Siege of Bryant's Station.
 Outwitting the Savages.
 Mrs. Porter's Combat with the Indians.
 Ghastly Trophies of her Prowess.
 "Long Knife Squaw."
 Smoking out Redskins.
 The Widows of Innis Station.
 A Daring Achievement.
 The Amazon of the Stockade.


CHAPTER V.

CAPTIVE SCOUTS--HEROINES OF THE MOHAWK VALLEY,
 The Poetry of Border Life.
 Mrs. Mack in her Forest Fort.
 The Ambush in the Cornfield.
 The Night-watch at the Port-hole.
 A Shot in the Dark.
 The Hiding Place of her Little Ones.
 A Sad Discovery.
 An Avenger on the Track.
 Massy Herbeson's Strange Story.
 On the Trail.
 Miss Washburn and the Scouts.
 An Extraordinary <i>Rencontre</i>.
 A Wild Fight with the Savages.
 Mysterious Aid.
 Passing through an Indian Village.
 Hairbreadth Escapes.
 Courageous Conduct of Mrs. Van Alstine.
 Settlements on the Mohawk.
 Circumventing a Robber Band.
 How she Saved him.
 The Pioneer Woman at Home.


CHAPTER VI.

PATRIOT WOMEN OF THE REVOLUTION
 Times that Tried Men's Souls.
 The Women of Wyoming.
 Silas Deane's Sister.
 Mrs. Corbin, the Cannoneer.
 A Heroine on the Gun-deck.
 The Schoharie Girl.
 Women of the Mohawk Wars.
 Concerning a Curious Siege.
 The Patriot Daughter and the Bloody Scouts.
 What she Dared him to do.
 Brave Deeds of Mary Ledyard.
 Ministering Angels.
 Heroism of "Mother Bailey."
 Petticoats and Cartridges.
 A Thrilling Incident of Valley Forge.
 Ready-witted Ladies.
 Miss Geiger, the Courier.
 How Miss Darrah Saved the Army.
 Adventures of McCalla's Wife.
 Love and Constancy.
 A Clergyman's Story of his Mother.


CHAPTER VII.

GOING WEST.--PERILS BY THE WAY,
 After the Revolution.
 Starting for the Mississippi.
 Curious Methods of Migration.
 A Modern Exodus.
 Incidents on the Route.
 Wonderful Story of Mrs. Jameson.
 Forsaking all for Love.
 A Woman with One Idea.
 That Fatal Stream.
 Alone in the Wilderness.
 A Glimpse of the Enemy.
 Strength of a Mother's Love,
 Saved from a Rattlesnake.
 Individual Enterprise.
 Migrating in a Flat-boat.
 A Night of Peril on the Ohio River.
 Terrifying Sounds and Sights.
 A Fiery Scene of Savage Orgies.
 Coolness and Daring of a Mother.
 An Extraordinary Line of Mothers and Daughters.
 A Pioneer Pedigree and its Heroines.


CHAPTER VIII.

HOME LIFE IN THE BACKWOODS,
 The Nomads of the West.
 Romance of a Pioneer's March.
 How the Cabin was Built.
 Where Mrs. Graves Concealed her Babes.
 Husband and Wife at Home.
 Rather Rough Furniture.
 Forest Fortresses.
 Fighting for her Children.
 Mrs. Fulsom and the Ambushed Savage.
 Domestic Life on the Border.
 From a Wedding to a Funeral.
 Among the Beasts and Savages.
 Little Ones in the Wilds.
 Woman takes Care of Herself.
 Ann Bush's Sorrows.
 The Bright Side of the Picture.
 Western Hospitality.
 A Traveler's Story.
 "Evangeline" on the Frontier.
 An Eden of the Wilderness and its Eve.


CHAPTER IX.

SOME REMARKABLE WOMEN,
 Diary of a Heroine.
 The Border Maid, Wife, Mother, and Widow.
 Strange Vicissitudes in the Life of Mrs. W.
 Adopted by an Indian Tribe.
 Shrewd Plan of Escape.
 The Hiding-place in the Glen.
 Surprised and Surrounded, but Safe.
 Successful Issue of her Enterprise.
 Mrs. Marliss and her Strategy.
 Combing the Wool over a Savage's Eyes.
 Marking the Trail.
 A Captive's Cunning Devices.
 A Pursuit and a Rescue.
 Extraordinary Presence of Mind.
 A Robber captured by a Woman.
 A Brave, Good Girl.
 Helping "the Lord's People."
 A Home of Love in the Wilderness.
 A Singular Courtship.
 The Benevolent Matron and her Errand.
 Story of the Pioneer Quakeress.


CHAPTER X.

A ROMANCE OF THE BORDER,
 The Honeymoon in the Mountains.
 United in Life and in Death.
 A Devoted Lover.
 Capture of Two Young Ladies.
 Discovery and Rescue.
 The Captain and the Maid at the Mill.
 The Chase Family in Trouble.
 The Romance of a Young Girl's Life.
 Danger in the Wind.
 Hunter and Lover.
 Treacherous Savages.
 Old Chase Knocked Over.
 The Fight on the Plains.
 An Unexpected Meeting.
 Heroism of La Bonte.
 The Guard of Love.
 The Marriage of Mary.
 Miss Rouse and her Lover.
 A Bridal and a Massacre.
 Brought back to Life but not to Joy.
 A Fruitless Search for a Lost Bride.
 Mrs. Philbrick's Singular Experience.


CHAPTER XI

PATHETIC SCENES OF PIONEER LIFE,
 Grief in the Pioneer's Home.
 Graves in the Wilderness.
 The Returned Captive and the Nursery Song.
 The Lost Child of Wyoming
 Little Frances and her Indian Captors.
 Parted For Ever.
 Discovery of the Lost One.
 An Affecting Interview.
 Striking Story of the Kansas War.
 The Prairie on Fire.
 Mother and Children Alone.
 Homeless and Helpless.
 Solitude, Famine, and Cold.
 Three Fearful Days.
 The Burning Cabin.
 A Gathering Storm.
 A Dream of Home and Happiness.
 Return of Father and Son.
 A Love Stronger than Death.
 The Last Embrace.
 A Desolate Household.


CHAPTER XII.

THE HEROINES OF THE SOUTH WEST,
 Texas and the South West.
 Across the "Staked Plain."
 Mrs. Drayton and Mrs. Benham.
 A Perilous Journey.
 Sunstrokes and Reptiles.
 Death From Thirst
 Mexican Bandits.
 A Night Gallop to the Rendezvous.
 Escape of our Heroines.
 A Ride for Life.
 Saving Husband and Children.
 Surrounded by Brigands on the Pecos.
 Heroism of Mrs. Benham.
 The Treacherous Envoy.
 The Gold Hunters of Arizona.
 Mrs. D. and her Dearly Bought Treasure.
 Battling for Life in the California Desert.
 The Last Survivor of a Perilous Journey.
 Mrs. L., the Widow of the Colorado.
 Among the Camanches.
 A Prodigious Equestrian Feat.


CHAPTER XIII.

WOMAN'S EXPERIENCE ON THE NORTHERN BORDER,
 March of the "Grand Army"
 Peculiar Perils of the Northern Border.
 Mrs. Dalton's Record.
 A Dangerous Expedition.
 Her Husband's Fate.
 A Trance of Grief.
 Between Frost and Fire.
 A Choice of Deaths.
 Rescued from the Flames.
 One Sunny Hour.
 The Storm-Fiend.
 Terrific Spectacle.
 In the Whirlwind's Track.
 The Only Refuge.
 Locked in a Dungeon.
 A Fight for Deliverance.
 Arrival of Friends.
 Another Peril.
 Walled in by Flames.
 Passing Through a Fiery Lane.
 Closing Days of Mrs. Dalton.
 A Story of Minnesota.
 What the Hunters Saw.
 A Mother's Deathless Love.


CHAPTER XIV.

ENCOUNTERS WITH WILD BEASTS--COURAGE AND DARING,
 Personal Combat with a Bear.
 The Huntress of the Northwest.
 An Intrepid Wife and her Assailant.
 Combat with an Enraged Moose.
 A Bloody Circus in the Snow.
 Trapping Wolves--a Georgia Girl's Pluck.
 A Kentucky Girl's Adventure.
 A Wild Pack in Pursuit.
 The Snapping of a Black Wolf's Jaws.
 Female Strategy and its Success.
 A Cabin Full of Wolves.
 Comical Denouement.
 A Young Lady Treed by a Bear.
 Some of Mrs. Dagget's Exploits.
 Up the Platte, and After the Grizzlies.
 Catching a Bear with a Lasso.
 What a Brave Woman Can Do.
 Facing Death in the Desert.
 A Woman's Home in Wyoming.
 A Night with a Mountain Lion.


CHAPTER XV.

ACROSS THE CONTINENT.--ON THE PLAINS,
 Voyaging in a Prairie Schooner.
 A Cavalry Officer's Story.
 The Homeless Wanderer of the Plains.
 Mrs. N. Battling alone with Death.
 A Fatherless and Childless Home.
 The Plagues of Egypt.
 Murrain, Grasshoppers, and Famine.
 Following a Forlorn Hope.
 A Bridal Tour and its Ending.
 On the Borders of the Great Desert.
 An Extraordinary Experience.
 Women Living in Caves.
 A Waterspout and its Consequences.
 Drowning in a Drought.
 Fleeing from Death.
 A Woman's Partnership in a Herd of Buffaloes.
 The Huntress of the Foot-hills.
 A Charge by Ten Thousand Bison.
 Hiding in a Sink-hole.
 A Terrible Danger and a Miraculous Escape.
 A Prairie Home and its Mistress.


CHAPTER XVI.

WOMAN AS A MISSIONARY TO THE INDIANS,
 The Heroine and Martyr among the Heathen.
 Mrs. Eliot and her Tawny Protegés.
 Five Thousand Praying Indians.
 Mrs. Kirkland among the Oneidas.
 Prayer-meetings in Wigwams.
 The Psalm-singing Squaws.
 A Revolutionary Matron and her Story.
 A Pioneer Sunday-school and its Teacher.
 The Last of the Mohegans and their Benefactors.
 Heroism of the Moravian Sisters.
 The Guardians of the Pennsylvania Frontier.
 A Gathering Storm.
 Prayer-meetings and Massacres.
 Surrounded by Flame and Carnage.
 An Unexpected Assault.
 The Fate of the Defenders.
 A Fiery Martyrdom.
 Last Scene in a Noble Life.
 Closing Days of Gnadenhutten.
 Massacre of Indian Converts.
 The Death Hymn and Parting Prayer.


CHAPTER XVII.

WOMAN AS A MISSIONARY TO THE INDIANS, (CONTINUED),
 Missionary Wives Crossing the Rocky Mountains.
 Buried Alive in the Snow.
 Shooting the Rapids in a Birch Canoe.
 Sucked Down by a Whirlpool.
 A Fearful Situation and its Issue.
 A Brace of Heroines and their Expedition.
 Women Doubling Cape Horn.
 A Parting Hymn and Long Farewell.
 A Missionary Wife's Experience in Oregon.
 All Alone with the Wolves.
 A Woman's Instinct in the Hour of Danger.
 Dr. White's Dilemma and its Solution.
 A Clean Pair of Heels and a Convenient Tree.
 A Perilous Voyage and its Consequences.
 A Heartrending Catastrophe.
 A Mother's Lost Treasure.
 A Savage Coterie and the White Stranger.
 Mrs. Whitman and Mrs. Spalding.
 A Murderous Suspicion.
 The Benefactress and the Martyr.


CHAPTER XVIII.

WOMAN IN THE ARMY,
 The Daughter of the Regiment.
 A Loving Wife and a True Patriot.
 Mrs. Warner in the Canadian Campaign.
 The Disguised Couriers.
 Deborah Samson in Buff and Blue.
 A Woman in Love with a Woman.
 A Wound in Front and what it Led to.
 Mrs. Coolidge's Campaign in New Mexico.
 Bearing Dispatches Across the Plains.
 A Fight with Guerillas.
 A Race for Life.
 Two against Five.
 Frontier Women in our Last Great War.
 Their Exploits and Devotion.
 Miss Wellman as Soldier and Nurse.
 The Secret Revealed.
 A Noble Life.
 A Devoted Wife.
 Life in a Confederate Fort.
 The Little Soldier and her Story.
 A Sister's Love.
 The Last Sacrifice.


CHAPTER XIX.

ACROSS THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS,
 A Woman's Adventures on the Platte River.
 On a False Trail, and What it Led To.
 Over a Precipice, and Down a Thousand Feet.
 All Alone on the Face of the Mountain.
 Mrs. Hinman's Extraordinary Situation.
 Swinging Between Heaven and Earth.
 What a Loving Wife Will Do.
 Living or Dying Beside her Husband.
 A Night on the Edge of a Precipice.
 Out of the Jaws of Death.
 The Two Fugitive Women of the Chapparel.
 A Secret Too Dreadful to be Told.
 The Specters of the Mountain Camp.
 Maternal Sacrifice and Filial Love.
 The Cannibals of the Canon.
 The Insane Hunter and his Victims.
 A Woman's Only Alternative.
 Female Endurance <i>vs</i>. Male Courage.
 Mrs. Donner's Sublime Devotion.
 Dying at her Post of Duty.


CHAPTER XX.

THE COMFORTER AND THE GUARDIAN,
 The Ruined Home and its Heroine.
 The Angel of the Sierra Nevada.
 Mrs. Maurice and the Dying Miners.
 The Music of a Woman's Word.
 The Young Gold Hunter and his Nurse.
 Starving Camp in Idaho.
 The Song in the Ears of the Dying.
 The Seven Miners and their Golden Gift.
 A Graveyard of Pioneer Women.
 Mrs. R. and her Wounded Husband.
 The Guardian Mother of the Island.
 The Female Navigator and the Pirate.
 A Life-boat Manned by a Girl.
 A Night of Peril.
 A Den of Murderers and an Unsullied Maiden.
 The Freezing Soldiers of Montana.
 A Despairing Cry and its Echo.
 The Storm-Angel's Visit.


CHAPTER XXI.

WOMAN AS AN EDUCATOR ON THE FRONTIER,
 A Mother of Soldiers and Statesmen.
 A Home-school on the Border.
 The Prairie Mother and her Four Children.
 A Garden for Human Plants and Flowers.
 The First Lesson of the Boy and Girl on the Frontier.
 The Wife's School in the Heart of the Rocky Mountains.
 A Leaf from the Life of Washington.
 The Hero-Mothers of the Republic.
 A Patriot Woman and a Martyr.
 A Mother's Influence on the Life of Andrew Jackson.
 Woman's Discernment of a Boy's Genius.
 West, the Painter, and Webster, the Statesman.
 The Place where our Great Men Learned A. B. C.
 Miss M. and her Labors in Illinois.
 A Martyrdom in the Cause of Education.
 Woman as an Educator of Human Society.
 Incident in the Life of a Millionaire.
 What a Mother's Portrait Did.
 A Woman's Visit to "Pandemonium Camp."
 An Angel of Civilization.




CHAPTER I.

WOMAN AS A PIONEER


Every battle has its unnamed heroes. The common soldier enters the stormed
fortress and, falling in the breach which his valor has made, sleeps in a
nameless grave. The subaltern whose surname is scarcely heard beyond the
roll-call on parade, bears the colors of his company where the fight is
hottest. And the corporal who heads his file in the final charge, is
forgotten in the "earthquake shout" of the victory which he has helped to
win. The victory may be due as much, or more, to the patriot courage of him
who is content to do his duty in the rank and file, as to the dashing
colonel who heads the regiment, or even to the general who plans the
campaign: and yet unobserved, unknown, and unrewarded the former passes
into oblivion while the leader's name is on every tongue, and perhaps goes
down in history as that of one who deserved well of his country.

Our comparison is a familiar one. There are other battles and armies
besides those where thousands of disciplined men move over the ground to
the sounds of the drum and fife. Life itself is a battle, and no grander
army has ever been set in motion since the world began than that which for
more than two centuries and a half has been moving across our continent
from the Atlantic to the Pacific, fighting its way through countless
hardships and dangers, bearing the banner of civilization, and building a
new republic in the wilderness.

In this army WOMAN HAS BEEN TOO OFTEN THE UNNAMED HEROINE.

Let us not forget her now. Her patience, her courage, her fortitude, her
tact, her presence of mind in trying hours; these are the shining virtues
which we have to record. Woman <i>as a pioneer</i> standing beside her
rougher, stronger companion--man; first on the voyage across a stormy
ocean, from England to America; then at Plymouth, and Jamestown, and all
the settlements first planted by Europeans on our Coast; then through the
trackless wilderness, onward across the continent, till every river has
been forded, and every chain of mountains has been scaled, the Peaceful
Ocean has been reached, and fifty thousand cities, towns, and hamlets all
over the land have been formed from those aggregations of household life
where woman's work has been wrought out to its fullness.

Among all the characteristics of woman there is none more marked than the
self-devotion which she displays in what she believes is a righteous cause,
or where for her loved ones she sacrifices herself. In India we see her
wrapped in flames and burned to ashes with the corpse of her husband. Under
the Moslem her highest condition is a life-long incarceration. She
patiently places her shoulders under the burden which the aboriginal lord
of the American forest lays upon them. Calmly and in silence she submits to
the onerous duties imposed upon her by social and religious laws.
Throughout the whole heathen world she remained, in the words of an elegant
French writer, "anonymous, indifferent to herself, and leaving no trace of
her passage upon earth."

The benign spirit of Christianity has lifted woman from the position she
held under other religious systems and elevated her to a higher sphere. She
is brought forward as a teacher; she displays a martyr's courage in the
presence of pestilence, or ascends the deck of the mission-ship to take her
part in "perils among the heathen." She endures the hardships and faces the
dangers of colonial life with a new sense of her responsibility as a wife
and mother. In all these capacities, whether teaching, ministering to the
sick, or carrying the Gospel to the heathen, she shows the same
self-devotion as in "the brave days of old;" it is this quality which
peculiarly fits her to be the pioneer's companion in the new world, and by
her works in that capacity she must be judged.

If all true greatness should be estimated by the good it performs, it is
peculiarly desirable that woman's claims to distinction should thus be
estimated and awarded. In America her presence has been acknowledged, and
her aid faithfully rendered from the beginning. In the era of colonial
life; in the cruel wars with the aborigines; in the struggle of the
Revolution; in the western march of the army of exploration and settlement,
a grateful people must now recognize her services.

There is a beautiful tradition, that the first foot which pressed the
snow-clad rock of Plymouth was that of Mary Chilton, a fair young maiden,
and that the last survivor of those heroic pioneers was Mary Allerton, who
lived to see the planting of twelve out of the thirteen colonies, which
formed the nucleus of these United States.

In the <i>Mayflower</i>, nineteen wives accompanied their husbands to a
waste land and uninhabited, save by the wily and vengeful savage. On the
unfloored hut, she who had been nurtured amid the rich carpets and curtains
of the mother-land, rocked her new-born babe, and complained not. She, who
in the home of her youth had arranged the gorgeous shades of embroidery,
or, perchance, had compounded the rich venison pasty, as her share in the
housekeeping, now pounded the coarse Indian corn for her children's bread,
and bade them ask God's blessing, ere they took their scanty portion. When
the snows sifted through the miserable roof-tree upon her little ones, she
gathered them closer to her bosom; she taught them the Bible, and the
catechism, and the holy hymn, though the war-whoop of the Indian rang
through the wild. Amid the untold hardships of colonial life she infused
new strength into her husband by her firmness, and solaced his weary hours
by her love. She was to him,

  "----an undergoing spirit, to bear up
  Against whate'er ensued."

The names of these nineteen pioneer-matrons should be engraved in letters
of gold on the pillars of American history:

The Wives of the Pilgrims.

  Mrs. Catharine Carver.
  Mrs. Dorothy Bradford.
  Mrs. Elizabeth Winslow.
  Mrs. Mary Brewster.
  Mrs. Mary Allerton.
  Mrs. Elizabeth Hopkins.
  Mrs. ------ Tilley.
  Mrs. ------ Tilley.
  Mrs. ------ Ticker.
  Mrs. ------ Ridgdale.
  Mrs. Rose Standish.
  Mrs. ------ Martin.
  Mrs. ------ Mullins.
  Mrs. Susanna White.
  Mrs. ------ Eaton.
  Mrs. ------ Chilton.
  Mrs. ------ Fuller.
  Mrs. Helen Billington.
  Mrs. Lucretia Brewster.

Nor should the names of the daughters of these heroic women be forgotten,
who, with their mothers and fathers shared the perils of that winter's
voyage, and bore, with their parents, the toils, and hardships, and changes
of the infant colony.

The Daughters of the Pilgrim Mothers.

  Elizabeth Carver.
  Remember Allerton.
  Mary Allerton.
  Sarah Allerton.
  Constance Hopkins.
  Mary Chilton.
  Priscilla Mullins.

The voyage of the <i>Mayflower</i>; the landing upon a desolate coast in
the dead of winter; the building of those ten small houses, with oiled
paper for windows; the suffering of that first winter and spring, in which
woman bore her whole share; these were the first steps in the grand
movement which has carried the Anglo-Saxon race across the American
continent. The next steps were the penetration of the wilderness westward
from the sea, by the emigrant pioneers and their wives. Fighting their way
through dense forests, building cabins, block-houses, and churches in the
clearings which they had made; warred against by cruel savages; woman was
ever present to guard, to comfort, to work. The annals of colonial history
teem with her deeds of love and heroism, and what are those recorded
instances to those which had no chronicler? She loaded the flint-lock in
the block-house while it was surrounded by yelling savages; she exposed
herself to the scalping-knife to save her babe; in her forest-home she
worked and watched, far from the loved ones in Old England; and by
discharging a thousand duties in the household and the field, did her share
in a silent way towards building up the young Republic of the West.

Sometimes she ranged herself in battle beside her husband or brother, and
fought with the steadiness and bravery of a veteran. But her heroism never
shone so brightly as in undergoing danger in defense of her children.

In the early days of the settlement of Royalton, Vermont, a sudden attack
was made upon it by the Indians. Mrs. Hendee, the wife of one of the
settlers, was working alone in the field, her husband being absent on
military duty, when the Indians entered her house and capturing her
children carried them across the White river, at that place a hundred yards
wide and quite deep for fording, and placed them under keepers who had some
other persons, thirty or forty in number, in charge.

Returning from the field Mrs. Hendee discovered the fate of her children.
Her first outburst of grief was heart-rending to behold, but this was only
transient; she ceased her lamentations, and like the lioness who has been
robbed of her litter, she bounded on the trail of her plunderers.
Resolutely dashing into the river, she stemmed the current, planting her
feet firmly on the bottom and pushed across. With pallid face, flashing
eyes, and lips compressed, maternal love dominating every fear, she strode
into the Indian camp, regardless of the tomahawks menacingly flourished
round her head, boldly demanded the release of her little ones, and
persevered in her alternate upbraidings and supplications, till her request
was granted. She then carried her children back through the river and
landed them in safety on the other bank.

Not content with what she had done, like a patriot as she was, she
immediately returned, begged for the release of the children of others,
again was rewarded with success, and brought two or three more away; again
returned, and again succeeded, till she had rescued the whole fifteen of
her neighbors' children who had been thus snatched away from their
distracted parents. On her last visit to the camp of the enemy, the Indians
were so struck with her conduct that one of them declared that so brave a
squaw deserved to be carried across the river, and offered to take her on
his back and carry her over. She, in the same spirit, accepted the offer,
mounted the back of the gallant savage, was carried to the opposite bank,
where she collected her rescued troop of children, and hastened away to
restore them to their overjoyed parents.

During the memorable Wyoming massacre, Mrs. Mary Gould, wife of James
Gould, with the other women remaining in the village of Wyoming, sought
safety in the fort. In the haste and confusion attending this act, she left
her boy, about four years old, behind. Obeying the instincts of a mother,
and turning a deaf ear to the admonitions of friends, she started off on a
perilous search for the missing one. It was dark; she was alone; and the
foe was lurking around; but the agonies of death could not exceed her
agonies of suspense; so she hastened on. She traversed the fields which,
but a few hours before,

  "Were trampled by the hurrying crowd,"

where--

  "----fiery hearts and armed hands,
  Encountered in the battle cloud,"

and where unarmed hands were now resting on cold and motionless hearts.
After a search of between one and two hours, she found her child on the
bank of the river, sporting with a little band of playmates. Clasping her
treasure in her arms, she hurried back and reached the fort in safety.

During the struggles of the Revolution, the privations sustained, and the
efforts made, by women, were neither few nor of short duration. Many of
them are delineated in the present volume. Yet innumerable instances of
faithful toil, and patient endurance, must have been covered with oblivion.
In how many a lone home, from which the father was long sundered by a
soldier's destiny, did the mother labor to perform to their little ones
both his duties and her own, having no witness of the extent of her heavy
burdens and sleepless anxieties, save the Hearer of prayer.

A good and hoary-headed man, who had passed the limits of fourscore, once
said to me, "My father was in the army during the whole eight years of the
Revolutionary War, at first as a common soldier, afterwards as an officer.
My mother had the sole charge of us four little ones. Our house was a poor
one, and far from neighbors. I have a keen remembrance of the terrible cold
of some of those winters. The snow lay so deep and long, that it was
difficult to cut or draw fuel from the woods, or to get our corn to the
mill, when we had any. My mother was the possessor of a coffee-mill. In
that she ground wheat, and made coarse bread, which we ate, and were
thankful. It was not always we could be allowed as much, even of this, as
our keen appetites craved. Many is the time that we have gone to bed, with
only a drink of water for our supper, in which a little molasses had been
mingled. We patiently received it, for we knew our mother did as well for
us as she could; and we hoped to have something better in the morning. She
was never heard to repine; and young as we were, we tried to make her
loving spirit and heavenly trust, our example.

"When my father was permitted to come home, his stay was short, and he had
not much to leave us, for the pay of those who achieved our liberties was
slight, and irregularly given. Yet when he went, my mother ever bade him
farewell with a cheerful face, and told him not to be anxious about his
children, for she would watch over them night and day, and God would take
care of the families of those who went forth to defend the righteous cause
of their country. Sometimes we wondered that she did not mention the cold
weather, or our short meals, or her hard work, that we little ones might be
clothed, and fed, and taught. But she would not weaken his hands, or sadden
his heart, for she said a soldier's life was harder than all. We saw that
she never complained, but always kept in her heart a sweet hope, like a
well of water. Every night ere we slept, and every morning when we arose,
we lifted our little hands for God's blessing on our absent father, and our
endangered country.

"How deeply the prayers from such solitary homes and faithful hearts were
mingled with the infant liberties of our dear native land, we may not know
until we enter where we see no more 'through a glass darkly, but face to
face.'

"Incidents repeatedly occurred during this contest of eight years, between
the feeble colonies and the strong mother-land, of a courage that ancient
Sparta would have applauded.

"In a thinly settled part of Virginia, the quiet of the Sabbath eve was
once broken by the loud, hurried roll of the drum. Volunteers were invoked
to go forth and prevent the British troops, under the pitiless Tarleton,
from forcing their way through an important mountain pass. In an old fort
resided a family, all of whose elder sons were absent with our army, which
at the north opposed the foe. The father lay enfeebled and sick. By his
bedside the mother called their three sons, of the ages of thirteen,
fifteen, and seventeen.

"Go forth, children," said she, "to the defence of your native clime. Go,
each and all of you; I spare not my youngest, my fair-haired boy, the light
of my declining years.

"Go forth, my sons! Repel the foot of the invader, or see my face no more."

[Illustration: A VIRGINIA MATRON ENCOURAGING THE PATRIOTISM OF HER SONS AT
THE DEATH BED OF THEIR FATHER]

In order to get a proper estimate of the greatness of the part which woman
has acted in the mighty onward-moving drama of civilization on this
continent, we must remember too her peculiar physical constitution. Her
highly strung nervous organization and her softness of fiber make labor
more severe and suffering keener. It is an instinct with her to tremble at
danger; her training from girlhood unfits her to cope with the difficulties
of outdoor life. "Men," says the poet, "must work, and women must weep."
But the pioneer women must both work and weep. The toils and hardships of
frontier life write early wrinkles upon her brow and bow her delicate frame
with care. We do not expect to subject our little ones to the toils or
dangers that belong to adults. Labor is pain to the soft fibers and unknit
limbs of childhood, and to the impressible minds of the young, danger
conveys a thousand fears not felt by the firmer natures of older persons.
Hence it is that all mankind admire youthful heroism. The story of
Casabianca on the deck of the burning ship, or of the little wounded
drummer, borne on the shoulders of a musketeer and still beating the
<i>rappel</i>--while the bullets are flying around him--thrill the heart of
man because these were great and heroic deeds performed by striplings. It
is the bravery and firmness of the weak that challenges the highest
admiration. This is woman's case: and when we see her matching her strength
and courage against those of man in the same cause, with equal results,
what can we do but applaud?

A European traveler lately visited the Territory of Montana--abandoning the
beaten trail, in company only with an Indian guide, for he was a bold and
fearless explorer. He struck across the mountains, traveling for two days
without seeing the sign of a human being. Just at dusk, on the evening of
the second day, he drew rein on the summit of one of those lofty hills
which form the spurs of the Rocky Mountains. The solitude was awful. As far
as the eye could see stretched an unbroken succession of mountain peaks,
bare of forest--a wilderness of rocks with stunted trees at their base, and
deep ravines where no streams were running. In all this desolate scene
there was no sign of a living thing. While they were tethering their horses
and preparing for the night, the sharp eyes of the Indian guide caught
sight of a gleam of light at the bottom of a deep gorge beneath them.

Descending the declivity, they reached a cabin rudely built of dead wood,
which seemed to have been brought down by the spring rains from the
hill-sides to the west. Knocking at the door, it was opened by a woman,
holding in her arms a child of six months. The woman appeared to be fifty
years of age, but she was in reality only thirty. Casting a searching look
upon the traveler and his companion, she asked them to enter.

The cabin was divided into two apartments, a kitchen, which also served for
a store-room, dining-room, and sitting-room; the other was the chamber, or
rather bunk-room, where the family slept. Five children came tumbling out
from this latter apartment as the traveler entered, and greeted him with a
stare of childlike curiosity. The woman asked them to be seated on blocks
of wood, which served for chairs, and soon threw off her reserve and told
them her story, while they awaited the return of her husband from the
nearest village, some thirty miles distant, whither he had gone the day
before to dispose of the gold-dust which he had "panned out" from a gulch
near by. He was a miner. Four years before he had come with his family from
the East, and pushing on in advance of the main movement of emigration in
the territory, had discovered a rich gold placer in this lonely gorge.
While he had been working in this placer, his wife had with her own hands
turned up the soil in the valley below and raised all the corn and potatoes
required for the support of the family; she had done the housework, and had
made all the clothes for the family. Once when her husband was sick, she
had ridden thirty miles for medicine. It was a dreary ride, she said, for
the road, or rather trail, was very rough, and her husband was in a burning
fever. She left him in charge of her oldest child, a girl of eleven years,
but she was a bright, helpful little creature, able to wait upon the sick
man and feed the other children during the two days' absence of her mother.

Next summer they were to build a house lower down the valley and would be
joined by three other families of their kindred from the East. "Have you
never been attacked by the Indians?" inquired the traveler.

"Only three times," she replied. "Once three prowling red-skins came to the
door, in the night, and asked for food. My husband handed them a loaf of
bread through the window, but they refused to go away and lurked in the
bushes all night; they were stragglers from a war-party, and wanted more
scalps. I saw them in the moonlight, armed with rifles and tomahawks, and
frightfully painted. They kindled a fire a hundred yards below our cabin
and stayed there all night, as if they were watching for us to come out,
but early in the morning they disappeared, and we saw them no more.

"Another time, a large war-party of Indians encamped a mile below us, and a
dozen of them came up and surrounded the house. Then we thought we were
lost: they amused themselves aiming at marks in the logs, or at the chimney
and windows; we could hear their bullets rattle against the rafters, and
you can see the holes they made in the doors. One big brave took a large
stone and was about to dash it against the door, when my husband pointed
his rifle at him through the window, and he turned and ran away. We should
have all been killed and scalped if a company of soldiers had not come up
the valley that day with an exploring party and driven the red-skins away.

"One afternoon as my husband was at work in the diggings, two red-skins
came up to him and wounded him with arrows, but he caught up his rifle and
soon made an end of them.

"When we first came there was no end of bears and wolves, and we could hear
them howling all night long. Winter nights the wolves would come and drum
on the door with their paws and whine as if they wanted to eat up the
children. Husband shot ten and I shot six, and after that we were troubled
no more with them.

"We have no schools here, as you see," continued she; "but I have taught my
three oldest children to read since we came here, and every Sunday we have
family prayers. Husband reads a verse in the Bible, and then I and the
children read a verse in turn, till we finish a whole chapter. Then I make
the children, all but baby, repeat a verse over and over till they have it
by heart; the Scripture promises do comfort us all, even the littlest one
who can only lisp them.

"Sometimes on Sunday morning I take all the children to the top of that
hill yonder and look at the sun as it comes up over the mountains, and I
think of the old folks at home and all our friends in the East. The hardest
thing to bear is the solitude. We are awful lonesome. Once, for eighteen
months, I never saw the face of a white person except those of my husband
and children. It makes me laugh and cry too when I see a strange face. But
I am too busy to think much about it daytimes. I must wash, and boil, and
bake, or look after the cows which wander off in search of pasture; or go
into the valley and hoe the corn and potatoes, or cut the wood; for husband
makes his ten or fifteen dollars a day panning out dust up the mountain,
and I know that whenever I want him I have only to blow the horn and he
will come down to me. So I tend to business here and let him get gold. In
five or six years we shall have a nice house farther down and shall want
for nothing. We shall have a saw-mill next spring started on the run below,
and folks are going to join us from the States."

The woman who told this story of dangers and hardships amid the Rocky
Mountains was of a slight, frail figure. She had evidently been once
possessed of more than ordinary attractions; but the cares of maternity and
the toils of frontier life had bowed her delicate frame and engraved
premature wrinkles upon her face: she was old before her time, but her
spirit was as dauntless and her will to do and dare for her loved ones was
as firm as that of any of the heroines whom history has made so famous. She
had been reared in luxury in one of the towns of central New York, and till
she was eighteen years old had never known what toil and trouble were.

Her husband was a true type of the American explorer and possessed in his
wife a fit companion; and when he determined to push his fortune among the
Western wilds she accompanied him cheerfully; already they had accumulated
five thousand dollars, which was safely deposited in the bank; they were
rearing a band of sturdy little pioneers; they had planted an outpost in a
region teeming with mineral wealth, and around them is now growing up a
thriving village of which this heroic couple are soon to be the patriarchs.
All honor to the names of Mr. and Mrs. James Manning, the pioneers of
Montana.

The traveler and his guide, declining the hospitality which this brave
matron tendered them, soon returned to their camp on the hill-top; but the
Englishman made notes of the pioneer woman's story, and pondered over it,
for he saw in it an epitome of frontier life.

If a tourist were to pass to-day beyond the Mississippi River, and journey
over the wagon-roads which lead Westward towards the Rocky Mountains, he
would see moving towards the setting sun innumerable caravans of emigrants'
canvas-covered wagons, bound for the frontier. In each of these wagons is a
man, one or two women with children, agricultural tools, and household
gear. At night the horses or oxen are tethered or turned loose on the
prairie; a fire is kindled with buffalo chips, or such fuel as can be had,
and supper is prepared. A bed of prairie grass suffices for the man, while
the women and children rest in the covered wagon. When the morning dawns
they resume their Westward journey. Weeks, months, sometimes, roll by
before the wagon reaches its destination; but it reaches it at last. Then
begin the struggle, and pains, the labors, and dangers of border life, in
all of which woman bears her part. While the primeval forest falls before
the stroke of the man-pioneer, his companion does the duty of both man and
woman at home. The hearthstone is laid, and the rude cabin rises. The
virgin soil is vexed by the ploughshare driven by the man; the garden and
house, the dairy and barns are tended by the woman, who clasps her babe
while she milks, and fodders, and weeds. Danger comes when the man is away;
the woman must meet it alone. Famine comes, and the woman must eke out the
slender store, scrimping and pinching for the little ones; sickness comes,
and the woman must nurse and watch alone, and without the sympathy of any
of her sex. Fifty miles from a doctor or a friend, except her weary and
perhaps morose husband, she must keep strong under labor, and be patient
under suffering, till death. And thus the household, the hamlet, the
village, the town, the city, the state, rise out of her "homely toils, and
destiny obscure." Truly she is one of the founders of the Republic.




CHAPTER II.

THE FRONTIER-LINE--WOMAN'S WORK IN FLOODS AND STORMS


The American Frontier has for more than two centuries been a vague and
variable term. In 1620-21 it was a line of forest which bounded the infant
colony at Plymouth, a few scattered settlements on the James River, in
Virginia, and the stockade on Manhattan Island, where Holland had
established a trading-post destined to become one day the great commercial
city of the continent.

Seventy years later, in 1690, the frontier-line had become greatly
extended. In New England it was the forest which still hemmed in the coast
and river settlements: far to the north stretched the wilderness covering
that tract of country which now comprises the states of Maine, New
Hampshire, and Vermont. In New York the frontier was just beyond the posts
on the Hudson River; and in Virginia life outside of the oldest settlements
was strictly "<i>life on the border</i>." The James, the Rappahannock, and
the Potomac Rivers made the Virginia frontier a series of long lines
approaching to a parallel. But the European settlements were still sparse,
as compared with the area of uninhabited country. The villages, hamlets,
and single homesteads were like little islands in a wild green waste: mere
specks in a vast expanse of wilderness. Every line beyond musket shot was a
frontier-line. Every settlement, small or large, was surrounded by a dark
circle, outside of which lurked starvation, fear, and danger. The sea and
the great rivers were perilous avenues of escape for those who dwelt
thereby, but the interior settlements were almost completely isolated and
girt around as if with a wall built by hostile forces to forbid access or
egress.

The grand exodus of European emigrants from their native land to these
shores, had vastly diminished by the year 1690, but the westward movement
from the sea and the rivers in America still went forward with scarcely
diminished impetus: and as the pioneers advanced and established their
outposts farther and farther to the west, woman was, as she had been from
the landing, their companion on the march, their ally in the presence of
danger, and their efficient co-worker in establishing homes in the
wilderness.

The heroic enterprises recorded in the history of man have generally been
remarkable in proportion to their apparent original weakness. This is true
in an eminent degree of the settlement of European colonies on the western
continent. The sway which woman's influence exercised in these colonial
enterprises is all the more wonderful when we contemplate them from this
point of view. Three feeble bands of men and women;--the first at
Jamestown, Virginia, in 1609-1612; the second at Plymouth, in 1620; the
third on the Island of Manhattan, in 1624;--these were the dim nuclei from
which radiated those long lines of light which stretch to-day across a
continent and strike the Pacific ocean. This is a simile borrowed from
astronomy. To adopt the language of the naturalist, those three little
colonies were the puny germs which bore within themselves a vital force
vastly more potent and wonderful than that which dwells in the heart of the
gourd seed, and the acorn whose nascent swelling energies will lift huge
boulders and split the living rock asunder: vastly more potent because it
was not the blind motions of nature merely, but a force at once physical,
moral, and intellectual.

These feeble bands of men and women took foothold and held themselves
firmly like a hard-pressed garrison waiting for re-enforcements.
Re-enforcements came, and then they went out from their works, and setting
their faces westward moved slowly forward. The vanguard were men with pikes
and musketoons and axes; the rearguard were women who kept watch and ward
over the household treasures. Sometimes in trying hours the rearguard
ranged itself and fought in the front ranks, falling back to its old
position when the crisis was past.

In order to appreciate the actual value of woman as a component part of
that mighty impulse which set in motion, and still impels the pioneers of
our country, we must remember that she is really the cohesive power which
cements society together; that when the outward pressure is greatest, the
cohesive power is strongest; that in times of sore trial woman's native
traits of character are intensified; that she has greater tact, quicker
perceptions, more enduring patience, and greater capacity for suffering
than man; that motherly, and wifely, and sisterly love are strongest and
brightest when trials, labors, and dangers impend over the loved ones.

We must bear in mind too, that woman and man were possessed of the same
convictions and impulses in their heroic enterprise--the sense of duty, the
spirit of liberty, the desire to worship God after their own ideas of
truth, the desire to possess, though in a wilderness, homes where no one
could intrude or call them vassals; and deep down below all this, the
instincts, the gifts, and motive power of the most energetic race the world
has ever seen--the Anglo-Saxon; thus we come to see how in each band of
pioneers and in each household were centered that solid and constant moving
force which made each man a hero and each woman a heroine in the struggle
with hostile nature, with savage man more cruel than the storm or the wild
beasts, with solitude which makes a desert in the soul; with famine, with
pestilence, that "wasteth at noon-day,"--a struggle which has finally been
victorious over all antagonisms, and has made us what we are in this
centennial year of our existence as an independent republic.

Another powerful influence exercised by woman as a pioneer was the
influence of religion. The whole nature certainly of the Puritan woman was
transfused with a deep, glowing, unwavering religious faith. We picture
those wives, mothers, and daughters of the New England pioneers as the
saints described by the poet,

  "Their eyes are homes of silent prayer."

How the prayers of these good and honorable women were answered events have
proved.

Hardly had the Plymouth Colony landed before they were called upon to
battle with their first foes--the cold, the wind, and the storms on the
bleak New England coast. Famine came next, and finally pestilence. The
blast from the sea shook their frail cabins; the frost sealed the earth,
and the snow drifted on the pillow of the sick and dying. Five kernels of
corn a day were doled out to such as were in health, by those appointed to
this duty. Woman's heart was full then, but it kept strong though it
swelled to bursting.

Within five months from the landing on the Rock, forty-six men, women, and
children, or nearly one-half of the <i>Mayflower's</i> passengers had
perished of disease and hardships, and the survivors saw the vessel that
brought them sail away to the land of their birth. To the surviving women
of that devoted Pilgrim band this departure of the <i>Mayflower</i> must
have added a new pang to the grief that was already rending their hearts
after the loss of so many dear ones during that fearful winter. As the
vessel dropped down Plymouth harbor, they watched it with tearful eyes, and
when they could see it no more, they turned calmly back to their heroic
labors.

Mrs. Bradford, Rose Standish, and their companions were the original types
of women on our American frontier. Nobly, too, were they seconded by the
matrons and daughters in the other infant colonies. Who can read the
letters of Margaret Winthrop, of the Massachusetts Colony, without
recognizing the loving, devoted woman sharing with her noble husband the
toils and privations of the wilderness, in order that God's promise might
be justified and an empire built on this Western Continent.

In her we have a noble type of the Puritan woman of the seventeenth
century, representing, as she did, a numerous class of her sex in the same
condition. Reared in luxury, and surrounded by the allurements of the
superior social circle in which she moved in her native England, she
nevertheless preferred a life of self-denial with her husband on the bleak
shores where the Puritans were struggling for existence. She had fully
prepared her mind for the heroic undertaking. She did not overlook the
trials, discouragements, and difficulties of the course she was about to
take. For years she had been habituated to look forward to it as one of the
eventualities of her life. She was now beyond the age of romance, and
cherished no golden dreams of earthly happiness to be realized in that
far-off western clime.

Two traits are most prominent in her letters: her religious faith, and her
love for and trust in her husband. She placed a high estimate on the
wisdom, the energy, and the talents of her husband, and felt that he could
best serve God and man by helping to lay broad and deep the foundations of
a new State, and to secure the present and future prosperity, both temporal
and spiritual, of the colony. With admiration and esteem she blended the
ardent but balanced fondness of the loving wife and the sedate matron. In
no less degree do her letters show the power and attractiveness of genuine
religion. The sanctity of conjugal affection tallies with and is hallowed
by the Spirit of Grace. The sense of duty is harmoniously mingled with the
impulses of the heart. That religion was the dominant principle of thought
and action with Margaret Winthrop, no one can doubt who reflects how
severely it was tested in the trying enterprise of her life. A sincere,
deep, and healthful piety formed in her a spring of energy to great and
noble actions.

There are glimpses in the correspondence between her and her husband of a
kind of prophetic vision, that the planting of that colony was the laying
of one of the foundation-stones of a great empire. May we not suppose that
by the contemplation of such a vision she was buoyed up and soothed amid
the many trials and privations, perils and uncertainties that surrounded
her in that rugged colonial life.

The influence of Puritanism to inspire with unconquerable principle, to
infuse public spirit, to purify the character from frivolity and
feebleness, to lift the soul to an all-enduring heroism and to exalt it to
a lofty standard of Christian excellence, is grandly illustrated by the
life of Margaret Winthrop, one of the pioneer-matrons of the Massachusetts
colony.

The narrations which we set forth in this book must of course be largely
concerning families and individuals. The outposts of the advancing army of
settlement were most exposed to the dangers and hardships of frontier life.
Every town or village, as soon as it was settled, became a garrison against
attack and a mutual Benefit-Aid-Society, leagued together against every
enemy that threatened the infant settlement; it was also a place of refuge
for the bolder pioneers who had pushed farther out into the forest.

But as time rolled on many of these more adventurous settlers found
themselves isolated from the villages and stockades. Every hostile
influence they had to meet alone and unaided. Cold and storm, fire and
flood, hunger and sickness, savage man and savage beast, these were the
foes with which they had to contend. The battle was going on all the time
while the pioneer and his wife were subjugating the forest, breaking the
soil, and gaining shelter and food for themselves and their children.

It is easy to see what were the added pains, privations, and hardships of
such a situation to the mind and heart of woman, craving, as she does,
companionship and sympathy from her own sex. It is a consoling reflection
to us who are reaping the fruits of her self-sacrifice that the very
multiplicity of her toils and cares gave her less time for brooding over
her hard and lonely lot, and that she found in her religious faith and hope
a constant fountain of comfort and joy.

One of the greatest hardships endured by the first settlers in New England
was the rigorous and changeable climate, which bore most severely, of
course, on the weaker sex. This makes the fortitude of Mrs. Shute all the
more admirable. Her story is only one of innumerable instances in early
colonial life where wives were the preservers of their husbands.

In the spring of 1676, James Shute, with his wife and two small children,
set out from Dorchester for the purpose of settling themselves on a tract
of land in the southern part of what is now New Hampshire, but which then
was an unbroken forest. The tract where they purposed making their home was
a meadow on a small affluent of the Connecticut.

Taking their household goods and farming tools in an ox-cart drawn by four
oxen and driving two cows before them, they reached their destination after
a toilsome journey of ten days. The summer was spent in building their
cabin, and outhouses, planting and tending the crop of Indian corn which
was to be their winter's food, and in cutting the coarse meadow-grass for
hay.

Late in October they found themselves destitute of many articles which even
in those days of primitive housewifery and husbandry, were considered of
prime necessity. Accordingly, the husband started on foot for a small
trading-post on the Connecticut River, about ten miles distant, at which
point he expected to find some trading shallop or skiff to take him to
Springfield, thirty-eight miles further south. The weather was fine and at
nightfall Shute had reached the river, and before sunrise the next morning
was floating down the stream on an Indian trader's skiff.

Within two days he made his purchases, and hiring a skiff rowed slowly up
the river against the sluggish current on his return. In twelve hours he
reached the trading-post. It was now late in the evening. The sky had been
lowering all day, and by dusk it began to snow. Disregarding the
admonitions of the traders, he left his goods under their care and struck
out boldly through the forest over the trail by which he came, trusting to
be able to find his way, as the moon had risen, and the clouds seemed to be
breaking. The trail lay along the stream on which his farm was situated,
and four hours at an easy gait would, he thought, bring him home.

The snow when he started from the river was already nearly a foot deep, and
before he had proceeded a mile on his way the storm redoubled in violence,
and the snow fell faster and faster. At midnight he had only made five
miles, and the snow was two feet deep. After trying in vain to kindle a
fire by the aid of flint and steel, he prayed fervently to God, and
resuming his journey struggled slowly on through the storm. It had been
agreed between his wife and himself that on the evening of this day on
which he told her he should return, he would kindle a fire on a knoll about
two miles from his cabin as a beacon to assure his wife of his safety and
announce his approach.

Suddenly he saw a glare in the sky.

During his absence his wife had tended the cattle, milked the cows, cut the
firewood, and fed the children. When night came she barricaded the door,
and saying a prayer, folded her little ones in her arms and lay down to
rest. Three suns had risen and set since she saw her husband with gun on
his shoulder disappear through the clearing into the dense undergrowth
which fringed the bank of the stream, and when the appointed evening came,
she seated herself at the narrow window, or, more properly, opening in the
logs of which the cabin was built, and watched for the beacon which her
husband was to kindle. She looked through the falling snow but could see no
light. Little drifts sifted through the chinks in the roof upon the bed
where her children lay asleep; the night grew darker, and now and then the
howling of the wolves could be heard from the woods to the north.

Seven o'clock struck--eight--nine--by the old Dutch clock which ticked in
the corner. Then her woman's instinct told her that her husband must have
started and been overtaken by the storm. If she could reach the knoll and
kindle the fire it would light him on his way. She quickly collected a
small bundle of dry wood in her apron and taking flint, steel, and tinder,
started for the knoll. In an hour, after a toilsome march, floundering
through the snow, she reached the spot. A large pile of dry wood had
already been collected by her husband and was ready for lighting, and in a
few moments the heroic woman was warming her shivering limbs before a fire
which blazed far up through the crackling branches and lighted the forest
around it.

For more than two hours the devoted woman watched beside the fire,
straining her eyes into the gloom and catching every sound. Wading through
the snow she brought branches and logs to replenish the flames. At last her
patience was rewarded: she heard a cry, to which she responded. It was the
voice of her husband which she heard, shouting. In a few moments he came up
staggering through the drifts, and fell exhausted before the fire. The snow
soon ceased to fall, and after resting till morning, the rescued pioneer
and his brave wife returned in safety to their cabin.

[Illustration: LOST IN A SNOW STORM]

Mrs. Frank Noble, in 1664, proved herself worthy of her surname. She and
her husband, with four small children, had established themselves in a
log-cabin eight miles from a settlement in New Hampshire, and now known as
the town of Dover.

Their crops having turned out poorly that autumn, they were constrained to
put themselves on short allowance, owing to the depth of the snow and the
distance from the settlement. As long as Mr. Noble was well, he was able to
procure game and kept their larder tolerably well stocked. But in
mid-winter, being naturally of a delicate habit of body, he sickened, and
in two weeks, in spite of the nursing and tireless care of his devoted
wife, he died. The snow was six feet deep, and only a peck of musty corn
and a bushel of potatoes were left as their winter supply. The fuel also
was short, and most of the time Mrs. Noble could only keep herself and her
children warm by huddling in the bedclothes on bundles of straw, in the
loft which served them for a sleeping room. Below lay the corpse of Mr.
Noble, frozen stiff. Famine and death stared them in the face. Two weeks
passed and the supply of provisions was half gone. The heroic woman had
tried to eke out her slender store, but the cries of her children were so
piteous with hunger that while she denied herself, she gave her own portion
to her babes, lulled them to sleep, and then sent up her petitions to Him
who keeps the widow and the fatherless. She prayed, we may suppose, from
her heart, for deliverance from her sore straits for food, for warmth, for
the spring to come and the snow to melt, so that she might lay away the
remains of her husband beneath the sod of the little clearing.

Every morning when she awoke, she looked out from the window of the loft.
Nothing was to be seen but the white surface of the snow stretching away
into the forest. One day the sun shone down warmly on the snow and melted
its surface, and the next morning there was a crust which would bear her
weight. She stepped out upon it and looked around her. She would then have
walked eight miles to the settlement but she was worn out with anxiety and
watching, and was weak from want of food. As she gazed wistfully toward the
east, her ears caught the sound of a crashing among the boughs of the
forest. She looked toward the spot from which it came and saw a dark object
floundering in the snow. Looking more closely she saw it was a moose, with
its horns entangled in the branches of a hemlock and buried to its flanks
in the snow.

Hastening back to the cabin she seized her husband's gun, and loading it
with buckshot, hurried out and killed the monstrous brute. Skilled in
woodcraft, like most pioneer women, she skinned the animal and cutting it
up bore the pieces to the cabin. Her first thought then was of her
children, and after she had given them a hearty meal of the tender
moose-flesh she partook of it herself, and then, refreshed and
strengthened, she took the axe and cut a fresh supply of fuel. During the
day a party came out from the settlement and supplied the wants of the
stricken household. The body of the dead husband was borne to the
settlement and laid in the graveyard beneath the snow.

Nothing daunted by this terrible experience, this heroic woman kept her
frontier cabin and, with friendly aid from the settlers, continued to till
her farm. In ten years, when her oldest boy had become a man, he and his
brothers tilled two hundred acres of meadow land, most of it redeemed from
the wilderness by the skill, strength, and industry of their noble mother.

The spring season must have been to the early settlers, particularly to the
women, even more trying than the winter. In the latter season, except after
extraordinary falls of snow, transit from place to place was made by means
of sledges over the snow or on ox-carts over the frozen ground. Traveling
could also be done across or up and down rivers on the ice, and as bridges
were rare in those days the crossing of rivers on the ice was much to be
preferred to fording them in other seasons of the year. Fuel too was more
easily obtained in the winter than in the spring, and as roads were
generally little more than passage-ways or cow-paths through the meadows or
the woods, the depth of the mud was often such as to form a barrier to the
locomotion of the heavy vehicles of the period or even to prevent travel on
horseback or on foot.

Other dangers and hardships in the spring of the year were the freshets and
floods to which the river dwellers were exposed. Woman, be it remembered,
is naturally as alien to water as a mountain-fowl, which flies over a
stream for fear of wetting its feet. We can imagine the discomfort to which
a family of women and children were exposed who lived, for example, on the
banks of the Connecticut in the olden time. In some seasons families were,
as they now are, driven to the upper stories of their houses by the
overflow of the river. But it should be remembered that the houses of those
days were not the firm, well-built structures of modern times. Sometimes
the settler found himself and family floating slowly down stream, cabin and
all, borne along by the freshet caused by a sudden thaw: as long as his
cabin held together, the family had always hopes of grounding as the flood
subsided and saving their lives though with much loss of property, besides
the discomfort if not positive danger to which they had been exposed.

But sometimes the flood was so sudden and violent that the cabin would be
submerged or break to pieces, and float away, drowning some or all of the
family. It might be supposed that the married portion of the pioneers would
select other sites than on the borders of a large river subject every year
to overflow, but the richness of the alluvial soil on the banks of the
Connecticut was so tempting that other considerations were overlooked, and
to no part of New England was the tide of emigration turned so strongly as
to the Connecticut Valley.

In the year 1643, an adventurous family of eight persons embarked on a
shallop from Hartford (to which place they had come shortly before from
Watertown, Mass), and sailing or rowing up the river made a landing on a
beautiful meadow near the modern town of Hatfield.

The family consisted of Peter Nash and Hannah his wife, David, their son, a
youth of seventeen, Deborah and Mehitabel, their two daughters, aged
respectively nineteen and fourteen, Mrs. Elizabeth Nash, the mother of
Peter, aged sixty-four, and Mr. and Mrs. Jacob Nash. They found the land
all ready for ploughing, and after building a spacious cabin and barns,
they had nothing to do but to plant and harvest their crops and stock their
farm with cattle which they brought from Springfield, driving them up along
the river. For four years everything went on prosperously. They harvested
large crops, added to their barns, and had a great increase in stock.
Although the wolves and wild cats had made an occasional foray in their
stock and poultry yard and the spring freshets had made inroads into their
finest meadow, their general course had been only one of prosperity.

Their house and barns were built upon a tongue of land where the river made
a bend, and were on higher ground than the surrounding meadow, which every
spring was submerged by the freshets. Year after year the force of the
waters had washed an angle into this tongue of land and threatened some
time to break through and leave the houses and barns of the pioneers upon
an island. But the inroads of the waters were gradual, and the Nashes
flattered themselves that it would be at least two generations before the
river would break through.

Mrs. Peter Nash and her daughter were women of almost masculine courage and
firmness. They all handled axe and gun as skillfully as the men of the
household; they could row a boat, ride horseback, swim, and drag a seine
for shad; and Mehitabel, the younger daughter, though only fourteen years
old, was already a woman of more than ordinary size and strength. These
three women accompanied the men on their hunting and fishing excursions and
assisted them in hoeing corn, in felling trees, and dragging home fuel and
timber.

The winter of 1647-8 was memorable for the amount of snow that fell, and
the spring for its lateness. The sun made some impression on the snow in
March, but it was not till early in April that a decided change came in the
temperature. One morning the wind shifted to the southwest, the sun was as
hot as in June; before night it came on to rain, and, before the following
night, nearly the whole vast body of snow had been dissolved into water
which had swelled all the streams to an unprecedented height. The streams
poured down into the great river, which rose with fearful rapidity,
converting all the alluvial meadows into a vast lake.

All this took place so suddenly that the Nash family had scarcely a warning
till they found themselves in the midst of perils. When the rain ceased, on
the evening of the second day, the water had flooded the surrounding
meadows and risen high up into the first story of the house. The force of
the current had already torn a channel across the tongue of land on which
the house stood and had washed away the barns and live-stock. One of their
two boats had been floated off but had struck broadside against a clump of
bushes and was kept in its place by the force of the current. The other
boat had been fastened by a short rope to a stout sapling, but this latter
boat was ten feet under water, held down by the rope.

The water had now risen to the upper story, and the family were driven to
the roof. If the house would stand they might yet be saved. It was firmly
built but it shook with the force and weight of the waters. If either of
the boats could be secured they might reach dry land by rowing out of the
current and over the meadows where the water was stiller. The oars of the
submerged boat had been floated away, but in the other boat they could be
seen from the roof of the house lying safely on the bottom.

It was decided that Jacob Nash should swim out and row the boat up to the
house. He was a strong swimmer, and though the water was icy cold it was
thought the swift current would soon enable him to reach the skiff which
lay only a few rods below the house. Accordingly, he struck boldly out, and
in a moment had reached the boat, when he suddenly threw up his hands and
sank, the current whirling him out of sight in an instant, amid the shrieks
of his young wife, who was then a nursing mother and holding her babe in
her arms as her husband went down. Mrs. Nash, the elder, gazed for a moment
speechless at the spot where her son had sunk, and then fell upon her
knees, the whole family following her example, and prayed fervently to
Almighty God for deliverance from their awful danger. Then rising from her
kneeling posture, she bade her other son make one more trial to reach the
boat.

Peter Nash and his son Daniel then plunged into the water, reached the
boat, and took the oars, but the force of the current was such that they
could make, by rowing, but little headway against it. The two daughters
then leaped into the flood, and in a few strokes reached and entered the
boat. By their united force it was brought up and safely moored to the
chimney of the cabin. In two trips the family were conveyed to the
hillside. Then the brave girls returned and brought away a boat-load of
household gear. Not content with that they rowed to the submerged boat, and
diving down, cut the rope, baled out the water, and in company with their
mother, father, and brother, brought away all the moveables in the upper
stories of the house. Their courage appeared to have been rewarded in
another way, since the house stood through the flood, and in ten days they
were assisting to tear down the house and build another on a hill where the
floods never came.

As soldiers fall in battle, so in the struggles and hardships of border
life, the delicate frame of woman often succumbs, leaving the partner of
her toils to mourn her loss and meet the onset of life alone. Such a loss
necessarily implies more than when it occurs in the comfortable homes of
refined life, since it removes at once a loving wife, a companion in
solitude, and an efficient co-worker in the severe tasks incident to life
in frontier settlements. Sometimes the husband's career is broken off when
he loses his wife under such circumstances, and he gives up both hope and
effort.

About sixty years since, and while the rich prairies of Indiana began to be
viewed as the promised land of the adventurous pioneer, among the emigrants
who were attracted thither by the golden dreams of happiness and fortune,
was a Mr. H., a young man from an eastern city, who came accompanied by his
newly married wife, a dark-eyed girl of nineteen. Leaving his bride at one
of the westernmost frontier-settlements, he pushed on in search of a
favorable location for their new home. Near the present town of LaFayette
he found a tract which pleased his eye and promised abundant harvests, and
after his wife had been brought to view it and expressed her satisfaction
and delight at the happy choice he had made, the site was selected and the
house was built.

They moved into their prairie-home in the first flush of summer. Their
cabin was built upon a knoll and faced the south. Sitting at the door at
eventide they contemplated a prospect of unrivaled beauty. The sun-bright
soil remained still in its primeval greatness and magnificence, unchecked
by human hands, covered with flowers, protected and watched by the eye of
the sun. The days were glorious; the sky of the brightest blue, the sun of
the purest gold, and the air full of vitality, but calm; and there, in that
brilliant light, stretched itself far, far out into the infinite, as far as
the eye could discern, an ocean-like extent, the waves of which were
sunflowers, asters, and gentians, nodding and beckoning in the wind, as if
inviting millions of beings to the festival set out on the rich table of
the earth. Mrs. H. was an impressible woman with poetic tastes, and a
strong admiration for the beautiful in nature; and as she gazed upon the
glorious expanse her whole face lighted up and glowed with pleasure. Here
she thought was the paradise of which she had long dreamed.

As the summer advanced a plenteous harvest promised to reward the labors of
her husband. Nature was bounteous and smiling in all her aspects, and the
young wife toiled faithfully and patiently to make her rough house a
pleasant home for her husband. She had been reared like him amid the
luxuries of an eastern city, and her hands had never been trained to work.
But the influences of nature around her, and the almost idolatrous love
which she cherished for her husband, cheered and sweetened the homely toils
of her prairie life.

Eight months sped happily and prosperously away; the winter had been mild,
and open, and spring had come with its temperate breezes, telling of
another summer of brightness and beauty.

Soon after the middle of April in that year, commenced an extraordinary
series of storms. They occurred daily, and sometimes twice a day,
accompanied by the most vivid lightning, and awful peals of thunder; the
rain poured down in a deluge until it seemed as if another flood was coming
to purify the earth. For more than sixty days those terrible scenes
recurred, and blighted the whole face of the country for miles around the
lonely cabin. The prairies, saturated with moisture, refused any longer to
drink up the showers. Every hollow and even the slightest depression became
a stagnant pool, and when the rains ceased and the sun came out with the
heat of the summer solstice, it engendered pestilence, which rose from the
green plain that smiled beneath him, and stalked resistless among the
dwellers throughout that vast expanse.

Of all the widely isolated and remote cabins which sent their smoke curling
into the dank morning air of the region thereabouts, there was not one in
which disease was not already raging with fearful malignity. Doctors or
hired nurses there were none; each stricken household was forced to battle
single-handed with the destroyer who dealt his blows stealthily, suddenly,
and alas! too often, effectually. The news of the dreadful visitation soon
reached the family of Mr. H.--and for a period they were in a fearful
suspense. They were surrounded by the same malarial influences that had
made such havoc among their neighbors, and why should they escape? They
were living directly over a noisome cess-pool; their cellar was filled with
water which could not be drained away, nor would the saturated earth drink
it up. Centuries of vegetable accumulations forming the rich mould in which
the cellar was dug, gave out their emanations to the water, and the fiery
rays of the sun made the mixture a decoction whose steams were laden with
death.

There was no escape unless they abandoned their house, and this they were
reluctant to do, hoping that the disease would pass by them. But this was a
vain hope; in a few days Mr. H. was prostrated by the fever. Mrs. H. had
preserved her courage and energy till now, but her impressible nature began
to yield before the onset of this new danger. Her life had been sunny and
care-free from a child; her new home had till recently been the realization
of her dreams of happiness; but the loss of her husband would destroy at
once every fair prospect for the future. All that a loving wife could do as
a nurse or watcher or doctress, was done by her, but long before her
husband had turned the sharp corner between death and life, Mrs. H. was
attacked and both lay helpless, dependent upon the care of their only hired
man. Neighbors whose hearts had been made tender and sympathetic by their
own bereavements, came from their far-off cabins and for several weeks
watched beside their bedside. The attack of the wife commenced with a fever
which continued till after the birth of her child. For three days longer
she lingered in pain, sinking slowly till the last great change came, and
Mr. H., now convalescent, saw her eyes closed for ever.

The first time he left the house was to follow the remains of his wife and
child to their last resting place, beneath an arbor of boughs which her own
hands had tended. We cannot describe the grief of that bereaved husband.
His very appearance was that of one who had emerged from the tomb. Sickness
had blanched his dark face to a ghastly hue, and drawn great furrows in his
cheeks, which were immovable, and as if chiseled in granite. During his
sickness he had seen little of her before she was stricken down, for his
mind was clouded. When the light of reason dawned he was faintly conscious
that she lay near him suffering, first from the fever, and then from
woman's greatest pain and trial, but that he was unable to soothe and
comfort her; and finally that her last hours were hours of intense agony,
which he could not alleviate. He was as one in a trance; a confused
consciousness of his terrible loss slowly took possession of him. When at
length his weakened intellect comprehended the truth with all its sad
surrounding, a great cloud of desolation settled down over his whole life.

That cloud, sad to say, never lifted. As he stood by the open grave, he
lifted the lid, gazed long and intently on that sweet pale face, bent and
kissed the marble brow, and as the mother and child were lowered into the
grave, he turned away a broken-hearted man.




CHAPTER III.

EARLY PIONEERS--WOMAN'S ADVENTURES AND HEROISM.


For nearly one hundred years after the settlement of Plymouth, the whole of
the territory now known as the State of Maine was, with the exception of a
few settlements on the coast and rivers, a howling wilderness. From the sea
to Canada extended a vast forest, intersected with rapid streams and dotted
with numerous lakes. While the larger number of settlers were disinclined
to attempt to penetrate this trackless waste, some few hardy pioneers dared
to advance far into the unknown land, tempted by the abundance of fish in
the streams and lakes or by the variety of game which was to be found in
the forests. It was the land for hunters rather than for tillers of the
soil, and most of its early explorers were men who were skillful marksmen,
and versed in forest lore. But occasionally women joined these predatory
expeditions against the denizens of the woods and waters.

In the history of American settlements too little credit has been given to
the hunter. He is often the first to penetrate the wilderness; he notes the
general features of the country as he passes on his swift course; he
ascertains the fertility of the soil and the capabilities of different
regions; he <i>reconnoiters</i> the Indian tribes, and learns their habits
and how they are affected towards the white man. When he returns to the
settlements he makes his report concerning the region which he has
explored, and by means of the knowledge thus obtained the permanent
settlers were and are enabled to push forward and establish themselves in
the wilderness. In the glory and usefulness of these discoveries woman not
unfrequently shared. Some of the most interesting narratives are those in
which she was the companion and coadjutor of the hunter in his explorations
of the trackless mazes of our American forests.

In the year 1672 a small party of hunters arrived at the mouth of the
Kennebec in two canoes. The larger one of the canoes was paddled up stream
by three men, the other was propelled swiftly forward by a man and a woman.
Both were dressed in hunters' costume; the woman in a close-fitting tunic
of deerskin reaching to the knees, with leggins to match, and the man in
hunting-shirt and trowsers of the same material. Edward Pentry, for this
was the name of the man, was a stalwart Cornishman who had spent ten years
in hunting and exploring the American wilderness. Mrs. Pentry, his wife,
was of French extraction, and had passed most of her life in the
settlements in Canada, where she had met her adventurous husband on one of
his hunting expeditions. She was of manly stature and strength, and like
her husband, was a splendid shot and skillful fisher. Both were
passionately fond of forest life, and perfectly fearless of its dangers,
whether from savage man or beast.

It was their purpose to explore thoroughly the region watered by the upper
Kennebec, and to establish a trading-post which would serve as the
headquarters of fur-traders, and ultimately open the country for
settlement. Their outfit was extremely simple: guns, traps, axes,
fishing-gear, powder, and bullets, &c., with an assorted cargo of such
trinkets and other articles as the Indians desired in return for peltry.

In three weeks they reached the head-waters of the Kennebec, at Moosehead
Lake. There they built a large cabin, divided into two compartments, one of
which was occupied by three of the men, the other by Mr. and Mrs. Pentry.
All of the party were versed in the Indian dialect of the region, and as
Mrs. Pentry could speak French, no trouble was anticipated from the
Indians, who in that part of the country were generally friendly to the
French.

The labors of the men in felling trees and shaping logs for the cabin, as
well as in framing the structure, were shared in by Mrs. Pentry, who in
addition did all the necessary cooking and other culinary offices. They
decided to explore the surrounding country for the purpose of discovering
the lay of the land and the haunts of game. No signs of any Indians had yet
been seen, and it was thought best that the four men should start, each in
a different direction, and having explored the neighboring region return to
the cabin at night, Mrs. Pentry meanwhile being left alone--a situation
which she did not in the least dread. Accordingly, early in the morning,
after eating a hunter's breakfast of salt pork, fried fish, and parched
corn, the quartette selected their several routes, and started, taking good
care to mark their trail as they went, that they could the more readily
find the way back.

It was agreed that they should return by sunset, which would give them
twelve good hours for exploration, as it was the month of July, and the
days were long. After their departure Mrs. P. put things to rights about
the house, and barring the door against intruders, whether biped or
quadruped, took her gun and fishing-tackle and went out for a little sport
in the woods.

The cabin stood on the border of Moosehead Lake. Unloosing the canoes, she
embarked in one, and towing the other behind her, rowed across a part of
the lake which jutted in shore to the southwest; she soon reached a dense
piece of woods which skirted the lake, and there mooring her canoe, watched
for the deer which came down to that place to drink. A fat buck before long
made his appearance, and as he bent down his head to quaff the water, a
brace of buck-shot planted behind his left foreleg laid him low, and his
carcase was speedily deposited in the canoe.

The sun was now well up, and as Mrs. P. had provided for the wants of the
party by her lucky shot, and no more deer made their appearance, she lay
down in the bottom of the boat, and soon fell fast asleep. Hunters and
soldiers should be light sleepers, as was Mrs. Pentry upon this occasion.

How long she slept she never exactly knew, but she was awakened by a
splash; lifting her head above the edge of the boat, she saw nothing but a
muddy spot on the water some thirty feet away, near the shore. This was a
suspicious sign. Looking more closely, she saw a slight motion beneath the
lily-pads, which covered closely, like a broad green carpet, the surface of
the lake. Her hand was on her gun, and as she leveled the barrel towards
the turbid spot, she saw a head suddenly lifted, and at the same moment a
huge Indian sprang from the water and struggled up through the dense
undergrowth that lined the edge of the lake.

It was a sudden impulse rather than a thought, which made Mrs. P. level the
gun at his broad back and pull the trigger. The Indian leaped into the air,
and fell back in the water dead, with half a dozen buck-shot through his
heart. At the same moment she felt a strong grasp on her shoulder, and
heard a deep guttural "ugh!" Turning her head she saw the malignant face of
another Indian standing waist-deep in the water, with one hand on the boat
which he was dragging towards the shore.

A swift side-blow from the gun-barrel, and he tumbled into the water;
before he could recover, the brave woman had snatched the paddle, and sent
the canoe spinning out into the lake. Then dropping the paddle and seizing
her gun she dashed in a heavy charge of powder, dropped a dozen buck-shot
down the muzzle, rammed in some dry grass, primed the pan, and leveled it
again at the savage, who having recovered from the blow, was floundering
towards the shore, turning and shaking his tomahawk at her, meanwhile, with
a ferocious grin. Again the report of her gun awakened the forest echoes,
and before the echoes had died away, the savage's corpse was floating on
the water.

[Illustration: THE HUNTRESS OF THE LAKES SURPRISED BY INDIANS]

She dared not immediately approach the shore, fearing that other savages
might be lying in ambush; but after closely scrutinizing the bushes, she
saw no signs of others, besides the two whom she had shot. She then cut
long strips of raw hide from the dead buck, and towing the bodies of the
Indians far out into the lake sunk them with the stones that served to
anchor the canoes. Returning to the shore, she took their guns which lay
upon the shelving bank, and rapidly paddled the canoe homeward.

It was now high noon. She reached the cabin, entered, and sat down to rest.
She supposed that the savages she had just, killed were stragglers from a
war-party who had lagged behind their comrades, and attracted by the sound
made by her gun when she shot the buck, had come to see what it was. The
thought that a larger body might be in the vicinity, and that they would
capture and perhaps kill her beloved husband and his companions, was a
torture to her. She sat a few moments to collect her thoughts and resolve
what course to pursue.

Her resolution was soon taken. She could not sit longer there, while her
husband and friends were exposed to danger or death. Again she entered the
canoe and paddled across the arm of the lake to the spot where the waters
were still stained with the blood of the Indians. Hastily effacing this
bloody trace, she moored the canoes and followed the trail of the savages
for four miles to the northwest. There she found in a ravine the embers of
a fire, where, from appearances as many as twenty redskins had spent the
preceding night. Their trail led to the northwest, and by certain signs
known to hunters, she inferred that they had started at day-break and were
now far on their way northward.

When her four male associates selected their respective routes in the
morning, her husband had, she now remembered, selected one which led
directly in the trail of the Indian war-party, and by good calculation he
would have been about six miles in their rear. Not being joined by the two
savages whose bodies lay at the bottom of the lake, what was more likely
than that they would send back a detachment to look after the safety of
their missing comrades?

The first thing to be done was to strike her husband's trail and then
follow it till she overtook him or met him returning. Swiftly, and yet
cautiously, she struck out into the forest in a direction at right angles
with the Indian camp. Being clad in trowsers of deer skin and a short tunic
and moccasins of the same material, she made her way through the woods as
easily as a man, and fortunately in a few moments discovered a trail which
she concluded was that of her husband. Her opinion was soon verified by
finding a piece of leather which she recognized as part of his
accoutrements. For two hours she strode swiftly on through the forest,
treading literally in her husband's tracks.

The sun was now three hours above the western horizon; so taking her seat
upon a fallen tree, she waited, expecting to see him soon returning on his
trail, when she heard faintly in the distance the report of a gun; a moment
after, another and still another report followed in quick succession.
Guided by the sound she hurried through the tangled thicket from which she
soon emerged into a grove of tall pine trees, and in the distance saw two
Indians with their backs turned toward her and shielding themselves from
some one in front by standing behind large trees. Without being seen by
them she stole up and sheltered herself in a similar manner, while her eye
ranged the forest in search of her husband who she feared was under the
fire of the red-skins.

At length she descried the object of their hostility behind the trunk of a
fallen tree. It was clearly a white man who crouched there, and he seemed
to be wounded. She immediately took aim at the nearest Indian and sent two
bullets through his lungs. The other Indian at the same instant had fired
at the white man and then sprang forward to finish him with his tomahawk.
Mrs. Pentry flew to the rescue and just as the savage lifted his arm to
brain his foe, she drove her hunting knife to the haft into his spine.

Her husband lay prostrate before her and senseless with loss of blood from
a bullet-wound in the right shoulder. Staunching the flow of blood with
styptics which she gathered among the forest shrubs, she brought water and
the wounded man soon revived. After a slow and weary march she brought him
back to the cabin, carrying him part of the way upon her shoulders. Under
her careful nursing he at length recovered his strength though he always
carried the bullet in his shoulder. It appears he had met three Indians who
told him they were in search of their two missing companions. One of them
afterwards treacherously shot him from behind through the shoulder, and in
return Pentry sent a ball through his heart. Then becoming weak from loss
of blood he could only point his gun-barrel at the remaining Indians, and
this was his situation when his wife came up and saved his life.

After receiving such an admonition it is natural to suppose the whole party
were content to remain near their forest home for a season, extending their
rambles only far enough to enable them to procure game and fish for their
table; and this was not far, for the lake was alive with fish; and wild
turkeys, deer, and other game could be shot sometimes even from the cabin
door.

The party were also deterred by this experience from attempting to drive
any trade with the Indians until the following spring, when they expected
to be joined by a large party of hunters.

The summer soon passed away, and the cold nights of September and October
admonished our hardy pioneers that they must prepare for a rigorous winter.
Mrs. Pentry made winter clothing for the men and for herself out of the
skins of animals which they had shot, and snow-shoes from the sinews of
deer stretched on a frame composed of strips of hard wood. She also felled
trees for fuel and lined the walls of the cabin with deer and bear skins;
she was the most skilful mechanic of the party, and having fitted runners
of hickory to one of the boats she rigged a sail of soft skins sewed
together, and once in November, after the river was frozen, and when the
wind blew strongly from the northwest, the whole party undertook to reach
the mouth of the river by sailing down in their boat upon the ice. A boat
of this kind, when the ice is smooth and the wind strong, will make fifteen
miles an hour.

They were interrupted frequently in their course by the falls and rapids,
making portages necessary; nevertheless in three days and two nights they
reached the mouth of the river.

Here they bartered their peltry for powder, bullets, and various other
articles most needed by frontiersmen, and catching a southeast wind started
on their return. In a few hours they had made seventy miles, and at night,
as the sky threatened snow, they prepared a shelter in a hollow in the bank
of the river. Before morning a snow-storm had covered the river-ice and
blocked their passage. For three days, the snow fell continuously. They
were therefore forced to abandon all hopes of reaching their cabin at the
head-waters of the Kennebec. The hollow or cave in the bank where they were
sheltered they covered with saplings and branches cut from the bluff, and
banked up the snow round it. Their supply of food was soon exhausted, but
by cutting holes in the ice they caught fish for their subsistence.

The depth of the snow prevented them from going far from their place of
shelter, and the nights were bitter cold. The ice on the river was two feet
in thickness; and one day, in cutting through it to fish, their only axe
was broken. No worse calamity could have befallen them, since they were now
unable to cut fuel or to procure fish. Mr. Pentry, who was still suffering
from the effects of his wound, contracted a cold which settled in his lame
shoulder, and he was obliged to stay in doors, carefully nursed and tended
by his devoted wife. The privations endured by these unfortunates are
scarcely to be paralleled. Short of food, ill-supplied with clothing, and
exposed to the howling severity of the climate, the escape of any one of
the number appears almost a miracle.

A number of bear-skins, removed from the boat to the cave, served them for
bedding. Some days, when there was nothing to eat and no means of making a
fire, they passed the whole time huddled up in the skins. Daily they became
weaker and less capable of exertion. Wading through the snow up to the
waist, they were able now and then to shoot enough small game to barely
keep them alive.

After the lapse of a fortnight there came a thaw, succeeded by a cold rain,
which froze as it fell. The snow became crusted over, to the depth of two
inches, with ice that was strong enough to bear their weight. They
extricated their ice-boat and prepared for departure. One of the party had
gone out that morning on the crust, hoping to secure some larger game to
stock their larder before starting; the rest awaited his return for two
hours, and then, fearing some casualty had happened to him, followed his
trail for half a mile from the river and found him engaged in a desperate
struggle with a large black she-bear which he had wounded.

The ferocious animal immediately left its prey and rushed at Mrs. Pentry
with open mouth, seizing her left arm in its jaws, crunched it, and then,
rising on its hind legs, gave her a terrible hug. The rest of the party
dared not fire, for fear of hitting the woman. Twice she drove her hunting
knife into the beast's vitals and it fell on the crust, breaking through
into the snow beneath, where the two rolled over in a death-struggle. The
heroic woman at length arose victorious, and the carcase of the bear was
dragged forth, skinned, and cut up. A fire was speedily kindled, Mrs.
Pentry's wounds were dressed, and after refreshing themselves with a hearty
meal of bearsteak, the remainder of the meat was packed in the boat.

The party then embarked, and by the aid of a stiff easterly breeze, were
enabled, in three days, to reach their cabin on the head-waters of the
Kennebec. The explorations made along the Kennebec by Mrs. Pentry and her
companions attracted thither an adventurous class of settlers, and
ultimately led to the important settlements on the line of that river.

The remainder of Mrs. Pentry's life was spent mainly on the northern
frontier. She literally lived and died in the woods, reaching the advanced
age of ninety-six years, and seeing three generation of her descendants
grow up around her. Possessing the strength and courage of a man, she had
also all a woman's kindness, and appears to have been an estimable person
in all the relations of life--a good wife and mother, a warm friend, and a
generous neighbor. In fact, she was a representative woman of the times in
which she lived.

The toils of a severer nature, such as properly belong to man, often fall
upon woman from the necessities of life in remote and isolated settlements;
she is seen plying strange vocations and undertaking tasks that bear hardly
on the soft and gentle sex. Sometimes a hunter and trapper; and again a
mariner; now we see her performing the rugged work of a farm, and again a
fighter, stoutly defending her home. The fact that habit and necessity
accustom her, in frontier life, to those employments which in older and
more conventional communities are deemed unfitting and ungraceful for woman
to engage in, makes it none the less striking and admirable, because in
doing so she serves a great and useful purpose; she is thereby doing her
part in forming new communities in the places that are uninhabited and
waste.

Vermont was largely settled by the soldiers who had served in the army of
the Revolution. The settlers, both men and women, were hardy and intrepid,
and seem to have been peculiarly adapted to subjugate that rugged region in
our New England wilderness. The women were especially noted for the
strength and courage with which they shared the labors of the men and
encountered the hardships and dangers of frontier life.

When sickness or death visited the men of the family, the mothers, wives,
or widows filled their places in the woods, or on the farm, or among the
cattle. Often, side by side with the men, women could be seen emulating
their husbands in the severe task of felling timber and making a clearing
in the forest.

In the words of Daniel P. Thompson, author of "The Green Mountain Boys":--

"The women of the Green Mountains deserve as much credit for their various
displays of courage, endurance, and patriotism, in the early settlement of
their State, as was ever awarded to their sex for similar exhibitions in
any part of the world. In the controversy with New York and New Hampshire,
which took the form of war in many instances; in the predatory Indian
incursions, and in the War of the Revolution, they often displayed a
capacity for labor and endurance, a spirit and firmness in the hour of
danger, a resolution and hardihood in defending their families and their
threatened land against all enemies, whether domestic or foreign, that
would have done honor to the dames of Sparta."

The first man who commenced a settlement in the town of Salisbury, Vermont,
on the Otter Creek, was Amos Storey, who, in making an opening in the heart
of the wilderness on the right of land to which the first settler was
entitled, was killed by the fall of a tree. His widow, who had been left in
Connecticut, immediately resolved to push into the wilderness with her ten
small children, to take his place and preserve and clear up his farm. This
bold resolution she carried out to the letter, in spite of every
difficulty, hardship, and danger, which for years constantly beset her in
her solitary location in the woods. Acre after acre of the dense and dark
forest melted away before her axe, which she handled with the dexterity of
the most experienced chopper. The logs and bushes were piled and burnt by
her own strong and untiring hand; crops were raised, by which, with the
fruits of her fishing and unerring rifle, she supported herself and her
hardy brood of children. As a place of refuge from the assaults of Indians
or dangerous wild beasts, she dug out an underground room, into which,
through a small entrance made to open under an overhanging thicket on the
bank of the stream, she nightly retreated with her children.

Frequently during the dreary winter nights she was kept awake by the
howling of the wolves, and sometimes, looking through the chinks in the
logs, she could see them loping in circles around the cabin, whining and
snuffing the air as if they yearned for human blood. They were gaunt,
fierce-looking creatures, and in the winter-time their hunger made them so
bold that they would come up to the door and scratch against it. The
barking of her mastiff would soon drive the cowardly beasts away but only a
few rods, to the edge of the clearing where, sitting on their haunches,
they frequently watched the house all night, galloping away into the woods
when day broke.

Here she continued to reside, thus living, thus laboring, unassisted, till,
by her own hand and the help which her boys soon began to afford her, she
cleared up a valuable farm and placed herself in independent circumstances.

Miss Hannah Fox tells the following thrilling story of an adventure that
befel her while engaged in felling trees in her mother's woods in Rhode
Island, in the early colonial days.

We were making fine progress with our clearing and getting ready to build a
house in the spring. My brother and I worked early and late, often going
without our dinner, when the bread and meat which we brought with us was
frozen so hard that our teeth could make no impression upon it, without
taking too much of our time. My brother plied his axe on the largest trees,
while I worked at the smaller ones or trimmed the boughs from the trunks of
such as had been felled.

The last day of our chopping was colder than ever. The ground was covered
by a deep snow which had crusted over hard enough to bear our weight, which
was a great convenience in moving from spot to spot in the forest, as well
as in walking to and from our cabin, which was a mile away. My brother had
gone to the nearest settlement that day, leaving me to do my work alone.

As a storm was threatening, I toiled as long as I could see, and after
twilight felled a sizeable tree which in its descent lodged against
another. Not liking to leave the job half finished, I mounted the almost
prostrate trunk to cut away a limb and let it down. The bole of the tree
was forked about twenty feet from the ground, and one of the divisions of
the fork would have to be cut asunder. A few blows of my axe and the tree
began to settle, but as I was about to descend, the fork split and the
first joints of my left-hand fingers slid into the crack so that for the
moment I could not extricate them. The pressure was not severe, and as I
believed I could soon relieve myself by cutting away the remaining portion,
I felt no alarm. But at the first blow of the axe which I held in my right
hand, the trunk changed its position, rolling over and closing the split,
with the whole force of its tough oaken fibers crushing my fingers like
pipe-stems; at the same time my body was dislodged from the trunk and I
slid slowly down till I hung suspended with the points of my feet just
brushing the snow. The air was freezing and every moment growing colder; no
prospect of any relief that night; the nearest house a mile away; no
friends to feel alarmed at my absence, for my mother would suppose that I
was safe with my brother, while the latter would suppose I was by this time
at home.

The first thought was of my mother. "It will kill her to know that I died
in this death-trap so near home, almost within hearing of her voice! There
must be some escape! but how?" My axe had fallen below me and my feet could
almost touch it. It was impossible to imagine how I could cut myself loose
unless I could reach it. My only hope of life rested on that keen blade
which lay glittering on the snow.

Within reach of my hand was a dead bush which towered some eight feet above
me, and by a great exertion of strength I managed to break it. Holding it
between my teeth I stripped it of its twigs, leaving two projecting a few
inches at the lower end to form a hook. With this I managed to draw towards
me the head of the axe until my fingers touched it, when it slipped from
the hook and fell again upon the snow, breaking through the crust and
burying itself so that only the upper end of the helve could be seen.

Up to that moment the recollection of my mother and the first excitement
engendered by hope had almost made me unconscious of the excruciating pain
in my crushed fingers, and the sharp thrills that shot through my nerves,
as my body swung and twisted in my efforts to reach the axe. But now, as
the axe fell beyond my reach, the reaction came, hope fled, and I shuddered
with the thought that I must die there alone like some wild thing caught in
a snare. I thought of my widowed mother, my brother, the home which we had
toiled to make comfortable and happy. I prayed earnestly to God for
forgiveness of my sins, and then calmly resigned myself to death, which I
now believed to be inevitable. For a time, which I afterwards found to be
only five minutes, but which then seemed to me like hours, I hung
motionless. The pain had ceased, for the intense cold blunted my sense of
feeling. A numbness, stole over me, and I seemed to be falling into a
trance, from which I was roused by a sound of bells borne to me as if from
a great distance. Hope again awoke, and I screamed loud and long; the woods
echoed my cries, but no voice replied. The bells grew fainter and fainter,
and at last died away. But the sound of my voice had broken the spell which
cold and despair were fast throwing over me. A hundred devices ran swiftly
through my mind, and each device was dismissed as impracticable. The helve
of the axe caught my eye, and in an instant by an association of ideas it
flashed across me that in the pocket of my dress there was a small
knife--another sharp instrument by which I could extricate myself. With
some difficulty I contrived to open the blade, and then withdrawing the
knife from my pocket and gripping it as one who clings to the last hope of
life, I strove to cut away the wood that held my fingers in its terrible
vise. In vain! the wood was like iron. The motion of my arm and body
brought back the pain which the cold had lulled, and I feared that I should
faint.

After a moment's pause I adopted a last expedient. Nerving myself to the
dreadful necessity, I disjointed my fingers and fell exhausted to the
ground. My life was saved, but my left hand was a bleeding stump. The
intensity of the cold stopped the flow of blood. I tore off a piece of my
dress, bound up my fingers, and started for home. My complete exhaustion
and the bitter cold made that the longest mile I had ever traveled. By nine
o'clock that evening I had managed to drag myself, more dead than alive, to
my mother's door, but it was more than a week before I could again leave
the house.

The difficulties encountered by the first emigrant-bands from
Massachusetts, on their journey to Connecticut, may be understood best when
we consider the face of the country between Massachusetts Bay and Hartford.
It was a succession of ridges and deep valleys with swamps and rapid
streams, and covered with forests and thickets where bears, wolves, and
catamounts prowled. The journey, which occupies now but a few hours, then
generally required two weeks to perform. The early settlers, men, women,
and children, pursued their toilsome march over this rough country, picking
their way through morasses, wading through rivers and streams, and climbing
mountains; driving their cattle, sheep, and swine before them. Some came,
on horseback; the older and feebler in ox-carts, but most of them traveled
on foot. At night aged and delicate women slept under trees in the forest,
with no covering but the foliage and the cope of heaven.

The winter was near at hand, and the nights were already cold and frosty.
Many of the women had been delicately reared, and yet were obliged to
travel on foot for the whole distance, reaching their destination in a
condition of exhaustion that ill prepared them for the hardships of the
ensuing winter. Some were nursing mothers, who sheltered themselves and
their babes in rude huts where the wind, rain, and snow drove in through
yawning fissures which there were no means to close. Others were aged
women, who in sore distress sent up their prayers and rolled their
quavering hymns to the wintry skies, their only canopy. The story of these
hapless families is told in the simple but effective language of the old
historian.

"On the 15th of October [1632] about sixty men, women, and children, with
their horses, cattle, and swine, commenced their journey from
Massachusetts, through the wilderness, to Connecticut River. After a
tedious and difficult journey through swamps and rivers, over mountains and
rough grounds, which were passed with great difficulty and fatigue, they
arrived safely at their respective destinations. They were so long on their
journey, and so much time and pains were spent in passing the river, and in
getting over their cattle, that after all their exertions, winter came upon
them before they were prepared. This was an occasion of great distress and
damage to the plantation. The same autumn several other parties came from
the east--including a large number of women and children--by different
routes, and settled on the banks of the Connecticut river.

"The winter set in this year much sooner than usual, and the weather was
stormy and severe. By the 15th of November, the Connecticut river was
frozen over, and the snow was so deep, and the season so tempestuous, that
a considerable number of the cattle which had been driven on from the
Massachusetts, could not be brought across the river. The people had so
little time to prepare their huts and houses, and to erect sheds and
shelter for their cattle, that the sufferings of man and beast were
extreme. Indeed the hardships and distresses of the first planters of
Connecticut scarcely admit of a description. To carry much provision or
furniture through a pathless wilderness was impracticable. Their principal
provisions and household furniture were therefore put on several small
vessels, which, by reason of delays and the tempestuousness of the season,
were cast away. Several vessels were wrecked on the coast of New England,
by the violence of the storms. Two shallops laden with goods from Boston to
Connecticut, were cast away in October, on Brown's Island, near the
Gurnet's Nose; and the men with every thing on board were lost. A vessel
with six of the Connecticut people on board, which sailed from the river
for Boston, early in November, was, about the middle of the month, cast
away in Manamet Bay. The men and women got on shore, and after wandering
ten days in deep snow and a severe season, without meeting any human being,
arrived, nearly spent with cold and fatigue, at New Plymouth.

"By the last of November, or beginning of December, provisions generally
failed in the settlements on the river, and famine and death looked the
inhabitants sternly in the face. Some of them driven by hunger attempted
their way, in that severe season, through the wilderness, from Connecticut
to Massachusetts. Of thirteen, in one company, who made this attempt, one
in passing the river fell through the ice and was drowned. The other twelve
were ten days on their journey, and would all have perished, had it not
been for the assistance of the Indians.

"Indeed, such was the distress in general, that by the 3d and 4th of
December, a considerable part of the new settlers were obliged to abandon
their habitations. Seventy persons, men, women, and children, were
compelled, in the extremity of winter, to go down to the mouth of the river
to meet their provisions, as the only expedient to preserve their lives.
Not meeting with the vessels which they expected, they all went on board
the Rebecca, a vessel of about sixty tons. This, two days before, was
frozen in, twenty miles up the river; but by the falling of a small rain,
and the influence of the tide, the ice became so broken and was so far
removed, that she made a shift to get out. She ran, however, upon the bar,
and the people were forced to unlade her to get off. She was released, and
in five days reached Boston. Had it not been for these providential
circumstances, the people must have perished with famine.

"The people who kept their stations on the river suffered in an extreme
degree. After all the help they were able to obtain, by hunting, and from
the Indians, they were obliged to subsist on acorns, malt, and grains.

"Numbers of the cattle which could not be got over the river before winter,
lived through without anything but what they found in the woods and
meadows. They wintered as well, or better than those which were brought
over, and for which all the provision was made and pains taken of which the
owners were capable. However, a great number of cattle perished. The
Dorchester or Windsor people, lost in this way alone about two hundred
pounds sterling. Their other losses were very considerable."

It is difficult to describe, or even to conceive, the apprehensions or
distresses of a people in the circumstances of our venerable ancestors,
during this doleful winter. All the horrors of a dreary wilderness spread
themselves around them. They were compassed with numerous fierce and cruel
tribes of wild and savage men who could have swallowed up parents and
children at pleasure, in their feeble and distressed condition. They had
neither bread for themselves nor children; neither habitation nor clothing
convenient for them. Whatever emergency might happen, they were cut off,
both by land and water, from any succor or retreat. What self-denial,
firmness, and magnanimity are necessary for such enterprises! How
distressing, in the beginning, was the condition of those now fair and
opulent towns on Connecticut River!

Under the most favorable circumstances, the lives of the pioneer-women must
have been one long ordeal of hardship and suffering. The fertile valleys
were the scenes of the bloodiest Indian raids, while the remote and sterile
hill country, if it escaped the attention of the hostile savage, was liable
to be visited by other ills. Famine in such regions was always imminent,
and the remoteness and isolation of those frontier-cabins often made relief
impossible. A failure in the little crop of corn, which the thin soil of
the hillside scantily furnished, and the family were driven to the front
for game and to the streams for fish, to supply their wants. Then came the
winter, and the cabin was often blockaded with snow for weeks. The fuel and
food consumed, nothing seemed left to the doomed household but to struggle
on for a season, and then lie down and die. Fortunately the last sad
catastrophe was of rare occurrence, owing to the extraordinary resolution
and hardihood of the settlers.

It is a striking fact that in all the records, chronicles, and letters of
the early settlers that have come down to us, there are scarcely to be
found any complaining word from woman. She simply stated her sufferings,
the dangers she encountered, the hardships she endured, and that was all.
No querulous or peevish complaints, no meanings over her hard lot. She bore
her pains and sorrows and privations in silence, looking forward to her
reward, and knowing that she was making homes in the wilderness, and that
future generations would rise up and call her blessed.




CHAPTER IV.

THE BLOCK HOUSE, AND ON THE INDIAN TRAIL.


The axe and the gun, the one to conquer the forces of wild nature, the
other to battle against savage man and beast--these were the twin weapons
that the pioneer always kept beside him, whether on the march or during a
halt. In defensive warfare the axe was scarcely less potent than the gun,
for with its keen edge the great logs were hewed which formed the
block-house, and the tall saplings shaped, which were driven into the earth
to make the stockade. We know too that woman could handle the gun and ply
the axe when required so to do.

In one of our historical galleries there was exhibited not long since a
painting representing a party of Indians attacking a block-house in a New
England settlement. The house is a structure framed, and built of enormous
logs, hexagonal in shape, the upper stories over-hanging those beneath, and
pierced with loopholes. There is a thick parapet on the roof, behind which
are collected the children of the settlement guarded by women, old and
young, some of whom are firing over the parapet at the yelling fiends who
have just emerged from their forest-ambush. A glimpse of the interior of
the block-house shows us women engaged in casting bullets and loading
fire-arms which they are handing to the men. In the background a brave girl
is returning swiftly to the garrison, with buckets of water which she has
drawn from the spring, a few rods away from the house. A crouching savage
has leveled his gun at her, and she evidently knows the danger she is in,
but moves steadily forward without spilling a drop of her precious burden.

The block-house is surrounded by the primeval forest, which is alive with
savages. Some are shaking at the defenders of the block-house fresh scalps,
evidently just torn from the heads of men and women who have been overtaken
and tomahawked before they could reach their forest-citadel: others have
fired the stack of corn. A large fire has been kindled in the woods and a
score of savages are wrapping dry grass around the ends of long poles, with
which to fire the wooden walls of the block-house.

Thirty or forty men women and children in a wooden fort, a hundred miles,
perhaps, from any settlement, and surrounded by five times their number of
Pequots or Wampanoags thirsting for their blood! This is indeed a faithful
picture of one of the frequent episodes of colonial life in New England!

Every new settlement was brought face to face with such dangers as we have
described. The red-man and the white man were next door neighbors. The
smokes of the wigwam and the cabin mingled as they rose to the sky. From
the first there was more or less antagonism. Life among the white settlers
was a kind of picket-service in which woman shared.

At times, as for example in the wars with the Pequots and King Philip,
there was safety nowhere. Men went armed to the field, to meeting, and to
bring home their brides from their father's house where they had married
them. Women with muskets at their side lulled their babes to sleep. Like
the tiger of the jungles, the savage lay in ambush for the women and
children: he knew he could strike the infant colony best by thus desolating
the homes.

The captivities of Mrs. Williams and her children, of Mrs. Shute, of Mrs.
Johnson, of Mrs. Howe, and of many other matrons; as well as of unmarried
women, are well-conned incidents of New England colonial history. The story
of Mrs. Dustin's exploit and escape reads like a romance. "At night," to
use the concise language of Mr. Bancroft, "while the household slumbers,
the captives, each with a tomahawk, strike vigorously, and fleetly, and
with division of labor,--and of the twelve sleepers, ten lie dead; of one
squaw the wound was not mortal; one child was spared from design. The love
of glory next asserted its power; and the gun and tomahawk of the murderer
of her infant, and a bag heaped full of scalps were choicely kept as
trophies of the heroine. The streams are the guides which God has set for
the stranger in the wilderness: in a bark canoe the three descend the
Merrimac to the English settlement, astonishing their friends by their
escape and filling the land with wonder at their successful daring."

The details of Mrs. Rowlandson's sufferings after her capture at Lancaster,
Mass., in 1676, are almost too painful to dwell upon. When the Indians
began their march the day after the destruction of that place, Mrs.
Rowlandson carried her infant till her strength failed and she fell. Toward
night it began to snow; and gathering a few sticks, she made a fire.
Sitting beside it on the snow, she held her child in her arms, through the
long and dismal night. For three or four days she had no sustenance but
water; nor did her child share any better for nine days. During this time
it was constantly in her arms or lap. At the end of that period, the frost
of death crept into its eyes, and she was forced to relinquish it to be
disposed of by the unfeeling sextons of the forest.

She went through almost every suffering but death. She was beaten, kicked,
turned out of doors, refused food, insulted in the grossest manner, and at
times almost starved. Nothing but experience can enable us to conceive what
must be the hunger of a person by whom the discovery of six acorns and two
chestnuts was regarded as a rich prize. At times, in order to make her
miserable, they announced to her the death of her husband and her children.

On various occasions they threatened to kill her. Occasionally, but for
short intervals only, she was permitted to see her children, and suffered
her own anguish over again in their miseries. She was obliged, while hardly
able to walk, to carry a heavy burden, over hills, and through rivers,
swamps, and marshes; and in the most inclement seasons. These evils were
repeated daily; and, to crown them all, she was daily saluted with the most
barbarous and insolent accounts of the burning and slaughter, the tortures
and agonies, inflicted by them upon her countrymen. It is to be remembered
that Mrs. Rowlandson was tenderly and delicately educated, and ill fitted
to encounter such distresses; and yet she bore them all with a fortitude
truly wonderful.

Instances too there were, where a single woman infused her own dauntless
spirit into a whole garrison, and prevented them from abandoning their
post. Mrs. Heard, "a widow of good estate a mother of many children, and a
daughter of Mr. Hull, a revered minister formerly settled in Piscataqua,"
having escaped from captivity among the Indians, about 1689, returned to
one of the garrisons on the extreme frontier of New Hampshire. By her
presence and courage this out-post was maintained for ten years and during
the whole war, though frequently assaulted by savages. It is stated that if
she had left the garrison and retired to Portsmouth, as she was solicited
to do by her friends, the out-post would have been abandoned, greatly to
the damage of the surrounding country.

Long after the New England colonies rested in comparative security from the
attacks of the aboriginal tribes, the warfare was continued in the Middle,
Southern, and Western States, and even at this hour, sitting in our
peaceful homes we read in the journals of the day reports of Indian
atrocities perpetrated against the families of the pioneers on our extreme
western frontier.

Our whole history from the earliest times to the present, is full of
instances of woman's noble achievements. East, west, north, south, wherever
we wander, we tread the soil which has been wearily trodden by her feet as
a pioneer, moistened by her tears as a captive, or by her blood as a martyr
in the cause of civilization on this western continent.

The sorrows of maidens, wives, and mothers in the border wars of our
colonial times, have furnished themes for the poet, the artist, and the
novelist, but the reality of these scenes as described in the simple words
of the local historians, often exceeds the most vivid dress in which
imagination can clothe it.

One of the most deeply rooted traits of woman's nature is sympathy, and the
outflow of that emotion into action is as natural as the emotion itself.
When a woman witnesses the sufferings of others it is instinctive with her
to try and relieve them, and to be thwarted in the exercise of this faculty
is to her a positive pain.

We may judge from this of what her feelings must have been when she saw, as
she often did, those who were dearest to her put to torture and death
without being permitted to rescue them or even alleviate their agonies.

Such was the position in which Mrs. Waldron was placed, on the northern
border, during the French and Indian war of the last century. She and her
husband occupied a small block-house which they had built a few miles from
Cherry Valley, New York, and here she was doomed to suffer all that a wife
could, in witnessing the terrible fate of her husband and being at the same
time powerless to rescue him.

"One fatal evening," to use the quaint words of our heroine, "I was all
alone in the house, when I was of a sudden surprised with the fearful
war-whoop and a tremendous attack upon the door and the palisades around. I
flew to the upper window and seizing my husband's gun, which I had learned
to use expertly, I leveled the barrel on the window-sill and took aim at
the foremost savage. Knowing their cruelty and merciless disposition, and
wishing to obtain some favor, I desisted from firing; but how vain and
fruitless are the efforts of one woman against the united force of so many,
and of such merciless monsters as I had here to deal with! One of them that
could speak a little English, threatened me in return, 'that if I did not
come out, they would burn me alive in the house.' My terror and distraction
at hearing this is not to be expressed by words nor easily imagined by any
person unless in the same condition. Distracted as I was in such deplorable
circumstances, I chose to rely on the uncertainty of their protection,
rather than meet with certain death in the house; and accordingly went out
with my gun in my hand, scarcely knowing what I did. Immediately on my
approach, they rushed on me like so many tigers, and instantly disarmed me.
Having me thus in their power, the merciless villians bound me to a tree
near the door.

"While our house and barns were burning, sad to relate, my husband just
then came through the woods, and being spied by the barbarians, they gave
chase and soon overtook him. Alas! for what a fate was he reserved! Digging
a deep pit, they tied his arms to his side and put him into it and then
rammed and beat the earth all around his body up to his neck, his head only
appearing above ground. They then scalped him and kindled a slow fire near
his head.

"I broke my bonds, and running to him kissed his poor bleeding face, and
threw myself at the feet of his barbarous tormentors, begging them to spare
his life. Deaf to all my tears and entreaties and to the piercing shrieks
of my unfortunate husband, they dragged me away and bound me more firmly to
the tree, smiting my face with the dripping scalp and laughing at my
agonies.

"Thank God! I then lost all consciousness of the dreadful scene; and when I
regained my senses the monsters had fled after cutting off the head of the
poor victim of their cruel rage."

When the British formed an unholy alliance with the Indians during the
Revolutionary War and turned the tomahawk and scalping knife against their
kinsmen, the beautiful valley of Wyoming became a dark and bloody
battle-ground. The organization and disciplined valor of the white man,
leagued with the cunning and ferocity of the red man, was a combination
which met the patriots at every step in those then remote settlements, and
spread rapine, fire, and murder over that lovely region.

The sufferings of the captive women, the dreadful scenes they witnessed,
and the fortitude and courage they displayed, have been rescued from
tradition and embodied in a permanent record by more than one historian.
The names of Mrs. Bennet, Mrs. Myers, Mrs. Marcy, Mrs. Franklin, and a host
of others, are inseparably associated with the household legends of the
Wyoming Valley.

Miss Cook, after witnessing the barbarous murder and mutilation of a
beautiful girl, whose rosy cheeks were gashed and whose silken tresses were
torn from her head with the scalping knife, was threatened with instant
death unless she would assist in dressing a bundle of fresh, reeking scalps
cut from the heads of her friends and relatives. As she handled the gory
trophies, expecting every moment that her own locks would be added to the
ghastly heap, she saw something in each of those sad mementos that reminded
her of those who were near and dear to her. At last she lifted one which
she thought was her mother's; she gazed at the long tresses sprinkled with
gray and called to mind how often she had combed and caressed them in
happier hours: shuddering through her whole frame, the wretched girl burst
into a passion of tears. The ruthless savage who stood guard over her with
brandished tomahawk immediately forced her to resume and complete her
horrible task.

In estimating the heroism of American women displayed in their conflicts
with the aborigines, we must take into account her natural repugnance to
repulsive and horrid spectacles. The North American savage streaked with
war-paint, a bunch of reeking scalps at his girdle, his snaky eyes gleaming
with malignity, was a direful sight for even a hardened frontiers-man; how
much more, then, to his impressionable and delicate wife and daughter. The
very appearance of the savage suggested thoughts of the tomahawk, the
scalping knife, the butchered relations, the desolated homestead. Nothing
can better illustrate the hardihood of these bold spirited women than the
fact that they showed themselves not seldom superior to these feelings of
dread and abhorrence, daring even in the midst of scenes of blood to
denounce personally and to their face the treachery and cruelty of their
foes.

[Footnote: DeHass.] In the year 1763 a party of Shawnees visited the
Block-House at Big Levels, Virginia, and after being hospitably entertained
by the inhabitants, turned treacherously upon them and massacred every
white man in the house. The women and children were carried away as
captives, including Mrs. Glendenning, the late wife, and now the widow of
one of the leading settlers. Notwithstanding the dreadful scenes through
which she had passed, Mrs. Glendenning was not intimidated. Her husband and
friends had been butchered before her eyes; but though possessed of keen
sensibilities, her spirit was undaunted by the awful spectacle. Filled with
indignation at the treachery and cruelty of the Indians, she loudly
denounced them, and tauntingly told them that they lacked the hearts of
great warriors who met their foes in fair and open conflict. The savages
were astounded at her audacity; they tried to frighten her into silence by
flapping the bloody scalp of her husband in her face and by flourishing
their tomahawks above her head. The intrepid woman still continued to
express her indignation and detestation. The savages, admiring her courage,
refrained from inflicting any injury upon her. She soon after managed to
effect her escape and returned to her desolate home, where she gave decent
interment to the mangled remains of her husband. During all the trying
scenes of the massacre and captivity Mrs. Glendenning proved herself worthy
of being ranked with the bravest women of our Colonial history.

The region watered by the upper Ohio and its tributary streams was for
fifty years the battle-ground where the French and their Indian allies, and
afterwards the Indians alone, strove to drive back the Anglo-Saxon race as
it moved westward. The country there was rich and beautiful, but what made
its possession especially desirable was the fact that it was the strategic
key to the great West. The French, understanding its importance,
established their fortresses and trading-posts as bulwarks against the army
of English settlers advancing from the East, and also instructed their
savage allies in the art of war.

The Indian tribes in that region were warlike and powerful, and for some
years it seemed as if the country would be effectually barred against the
access of the Eastern pioneer. But the same school that reared and trained
the daughters and grand-daughters of the Pilgrims, and of the settlers of
Jamestown, and fitted them to cope with the perils and hardships of the
wilderness, and to battle with hostile aboriginal tribes, also fitted their
descendants for new struggles on a wider field and against more desperate
odds. The courage and fortitude of men and women alike rose to the
occasion, and in those scenes of danger and carnage, the presence of mind
displayed by women especially, have been frequent themes of panegyric by
the border annalists.

[Footnote: DeHass.] The scene wherein Miss Elizabeth Zane, one of these
heroines, played so conspicuous a part, was at Fort Henry, near the present
city of Wheeling, Virginia, in the latter part of November, 1782. Of the
forty-two men who originally composed the garrisons, nearly all had been
drawn into an ambush and slaughtered. The Indians, to the number of several
hundred, surrounded the garrison which numbered no more than twelve men and
boys.

A brisk fire upon the fort was kept up for six hours by the savages, who at
times rushed close up to the palisades and received the reward of their
temerity from the rifles of the frontiersmen. In the afternoon the stock of
powder was nearly exhausted. There was a keg in a house ten or twelve rods
from the gate of the fort, and the question arose, who shall attempt to
seize this prize? Strange to say, every soldier proffered his services, and
there was an ardent contention among them for the honor. In the weak state
of the garrison, Colonel Shepard, the commander, deemed it advisable that
only one person could be spared; and in the midst of the confusion, before
any one could be designated, Elizabeth Zane interrupted the debate, saying
that her life, was not so important at that time as any one of the
soldiers, and claiming the privilege of performing the contested services.
The Colonel would not at first listen to her proposal, but she was so
resolute, so persevering in her plea, and her argument was so powerful,
that he finally suffered the gate to be opened, and she passed out. The
Indians saw her before she reached her brother's house, where the keg was
deposited; but for some cause unknown, they did not molest her until she
reappeared with the article under her arm. Probably, divining the nature of
her burden, they discharged a volley as she was running towards the gate,
but the whizzing balls only gave agility to her feet, and herself and the
prize were quickly safe within the gate.

The successful issue of this perilous enterprise infused new spirit into
the garrison; re-enforcements soon reached them, the assailants were forced
to beat a precipitate retreat, and Fort Henry and the whole frontier was
saved, thanks to the heroism of Elizabeth Zane!

[Footnote: McClung's Sketches of Western Adventure.] The heroines of
Bryant's Station deserve a place on the roll of honor, beside the name of
the preserver of Fort Henry, since like her their courage preserved a
garrison from destruction. We condense the story from the several sources
from which it has come down to us.

The station, consisting of about forty cabins ranged in parallel lines,
stood upon a gentle rise on the southern banks of the Elkhorn, near
Lexington, Kentucky. One morning in August, 1782, an army of six hundred
Indians appeared before it as suddenly as if they had risen out of the
earth. One hundred picked warriors made a feint on one side of the fort,
trying to entice the men out from behind the stockade, while the remainder
were concealed in ambush near the spring with which the garrison was
supplied with water. The most experienced of the defenders understood the
tactics of their wily foes, and shrewdly guessed that an ambuscade had been
prepared in order to cut off the garrison from access to the spring. The
water in the station was already exhausted, and unless a fresh supply could
be obtained the most dreadful sufferings were apprehended. It was thought
probable that the Indians in ambush would not unmask themselves until they
saw indications that the party on the opposite side of the fort had
succeeded in enticing the soldiers to an open engagement.

[Footnote: McClung's Sketches of Western Adventure.] Acting upon this
impression, and yielding to the urgent necessity of the case, they summoned
all the women, without exception, and explaining to them the circumstances
in which they were placed, and the improbability that any injury would be
done them, until the firing had been returned from the opposite side of the
fort, they urged them to go in a body to the spring, and each to bring up a
bucket full of water. Some, as was natural, had no relish for the
undertaking; they observed they were not bulletproof, and asked why the men
could not bring the water as well as themselves; adding that the Indians
made no distinction between male and female scalps.

To this it was answered, that women were in the habit of bringing water
every morning to the fort, and that if the Indians saw them engaged as
usual, it would induce them to believe that their ambuscade was
undiscovered, and that they would not unmask themselves for the sake of
firing at a few women, when they hoped, by remaining concealed a few
moments longer to obtain complete possession of the fort; that if men
should go down to the spring, the Indians would immediately suspect that
something was wrong, would despair of succeeding by ambuscade, and would
instantly rush upon them, follow them into the fort, or shoot them down at
the spring. The decision was soon made.

A few of the boldest declared their readiness to brave the danger, and the
younger and more timid rallying in the rear of these veterans, they all
marched down in a body to the spring, within point blank shot of more than
five hundred Indian warriors! Some of the girls could not help betraying
symptoms of terror, but the married women, in general, moved with a
steadiness and composure which completely deceived the Indians. Not a shot
was fired. The party were permitted to fill their buckets, one after
another, without interruption, and although their steps became quicker and
quicker, on their return, and when near the gate of the fort, degenerated
into a rather un-military celerity, attended with some little crowding in
passing the gate, yet only a small portion of the water was spilled. The
brave water carriers were received with open arms and loud cheers by the
garrison, who hailed them as their preservers, and the Indians shortly
after retired, baffled and cursing themselves for being outwitted by the
"white squaws."

The annals of the border-wars in the region of which we have been speaking
abound in stories where women have been the victors in hand-to-hand fights
with savages. In all these combats we may note the spirit that inspired
those brave women with such wonderful strength and courage, transforming
them, from gentle matrons into brave soldiers. It was love for their
children, their husbands, their kindred, or their homes rather than the
selfish instinct of self-preservation which impelled Mrs. Porter, the two
Mrs. Cooks, Mrs. Merrill, and Mrs. Bozarth to perform those feats of
prowess and daring which will make their names live for ever in the
thrilling story of border-warfare.

The scene where Mrs. Porter acted her amazing part was in Huntingdon
county, Pennsylvania, and the time was during the terrible war instigated
by the great Pontiac. While sitting by the window of her cabin, awaiting
the return of her husband, who had gone to the mill, she caught sight of an
Indian approaching the door. Taking her husband's sword from the wall where
it hung, she planted herself behind the door; and when the Indian entered
she struck with all her might, splitting his skull and stretching him a
corpse upon the floor. Another savage entered and met the same fate. A
third seeing the slaughter of his companions prudently retired.

Dropping the bloody weapon, she next seized the loaded gun which stood
beside her and retreated to the upper story looking for an opportunity to
shoot the savage from the port-holes. The Indian pursued her and as he set
foot upon the upper floor received the contents of her gun full in the
chest and fell dead in his tracks. Cautiously reconnoitering in all
directions and seeing the field clear she fled swiftly toward the mill and
meeting her husband, both rode to a neighboring block-house where they
found refuge and aid. The next morning it was discovered that other Indians
had burned their cabin, partly out of revenge and partly to conceal their
discomfiture by a woman. The bones of the three savages found among the
ashes were ghastly trophies of Mrs. Porter's extraordinary achievement.

In Nelson county, Kentucky, on a midsummer night, in 1787, just before the
gray light of morning, John Merrill, attracted by the barking of his dog,
went to the door of his cabin to reconnoiter. Scarcely had he left the
threshold, when he received the fire of six or seven Indians, by which his
arm and thigh were both broken. He managed to crawl inside the cabin and
shouted to his wife to shut the door. Scarcely had she succeeded in doing
so when the tomahawks of the enemy were hewing a breach into the apartment.

[Footnote: McClung's Sketches of Western Adventure.] Mrs. Merrill, with
Amazonian courage and strength, grasped a large axe and killed, or badly
wounded, four of the enemy in succession as they attempted to force their
way into the cabin.

The Indians then ascended the roof and attempted to enter by way of the
chimney, but here, again, they were met by the same determined enemy. Mrs.
Merrill seized the only feather-bed which the cabin afforded, and hastily
ripping it open, poured its contents upon the fire. A furious blaze and
stifling smoke ascended the chimney, and quickly brought down two of the
enemy, who lay for a few moments at the mercy of the lady. Seizing the axe,
she despatched them, and was instantly summoned to the door, where the only
remaining savage appeared, endeavoring to effect an entrance, while Mrs.
Merrill was engaged at the chimney. He soon received a gash in the cheek
which compelled him with a loud yell to relinquish his purpose, and return
hastily to Chillicothe, where, from the report of a prisoner, he gave an
exaggerated account of the fierceness, strength, and courage of the "Long
knife squaw!"

The wives of Jesse and Hosea Cook, the "heroines of Innis station"
(Kentucky), as they have been styled, are shining examples of a firmness of
spirit which sorrow could not blench nor tears dim.

While the brothers Cook were peacefully engaged in the avocations of the
farm beside their cabins, in April, 1792, little dreaming of the proximity
of the savages, a sharp crack of rifles was heard and they both lay
weltering in their blood. The elder fell dead, the younger was barely able
to reach his cabin.

The two Mrs. Cooks with three children were instantly collected in the
house and the door made fast. The thickness of the door resisted the hail
of rifle-balls which fell upon it, and the Indians tried in vain to cut
through it with their tomahawks.

While the assault was being made on the outside of the cabin, within was
heart-rending sorrow mingled with fearless determination and high resolve.
The younger Cook while the door was being barred breathed his last in the
arms of his wife, and the two Mrs. Cooks, thus sadly bereaved of their
partners, were left the sole defenders of the cabin and the three children.

There was a rifle in the house but no balls could be found. In this
extremity one of the women took a musket-ball and placing it between her
teeth bit it into pieces. Her eyes streaming with tears, she loaded the
rifle and took her position at an aperture from which she could watch the
motions of the savages. She dried her tears and thought of vengeance on her
husband's murderers and of saving the innocent babes which she was
guarding.

After the failure of the Indians to break down the door, one of them seated
himself upon a log, apprehending no danger from the "white squaws" who, he
knew, were the only defenders of the cabin. A ball sped from the rifle in
the hands of Mrs. Cook, and with a loud yell the savage bounded into the
air and fell dead.

The Indians, infuriated at the death of their comrade, threatened, in
broken English, the direst vengeance on the inmates of the cabin. A half
dozen of the yelling fiends instantly climbed to the roof of the cabin and
kindled a fire upon the dry boards around the chimney. As the flames began
to take effect the destruction of the cabin and the doom of the unfortunate
inmates seemed certain.

But the self-possession and intrepidity of the brave women were equal to
the occasion. While one stood in the loft the other handed her water with
which she extinguished the fire. Again and again the roof was fired, and as
often extinguished. When the water was exhausted, the dauntless pair held
the flames at bay by breaking eggs upon them. The Indians, at length
fatigued by the obstinacy and valor of the brave defenders, threw the body
of their comrade into the creek and precipitately fled.

The exploits of Mrs. Bozarth in defending her home and family against
superior numbers, has scarcely been paralleled in ancient or modern
history. Relying upon her firmness and courage, two or three families had
gathered themselves for safety at her house, on the Pennsylvania border, in
the spring of 1779. The forest swarmed with savages, who soon made their
appearance near the stockade, severely wounding one of the only two men in
the house. [Footnote: Doddridge's Notes.] The Indian who had shot him,
springing over his prostrate body, engaged with the other white man in a
struggle which ended in his discomfiture. A knife was wanting to dispatch
the savage who lay writhing beneath his antagonist. Mrs. Bozarth seized an
axe and with one blow clove the Indian's skull. Another entered and shot
the white man dead. Mrs. Bozarth, with unflinching boldness, turned to this
new foe and gave him several cuts with the axe, one of which laid bare his
entrails. In response to his cries for help, his comrades, who had been
killing some children out of doors, came rushing to his relief. The head of
one of them was cut in twain by the axe of Mrs. Bozarth, and the others
made a speedy retreat through the door. Rendered furious by the desperate
resistance they had met, the Indians now besieged the house, and for
several days they employed all their arts to enter and slay the weak
garrison. But all their efforts were futile. Mrs. Bozarth and her wounded
companion employed themselves so vigorously and vigilantly that the enemy
were completely baffled. At length a party of white men arrived, put the
Indians to flight, and relieved Mrs. Bozarth from her perilous situation.




CHAPTER V.

THE CAPTIVE SCOUTS--THE GUARDIAN MOTHER OF THE MOHAWK.


The part that woman has taken in so many ways and under so many conditions,
in securing the ultimate results represented by our present status as a
nation, is given too small a place in the general estimate of those who pen
the record of civilization on the North American continent. This is no
doubt partly due to her own distaste for notoriety. While man stands as a
front figure in the temple of fame, and celebrates his own deeds with pen
and voice, she takes her place in the background, content and happy so long
as her father, or husband, or son, is conspicuous in the glory to which she
has largely contributed. Thus it is that in the march of grand events the
historian of the Republic often passes by the woman's niche without
dwelling upon its claims to our attention. But notwithstanding the
self-chosen position of the weaker sex, their names and deeds are not all
buried in oblivion. The filial, proud, and patriotic fondness of sons and
daughters have preserved in their household traditions the memory of brave
and good mothers; the antiquarian and the local historian, with loving zeal
have wiped the dust from woman's urn, and traced anew the names and
inscriptions which time has half effaced.

As we scan the pages of Woman's Record the roll of honor lengthens,
stretching far out like the line of Banquo's phantom-kings. Their names
become impressed on our memory; their acts dilate, and their whole lives
grow brighter the more closely we study them.

Among the many duties which from necessity or choice were assigned to woman
in the remote and isolated settlements, was that of standing guard. She was
<i>par excellence</i> the vigilant member of the household, a sentinel ever
on the alert and ready to give alarm at the first note of danger. The
pioneers were the pickets of the army of civilization: woman was a picket
of pickets, a sentinel of sentinels, watchful of danger and the quickest to
apprehend it. She was always a guardian, and not seldom the preserver of
her home and of the settlement. Such duties as these, faithfully performed,
contribute perhaps to the success of a campaign more even than great
battles. As soon as the front line or picket-force of the pioneers was
fairly established in the enemies' country, the work was more than half
done, and the whole army--center, right, and left wings--could move forward
with little danger, though labor, hard and continuous, was still required.
In successive regions the same sentinel and picket duties were performed;
in New England and on the Atlantic coast first; then in the interior
districts, in the middle States; and already, a hundred years ago, the
flying skirmish-line had crossed the great Appalachian range, and was
fording the rivers of the western basin. On the march, on the halt, in the
camp, that is, in the permanent settlement, woman was a sentinel keeping
perpetual guard over the household treasures.

What materials for romance--for epic and tragic poetry--in the lives of
those pioneer women! The lonely cabin in the depths of the forest; the
father away; the mother rocking her babe to sleep; the howling of the
wolves; the storm beating on the roof; the crafty savage lying in ambush;
the war-whoop in the night; the attack and the repulse; or perchance the
massacre and the cruel captivity; and all the thousand lights and shadows
of border life!

During the French and Indian war, and while the northern border was being
desolated by savage raids, a hardy settler named Mack, with his wife and
two children, occupied a cabin and clearing in the forest a few miles south
of Lake Pleasant, in Hamilton County, New York. For some months after the
breaking out of the war no molestation was offered to Mr. Mack or his
family, either owing to the sequestered situation in which they lived, or
from the richer opportunities for plunder offered in the valleys some
distance below the lonely and rock-encompassed forest where the Mack
homestead lay. Encouraged by this immunity from attack, and placing
unbounded confidence in the vigilance and courage of his wife, Mr. Mack,
when summoned to accompany Sir William Johnson's forces on one of their
military expeditions, obeyed the call and prepared to join his
fellow-borderers. Mrs. Mack cheerfully and patriotically acquiesced in her
husband's resolution, assuring him that during his absence she would
protect their home and children or perish in attempt.

The cabin was a fortress, such as befitted the exposed situation in which
it lay, and was supplied by the provident husband before his departure with
provisions and ammunition sufficient to stand a siege: it was furnished on
each side with, a loop-hole through which a gun could be fixed or a
reconnoisance made in every direction.

Yielding to the dictates of prudence and desirous of redeeming the pledge
which she had made to her husband, Mrs. Mack stayed within doors most of
the time for some days after her husband had bade her farewell, keeping a
vigilant look-out on every side for the prowling foe. No sound but the
voices of nature disturbed the stillness of the forest. Everything around
spoke of peace and repose. Lulled into security by these appearances and
urged by the necessities of her out-door duties, she gradually relaxed her
vigilance until she pursued the labors of the farm with as much regularity
as she would have done if her husband had been at home.

One day while plucking ears of corn for roasting, she caught a glimpse of a
moccasin and a brawny limb fringed with leggins, projecting behind a clump
of bushes not twenty paces from her. Repressing the shriek which rose to
her lips, she quietly and leisurely strolled back to the house with her
basket of ears. Once she thought she heard the stealthy tread of the savage
behind her and was about to break into a run; but a moment's reflection
convinced her that her fears were groundless. She steadily pursued her
course till she reached the cabin. With a vast weight of fear taken from
her mind she now turned and cast a rapid, glance towards the bushes where
the foe lay in ambush; nothing was visible there, and having closed and
barred the door she made a reconnoisance from each of the four loop-holes
of her fortress, but saw nothing to alarm her.

It seemed to her probable that it was only a single prowling savage who was
seeking an opportunity to plunder the cabin. Accordingly with a loaded gun
by her side, she sat down before the loop-hole which commanded the spot
where the savage lay concealed and watched for further developments. For
two hours all was still and she began to imagine that he had left his
hiding place, when she noticed a rustling in the bushes and soon after
descried the savage crawling on his belly and disappearing in the
cornfield. Night found her still watching, and as soon as her children had
been lulled to sleep she returned to her post and straining her eyes into
the darkness, listened for the faintest sound that might give note of the
approach of the enemy. It was near midnight when overcome with fatigue she
leaned against the log wall and fell asleep with her gun in her hand.

She was conscious in her slumbers of some mesmeric power exerting an
influence upon her, and awakening with a start saw for an instant by the
faint light, a pair of snaky eyes looking directly into hers through the
loop-hole. They were gone before she was fairly awake, and she tried to
convince herself that she had been dreaming. Not a sound was audible, and
after taking an observation from each of the loop-holes she became
persuaded that the fierce eyes that seemed to have been watching her was
the figment of a brain disturbed by anxiety and vigils.

Once more sleep overcame her and again she was awakened by a rattling sound
followed by heavy breathing. The noise seemed to proceed from the chimney
to which she had scarcely began to direct her attention, when a large body
fell with a thud into the ashes of the fire-place, and a deep guttural
"ugh" was uttered by an Indian who rose and peered around the room.

The first flickering light which follows the blackness of midnight, gave
him a glimpse of the heroic matron who stood with her piece cocked and
leveled directly at his breast. Brandishing his tomahawk he rushed towards
her yelling so as to disconcert her aim. The brave woman with unshaken
nerves pulled the trigger, and the savage fell back with a screech, dead
upon the floor. Almost simultaneously with the report of the gun, a
triumphant war-whoop was sounded outside the cabin, and peering through the
aperture in the direction from which it proceeded she saw three savages
rushing toward the door. Rapidly loading her piece she took her position at
the loop-hole that commanded the entrance to the cabin, and taking aim,
shot one savage dead, the ball passing completely through his body and
wounding another who stood in range. The third made a precipitate retreat,
leaving his wounded comrade who crawled into the cornfield and there died.

After the occurrence of these events we may well suppose that the life of
Mrs. Mack was one of constant vigilance. For some days and nights she stood
sentinel over her little ones, and then in her dread lest the Indians
should return and take vengeance upon her and her children for the
slaughter of their companions, she concluded the wisest course would be to
take refuge in the nearest fort thirty miles distant. Accordingly the
following week she made all her preparations and carrying her gun started
for the fort with her children.

Before they had proceeded a mile on their course she had the misfortune to
drop her powder-horn in a stream: this compelled her to return to the cabin
for ammunition. Hiding her children in a dense copse and telling them to
preserve silence during her absence, she hastened back, filled her
powder-horn and returned rapidly upon her trail.

But what was her agony on discovering that her children were missing from
the place where she left them! A brief scrutiny of the ground showed her
the tracks of moccasins, and following them she soon ascertained that her
children had been carried away by two Indians. Like the tigress robbed of
her young, she followed the trail swiftly but cautiously and soon came up
with the savages, whose speed had been retarded by the children. Stealing
behind them she shot one of them and clubbing her gun rushed at the other
with such fierceness that he turned and fled.

Pursuing her way to the fort she met her husband returning home from the
war. The family then retraced their steps and reached their home, the scene
of Mrs. Mack's heroic exploit.

It was during their captivities that women often learned the arts and
practiced the perilous profession of a scout. Their Indian captors were
sometimes the first to suffer from the knowledge which they themselves had
taught their captive pupils. In this rugged school of Indian life was
nurtured a brave girl of New England parentage, who acted a conspicuous
part in protecting an infant settlement in Ohio.

[Footnote: Finley's Autobiography.] In the year 1790, the block-house and
stockade above the mouth, of the Hockhocking river in Ohio, was a refuge
and rallying point for the hardy frontiersmen of that region. The valley of
the Hockhocking was preëminent for the richness and luxuriance of nature's
gifts, and had been from time immemorial the seat of powerful and warlike
tribes of Indians, which still clung with desperate tenacity to a region
which had been for so many years the chosen and beloved abode of the red
man.

The little garrison, always on the alert, received intelligence early in
the autumn that the Indian tribes were gathering in the north for the
purpose of striking a final and fatal blow on this or some other important
out-post. A council was immediately held by the garrison, and two scouts
were dispatched up the Hockhocking, in order to ascertain the strength of
the foe and the probable point of attack.

The scouts set out one balmy day in the Indian summer, and threading the
dense growth of plum and hazel bushes which skirted the prairie, stealthily
climbed the eastern declivity of Mount Pleasant, and cast their eyes over
the extensive prairie-country which stretches from that point far to the
north. Every movement that took place upon their field of vision was
carefully noted day by day. The prairie was the <i>campus martius</i> where
an army of braves had assembled, and were playing their rugged games and
performing their warlike evolutions. Every day new accessions of warriors
were hailed by those already assembled, with terrific war-whoops, which,
striking the face of Mount Pleasant, were echoed and re-echoed till it
seemed as if a myriad of yelling demons were celebrating the orgies of the
infernal pit.

To the hardy scouts these well-known yells, so terrible to softer ears,
were only martial music which woke a keener watchfulness and strung their
iron nerves to a stronger tension. Though well aware of the ferocity of the
savages, they were too well practiced in the crafty and subtle arts of
their profession to allow themselves to be circumvented by their wily foes.

On several occasions small parties of warriors left the prairies and
ascended the mount. At these times the scouts hid themselves in fissures of
the rocks or beneath sere leaves by the side of some prostrate tree,
leaving their hiding places when the unwelcome visitors had taken their
departure. Their food was jerked beef and cold corn-bread, with which their
knapsacks had been well stored. Fire they dared not kindle for the smoke
would have brought a hundred savages on their trail. Their drink was the
rain-water remaining in the excavations in the rocks. In a few days this
water was exhausted, and a new supply had to be obtained, as their
observations were still incomplete. McClelland, the elder of the two,
accordingly set out alone in search of a spring or brook from which they
could replenish their canteens. Cautiously descending the mount to the
prairie, and skirting the hills on the north, keeping as much as possible
within the hazel-thickets, he reached at length a fountain of cool limpid
water near the banks of the Hockhocking river. Filling the canteens he
rejoined his companion.

The daily duty of visiting the spring and obtaining a fresh supply, was
after this performed alternately by the scouts. On one of these diurnal
visits, after White had filled his canteens, he sat watching the limpid
stream that came gurgling out of the bosom of the earth. The light sound of
footsteps caught his practiced ear, and turning round he saw two squaws
within a few feet of him. The elder squaw at the same moment spying White,
started back and gave a far reaching war-whoop. He comprehended at once his
perilous situation. If the alarm should reach the camp, he and his
companion must inevitably perish.

A noiseless death inflicted upon the squaws, and in such a manner as to
leave no trace behind, was the only sure course which the instinct of
self-preservation suggested. With men of his profession action follows
thought as the bolt follows the flash. Springing upon his victims with the
rapidity and power of a tiger, he grasped the throat of each and sprang
into the Hockhocking river. The head of the elder squaw he easily thrust
under the water, and kept it in that position; but the younger woman
powerfully resisted his efforts to submerge her. During the brief struggle
she addressed him to his amazement in the English language, though in
inarticulate sounds. Relaxing his hold she informed him that she had been
made a prisoner ten years before, on Grave Creek Flats, that the Indians in
her presence had butchered her mother and two sisters, and that an only
brother had been captured with her, but had succeeded on the second night
in making his escape, since which time she had never heard of him.

During this narrative, White, unobserved by the girl, had released his grip
on the throat of the squaw, whose corpse floated slowly down stream, and,
directing the girl to follow him, he pushed for the Mount with the greatest
speed and energy. Scarcely had they proceeded two hundred yards from the
spring before an Indian alarm-cry was heard some distance down the river. A
party of warriors returning from a hunt had seen the body of the squaw as
it floated past. White and the girl succeeded in reaching the Mount where
they found McClelland fully awake to the danger they were in. From his
eyrie he had seen parties of warriors strike off in every direction on
hearing the shrill note of alarm first sounded by the squaw, and before
White and the girl had joined him, twenty warriors had already gained the
eastern acclivity of the Mount and were cautiously ascending, keeping their
bodies under cover. The scouts soon caught glimpses of their swarthy faces
as they glided from tree to tree and from rock to rock, until the hiding
place of the luckless two was surrounded and all hope of escape was cut
off.

The scouts calmly prepared to sell their lives as dearly as they could, but
strongly advised the girl to return to the Indians and tell them that she
had been captured by scouts. This she refused to do, saying that death
among her own people was preferable to captivity such as she had been
enduring. "Give me a rifle," she continued, "and I will show you that I can
fight as well as die! On this spot will I remain, and here my bones shall
bleach with yours! Should either of you escape, you will carry the tidings
of my fate to my remaining relatives."

All remonstrances with the brave girl proving useless, the two scouts
prepared for a vigorous defense. The attack by the Indians commenced in
front, where from the nature of the ground they were obliged to advance in
single file, sheltering themselves as they best could, behind rocks and
trees. Availing themselves of the slightest exposure of the warriors
bodies, the scouts made every shot tell upon them, and succeeded for a time
in keeping them in check.

The Indians meanwhile made for an isolated rock on the southern hillside,
and having reached it, opened fire upon the scouts at point blank range.
The situation of the defenders was now almost hopeless; but the brave never
despair. They, calmly watched the movements of the warriors and calculated
the few chances of escape which remained. McClelland saw a tall, swarthy
figure preparing to spring from cover to a point from which their position
would be completely commanded. He felt that much depended upon one lucky
shot, and although but a single inch of the warrior's body was exposed, and
at a distance of one hundred yards, yet he resolved to take the risk of a
shot at this diminutive target. Coolly raising the rifle to his eye, and
shading the sight with his hand, he threw a bead so accurately that he felt
perfectly confident that his bullet would pierce the mark; but when the
hammer fell, instead of striking fire, it crushed his flint into a hundred
fragments. Rapidly, but with the utmost composure, he proceeded to adjust a
new flint, casting meantime many a furtive glance towards the critical
point. Before his task was completed he saw the warrior strain every muscle
for the leap, and, with the agility of a deer, bound towards the rock; but
instead of reaching it, he fell between and rolled fifty feet down hill. He
had received a death-shot from some unseen hand, and the mournful whoops of
the savages gave token that they had lost a favorite warrior.

The advantage thus gained was only momentary. The Indians slowly advanced
in front and on the flank, and only the incessant fire of the scouts
sufficed to keep them in check. A second savage attempted to gain the
eminence which commanded the position where the scouts were posted, but
just as he was about to attain his object, McClelland saw him turn a
summerset, and, with a frightful yell, fall down the hill, a corpse. The
mysterious agent had again interposed in their behalf. The sun was now
disappearing behind the western hills, and the savages, dismayed by their
losses, retired a short distance for the purpose of devising some new mode
of attack. This respite was most welcome to the scouts, whose nerves had
been kept in a state of severe tension for several hours. Now for the first
time they missed the girl and supposed that she had either fled to her old
captors or had been killed in the fight. Their doubts were soon dispelled
by the appearance of the girl herself, advancing toward them from among the
rocks, with a rifle in her hand.

During the heat of the fight she had seen a warrior fall, who had advanced
some fifty yards in front of the main body; she at once resolved to possess
herself of his rifle, and crouching in the undergrowth, she crept to the
spot and succeeded in her enterprise, being all the time exposed to the
cross-fire of the defenders and assailants; her practiced eye had early
noticed the fatal rock, and hers was the mysterious hand by which the two
warriors had fallen--the last being the most wary, untiring, and
bloodthirsty brave of the Shawanese tribe. He it was who ten years before
had scalped the family of the girl, and had led her into captivity. The
clouds which had been gathering now shrouded the whole heavens, and, night
coming on, the darkness was intense. It was feared that in the contemplated
retreat they might lose their way or accidentally fall in with the enemy,
which latter contingency was highly probable, if not almost inevitable.
After consultation it was agreed that the girl, from her intimate knowledge
of the localities, should lead the way, a few paces in advance.

Another advantage might be derived from this arrangement, for in case they
should fall in with an outpost of savages, the girl's knowledge of the
Indian tongue might enable them to deceive and elude the sentinel. The
event proved the wisdom of the plan, for they had scarcely descended an
hundred feet from their eyrie when a low "hush!" from the girl warned them
of the presence of danger. The scouts threw themselves silently upon the
earth, where by previous agreement they were to remain until another signal
was given them by the girl, who glided away in the darkness. Her absence
for more than a quarter of an hour had already begun to excite serious
apprehensions for her safety, when she reappeared and told them that she
had succeeded in removing two sentinels who were directly in their route,
to a point one hundred feet distant.

The descent was noiselessly resumed, the scouts following their brave
guide for half a mile in profound silence, when the barking of a small dog,
almost at their feet, apprised them of a new danger. The click of the
scout's rifle caught the ear of the girl, who quickly approached and warned
them against making the least noise, as they were now in the midst of an
Indian village, and their lives depended upon their implicitly following
her instructions.

A moment afterwards the head of a squaw was seen at an opening in a wigwam,
and she was heard to accost the girl, who replied in the Indian language,
and without stopping pressed forward. At length she paused and assured the
scouts that the village was cleared, and that they were now in safety. She
had been well aware that every pass leading out through the prairies was
guarded, and resolved to push boldly through the midst of the village as
the safest route.

After three days rapid marching and great suffering from hunger, the trio
succeeded in reaching the block-house in safety. The Indians finding that
the scouts had escaped, and that their plan of attack was discovered, soon
after withdrew to their homes; the girl, who by her courage, fortitude, and
skill, thus preserved the little settlement from destruction, proved to be
a sister of Neil Washburn, one of the most renowned scouts upon the
frontier.

The situation of the earlier pioneers who settled on the outskirts of the
Mississippi basin was one of peculiar peril. In their isolation and
weakness, they were able to keep their position rather by incessant
watchfulness, than by actual combat. How to extricate themselves from the
snares and escape from the dangers that beset them, was the constant study
of their lives. The knowledge and the arts of a scout were a part of the
education, therefore, of the women as well as of the men.

Massy Herbeson and her husband were of those bold pioneers who crossed the
Alleghany Mountains and joined the picket-line, whose lives were spent in
reconnoitering and watching the motions of the savage tribes which roamed
over Western Pennsylvania.

[Footnote: Massey Herbeson's Deposition.] They lived near Reed's
block-house, about twenty-five miles from Pittsburgh. Mr. Herbeson, being
one of the spies, was from home; two of the scouts had lodged with her that
night, but had left her house about sunrise, in order to go to the
block-house, and had left the door standing wide open. Shortly after the
two scouts went away, a number of Indians came into the house, and drew her
out of bed, by the feet.

The Indians then scrambled to secure the articles in the house. Whilst they
were at this work, Mrs. Herbeson went out of the house, and hallooed to the
people in the block-house. One of the Indians then ran up and stopped her
mouth, another threatened her with his tomahawk, and a third seized the
tomahawk as it was about to fall upon her head, and called her his squaw.

Hurried rapidly away by her captor, she remembered the lessons taught by
her husband, the scout, and marked the trail as she went on. Now breaking a
bush, now dropping a piece of her dress, and when she crossed a stream,
slyly turning over a stone, she hoped thus to guide her husband in pursuit
or enable herself to find her way back to the block-house. The vigilance of
the Indians was relaxed by the nonchalance with which she bore her
captivity, and in a few days she succeeded in effecting her escape and
pursuing the trail which she had marked, reached home after a weary march
of two days and nights, during which it rained incessantly.

These and countless other instances illustrate the watchfulness and courage
of woman when exposed to dangers of such a description. In the west
especially, the distances to be traversed, the sparseness of the
population, and the perils to which settlers are exposed, render the
profession of a scout a useful and necessary one, and woman's versatility
of character enables her, when necessary, to practice the art.

The traveler of to-day, passing up the Mohawk Valley will be struck by its
fertility, beauty, and above all by the air of quiet repose that broods
over it. One hundred years ago how different the scene! It was then the
battle-ground where the fierce Indian waged an incessant warfare with the
frontier settlers. Every rood of that fair valley was trodden by the wily
and sanguinary foe. The people who then inhabited that region were a
mixture of adventurous New Englanders and of Dutch, with a preponderance of
the latter, who were a brave, steadfast, hardy race; the women vieing with
the men in deeds of heroism and devotion.

Womanly tact and presence of mind was often as serviceable amid those
scenes of danger and carnage, as valor in combat; and when woman combined
these traits of her sex with courage and firmness she became the "guardian
angel" of the settlement.

Such preeminently was the title deserved by Mrs. Van Alstine, the "Patriot
mother of the Mohawk Valley."

All the early part of her long life, (for she counted nearly a century of
years before she died,) was passed on the New York frontier, during the
most trying period of our colonial history. Here, dwelling in the midst of
alarms, she reared her fifteen children; here more than once she saved the
lives of her husband and family, and by her ready wit, her daring courage,
and her open handed generosity shielded the settlement from harm.

Born near Canajoharie, about the year 1733, and married to Martin J. Van
Alstine, at the age of eighteen, she settled with her husband in the valley
of the Mohawk, where the newly wedded pair occupied the Van Alstine family
mansion.

In the month of August, 1780, an army of Indians and Tories, led on by
Brant, rushed into the Mohawk Valley, devastated several settlements, and
killed many of the inhabitants; during the two following months, Sir John
Johnson made a descent and finished the work which Brant had begun. The two
almost completely destroyed the settlements throughout the valley. It was
during those trying times that Mrs. Van Alstine performed a portion of her
exploits.

During these three months, and while the hostile forces were making their
headquarters at Johnstown, the neighborhood in which Mrs. Van Alstine lived
enjoyed a remarkable immunity from attack, although in a state of continual
alarm. Intelligence at length came that the enemy, having ravaged the
surrounding country, was about to fall upon the little settlement, and the
inhabitants, for the most part women and children, were almost beside
themselves with terror.

Mrs. Van Alstine's coolness and intrepidity, in this critical hour, were
quickly displayed. Calling her neighbors together, she tried to relieve
their fears and urged them to remove with their effects to an island
belonging to her husband, near the opposite side of the river, believing
that the savages would either not discover their place of refuge or would
be in too great haste to cross the river and attack them.

Her suggestion was speedily adopted, and in a few hours the seven families
in the neighborhood were removed to their asylum, together with a store of
provisions and other articles essential to their comfort. Mrs. Van Alstine
was the last to cross and assisted to place out of reach of the enemy, the
boat in which the passage had been made. An hour after they had been all
snugly bestowed in their bushy retreat, the war-whoop was heard and the
Indians made their appearance. Gazing from their hiding place the
unfortunate women and children soon saw their loved homes in flames, Van
Alstine's house alone being spared, owing to the friendship borne the owner
by Sir John Johnson.

The voices and even the words of the Indian raiders could be distinctly
heard on the island, and as Mrs. Van Alstine gazed at the mansion untouched
by the flames she rejoiced that she would now be able to give shelter to
the homeless families by whom she was surrounded. In the following year the
Van Alstine mansion was pillaged by the Indians, and although the house was
completely stripped of furniture and provisions and clothing, none of the
family were killed or carried away as prisoners.

The Indians came upon them by surprise, entered the house without ceremony,
and plundered and destroyed everything in their way. "Mrs. Van Alstine saw
her most valued articles, brought from Holland, broken one after another,
till the house was strewed with fragments. As they passed a large mirror
without demolishing it, she hoped it might be saved; but presently two of
the savages led in a colt from the stables and the glass being laid in the
hall, compelled the animal to walk over it. The beds which they could not
carry away they ripped open, shaking out the feathers and taking the ticks
with them. They also took all the clothing. One young Indian, attracted by
the brilliancy of a pair of inlaid buckles on the shoes of the aged
grandmother seated in the corner, rudely snatched them from her feet, tore
off the buckles, and flung the shoes in her face. Another took her shawl
from her neck, threatening to kill her if resistance was offered."

The eldest daughter, seeing a young savage carrying off a basket containing
a hat and cap her father had brought her from Philadelphia, and which she
highly prized, followed him, snatched her basket, and after a struggle
succeeded in pushing him down. She then fled to a pile of hemp and hid
herself, throwing the basket into it as far as she could. The other Indians
gathered round, and as the young girl rose clapped their hands, shouting
"Brave girl," while he skulked away to escape their derision. During the
struggle Mrs. Van Alstine had called to her daughter to give up the
contest; but she insisted that her basket should not be taken.

[Illustration: DARING EXPLOIT OF MISS VAN ALSTINE]

Winter coming on, the family suffered severely from the want of bedding,
woolen clothes, cooking utensils, and numerous other articles which had
been taken from them. Mrs. Van Alstine's arduous and constant labors could
do but little toward providing for so many destitute persons. Their
neighbors were in no condition to help them; the roads were almost
impassable besides being infested with the Indians, and all their best
horses had been driven away.

This situation appealing continually to Mrs. Van Alstine as a wife and a
mother, so wrought upon her as to induce her to propose to her husband to
organize an expedition, and attempt to recover their property from the
Indian forts eighteen or twenty miles distant, where it had been carried.
But the plan seemed scarcely feasible at the time, and was therefore
abandoned.

The cold soon became intense and their necessities more desperate than
ever. Mrs. Van Alstine, incapable longer of witnessing the sufferings of
those dependent upon her, boldly determined to go herself to the Indian
country and bring back the property. Firm against all the entreaties of her
husband and children who sought to move her from her purpose, she left home
with a horse and sleigh accompanied by her son, a youth of sixteen.

Pushing on over wretched roads and through the deep snow she arrived at her
destination at a time when the Indians were all absent on a hunting
excursion, the women and children only being left at home. On entering the
principal house where she supposed the most valuable articles were, she was
met by an old squaw in charge of the place and asked what she wanted.
"Food," she replied; the squaw sullenly commenced preparing a meal and in
doing so brought out a number of utensils that Mrs. Van Alstine recognized
as her own. While the squaw's back was turned she took possession of the
articles and removed them to her sleigh. When the custodian of the plunder
discovered that it was being reclaimed, she was about to interfere forcibly
with the bold intruders and take the property into her possession. But Mrs.
Van Alstine showed her a paper which she averred was an order signed by
"Yankee Peter," a man of great influence among the savages, and succeeded
in convincing the squaw that the property was removed by his authority.

She next proceeded to the stables and cut the halters of the horses
belonging to her husband: the animals recognized their mistress with loud
neighs and bounded homeward at full speed. The mother and son then drove
rapidly back to their house. Reaching home late in the evening they passed
a sleepless night, dreading an instant pursuit and a night attack from the
infuriated savages.

The Indians came soon after daylight in full war-costume armed with rifles
and tomahawks. Mrs. Van Alstine begged her husband not to show himself but
to leave the matter in her hands. The Indians took their course to the
stables when they were met by the daring woman alone and asked what they
wanted. "Our horses," replied the marauder. "They are ours," she said
boldly, "and we mean to keep them."

The chief approached in a threatening manner, and drawing her away pulled
out the plug that fastened the door of the stable, but she immediately
snatched it from his hand, and pushing him away resumed her position in
front of the door. Presenting his rifle, he threatened her with instant
death if she did not immediately move. Opening her neck-handkerchief she
told him to shoot if he dared.

The Indians, cowed by her daring, or fearing punishment from their allies
in case they killed her, after some hesitation retired from the premises.
They afterwards related their adventure to one of the settlers, and said
that were fifty such women as she in the settlement, the Indians never
would have molested the inhabitants of the Mohawk Valley.

On many subsequent occasions Mrs. Van Alstine exhibited the heroic
qualities of her nature. Twice by her prudence, courage, and address, she
saved the lives of her husband and family. Her influence in settling
difficulties with the savages was acknowledged throughout the region, and
but for her it may well be doubted whether the little settlement in which
she lived would have been able to sustain itself, surrounded as it was by
deadly foes.

Her influence was felt in another and higher way. She was a Christian
woman, and her husband's house was opened for religious worship every
Sunday when the weather would permit. She was able to persuade many of the
Indians to attend, and as she had acquired their language she was wont to
interpret to them the word of God and what was said by the minister. Many
times their rude hearts were touched, and the tears rolled down their
swarthy faces, while she dwelt on the wondrous story of our Redeemer's life
and death, and explained how the white man and the red man alike could be
saved by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. In after years the savages
blessed her as their benefactress.

Nearly a hundred summers have passed since the occurrence of the events we
have been describing. The war-whoop of the cruel Mohawk sounds no more from
the forest-ambush, nor in the clearing; the dews and rains have washed away
the red stains on the soft sward, and green and peaceful in the sunshine
lies the turf by the beautiful river and on the grave where the patriot
mother is sleeping; but still in the memory of the sons and daughters of
the region she once blessed, lives the courage, the firmness, and the
goodness of Nancy Van Alstine, the guardian of the Mohawk Valley.




CHAPTER VI.

PATRIOT WOMEN OF THE REVOLUTION.


During the dangers and trials of early colonial life, the daughters learned
from the example of their mothers the lesson and the power of self-trust;
they learned to endure what their parents endured, to face the perils which
environed the settlement or the household, and grew up to woman's estate
versed in that knowledge and experience of border-life which well fitted
them to repeat, in wilder and more perilous scenes, the heroism of their
forefathers and foremothers.

The daughters again taught these, and added other lessons, to their
children. The grand-daughters of the first emigrants seemed to
possess--with the traits and virtues of woman--the wisdom, courage, and
strength of their fathers and brothers. Each succeeding generation seemed
to acquire new features of character, added force, and stronger virtues,
and thus woman became a heroine endowed with manly vigor and capable of
performing deeds of masculine courage and resolution.

The generation of daughters, fourth in descent from the first settlers,
lived during the stormy days of the Revolution; and right worthily did they
perform their part on that stage of action, and prove by their deeds that
they were lineal descendants of the first mothers of the Republic.

If we were to analyze the characters and motives of the women who lived and
acted in that great crisis of our history, we should better understand and
appreciate, in its nature, height, and breadth, their singular patriotism.
Untainted by selfish ambition, undefiled by greed of gain, and purged of
the earthy dross that too often alloys the lofty impulses of soldiers and
statesmen in the path of fame, hers was a love of country that looked not
for gain or glory, imperiled much, and was locked fast in a bitter
companionship with anxiety, fear, and grief. Her heroism was not sordid or
secular. Dearly did she prize the blessings of peace--household calm, the
security of her loved ones, and the comforts and amenities of an unbroken
social status. But she cheerfully surrendered them all at the call of her
country in its hour of peril. For one hundred and fifty years she had
toiled and suffered. She had won the right to repose, but this was not yet
to be hers. A new ordeal awaited her which would test her courage and
fortitude still more keenly, especially if her lot was cast in the frontier
settlements.

It is easy to see that border-life in--"the times that tried men's
souls"--was surrounded by double dangers and hardships. Indeed it is
difficult to conceive of a more trying situation than that of woman in the
outlying settlements in the days of the Revolution. Left alone by her
natural protector, who had gone far away to fight the battles of his
country; exposed to attacks from the red men who lurked in the forest, or
from the British soldiers marching up from the coast; wearied by the labors
of the farm and the household; harassed by the cares of motherhood; for
long years in the midst of dangers, privations, and trials; with serene
patience, and with dauntless courage, she went on nobly doing her part in
the great work which resulted in the glorious achievement of American
Independence.

The wonder is that the American wives and mothers of that day did not sink
under their burdens. Their patient endurance of accumulated hardships did
not arise from a slavish servility or from insensibility to their rights
and comforts. They justly appreciated the situation and nobly encountered
the difficulties which could not be avoided.

Possessing all the affections of the wife, the tenderness of the mother,
and the sympathies of the woman, their tears flowed freely for others'
griefs, while they bore their own with a fortitude that none but a woman
could display. In the absence of the father the entire education devolved
upon the mother, who, in the midst of the labors and sorrows of her
isolated existence, taught them to read, and instructed them in the
principles of Christianity.

The countless roll of these unnamed heroines is inscribed in the Book of
the Most Just. Their record is on high. But the names and deeds of not a
few are preserved as a bright example to the men and women of to-day.

While the husbands and fathers of Wyoming were on public duty the wives and
daughters cheerfully assumed a large portion of the labor which women could
perform. They assisted to plant, to make hay, to husk, and to garner the
corn. The settlement was mainly dependent on its own resources for powder.
To meet the necessary demand, the women boiled together a lye of
wood-ashes, to which they added the earth scraped from beneath the floors
of their house, and thus manufactured saltpeter, one of the most essential
ingredients. Charcoal and sulphur were then mingled with it, and powder was
produced "for the public defense."

One of the married sisters of Silas Deane, that eminent Revolutionary
patriot, while her husband, Captain Ebenezer Smith, was with the army, was
left alone with six small children in a hamlet among the hills of
Berkshire, Massachusetts. Finding it difficult to eke out a subsistence
from the sterile soil of their farm, and being quick and ingenious with her
needle, she turned tailoress and made garments for her little ones, and for
all the families in that region. She wrote her husband, telling him to be
of good cheer, and not to give himself anxiety on his wife's or his
children's account, adding that as long as her fingers could hold a needle,
food should be provided for them. "Fight on for your country," she said;
"God will give us deliverance."

Each section of the country had its special burdens, trials, and dangers.
The populous districts bore the first brunt of the enemy's attack; the
thinly settled regions were drained of men, and the women were left in a
pitiable condition of weakness and isolation. This was largely the
condition of Massachusetts and Connecticut, where nearly every family sent
some, if not all, of its men to the war. In the South the patriots were
forced to practice continual vigilance in consequence of the divided
feeling upon the question of the propriety of separation from the
mother-country. New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania were battle grounds,
and here, perhaps more fully than elsewhere, were experienced war's woes
and desolation. But in every State throughout the thirteen colonies, and in
every town, hamlet, or household, where there were patriot wives, mothers,
or daughters, woman's claims to moral greatness in that crisis were
gloriously vindicated.

If we were to search for traits and incidents to illustrate the whole
circle of both the stronger and the gentler virtues, we might find them in
woman's record during the American Revolution.

In scenes of carnage and death women not seldom displayed a cool courage
which made them peers of the bravest soldiers who bore flint-locks at
Bunker Hill or Trenton. Of such bravery, the following quartette of
heroines will serve as examples.

During the attack on Fort Washington, Mrs. Margaret Corbin, seeing her
husband, who was an artillery man, fall, unhesitatingly took his place and
heroically performed his duties. Her services were appreciated by the
officers of the army, and honorably noticed by Congress. This body passed
the following resolution in July, 1779:

<i>Resolved</i>, That Margaret Corbin, wounded and disabled at the battle
of Fort Washington while she heroically filled the post of her husband, who
was killed by her side, serving a piece of artillery, do receive during her
natural life, or continuance of said disability, one half the monthly pay
drawn by a soldier in the service of these States; and that she now receive
out of public store one suit of clothes, or value thereof in money.

Soon after the commencement of the Revolutionary War, the family of a Dr.
Channing, being in England, removed to France, and shortly afterwards
sailed for the United States. The vessel, said to be stout and well armed,
was attacked on the voyage by a privateer, and a fierce engagement ensued.
During its continuance, Mrs. Channing stood on the deck, exhorting the crew
not to give up, encouraging them with words of cheer, handing them
cartridges and aiding such of them as were disabled by wounds. When at
length the colors of the vessel were struck, she seized her husband's
pistol and side arms and flung them into the sea, declaring that she would
prefer death to the spectacle of their surrender into the hands of the foe.

At the siege of one of the forts of the Mohawk Valley, it is related by the
author of the "Border Wars of the American Revolution," that an interesting
young woman, whose name yet lives in story among her own mountains,
perceiving, as she thought, symptoms of fear in a soldier who had been
ordered to fetch water from a well, without the ranks and within range of
the enemy's fire, snatched the bucket from his hands and ran to the well
herself. Without changing color or giving the slightest evidence of fear,
she drew and brought back bucket after bucket to the thirsty soldiers, and
providentially escaped without injury.

Four or five miles north of the village of Herkimer, N. Y., stood the
block-house of John Christian Shell, whose wife acted a heroic part when
attacked by the Tories, in 1781. From two o'clock in the afternoon until
twilight, the besieged kept up an almost incessant firing, Mrs. Shell
loading the guns for her husband and older sons to discharge. During the
siege, McDonald, the leader of the Tories, attempted to force the door
with, a crow-bar, and was shot in the leg, seized by Shell, and drawn
within doors. Exasperated by this bold feat, the enemy soon attempted to
carry the fortress by assault; five of them leaping upon the walls and
thrusting their guns through the loop-holes. At that moment the cool
courageous woman, Mrs. Shell, seized an axe, smote the barrels, bent and
spoiled them. The enemy soon after shouldered their guns, crooked barrels
and all, and quickly buried themselves in the dense forest.

Heroism in those days was confined to no section of our country. Moll
Pitcher, at Monmouth, battle-stained, avenged her husband by the
death-dealing cannon which she loaded and aimed. Cornelia Beekman, at
Croton, faced down the armed Tories with the fire of her eye; Angelica
Vrooman, at Schoharie, moulded bullets amid the war and carnage of battle,
while Mary Hagidorn defended the fort with a pike; Mrs. Fitzhugh, of
Maryland, accompanied her blind and decrepit husband when taken prisoner at
midnight and carried into the enemy's lines.

Dicey Langston, of South Carolina, also showed a "soul of love and
bravery." Living in a frontier settlement, and in the midst of Tories, and
being patriotically inquisitive, she often learned by accident, or
discovered by strategy, the plottings so common in those days against the
Whigs. Such intelligence she was accustomed to communicate to the friends
of freedom on the opposite side of the Ennosee river.

Learning one time that a band of loyalists--known in those days as
the--"Bloody Scouts"--were about to fall upon the "Elder Settlement," a
place where a brother of hers and other friends were residing, she resolved
to warn them of their danger. To do this she must hazard her own life.
Regardless of danger she started off alone, in the darkness of the night;
traveled several miles through the woods, over marshes, across creeks,
through a country where foot-logs and bridges were then unknown; came to
the Tyger, a rapid and deep stream, into which she plunged and waded till
the water was up to her neck. She then became bewildered, and zigzagged the
channel for some time, finally reaching the opposite shore, for a helping
hand was beneath, a kind Providence guided her. She then hastened on,
reached the settlement, and her brother and the whole community were saved.

She was returning one day from another settlement of Whigs, in the
Spartanburg district, when a company of Tories met her and questioned her
in regard to the neighborhood she had just left; but she refused to
communicate the desired information. The leader of the band then put a
pistol to her breast, and threatened to shoot her if she did not make the
wished-for disclosure.

"Shoot me if you dare! I will not tell you!" was her dauntless reply, as
she opened a long handkerchief that covered her neck and bosom, thus
manifesting a willingness to receive the contents of the pistol, if the
officer insisted on disclosure or life.

The dastard, enraged at her defying movement, was in the act of firing, but
one of the soldiers threw up the hand holding the weapon, and the uncovered
heart of the girl was permitted to beat on.

The brothers of Dicey were no less patriotic than she; and they having, by
their active services on the side of freedom, greatly displeased the
loyalists, these latter were determined to be revenged. A desperate band
accordingly went to the house of their father, and finding the sons absent,
were about to wreak vengeance on the old man, whom they hated for the sons'
sake. With this intent one of the party drew a pistol; but just as it was
aimed at the breast of the aged and infirm old man, Dicey rushed between
the two, and though the ruffian bade her get out of the way or receive in
her own breast the contents of the pistol, she regarded not his threats,
but flung her arms round her father's neck and declared she would receive
the ball first, if the weapon must be discharged. Such fearlessness and
willingness to offer her own life for the sake of her parent, softened the
heart of the "Bloody Scout," and Mr. Langston lived to see his noble
daughter perform other heroic deeds.

At one time her brother James, while absent, sent to the house for a gun
which he had left in Dicey's care, with orders to deliver it to no one,
except by his direction. On reaching the house one of the party who were
directed to call for it, made known their errand. Whereupon she brought and
was about to deliver the weapon. At this moment it occurred to her that she
had not demanded the countersign agreed on between herself and brother.
With the gun still in her hand, she looked the company sternly in the face,
and remarking that they wore a suspicious look, called for the countersign.
Thereupon one of them, in jest, told her she was too tardy in her
requirements; that both the gun and its holder were in their possession.
"Do you think so," she boldly asked, as she cocked the disputed weapon and
aimed it at the speaker. "If the gun is in your possession," she added,
"take charge of it!" Her appearance indicated that she was in earnest, and
the countersign was given without further delay.

In these women of the Revolution were blended at once the heroine and the
"Ministering Angel." To defend their homes they were men in courage and
resolution, and when the battle was over they showed all a woman's
tenderness and devotion. Love was the inspiring principle which nerved
their arm in the fight, and poured balm into the wounds of those who had
fallen. Should we have ever established our Independence but for the
countless brave, kind, and self-sacrificing acts of woman?

After the massacre of Fort Griswold, when it was found that several of the
prisoners were still alive, the British soldiers piled their mangled bodies
in an old cart and started it down the steep and rugged hill, towards the
river, in order that they might be there drowned. Stumps and stones however
obstructed the passage of the cart, and when the enemy had retreated--for
the aroused inhabitants of that region soon compelled them to that
course--the friends of the wounded came to their aid, and thus several
lives were saved.

One of those heroic women who came the next morning to the aid of the
thirty-five wounded men, who lay all night freezing in their own blood, was
Mrs. Mary Ledyard, a near relative of the Colonel. "She brought warm
chocolate, wine, and other refreshments, and while Dr. Downer, of Preston,
was dressing the wounds of the soldiers, she went from one to another,
administering her cordials, and breathing gentle words of sympathy and
encouragement into their ears. In these labors of kindness she was assisted
by another relative of the lamented Colonel Ledyard--Mrs. John Ledyard--who
had also brought her household stores to refresh the sufferers, and
lavished on them the most soothing personal attentions. The soldiers who
recovered from their wounds, were accustomed, to the day of their death, to
speak of these ladies in terms of fervent gratitude and praise."

Another "heroine and ministering angel" at the same massacre was Anna
Warner, wife of Captain Bailey. She received from the soldiers the
affectionate <i>sobriquet</i> of "Mother Bailey." Had "Mother Bailey" lived
in the palmy days of ancient Roman glory no matron in that mighty empire
would have been more highly honored. Hearing the British guns, at the
attack on Fort Griswold, she hurried to the scene of carnage, where she
found her uncle, one of the brave defenders, mortally wounded. With his
dying lips he prayed to see his wife and child--once more; hastening home,
she caught and saddled a horse for the feeble mother, and taking the child
in her arms ran three miles and held it to receive the kisses and blessing
of its dying father. At a later period flannel being needed to use for
cartridges, she gave her own undergarment for that purpose. This patriotic
surrender showed the noble spirit which always actuated "Mother Bailey" and
was an appropriation to her country of which she might justly be proud.

The combination of manly daring and womanly kindness was admirably
displayed in the deeds of a maiden, Miss Esther Gaston, and of a married
lady, Mrs. Slocum, whose presence upon battlefields gave aid and comfort,
in several ways, to the patriot cause.

On the morning of July 30th, 1780, the former, hearing the firing, rode to
the scene of conflict in company with her sister-in-law. Meeting three
skulkers retreating from the fight, Esther rebuked them sharply, and,
seizing the gun from the hands of one of them, exclaimed, "Give us your
guns, and we will stand in your places!" The cowards, abashed and filled
with shame, thereupon turned about, and, in company with the females,
hurried back to face the enemy.

While the battle was raging, Esther and her companion busied themselves in
dressing and binding up the wounds of the fallen, and in quenching their
thirst, not even forgetting their helpless enemies, whose bodies strewed
the ground.

During another battle, which occurred the following week, she converted a
church into a hospital, and administered to the wants of the wounded.

Our other heroine, Mrs. Slocum, of Pleasant Green, North Carolina, having a
presentiment that her husband was dead or wounded in battle, rose in the
night, saddled her horse, and rode to the scene of conflict. We continue
the narrative in the words of our heroine.

"The cool night seemed after a gallop of a mile or two, to bring reflection
with it, and I asked myself where I was going, and for what purpose. Again
and again I was tempted to turn back; but I was soon ten miles from home,
and my mind became stronger every mile I rode that I should find my husband
dead or dying--this was as firmly my presentiment and conviction as any
fact of my life. When day broke I was some thirty miles from home. I knew
the general route our army expected to take, and had followed them without
hesitation. About sunrise I came upon a group of women and children,
standing and sitting by the road-side, each one of them showing the same
anxiety of mind which I felt.

"Stopping a few minutes I enquired if the battle had been fought. They knew
nothing, but were assembled on the road-side to catch intelligence. They
thought Caswell had taken the right of the Wilmington road, and gone toward
the northwest (Cape Fear). Again was I skimming over the ground through a
country thinly settled, and very poor and swampy; but neither my own spirit
nor my beautiful nag's failed in the least. We followed the well-marked
trail of the troops.

"The sun must have been well up, say eight or nine o'clock, when I heard a
sound like thunder, which I knew must be a cannon. It was the first time I
ever heard a cannon. I stopped still; when presently the cannon thundered
again. The battle was then fighting. What a fool! my husband could not be
dead last night, and the battle only fighting now! Still, as I am so near,
I will go on and see how they come out. So away we went again, faster than
ever; and I soon found, by the noise of the guns, that I was near the
fight. Again I stopped. I could hear muskets, rifles, and shouting. I spoke
to my horse and dashed on in the direction of the firing and the shouts,
which were louder than ever.

"The blind path I had been following, brought me into the Wilmington road
leading to Moore's creek bridge, a few hundred yards below the bridge. A
few yards from the road, under a cluster of trees, were lying perhaps
twenty men. They were wounded. I knew the spot; the very tree; and the
position of the men I knew as if I had seen it a thousand times. I had seen
it all night! I saw <i>all</i> at once; but in an instant my whole soul
centered in one spot; for there wrapped in a bloody guard cloak, was my
husband's body! How I passed the few yards from my saddle to the place I
never knew. I remember uncovering his head and seeing a face crusted with
gore from a dreadful wound across the temple. I put my hand on the bloody
face; 'twas warm; and an <i>unknown voice</i> begged for water; a small
camp-kettle was lying near, and a stream of water was close by. I brought
it; poured some in his mouth, washed his face; and behold--it was not my
husband but Frank Cogdell. He soon revived and could speak. I was washing
the wound in his head. Said he, 'It is not that; it is the hole in my leg
that is killing me.' A puddle of blood was standing on the ground about his
feet I took the knife, and cut away his trousers and stockings, and found
the blood came from a shot hole through and through the fleshy part of his
leg. I looked about and could see nothing that looked as if it would do for
dressing wounds, but some heart-leaves. I gathered a handful and bound them
tight to the holes; and the bleeding stopped. I then went to others; I
dressed the wounds of many a brave fellow who did good service long after
that day! I had not enquired for my husband; but while I was busy Caswell
came up. He appeared very much surprised to see me; and was with his hat in
hand about to pay some compliment; but I interrupted him by asking--'Where
is my husband?'

"'Where he ought to be, madam; in pursuit of the enemy. But pray,' said he,
'how came you here?'

"'O, I thought,' replied I, 'you would need nurses as well as soldiers.
See! I have already dressed many of these good fellows; and here is
one'--and going up to Frank and lifting him up with my arm under his head
so that he could drink some more water--'would have died before any of you
men could have helped him.'

"Just then I looked up, and my husband, as bloody as a butcher, and as
muddy as a ditcher, stood before me.

"'Why, Mary!' he exclaimed, 'what are you doing there? Hugging Frank
Cogdell, the greatest reprobate in the army?'

"'I don't care,' I said. 'Frank is a brave fellow, a good soldier, and a
true friend of Congress.'

"'True, true! every word of it!' said Caswell. 'You are right, madam,' with
the lowest possible bow.

"I would not tell my husband what brought me there I was so happy; and so
were all! It was a glorious victory; I came just at the height of the
enjoyment. I knew my husband was surprised, but I could see he was not
displeased with me. It was night again before our excitement had at all
subsided.

"Many prisoners were brought in, and among them some very obnoxious; but
the worst of the Tories were not taken prisoners. They were, for the most
part, left in the woods and swamps wherever they were overtaken. I begged
for some of the poor prisoners, and Caswell told me none should be hurt but
such as had been guilty of murder and house-burning.

"In the middle of the night I again mounted my horse and started for home.
Caswell and my husband wanted me to stay till next morning, and they would
send a party with me; but no! I wanted to see my child, and I told them
they could send no party who could keep up with me. What a happy ride I had
back! and with what joy did I embrace my child as he ran to meet me!"

The winter at Valley Forge was the darkest season in the Revolutionary
struggle. The American army were sheltered by miserable huts, through which
the rain and sleet found their way upon the wretched cots where the
patriots slept. By day the half-famished soldiers in tattered regimentals
wandered through their camp, and the snow showed the bloody tracks of their
shoeless feet. Mutinous mutterings disturbed the sleep of Washington, and
one dark, cold day, the soldiers at dusk were on the point of open revolt.
Nature could endure no more, and not from want of patriotism, but from want
of food and clothes, the patriotic cause seemed likely to fail. Pinched
with cold and wasted with hunger, the soldiers pined beside their dying
camp-fires. Suddenly a shout was heard from the sentinels who paced the
outer lines, and at the same time a cavalcade came slowly through the snow
up the valley. Ten women in carts, each cart drawn by ten pairs of oxen,
and bearing tons of meal and other supplies, passed through the lines amid
cheers that rent the air. Those devoted women had preserved the army, and
Independence from that day was assured.

[Illustration: FOOD AND CLOTHING SUPPLIED TO THE REVOLUTIONARY ARMY BY
PATRIOTIC WOMEN]

Fortitude and patience were exemplified in a thousand homes from which
members of the family had gone to battle for Independence. Straitened for
means wherewith to keep their strong souls in their feeble bodies, worn
with toil, tortured with anxiety for the safety of the soldier-father or
son, or husband or brother, and fighting the conflict of life alone, woman
proved in that great ordeal her claim to those virtues which are by common
consent assigned to her as her peculiar characteristics.

We may well suppose, too, that ready wit and address had ample scope for
their exercise in those perilous times. And who but woman could best
display those qualities?

While Ann Elliott, styled by her British admirers, "the beautiful rebel,"
was affianced to Col. Lewis Morris, of New York, the house where he was
visiting her was suddenly surrounded by a detachment of "Black Dragoons."
They were in pursuit of the Colonel, and it was impossible for him to
escape by flight. What to do he knew not, but, quick as thought, she ran to
the window, opened it, and, fearlessly putting her head out, in a composed
manner demanded what was wanted. The reply was, "We want the rebel." "Then
go," said she, "and look for him in the American army;" adding, "how dare
you disturb a family under the protection of both armies?" She was so cool,
self-possessed, firm, and resolute, as to triumph over the dragoons, who
left without entering the house.

While the conflict was at its height in South Carolina, Captain Richardson,
of Sumter district, was obliged to conceal himself for a while in the
thickets of the Santee swamp. One day he ventured to visit his family--a
perilous movement, for the British had offered a reward for his
apprehension, and patrolling parties were almost constantly in search of
him. Before his visit was ended a small party of soldiers presented
themselves in front of the house. Just as they were entering, with a great
deal of composure and presence of mind, Mrs. Richardson appeared at the
door, and found so much to do there at the moment, as to make it
inconvenient to leave room for the uninvited guests to enter. She was so
calm, and appeared so unconcerned, that they did not mistrust the cause of
her wonderful diligence, till her husband had rushed out of the back door,
and safely reached the neighboring swamp.

The bearing of important dispatches through an enemy's country is an
enterprise that always requires both courage and address. Such a feat was
performed by Miss Geiger, under circumstances of peculiar difficulty.

At the time General Greene retreated before Lord Rawdon from Ninety-Six,
when he passed Broad river, he was desirous to send an order to General
Sumter, who was on the Wateree, to join him, that they might attack Rawdon,
who had divided his force. But the General could find no man in that part
of the state who was bold enough to undertake so dangerous mission. The
country to be passed through for many miles was full of blood-thirsty
Tories, who, on every occasion that offered, imbrued their hands in the
blood of the Whigs. At length Emily Geiger presented herself to General
Greene, and proposed to act as his messenger: and the general, both
surprised and delighted, closed with her proposal. He accordingly wrote a
letter and delivered it, and at the same time communicated the contents of
it verbally, to be told to Sumter in case of accidents.

She pursued her journey on horseback, and on the second day was intercepted
by Lord Rawdon's scouts. Coming from the direction of Greene's army and not
being able to tell an untruth without blushing, Emily was suspected and
confined to a room; and the officer sent for an old Tory matron to search
for papers upon her person. Emily was not wanting in expedients, and as
soon as the door was closed and the bustle a little subsided, she <i>ate up
the letter</i>, piece by piece. After a while the matron arrived, and upon
searching carefully, nothing was found of a suspicious nature about the
prisoner, and she would disclose nothing. Suspicion being then allayed, the
officer commanding the scouts suffered Emily to depart. She then took a
route somewhat circuitous to avoid further detentions and soon after struck
into the road leading to Sumter's camp, where she arrived in safety. Emily
told her adventure, and delivered Greene's verbal message to Sumter, who in
consequence, soon after joined the main army at Orangeburgh.

The salvation of the army was due more than once to the watchfulness and
tact of woman.

When the British army held possession of Philadelphia, a superior officer
supposed to have been the Adjutant General, selected a back chamber in the
house of Mrs. Lydia Darrah, for private conference. Suspecting that some
important movement was on foot, she took off her shoes, and putting her ear
to the key-hole of the door, overheard an order read for all the British
troops to march out, late in the evening of the fourth, and attack General
Washington's army, then encamped at White Marsh. On hearing this, she
returned to her chamber and laid herself down. Soon after, the officers
knocked at her door, but she rose only at the third summons, having feigned
to be asleep. Her mind was so much agitated that, from this moment, she
could neither eat nor sleep, supposing it to be in her power to save the
lives of thousands of her countrymen, but not knowing how she was to carry
the necessary information to General Washington, nor daring to confide it
even to her husband. The time left was short, and she quickly determined to
make her way as soon as possible, to the American outposts. She informed
her family, that, as they were in want of flour, she would go to Frankfort
for some; her husband insisted that she should take with her the servant
maid; but, to his surprise, she positively refused. Gaining access to
General Howe, she solicited what he readily granted--a pass through the
British troops on the lines. Leaving her bag at the mill, she hastened
towards the American lines, and encountered on her way an American,
Lieutenant Colonel Craig, of the light horse, who, with some of his men,
was on the lookout for information. He knew her, and inquired whither she
was going. She answered, in quest of her son, an officer in the American
army; and prayed the Colonel to alight and walk with her. He did so,
ordering his troops to keep in sight. To him she disclosed her momentous
secret, after having obtained from him the most solemn promise never to
betray her individually, since her life might be at stake. He conducted her
to a house near at hand, directed a female in it to give her something to
eat, and hastened to head-quarters, where he made General Washington
acquainted with what he had heard. Washington made, of course, all
preparation for baffling the meditated surprise, and the contemplated
expedition was a failure.

Mrs. Murray of New York, the mother of Lindley Murray, the grammarian, by
her ceremonious hospitality detained Lord Howe and his officers, while the
British forces were in pursuit of General Putnam, and thus prevented the
capture of the American army. In fine, not merely the lives of many
individuals, but the safety of the whole patriot army, and even the cause
of independence was more than once due to feminine address and strategy.

Patriotic generosity and devotion were displayed without stint, and women
were ready to submit to any sacrifice in behalf of their country.

These qualities are well illustrated by the three following instances.

Mrs. William Smith, when informed that in order to dislodge the enemy then
in possession of Fort St. George, Long Island, it would be necessary to
burn or batter down her dwelling-house, promptly told Major Tallmadge to
proceed without hesitation in the work of destruction, if the good of the
country demanded the sacrifice.

While General Greene was retreating, disheartened and penniless, from the
enemy, after the disastrous defeat at Camden, he was met at Catawba ford by
Mrs. Elizabeth Steele, who, in her generous ardor in the cause of freedom,
drew him aside, and, taking two bags of specie from under her apron,
presented them to him, saying, "Take these, for you will want them, and I
can do without them."

While Fort Motte, on the Congaree River, was in the hands of the British,
in order to effect its surrender, it became necessary to burn a large
mansion standing near the center of the trench. The house was the property
of Mrs. Motte. Lieut. Colonel Lee communicated to her the contemplated work
of destruction with painful reluctance, but her smiles, half anticipating
his proposal, showed at once that she was willing to sacrifice her property
if she could thereby aid in the least degree towards the expulsion of the
enemy and the salvation of the land.

Pennsylvania had the honor of being the native State of Mrs. McCalla, whose
affectionate and devoted efforts to liberate her invalid husband,
languishing in a British dungeon, have justly given her a high rank among
the patriot women of the Revolution.

Weeks elapsed after the capture of Mr. McCalla, before she was able, with
the most assiduous inquiries, to ascertain the place of his confinement. In
the midst of her torturing anxiety and suspense her children fell sick of
small-pox. She nursed them alone and unaided, and as soon as they were out
of danger, resumed her search for her husband.

Mounting her horse, she succeeded in forcing her way to the head-quarters
of Lord Rawdon, at Camden, and obtained reluctant permission to visit her
husband for ten minutes only in his wretched prison-pen. Though almost
overcome by the interview, she hastened home, having altogether ridden
through the wilderness one hundred miles in twenty four hours.

She proceeded immediately to prepare clothing and provisions for her
husband and the other prisoners. Her preparations having been completed,
she set out on her return to Camden, in company with one of her neighbors,
Mrs. Mary Nixon. Each of the brave women drove before her a pack-horse,
laden with clothes and provisions for the prisoners. These errands of mercy
were repeated every month, often in company with other women who were
engaged in similar missions, and sometimes alone.

Meanwhile she did not relax her efforts to effect the release of her
husband. After many months she succeeded in procuring an order for the
discharge of her husband with ten other prisoners, whose handcuffs and
ankle chains were knocked off, and who left the prison in company with
their heroic liberator.

Examples are not wanting, in our Revolutionary annals, of a stern and lofty
spirit of self-sacrifice in behalf of country, that will vie with that
displayed by the first Brutus.

We are told by the orator of the Society of the Cincinnati that when the
British officers presented to Mrs. Rebecca Edwards the mandate which
arrested her sons as "objects of retaliation," less sensitive of private
affection than attached to her honor and the interest of her country, she
stifled the tender feelings of the mother and heroically bade them despise
the threats of their enemies, and steadfastly persist to support the
glorious cause in which they had engaged--that if the threatened sacrifice
should follow they would carry a parent's blessing, and the good opinion of
every virtuous citizen with them, to the grave; but if from the frailty of
human nature--of the possibility of which she would not suffer an idea to
enter her mind--they were disposed to temporize and exchange this liberty
for safety, they must forget her as a mother, nor subject her to the misery
of ever beholding them again.

As among the early Puritan settlers, so among the women of the Revolution,
nothing was more remarkable than their belief in the efficacy of prayer.

In the solitude of their homes, in the cool and silence of the forest, and
in the presence of the foe, Christian women knelt down and prayed for
peace, for victory, for rescue from danger, and for deliverance from the
enemies which beset them. Can we doubt that the prayers of these noble
patriot women were answered?

Early in the Revolutionary War, the historian of the border relates that
the inhabitants of the frontier of Burke County, North Carolina, being
apprehensive of an attack by the Indians, it was determined to seek
protection in a fort in a more densely populated neighborhood, in an
interior settlement. A party of soldiers was sent to protect them on their
retreat. The families assembled; the line of march was taken towards their
place of destination, and they proceeded some miles unmolested--the
soldiers forming a hollow square with the refugee families in the center.
The Indians had watched these movements, and had laid a plan for the
destruction of the migrating party. The road to be traveled lay through a
dense forest in the fork of a river, where the Indians concealed themselves
and waited till the travelers were in the desired spot.

Suddenly the war-whoop sounded in front and on either side; a large body of
painted warriors rushed in, filling the gap by which the whites had
entered, and an appalling crash of fire-arms followed. The soldiers,
however, were prepared. Such as chanced to be near the trees darted behind
them, and began to ply the deadly rifle; the others prostrated themselves
upon the earth, among the tall grass, and crawled to trees. The families
screened themselves as best they could. The onset was long and fiercely
urged; ever and anon, amid the din and smoke, the braves would rush out,
tomahawk in hand, towards the center; but they were repulsed by the cool
intrepidity of the backwoods riflemen. Still they fought on, determined on
the destruction of the destined victims who offered such desperate
resistance. All at once an appalling sound greeted the ears of the women
and children in the center; it was a cry from their defenders--a cry for
powder! "Our powder is giving out!" they exclaimed. "Have you any? Bring us
some, or we can fight no longer."

A woman of the party had a good supply. She spread her apron on the ground,
poured her powder into it, and going round from soldier to soldier, as they
stood behind the trees, bade each who needed powder put down his hat, and
poured a quantity upon it. Thus she went round the line of defense till her
whole stock, and all she could obtain from others, was distributed. At last
the savages gave way, and, pressed by their foes, were driven off the
ground. The victorious whites returned to those for whose safety they had
ventured into the wilderness. Inquiries were made as to who had been
killed, and one, running up, cried, "Where is the woman that gave us the
powder? I want to see her!" "Yes! yes!--let us see her!" responded another
and another; "without her we should have been all lost!" The soldiers ran
about among the women and children, looking for her and making inquiries.
Others came in from the pursuit, one of whom, observing the commotion,
asked the cause, and was told.

"You are looking in the wrong place," he replied.

"Is she killed? Ah, we were afraid of that!" exclaimed many voices.

"Not when I saw her," answered the soldier. "When the Indians ran off; she
was <i>on her knees in prayer</i> at the root of yonder tree, and there I
left her."

There was a simultaneous rush to the tree--and there, to their great joy,
they found the woman safe and still on her knees in prayer. Thinking not of
herself, she received their applause without manifesting any other feeling
than gratitude to Heaven for their great deliverance.

An eminent divine whose childhood was passed upon our New England frontier,
during the period of the Revolution, narrated to the writer many years
since, the story of his mother's life while her husband was absent in the
patriot army. Their small farm was on the sterile hill-side, and with the
utmost pains, barely yielded sufficient for the wants of the lone wife and
her three little ones. There was no house within five miles, and the whole
region around was stripped of its male inhabitants, such was the patriotic
ardor of the people. All the labors in providing for the household fell
upon the mother. She planted and hoed the corn, milked the cow and tended
the farm, at the same time not neglecting the inside duties of the
household, feeding and clothing the children, nursing them when sick and
instructing them in the rudiments of education.

"I call to mind, though after the lapse of eighty years," said the
venerable man, "the image of my mother as distinctly as of yesterday, and
she moves before me as she did in my childhood's home among those bleak
hills--cheerful and serene through all, though even with my young eyes I
could see that a brooding sorrow rested upon her spirit. I remember the day
when my father kissed my brothers and me, and told us to be good boys, and
help mother while he was gone: I remember too, that look upon my mother's
face as she watched him go down the road with his musket and knapsack.

"When evening came, that day, and she had placed us in our little beds, I
saw her kneeling and praying in a low tone, long and fervently, and heard
her after she had pleaded that victory might crown our arms, intercede at
the throne of grace for her absent husband and the father of her children.

"Then she rose and kissed us good-night, and as she bent above us I shall
never forget till my latest hour the angelic expression upon her face.
Sorrow, love, resignation, and holy trust were blended and beamed forth in
that look which seemed to transfigure her countenance and her whole
bearing.

"During all those trying years while she was so patiently toiling to feed
and clothe us, and bearing the burdens and privations of her lonely lot,
never did she omit the morning and evening prayer for her country and for
the father of her children.

"One day we saw her holding an open letter in her hand and looking pale and
as if she were about to faint. We gathered about her knees and gazed with
wondering eyes, silently into her sad and care-worn face, for even then we
had been schooled to recognize and respect the sorrows of a mother. Two
weeks before that time, a battle had been fought in which father had been
severely wounded. The slow mail of those days had only just brought this
sad intelligence. As we stood beside her she bent and clasped us to her
heart, striving to hide the great tears that coursed down her wasted
cheeks.

"We begged her not to cry and tried to comfort her with our infantile
caresses. At length we saw her close her eyes and utter a low prayer. Ere
her lips had ceased to intercede with the Father of mercies, a knock was
heard at the door and one of the neighboring settlers entered. He had just
returned from the army and had come several miles on foot from his home,
expressly to tell us that father was rapidly recovering from his wounds. It
seemed as if he were a messenger sent from heaven in direct answer to the
silent prayers of a mother, and all was joy and brightness in the house."

The patriot father returned to his family at the close of the war with the
rank of Captain, which he had nobly won by his bravery in the battle's van.
The sons grew up and became useful and honored citizens of a Republic which
their father had helped to make free; and ever during their lives they
fondly cherished the memory of the mother who had taught them so many
examples of brave self-denial and pious devotion.

And still as we scan the pages of Revolutionary history, or revive the oral
evidence of family tradition, the names and deeds of these brave and good
women fill the eye and multiply in the memory. Through the fires, the
frosts, the rains, the suns of one hundred years, they come back to us
<i>now</i>, in the midst of our great national jubilee, vivid as with the
life of yesterday. That era, which they helped to make glorious, is "with
the years that are beyond the flood."

  "Another race shall be, and other palms are won,"

but never, while our nation or our language endures, shall the memory of
those names and deeds pass away. In every succeeding year that registers
the history of the Republic which they contributed to build, brighter and
brighter shall grow the record of the Patriot Women of the Revolution.




CHAPTER VII.

MOVING WEST--PERILS OF THE JOURNEY


In regarding or in enjoying an end already accomplished by others, we are
too apt to pass by the means through which that end was reached. America of
to-day represents a grand result. We see that our land is great, rich, and
powerful; we see that the flag waves from ocean to ocean, over a people
furnished with all the appliances of civilization, and happy in their
enjoyment; we are conscious that all this has come from the toils and the
sufferings of many men and of many women who have lived and loved before
us, and passed away, leaving behind them their country growing greater and
richer, happier and more powerful, for what they have borne and done. But
our views of the means by which that mighty end was reached are apt to be
altogether too vague and general. While we are enjoying what others have
worked to attain, let us not selfishly and forgetfully pass by the toils,
the struggles, the firm endurance of those who went before us and
accomplished this vast aggregate of results.

Each stage in the process by which these results were wrought out, had its
peculiar trials, its special service. Looking back to that far-off past,
and in the light of our own knowledge and conceptions, we find it almost
impossible to decide which stage was encompassed with the deadliest
dangers, the severest labors, the keenest sorrows, the largest list of
discomforts. But certainly to woman, the breaking up of her eastern home,
and the removal to the far west, was not the least burdensome and trying.

No characteristic of woman is more remarkable than the strength of her
local associations and attachments. In making the home she learns to love
it, and this feeling seems to be often strongest when the surroundings are
the bleakest, the rudest, and the most comfortless. The Highlander and the
Switzer pine amid the luxuriant scenes of tropical life, when their
thoughts revert to the smoky shieling or to the rock-encompassed
<i>chalet</i> of their far-off mountains. Such, too, doubtless, was the
clinging fondness with which, the women regarded their rude cabins on the
frontier of the Atlantic States. They had toiled and fought to make these
rude abodes the homes for those dearest to them; here children, the
first-born of the Republic, had been nurtured; here, too, were the graves
of the first fathers and mothers of America. Humble and comfortless as
those dwelling-places would have seemed to the men and women of to-day,
they were dear to the wives and mothers of colonial times.

Comprehending, as we may, this feeling, and knowing the peculiar
difficulties of long journeys in those days, into a wild and hostile
country, we can understand why the westward march of emigration and
settlement was so slow during the first one hundred and fifty or sixty
years of our history. New England had, it is true, been largely subjugated
and reclaimed; a considerable body of emigrants, wedge-like, were driving
slowly up through the Mohawk Valley towards Niagara; a weak, thin line, was
straggling with difficulty across the Alleghanies in Pennsylvania, towards
the Ohio, and a more compact and confident battalion in Virginia, was
pushing into Kentucky. But how scattered and feeble that picket-line
compared to the army which was soon to follow it.

For a season, and while the British were trying to force their yoke on the
reluctant colonists, the westward movement had a check. The danger was in
the rear. His old home in the east was threatened, and the pioneer turned
about and faced the rising sun, until the danger was past and he could
pursue his journey.

The close of the Revolutionary struggle gave a new impulse to the westward
march of the American people, which had been arrested for the time being by
the War of Independence.

The patriot soldiers found themselves, upon the advent of peace,
impoverished in fortune; but with high hopes and stout hearts they
immediately set about repairing the ravages of the long war. Nurtured in
the rugged school of danger and hardship, they had ceased to regard the
West with dread. Curiosity, blended with the hope of bettering their
condition, turned their faces to that "fresh, unbounded, magnificent
wilderness." Accustomed to camp life and scenes of exciting interest, the
humdrum days at the old homestead became distasteful. The West was the
hunter's paradise. The toil held beneath it the potency of harvests of
extraordinary richness, and the soldier who had faced the disciplined
battalions of Great Britain recked little of the prowling red man.

During the Revolution, the women, left alone by their husbands and fathers,
who were with the army, were more than ever thrown on their own resources.
They tilled the farm, reared their swarthy and nimble broods of children,
and sent the boys in blue and buff all they could spare from their slender
store. During all this trying period they were fitting themselves for that
new life in the western wilds which had been marked out for them by the
hand of an overruling Providence.

And yet, hard and lonely as the lives of these devoted women must have been
in their eastern homes, and bright as their imaginations may have pictured
the richness of the West, it must have given them many a pang when the
husband and father told them that the whole family must be removed at once
from their beloved homestead, which they or their fathers had redeemed from
the wilderness after so many years of toil. We may imagine the resolution
that was required to break up the old attachments which bind women to their
homes and firesides.

It must have required a heroic courage to do this for the purpose of
seeking a new home, not only among strangers, but among wild beasts and
savages. But the fathers and mothers a hundred years ago possessed a spirit
which rose above the perils of their times. They went forward,
unhesitatingly, in their long and toilsome journeys westward, driving their
slow-footed oxen and lumbering-wagons hundreds of miles, over ground where
no road was; through woods infested with bears and wolves, panthers and
warlike tribes of Indians; settling in the midst of those dangerous
enemies, and conquering them all.

The army of pioneers, like the skirmishers who had preceded them, moved
forward in three columns; the northernmost passed through New York State;
the middle column moved westward through Pennsylvania; the southernmost
marched through Virginia. Within ten years after the treaty of Versailles,
the three columns had met in Ohio and Kentucky, and spreading out over that
beautiful region, were fighting with nature and savage men to subjugate
both and bring them within the bounds of civilization. No more sublime
spectacle has ever greeted the eye of the historian than the march of that
army. Twenty or thirty thousand men and women, bearing, like the Israelites
of old, their ark across the desert and waste places--that ark which bore
the blessings of civilization and religion within its holy shrine! Aged
matrons, nursing mothers, prattling infants, hoary patriarchs, and strong
veterans fresh from the fields of their country's glory, marching to form a
mighty empire in the wilderness!

In this present age of rapid and easy transition from place to place, it is
difficult to form a just conception of the tediousness, hardships, and
duration of those early emigrations to the West. The difference in
conveyance is that between a train of cars drawn by a forty-ton locomotive
and a two-horse wagon, without springs, and of the most lumbering and
primitive construction. This latter was the best conveyance that the
emigrant could command. A few were so fortunately situated on the banks of
rivers that they could float down with the current in flat-boats, while
their cattle were being driven along the shore; or, if it was necessary to
ascend toward the head-waters of a river, they could work their way
up-stream with setting-poles. But most of the emigrants traveled with
teams. Some of those who went part of the way in boats had to begin or end
their journey in wagons. The vehicles which they provided on such occasions
for land carriage were curiosities of wheel-craft--I speak of the Jersey
wagons.

The old-fashioned Jersey wagon has, years ago, given place to more showy
and flexible vehicles; but long before such were invented the Jersey wagon
was an established institution, and was handed down, with the family name,
from father to son. It was the great original of the modern emigrant wagon
of the West; but as I have elsewhere pictured its appearance upon the
arrival of a band of pioneers at their final destination, it is unnecessary
to enter here upon any further description.

The spring of the year was the season usually selected for moving, and
during many weeks previous to the appointed time, the emigrants had been
actively providing against the accidents and discomforts of the road. When
all was ready, the wagon was loaded, the oxen yoked and hooked to the neap;
the women and children took their places on the summit of the huge load,
the baby in its mother's lap, the youngest boy at his grandmother's feet,
and off they started. The largest boy walked beside and drove the team, the
other boys drove the cows, the men trudged behind or ahead, and the whole
cavalcade passed out of the great gate, the grandmother peering through her
spectacles, and the mother smiling through her tears and looking back more
than once at the home which she had made but was now to leave for ever.

In this manner the earlier emigrants went forward, driving their heavily
laden wagon by day and sleeping at night by the camp. After they had passed
the region of roads and bridges they had to literally hew their way;
cutting down bushes, prying their wagon out of bog-holes, building bridges
or poling themselves across streams on rafts. But, in defiance of every
obstacle, they pressed forward.

Neither rivers nor mountains stayed the course of the emigrant. Guiding his
course by the sun, and ever facing the West, he went slowly on. When that
luminary set, his parting rays lit the faces of the pioneer family, and
when it rose it threw their long shadows before them on the soft, spongy
turf of the forest glades. Sweating through the undergrowth; climbing over
fallen trees; sinking knee-deep in marshes; at noon they halted to take a
rest in the shade of the primeval forest, beside a brook, and there eat
their mid-day meal of fried pork and corn cakes, which the women prepared;
then on again, till the shadows stretched far back toward their old homes.

Sometimes a storm burst upon them, and the women and children huddled
beneath the cart as the thunderbolts fell, shivering the huge trunks of the
forest monarchs; and the lightning crimsoned the faces of the forlorn party
with its glare. Then the heavens cleared; the sun came out; and the ox-cart
went rumbling and creaking onward. No doubt the first days of that weary
tramp had in them something of pleasurable excitement; the breezes of
spring fanned the brows of the wayfarers, and told of the health and
freedom of woodland life; the magnificence of the forest, the summits of
the mountains, tinged with blue, the sparkling waters of lake and stream,
must have given joy to even the most stolid of those households. But
emotions of this description soon became strangers to their souls.

But the emigrants ere long found that the wilderness had lost the charms of
novelty. Sights and sounds that were at first pleasing, and had lessened
the sense of discomfort, soon ceased to attract attention. Their minds,
solely occupied with obstacles, inconveniences, and obstructions, at every
step of the way, became sullen, or, at least, indifferent.

To the toils and discomforts incident to their journey were often added
casualties and great personal risks. An unlucky step might wrench an ankle;
the axe might glance from a twig and split a foot open; and a broken leg,
or a severed artery, is a frightful thing where no surgeon can be had.
Exposure to all the changes of the weather--sleeping upon the damp ground,
frequently brought on fevers; and sickness, at all times a great calamity,
was infinitely more so to the pioneer. It must have been appalling in the
woods. Many a mother has carried her wailing, languishing child in her
arms, to lessen the jolting of the wagon, without being able to render it
the necessary assistance. Many a family has paused on the way to gather a
leafy couch for a dying brother or sister. Many a parent has laid in the
grave, in the lonely wilderness, the child they should meet no more till
the morning of the resurrection. Many a heart at the West has yearned at
the thought of the treasured one resting beneath the spreading tree.
After-comers have stopped over the little mound, and pondered upon the rude
memorial carved in the bark above it; and those who had sustained a similar
loss have wrung their hands and wept over it, for their own wounds were
opened afresh.

Among the chapters of accident and casualty which make up the respective
diaries of the families who left their eastern homes after the Revolution
and joined the ranks of the Western immigrants there is none more
interesting than that of Mrs. Jameson. She was the child of wealthy
parents, and had been reared in luxury in the city of New York. Soon after
peace was declared she was married to Edward Jameson, a brave soldier in
the war, who had nothing but his stout arms and intrepid heart to battle
with the difficulties of life. Her father, dying soon after, his estate was
discovered to have been greatly lessened by the depreciation in value which
the war had produced. Gathering together the remains of what was once a
large fortune, the couple purchased the usual outfit of the emigrants of
that period and set out to seek their fortunes in the West.

All went well with them until they reached the Alleghany River, which they
undertook to cross on a raft. It was the month of May; the river had been
swollen by rains, and when they reached the middle of the stream, the part
of the raft on which Mr. Jameson sat became detached, the logs separated,
and he sank to rise no more. The other section of the raft, containing Mrs.
Jameson, her babe of eight months, and a chest of clothing and household
gear, floated down-stream at the mercy of the rapid current.

[Illustration: PERILOUS CROSSING OF THE ALLEGHANY RIVER]

Bracing herself against the shock, Mrs. Jameson managed to paddle to the
side of the river from which she had just before started. She was landed
nearly a mile below the point where had been left the cattle, and also the
ox-cart in which their journey had been hitherto performed, and which her
husband expected to carry over the river on the raft, returning for them as
soon as his wife and babe had been safely landed on the western bank. The
desolate mother succeeded in mooring the remains of the raft to the shore;
then clasping her babe to her bosom, followed the bank of the river till
she reached the oxen and cart, which she drove down to the place where she
landed, and by great exertions succeeded in hauling the chest upon the
bank. Her strength was now exhausted, and, lying down in the bottom of the
cart, she gave way to grief and despair.

Her situation may be easily imagined: alone in the forest, thirty miles
from the nearest settlement, her husband torn from her in a moment, and her
babe smiling as though he would console his mother for her terrible loss.
In her sad condition self-preservation would have been too feeble a motive
to impel her to make any further effort to save herself; but maternal
love--the strongest instinct in a woman's heart--buoyed her up and
stimulated her to unwonted exertions.

The spot where she found herself was a dense forest, stretching back to a
rocky ledge on the east, and terminated on the north by an alluvial meadow
nearly bare of trees. Along the banks of the river was a thick line of high
bushes and saplings, which served as a screen against the observations of
savages passing up and down the river in their canoes. The woods were just
bursting into leaf; the spring-flowers filled the air with odor, and
chequered the green foliage and grass; the whole scene was full of vernal
freshness, life, and beauty. The track which the Jamesons had followed was
about midway between the northern and southern routes generally pursued by
emigrants, and it was quite unlikely that others would cross the river at
that point. The dense jungle that skirted the river bank was an impediment
in the way of reaching the settlements lower down, and there was danger of
being lost in the woods if the unfortunate woman should start alone.

"On this spot," she said, "I must remain till some one comes to my help."

The first two years of her married life had been spent on a farm in
Westchester County, New York, where she had acquired some knowledge of
farming and woodcraft, by assisting her husband in his labors, or by
accompanying him while hunting and fishing. She was strong and healthy; and
quite, unlike her delicate sisters of modern days, her lithe frame was
hardened by exercise in the open air, and her face was tinged by the kisses
of the sun.

Slowly recovering from the terrible anguish of her loss, she cast about for
shelter and sustenance. The woods were swarming with game, both large and
small, from the deer to the rabbit, and from the wild turkey to the quail.
The brooks were alive with trout. The meadow was well suited for Indian
corn, wheat, rye, or potatoes. The forest was full of trees of every
description. To utilize all these raw materials was her study.

A rude hut, built of boughs interlaced, and covered thickly with leaves and
dry swamp grass, was her first work. This was her kitchen. The cart, which
was covered with canvas, was her sleeping-room. A shotgun, which she had
learned the use of, enabled her to keep herself supplied with game. She
examined her store of provisions, consisting of pork, flour, and Indian
meal, and made an estimate that they would last eight months, with prudent
use. The oxen she tethered at first, but afterwards tied the horns to one
of their fore feet, and let them roam. The two cows having calved soon
after, she kept them near at hand by making a pen for the calves, who by
their bleating called their mothers from the pastures on the banks of the
river. In the meadow she planted half an acre of corn and potatoes, which
soon promised an amazing crop.

Thus two months passed away. In her solitary and sad condition she was
cheered by the daily hope that white settlers would cross her track or see
her as they passed up and down the river. She often thought of trying to
reach a settlement, but dreaded the dangers and difficulties of the way.
Like the doe which hides her fawn in the secret covert, this young mother
deemed herself and her babe safer in this solitude than in trying unknown
perils, even with the chance of falling in with friends. She therefore
contented herself with her lot, and when the toils of the day were over,
she would sit on the bank and watch for voyagers on the river. Once she
heard voices in the night on the river, and going to the bank she strained
her eyes to gaze through the darkness and catch sight of the voyagers; she
dared not hail them for fear they might be Indians, and soon the voices
grew fainter in the distance, and she heard them no more. Again, while
sitting in a clump of bushes on the bank one day, she saw with horror six
canoes with Indians, apparently directing their course to the spot where
she sat. They were hideously streaked with war-paint, and came so near that
she could see the scalping knives in their girdles. Turning their course as
they approached the eastern shore they silently paddled down stream,
scanning the hanks sharply as they floated past. Fortunately they saw
nothing to attract their attention; the cart and hut being concealed by the
dense bushes, and there being no fire burning.

Fearing molestation from the Indians, she now moved her camp a hundred rods
back, near a rocky ledge, from the base of which flowed a spring of pure
water. Here, by rolling stones in a circle, she made an enclosure for her
cattle at night, and within in it built a log cabin of rather frail
construction; another two weeks was consumed in these labors, and it was
now the middle of August.

At night she was at first much alarmed by the howling of wolves, who came
sniffing round the cart where she slept. Once a large grey wolf put its
paws upon the cart and poked its nose under the canvas covering, but a
smart blow on the snout drove it yelping away. None of the cattle were
attacked, owing to the bold front showed to these midnight intruders. The
wolf is one of the most cowardly of wild beasts, and will rarely attack a
human being, or even an ox, unless pressed by hunger, and in the winter.
Often she caught glimpses of huge black bears in the swamps, while she was
in pursuit of wild turkeys or other game; but these creatures never
attacked her, and she gave them a wide berth.

One hot day in August she was gathering berries on the rocky ledge beside
which her house was situated, when seeing a clump of bushes heavily loaded
with the finest blackberries, she laid her babe upon the ground, and
climbing up, soon filled her basket with the luscious fruit. As she
descended she saw her babe sitting upright and gazing with fixed eyeballs
at some object near by; though what it was she could not clearly make out,
on account of an intervening shrub. Hastening down, a sight met her eyes
that froze her blood. An enormous rattlesnake was coiled within three feet
of her child, and with its head erect and its forked tongue vibrating, its
burning eyes were fixed upon those of the child, which sat motionless as a
statue, apparently fascinated by the deadly gaze of the serpent.

Seizing a stick of dry wood she dealt the reptile a blow, but the stick
being decayed and brittle, inflicted little injury on the serpent, and only
caused it to turn itself towards Mrs. Jameson, and fix its keen and
beautiful, but malignant eyes, steadily upon her. The witchery of the
serpent's eyes so irresistibly rooted her to the ground, that for a moment
she did not wish to remove from her formidable opponent.

The huge reptile gradually and slowly uncoiled its body; all the while
steadily keeping its eye fixed on its intended victim. Mrs. Jameson could
only cry, being unable to move, "Oh God! preserve me! save me, heavenly
Father!" The child, after the snake's charm was broken, crept to her mother
and buried its little head in her lap.

We continue the story in Mrs. Jameson's own words:--

"The snake now began to writhe its body down a fissure in the rock, keeping
its head elevated more than a foot from the ground. Its rattle made very
little noise. It every moment darted out its forked tongue, its eyes became
reddish and inflamed, and it moved rather quicker than at first. It was now
within two yards of me. By some means I had dissipated the charm, and,
roused by a sense of my awful danger, determined to stand on the defensive.
To run away from it, I knew would be impracticable, as the snake would
instantly dart its whole body after me. I therefore resolutely stood up,
and put a strong glove on my right hand, which I happened to have with me.
I stretched out my arm; the snake approached slowly and cautiously towards
me, darting out its tongue still more frequently. I could now only
recommend myself fervently to the protection of Heaven. The snake, when
about a yard distant, made a violent spring. I quickly caught it in my
right hand, directly under its head; it lashed its body on the ground, at
the same time rattling loudly. I watched an opportunity, and suddenly
holding the animal's head, while for a moment it drew in its forked tongue,
with my left hand I, by a violent contraction of all the muscles in my
hand, contrived to close up effectually its jaws!

"Much was now done, but much more was to be done. I had avoided much
danger, but I was still in very perilous circumstances. If I moved my right
hand from its neck for a moment, the snake, by avoiding suffocation, could
easily muster sufficient power to force its head out of my hand; and if I
withdrew my hand from its jaws, I should be fatally in the power of its
most dreaded fangs. I retained, therefore, my hold with both my hands; I
drew its body between my feet, in order to aid the compression and hasten
suffocation. Suddenly, the snake, which had remained quiescent for a few
moments, brought up its tail, hit me violently on the head, and then darted
its body several times very tightly around my waist. Now was the very acme
of my danger. Thinking, therefore, that I had sufficient power over its
body, I removed my right hand from its neck, and in an instant drew my
hunting-knife. The snake, writhing furiously again, darted at me; but,
striking its body with the edge of the knife, I made a deep cut, and before
it could recover its coil, I caught it again by the neck; bending its head
on my knee, and again recommending myself fervently to Heaven, I cut its
head from its body, throwing the head to a great distance. The blood
spouted violently in my face; the snake compressed its body still tighter,
and I thought I should be suffocated on the spot, and laid myself down. The
snake again rattled its tail and lashed my feet with it. Gradually,
however, the creature relaxed its hold, its coils fell slack around me, and
untwisting it and throwing it from me as far as I was able, I sank down and
swooned upon the bank.

"When consciousness returned, the scene appeared like a terrible dream,
till I saw the dead body of my reptile foe and my babe crying violently and
nestling in my bosom. The ledge near which my cabin was built was infested
with rattlesnakes, and the one I had slain seemed to be the patriarch of a
numerous family. From that day I vowed vengeance against the whole tribe of
reptiles. These creatures were in the habit of coming down to the spring to
drink, and I sometimes killed four or five in a day. Before the summer was
over I made an end of the whole family."

In September, two households of emigrants floating down the river on a
flatboat, caught sight of Mrs. Jameson as she made a signal to them from
the bank, and coming to land were pleased with the country, and were
persuaded to settle there. The little community was now swelled to fifteen,
including four women and six children. The colony throve, received
accessions from the East, and, surviving all casualties, grew at last into
a populous town. Mrs. Jameson was married again to a stalwart backwoodsman
and became the mother of a large family. She was always known as the
"Mother of the Alleghany Settlement."

Not a few of the pioneer women penetrated the West by means of boats. The
Lakes and the River Ohio were the water-courses by which the advance guard
of the army of emigrants was enabled to reach the fertile regions adjacent
thereto. This mode of travel, while free from many of the hindrances and
hardships of the land routes, was subject to other casualties and dangers.
Storms on the lakes, and snags and shoals on the rivers, often made the
pioneers regret that they had left the forests for the waters. The banks of
the rivers were infested with savages, who slaughtered and scalped the men
and carried the women and children into a captivity which was worse than
death. The early annals of the West are full of the sad stories of such
captivities, and of the women who took part in these terrible scenes.

The following instances will be interesting to the reader:

In the latter part of April, 1784, one Mr. Rowan, with his own and five
other families, set out from Louisville, in two flat-bottomed boats, for
the Long Falls of Green River. Their intention was to descend the Ohio to
the mouth of Green River, then ascend that stream to their place of
destination. At that time there were no settlements in Kentucky within one
hundred miles of Long Falls, afterwards called Vienna.

Having driven their cattle upon one of the boats they loaded the other with
their household goods, farming implements, and stores. The latter was
provided with covers under which the six families could sleep, with the
exception of three of the men who took charge of the cattle boat.

The first three days of their journey were passed in ease and gaiety.
Floating with the current and using the broad oars only to steer with, they
kept their course in the main channel where there was little danger of
shoals and snags. The weather was fine and the scenery along the banks of
the majestic river had that placid beauty that distinguishes the country
through which the lower Ohio rolls its mighty mass of waters on their way
to the Mississippi. These halcyon days of the voyage were destined,
however, to be soon abruptly terminated. They had descended the river about
one hundred miles, gliding along in peace and fancied security; the women
and children had retired to their bunks, and all of the men except those
who were steering the boat were composing themselves to sleep, when
suddenly the placid stillness of the night was broken by a fearful sound
which came from the river far below them. The steersmen at first supposed
it was the howling of wolves. But as they neared the spot from which the
sound proceeded, on rounding a bend in the river, they saw the glare of
fires in the darkness; the sounds at the same time redoubled in shrillness
and volume, and they knew then that a large body of Indians were below them
and would almost inevitably discover their boats. The numerous fires on the
Illinois shore and the peculiar yells of the savages led them to believe
that a flat-boat which preceded them had been captured and that the Indians
were engaged in their cruel orgies of torture and massacre. The two boats
were immediately lashed together, and the best practical arrangements were
made for defending them. The men were distributed by Mr. Rowan to the best
advantage in case of an attack; they were seven in number. The boats were
neared to the Kentucky shore, keeping off from the bank lest there might be
Indians on that shore also. When they glided by the uppermost fire they
entertained a faint hope that they might escape unperceived. But they were
discovered when they had passed about half of the fires and commanded to
halt. They however remained silent, for Mr. Rowan had given strict orders
that no one should utter any sound but that of the rifle; and not that
until the Indians should come within reach. The savages united in a most
terrific yell, rushed to their canoes and pursued them. They floated on in
silence--not an oar was pulled. The enemy approached the boats within a
hundred yards, with a seeming determination to board them.

Just at this moment Mrs. Rowan rose from her seat, collected the axes and
placed one by the side of each man, where he stood with his gun, touching
him on the knee with the handle of the axe as she leaned it up beside him
against the edge of the boat, to let him know it was there. She then
retired to her seat, retaining a hatchet for herself.

None but those who have had a practical acquaintance with Indian warfare,
can form a just idea of the terror which their hideous yelling is
calculated to inspire. When heard that night in the mighty solitude through
which those boats were passing, we are told that most of the voyagers were
panic-stricken and almost nerveless until Mrs. Rowan's calm resolution and
intrepidity inspired them with a portion of her own undaunted spirit. The
Indians continued hovering on their rear and yelling, for nearly three
miles, when awed by the inference which they drew from the silence of the
party in the boat, they relinquished farther pursuit.

Woman's companionship and influence are nowhere more necessary than on the
long and tedious journey of the pioneer to the West. Man is a born rover.
He sails over perilous seas and beneath unfamiliar constellations. He
penetrates the trackless forest and scales the mountains for gain or glory
or out of mere love of motion and adventure. A life away from the fetters
and conventionalities of civilized society also has its charms to the manly
heart. The free air of the boundless wilderness acts on many natures as a
stimulus to effort; but it seems also to breed a spirit of unrest. "I will
not stay here! whither shall I go?" Thus the spirit whispers to itself.
Motion, only motion! Onward! ever onward! The restless foot of the pioneer
has reached and climbed the mountains. He pauses but a moment to gaze at
the valley and presses forward. The valley reached and he must cross the
river, and now the unbounded expanse of the plain spreads before him.
Traversing this after many weary days he stands beneath a mightier
mountain-range towering above him. Up! up! Struggling upward but ever
onward he has reached the snowy summit and gazes upon wider valleys lit by
a kinglier sun and spanned by kindlier skies; and far off he sees sparkling
in the evening light another and grander ocean on whose shores he must
pause. Thus by various motives and impulses the line which bounds the area
of civilized society is constantly being extended.

But all through this tumult of the mind and heart, through this rush of
motion and life there is heard another voice. Soft and penetrating it
sounds in the hour of calm and stillness and tells of happiness and repose.
As in the beautiful song one word is its burden, Home! Home! Sweet Home!
where the lonely heart and toil-worn feet may find rest. That voice must
have its answer, that aspiration must be reached by the aid of woman. It is
she, and only she that makes the home. Around her as a beaming nucleus are
attracted and gather the thousand lesser lights of the fireside. She is the
central figure of the domestic group, and where she is not, there is no
home. Man may explore a continent, subjugate nature and conquer savage
races, but no permanent settlement can be made nor any new empire formed
without the alliance of woman.

She must therefore be the companion of the restless rover on his westward
march, in order that the secret cravings of his soul may he at last
satisfied in that home of happiness and rest, which woman alone can form.

Nothing will better illustrate the restless and indomitable spirit that
inspires the western pioneer, and at the same time display the constant
companionship and tireless energy of woman, than the singular history of a
family named Moody. The emigrant ancestors of this family lived and died in
eastern Massachusetts, where after arriving from England, in 1634, they
first settled. In 1675, two of the daughters were living west of the
Connecticut river. A grand-daughter of the emigrant was settled near the
New York boundary line in 1720. <i>Her</i> daughter marrying a Dutch farmer
of Schoharie made her home in the valley of the Mohawk during the French
and Indian wars and the Revolution. In 1783, although an aged woman, she
moved with her husband and family to Ohio, where she soon after died,
leaving a daughter who married a Moody, a far away cousin, and moved first
into Indiana and finally into Illinois, where she and her husband died
leaving a son, J. G. Moody, who inherited the enterprising spirit of his
predecessors, and, marrying a female relative who inherited the family name
and spirit, before he was of age resumed the family march towards the
Pacific.

The first place where the family <i>halted</i> was in the territory of
Iowa. Here they lived for ten years tilling a noble farm on the Des Moines
river. Then they sold their house and land, and pushed one hundred miles
further westward. Here again new toils and triumphs awaited them. With the
handsome sum derived from the sale of their farm on the Des Moines, they
were enabled to purchase an extensive domain of both prairie and woodland.
In ten years they had a model farm, and the story of their successful
labors attracted other settlers to their neighborhood. A large price
tempted them and again they disposed of their farm.

We have traced genealogically the successive stages in the history of this
pioneer family for the purpose of noting, not merely the cheerfulness with
which so many generations of daughters accompanied their husbands on their
westward march, but the energy which they displayed in making so many homes
in the waste places, and preparing the way for the less bold and
adventurous class of settlers who follow where the pioneer leads.

The family, after disposing of their second Iowa farm, immediately took up
their line of march for Nebraska, where they bought and cultivated a large
tract of land on one of the tributaries of the Platte. In due time the
current of emigration struck them. A favorable offer for their house and
cattle ranche was speedily embraced, and again they took up their line of
march which extended this time into the heart of the Rocky Mountains, in
Colorado, of which State they were among the earliest settlers.

Here Mr. Moody died; but his widow with her large family successfully
maintained her cattle and sheep ranche till a rich gold mine was discovered
upon her land. A sale was soon effected of both the mine and the ranche. In
two weeks after the whole family, mother, sons, and daughters were <i>en
route</i> to California, where their long wanderings terminated. There they
are now living and enjoying the rich fruits of their energy and enterprise,
proving for once the falsity of the proverb that "a rolling stone gathers
no moss."

[Illustration: WAGON TRAIN ON THE PRAIRIE]

The women of this family are types of a class--soldiers, scouts, laborers,
nurses in the "Grand Army," whose mission it is to reclaim the waste places
and conquer uncivilized man.

If they fight, it is only for peace and safety. If they destroy, it is only
to rebuild nobler structures in the interest of civilization. If they toil
and bleed and suffer, it is only that they may rest on their arms, at last,
surrounded by honorable and useful trophies, and look forward to ages of
home-calm which have been secured for their posterity.




CHAPTER VIII.

HOMESTEAD-LIFE IN THE BACKWOODS AND ON THE PRAIRIE


The first stage in pioneer-life is nomadic: a half-score of men, women, and
children faring on day after day, living in the open air, encamping at
night beside a spring or brook, under the canopy of the forest, it is only
when they reach their place of destination, that the germ of a community
fixes itself to the soil, and rises obedient to those laws of social and
civil order which distinguish the European colonist from the Asiatic nomad.

The experiences of camp life form the initial steps to the thorough
backwoods education which a woman must at length acquire, to fit her for
the duties and trials incident to all remote settlements. Riding, driving,
or tramping on, now through stately groves, now over prairies which lose
themselves in the horizon, now fording shallow streams, or poling
themselves on rafts across rivers, skirting morasses or wallowing through
them, and climbing mountains, as they breathe the fresh woodland air and
catch glimpses of a thousand novel scenes and encounter the dangers or
endure the hardships of this first stage in their pilgrimage, they learn
those first hard lessons which stand them in such good stead when they have
settled in their permanent abodes in the heart of the wilderness which it
is the work of the pioneer to subdue.

To the casual observer there is an air of romance and wild enjoyment in
this journey through that magnificent land. Many things there doubtless are
to give zest and enjoyment to the long march of the pioneer and his family.
The country through which they pass deserves the title of "the garden of
God." The trees of the forest are like stately columns in some verdurous
temple; the sun shines down from an Italian sky upon lakes set like jewels
flashing in the beams of light, the sward is filled with exaggerated
velvet, through whose green the purple and scarlet gleams of fruit and
flowers appear, and everything speaks to the eye of the splendor, richness,
and joy of wild nature. Traits of man in this scene are favorite themes for
the painter's art. The fire burning under the spreading oak or chestnut,
the horses, or oxen, or mules picketed in the vistas, Indian wigwams and
squaws with children watching curiously the pioneer household sitting by
their fire and eating their evening meal; this is the picture framed by the
imagination of a poet or artist, but this is but a superficial sketch,--a
mere glimpse of one of the many thousand phases of the long and weary
journey. The reality is quite another thing.

The arrival of the household at their chosen seat marks the second stage in
backwoods-life, a stage which calls for all the powers of mind and body,
tasks the hands, exercises the ingenuity, summons vigilance, and awakens
every latent energy. Woman steps at once into a new sphere of action, and
hand in hand, shoulder to shoulder, with her stronger but not more resolute
companion, enters on that career which looks to the formation of
communities and states. It is the household which constitutes the primal
atom, the aggregation whereof makes the village, town, or city; the state
itself rests upon the household finally, and the household is what the
faithful mother makes it.

The toilsome march at length ended, we see the great wagon, with its load
of household utensils and farming implements, bedsteads walling up the
sides, a wash-tub turned up to serve as a seat for the driver, a broom and
hoe-handle sticking out behind with the handles of a plough, pots and
kettles dangling below, bundles of beds and bedding enthroning children of
all the smaller sizes, stopping at last "for good," and the whole cortege
of men, women, and boys, cattle, horses, and hogs, resting after their
mighty tramp.

Shelter and food are the first wants of the settler; the log-cabin rises to
supply the one; the axe, the plough, the spade, the hoe, prepare the other.

The women not seldom joined in the work of felling trees and trimming logs
to be used in erecting the cabins.

Those who have never witnessed the erection of log-cabins, would be
surprised to behold the simplicity of their mechanism, and the rapidity
with which they are put together. The axe and the auger are often the only
tools used in their construction, but usually the drawing-knife, the
broad-axe, and the crosscut-saw are added.

The architecture of the body of the house is sufficiently obvious, but it
is curious to notice the ingenuity with which the wooden fireplace and
chimney are protected from the action of the fire by a lining of clay, to
see a smooth floor formed from the plain surface of hewed logs, and a door
made of boards split from the log, hastily smoothed with the drawing-knife,
united firmly together with wooden pins, hung upon wooden hinges, and
fastened with a wooden latch. Not a nail nor any particle of metal enters
into the composition of the building--all is wood from top to bottom, all
is done by the woodsman without the aid of any mechanic. These primitive
dwellings are by no means so wretched as their name and rude workmanship
would seem to imply. They still frequently constitute the dwelling of the
farmers in new settlements; they are often roomy, tight, and comfortable.
If one cabin is not sufficient, another and another is added, until the
whole family is accommodated, and thus the homestead of a respectable
farmer often resembles a little village. The dexterity of the backwoodsman
in the use of the axe is also remarkable, yet it ceases to be so regarded
when we reflect on the variety of uses to which this implement is applied,
and that in fact it enters into almost all the occupations of the pioneer,
in clearing land, building houses, making fences, providing fuel; the axe
is used in tilling his fields; the farmer is continually obliged to cut
away the trees that have fallen in his enclosure, and the roots that impede
his plough; the path of the surveyor is cleared by the axe, and his lines
and corners marked by this instrument; roads are opened and bridges made by
the axe, the first court houses and jails are fashioned of logs with the
same tool. In labor or hunting, in traveling by land or water, the axe is
ever the companion of the backwoodsman.

Most of these cabins were fortresses in themselves, and were capable of
being defended by a family for several days. The thickness of the walls and
numerous loop-poles were sometimes supplemented by a clay covering upon the
roof, so as to resist the fiery arrows of the savages. Sometimes places of
concealment were provided for the women and children beneath the floor,
with a closely fitting trap door leading to it. Such a place of refuge was
provided by Mrs. Graves, a widow who lost her husband in Braddock's
retreat. In a large pit beneath the floor of the cabin every night she laid
her children to sleep upon a bed of straw, and there, replacing one of the
floor logs, she passed the weary hours in darkness, seated by the window
which commanded a view of the clearing through which the Indians would have
to approach. When her youngest child required nursing she would lift the
floor-log and sit on the edge of the opening until it was lulled to sleep,
and then deposit the nursling once more in its secret bed.

Once, while sitting without a light, knitting, before the window, she saw
three Indians approaching stealthily. Retreating to the hiding place
beneath the floor, she heard them enter the cabin, and, having struck a
light, proceed to help themselves to such eatables as they found in the
pantry. After remaining for an hour in the house, and appropriating such
articles as Indians most value, viz., knives, axes, etc., they took their
departure.

More elaborate fortresses were often necessary, and, for purposes of mutual
defence in a country which swarmed with Indians, the settlers banded
together and erected stations, forts, and block-houses.

[Footnote: DeHass.] A <i>station</i> may be described as a series of cabins
built on the sides of a parallelogram and united with palisades, so as to
present on the outside a continuous wall with only one or two doors, the
cabin doors opening on the inside into a common square.

A fort was a stockade enclosure embracing cabins, etc., for the
accommodation of several families. One side was formed by a range of cabins
separated by divisions, or partitions of logs; the walls on the outside
were ten or twelve feet high, with roofs sloping inward. Some of these
cabins were provided with puncheon-floors, i.e., floors made of logs split
in half and smoothed, but most of the floors were earthen. At the angles of
these forts were built the block-houses, which projected about two feet
beyond the outer walls of the cabins and stockade; these upper stories were
about eighteen feet, or two inches every way larger than the under one,
leaving an opening at the commencement of the second story, to prevent the
enemy from making a lodgment under the walls.

These block-houses were devised in the early days of the first settlements
made in our country, and furnished rallying points for the settlers when
attacked by the Indians. On the Western frontier they were enlarged and
improved to meet the military exigencies arising in a country which swarmed
with savages.

[Footnote: Doddridge's Notes.] In some forts, instead of block-houses, the
angles were furnished with bastions; a large folding gate, made of thick
slabs nearest the spring, closed the forts; the stockade, bastion, cabin,
and block-house walls were furnished with port-holes at proper heights and
distances. The whole of the outside was made completely bullet-proof; the
families belonging to these forts were so attached to their own cabins on
their farms that they seldom moved into the forts in the spring until
compelled by some alarm, i.e., when it was announced by some murder that
Indians were in the settlement.

We have described thus in detail the fortified posts established along the
frontier for the purpose of showing that the life of the pioneer woman,
from the earliest times, was, and now is, to a large extent, a military
one. She was forced to learn a soldier's habits and a soldier's virtues.
Eternal vigilance was the price of safety, and during the absence of the
male members of the household, which were frequent and sometimes
protracted, the women were on guard-duty, and acted as the sentinels of
their home fortresses. Watchful against stratagem as against violent
attack, they passed many a night all alone in their isolated cabins,
averting danger with all a woman's fertility of resource, and meeting it
with all the courage of a man.

On one occasion a party of Indians approached a solitary log-house with the
intention of murdering the inmates. With their usual caution, one of their
number was sent forward to reconnoiter, who, discovering the only persons
within to be a woman, two or three children, and a negro man, rushed in by
himself and seized the negro. The woman caught up the axe and with a single
blow laid the savage warrior dead at her feet, while the children closed
the door, and, with ready sagacity, employed themselves fastening it. The
rest of the Indians came up and attempted to force an entrance, but the
negro and the children kept the door closed, and the intrepid mother,
having no effective weapon, picked up a gun-barrel which had neither stock
nor lock and pointed it at the savages through the apertures between the
logs. The Indians, deceived by the appearance of a gun, and daunted by the
death of their companion, retired.

The station, the fort, and the block-house were the only refuge of the
isolated settlers when the Indians became bolder in their attacks.

When the report of the four-pounder, or the ringing of the fort bell, or a
volley of musketry sounded the alarm, the women and children hurried to the
fortification. Sometimes, while threading the mazes of the forest, the
hapless mother and her children would fall into an ambush. Springing from
their cover, the prowling savages would ply their tomahawks and scalping
knives amid the shrieks of their helpless victims, or bear them away into a
captivity more cruel than death.

One summer's afternoon, while Mrs. Folsom, with her babe in her arms, was
hasting to Fort Stanwig in the Black River Country, New York, after hearing
the alarm, she caught sight of a huge Indian lying behind a log, with his
rifle leveled apparently directly at her. She quickly sprang to one side
and ran through the woods in a course at right angles with the point of
danger, expecting every moment to be pierced with a rifle ball. Casting a
horror-stricken glance over her shoulder as she ran, she saw her husband
hastening on after her, but directly under the Indian's rifle. Shrieking
loudly, she pointed to the savage just in time to warn her husband, who
stepped behind a tree as the report of the rifle rang through the forest.
In an instant he drew a bead upon the lurking foe, who fell with a bullet
through his brain.

Before the family could reach the fort a legion of savages, roused by the
report of the rifles, were on their trail. The mother and child fled
swiftly towards their place of refuge, which they succeeded in reaching
without harm; but the brave father, while trying to keep the savages at
bay, was shot and scalped almost under the walls of the fort.

Ann Bush, another of these border heroines, was still more unfortunate than
Mrs. Folsom. While she and her husband were fleeing for safety to one of
the stations on the Virginia borders, they were overtaken and captured by
the Indians, who shot and scalped her husband; and although she soon
escaped from captivity, yet in less than twelve months after, while again
attempting to find refuge in the same station, she was captured a second
time, with an infant in her arms. After traveling a few hours the savages
bent down a young hickory, sharpened it, seized the child, scalped it and
spitted it upon the tree; they then scalped and tomahawked the mother and
left her for dead. She lay insensible for many hours; but it was the will
of Providence that she should survive the shock. When she recovered her
senses she bandaged her head with her apron, and wonderful to tell, in two
days staggered back to the settlement with the dead body of her infant.

The transitions of frontier life were often startling and sad. From a
wedding to a funeral, from a merrymaking to a massacre, were frequent
vicissitudes. One of these shiftings of the scene is described by an actor
and eye-witness as follows:

"Father had gone away the day before and mother and the children were
alone. About nine o'clock at night we saw two Indians approaching. Mother
immediately threw a bucket of water on the fire to prevent them from seeing
us, made us lie on the floor, bolted and barred the door, and posted
herself there with an axe and rifle: We never knew why they desisted from
an attack or how father escaped. In two or three days all of us set out for
Clinch Mountain to the wedding of Happy Kincaid, a clever young fellow from
Holston, and Sally McClure, a fine girl of seventeen, modest and pretty,
yet fearless. We knew the Shawnees were about; that our fort and household
effects must be left unguarded and might be destroyed; that we incurred the
risk of a fight or an ambuscade, a capture, and even death, on the route;
but in those days, and in that wild country, folks did not calculate
consequences closely, and the temptation to a frolic, a wedding, a feast,
and a dance till daylight and often for several days together, was not to
be resisted. Off we went. Instead of the bridal party, the well spread
table, the ringing laughter, and the sounding feet of buxom dancers, we
found a pile of ashes and six or seven ghastly corpses tomahawked and
scalped." Mrs. McClure, her infant, and three other children, including
Sally, the intended bride, had been carried off by the savages. They soon
tore the poor infant from the mother's arms and killed and scalped it, that
she might travel faster. While they were scalping this child, Peggy
McClure, a girl twelve years old, perceived a sink-hole immediately at her
feet and dropped silently into it. It communicated with a ravine, down
which she ran and brought the news to the settlement. The same night Sally,
who had been tied and forced to lie down between two warriors, contrived to
loosen her thongs and make her escape. She struck for the canebrake, then
for the river, and to conceal her trail resolved to descend it. It was deep
wading, and the current was so rapid she had to fill her petticoat with
gravel to steady herself. She soon, however, recovered confidence, returned
to shore, and finally reached the still smoking homestead about dark next
evening. A few neighbors well armed had just buried the dead; the last
prayer had been said, when the orphan girl stood before them.

Yielding to the entreaties of her lover, who was present, and to the advice
and persuasion of her friends, the weeping girl gave her consent to an
immediate marriage; and beside the grave of the household and near the
ruins of the cabin they were accordingly made one.

These perilous adventures were episodes, we should remember, in a life of
extraordinary labor and hardship. The luxuries and comforts of older
communities were unknown to the settlers on the border-line, either in New
England two centuries ago or in the West within the present generation.
Plain in every way was the life of the borderer--plain in dress, in
manners, in equipage, in houses. The cabins were furnished in the most
primitive style. Blocks or stumps of trees served for chairs and tables.
Bedsteads were made by laying rows of saplings across two logs, forming a
spring bed for the women and children, while the men lay on the floor with
their feet to the fire and a log under their heads for a pillow.

The furniture of the cabin in the West, for several years after the
settlement of the country, consisted of a few pewter dishes, plates, and
spoons, but mostly of wooden bowls, trenchers, and noggins; if these last
were scarce, gourds and hard-shell squashes made up the deficiency; the
iron pots, knives, and forks were brought from the East, with the salt and
iron on pack-horses. The articles of furniture corresponded very well with
the articles of diet. "Hog and hominy" was a dish of proverbial celebrity;
Johnny cake or pone was at the outset of the settlement the only form of
bread in use for breakfast or dinner; at supper, milk and mush was the
standard dish; when milk was scarce the hominy supplied its place, and mush
was frequently eaten with sweetened water, molasses, bear's oil, or the
gravy of fried meat.

In the display of furniture, delft, china, or silver were unknown; the
introduction of delft-ware was considered by many of the backwoods people
as a wasteful innovation; it was too easily broken, and the plates dulled
their scalping and clasp knives.

The costume of the women of the frontier was suited to the plainness of the
habitations where they lived and the furniture they used. Homespun,
linsey-woolsey and buckskin were the primitive materials out of which their
everyday dresses were made, and only on occasions of social festivity were
they seen in braver robes. Rings, broaches, buckles, and ruffles were
heir-looms from parents or grand-parents.

But this plainness of living and attire was a preparation for, and almost
necessary antecedent of hardihood, endurance, courage, patience, qualities
which made themselves manifest in the heroic acting of these women of the
border. With such a state of society we can readily associate assiduous
labor, a battling with danger in its myriad shapes, a subjugation of the
hostile forces of nature, and a developing of a strange and peculiar
civilization.

Here we see woman in her true glory, not a doll to carry silks and jewels,
not a puppet to be dandled by fops, an idol of profane adoration reverenced
to-day, discarded to-morrow, admired but not respected, desired but not
esteemed, ruling by passion not affection, imparting her weakness not her
constancy, to the sex she should exalt--the source and marrow of vanity. We
see her as a wife partaking of the cares and guiding the labors of her
husband and by domestic diligence spreading cheerfulness all around for his
sake; sharing the decent refinements of civilization without being injured
by them; placing all her joy, all her happiness in the merited approbation
of the man she loves; as a mother, we find her affectionate, the ardent
instructress of the children she has reared from infancy and trained up to
thought and to the practice of virtue, to meditation and benevolence and to
become strong and useful men and women.

"Could there be happiness or comfort in such dwellings and such a state of
society. To those who are accustomed to modern refinement the truth appears
like fable. The lowly occupants of log cabins were often among the most
happy of mankind. Exercise and excitement gave them health, they were
practically equal; common danger made them mutually dependent; brilliant
hopes of future wealth and distinction led them on, and as there was ample
room for all, and as each new comer increased individual and general
security, there was little room for that envy, jealousy, and hatred which
constitutes a large portion of human misery in older societies. Never were
the story, the joke, the song, and the laugh better enjoyed than upon the
hewed blocks or puncheon-stools around the roaring log-fire of the early
western settler. The lyre of Apollo was not hailed with more delight in
primitive Greece than the advent of the first fiddler among the dwellers of
the wilderness, and the polished daughters of the East never enjoyed
themselves half so well moving to the music of a full band upon the elastic
floor of their ornamented ball-room, as did the daughters of the western
emigrants keeping time to the self-taught fiddler on the bare earth or
puncheon floor of the primitive log cabin--the smile of the polished beauty
is the wave of the lake where the breeze plays gently over it, and her
movement the gentle stream which drains it; but the laugh of the log cabin
is the gush of nature's fountain and its movement the leaping water."

Amid the multifarious toils of pioneer-life, woman has often proved that
she is the last to forget the stranger that is within the gates. She
welcomes the coming as she speeds the parting guest.

Let us suppose travelers caught in a rain storm, who reach at last one of
these western homes. There is a roof, a stick chimney, drenched cattle
crowding in beneath a strawy barrack, and some forlorn fowls huddling under
a cart. The log-house is a small one, though its neat corn-crib and
chicken-coop of slender poles bespeaks a careful farmer. No gate is seen,
but great bars which are let down or climbed over, and the cabin has only
a back door.

Within, everything ministers to the useful; nothing to the beautiful.
Flitches of bacon, dried beef, and ham depend from the ceiling; pots and
kettles are ranged in a row in the recess on one side the fireplace; and
above these necessary utensils are plates and heavy earthen nappies. The
axe and gun stand together in one corner.

The good woman of the house is thin as a shadow, and pinched and wrinkled
with hard labor. Little boys and girls are playing on the floor like
kittens.

A free and hospitable welcome is given to the travelers, their wet garments
are ranged for drying on those slender poles usually seen above the ample
fireplace of a log-cabin in the West, placed there for the purpose of
drying sometimes the week's wash when the weather is rainy, sometimes whole
rows of slender circlets of pumpkins for next spring's pies, or festoons of
sliced apples.

The good woman, after busying herself in those little offices which evince
a desire to make guests welcome, puts an old cloak on her head and flies
out to place tubs, pails, pans, and jars under the pouring eaves,
intimating that as soap was scarce, she "must try and catch rain water
anyhow."

The "old man" has the shakes, so the woman has all to do; throws more wood
on the fire and fans it with her apron; cuts rashers of bacon, runs out to
the hen-coop and brings in new-laid eggs; mixes a johnny-cake and sets it
in a pan upon the embers.

While the supper is cooking the rain subsides to a sprinkle, and the
travelers look at the surroundings of this pioneer household.

The cabin stands in a prairie, skirted by a forest. A stream gurgles by.
The prairie is broken with patches of corn and potatoes, which are just
emerging from the rich black mould. Pig-pens, a barn, and corn-houses, a
half-dozen sheep in an enclosure, cows and calves and oxen in a barn-yard,
a garden patch, and hen-coops, and stumps of what were once mighty trees,
tell the story of the farmer's labors; and the cabin, with all its
appurtenances and surroundings, show how much the good woman has
contributed to make it the abode of rustic plenty, all provided by the
unaided toil of this pioneer couple.

They had come from the East ten years before, and their cabin was the
initial point from which grew up a numerous settlement. Other cabins sent
up their smoke in the prairie around them. A school-house and church had
been built, and a saw-mill was at work on the stream near by, and surveyors
for a railroad had just laid out a route for the iron horse.

Two little boys come in now, skipping from school, and at the same time the
good woman, who is all patience and civility, announces supper. Sage-tea,
johnny-cake, fried eggs, and bacon, seasoned with sundry invitations of the
hostess to partake freely, and then the travelers are in a mood for rest.

The sleeping arrangements are of a somewhat perplexing character. These are
one large bed and a trundle bed, the former is given up to the travelers,
the trundle bed suffices for the little ones; the hostess prepares a cotton
sheet partition for the benefit of those who choose to undress, and then
begins to prepare herself for the rest which she stands sorely in need of.
She and her good man repose upon the floor, with buffalo robes for pillows,
and with their feet to the fire.

The hospitality of the frontier woman is bounded only by their means of
affording it. Come when you may, they welcome you; give you of their best
while you remain, and regret your departure with simple and unfeigned
sincerity. If you are sick, all that sympathy and care can devise is done
for you, and all this is from the heart.

Homestead-life, and woman's influence therein, is modified to some extent
by the different races that contributed their quotas to the pioneer army.
The early French settlements in our western States furnish a picture
somewhat different from those of the emigrants of English blood: a
patriarchal state of society, self-satisfied and kindly, with bright
superficial features, but lacking the earnest purpose and restless
aggressive energy of the Anglo-American, whose very amusements and
festivals partook of a useful character.

Those French pioneer-women made thrifty and industrious housewives, and
entered, with all the gaiety and enthusiasm of their race, into all the
merry-makings and social enjoyments peculiar to those neighborhoods. On
festive occasions, the blooming damsels wound round their foreheads
fancy-colored handkerchiefs, streaming with gay ribbons, or plumed with
flowers. The matrons wore the short jacket or petticoat. The foot was left
uncovered and free, but on holidays it was adorned with the light moccasin,
brilliant with porcupine quills, shells, beads, and lace.

A faithful picture of life in these French settlements possesses an
indescribable charm, such as that conveyed by the perusal of Longfellow's
Acadian Romance of "Evangeline," when we see in a border settlement the
French maiden, wife, and widow.

Different types, too, of homestead-life are of course to be looked for in
different sections. On the ocean's beach, on the shores of the inland seas,
on the banks of great rivers, in the heart of the forest, on the rugged
hills of New England, on southern Savannas, on western prairies, or among
the mountains beyond, the region, the scenery, the climate, the social laws
may be diverse, yet homestead-life on the frontier, widely varying as it
does in its form and outward surroundings, is in its spirit everywhere
essentially the same. The sky that bends over all, and the sun that sheds
its light for all, are symbols of the oneness of the animating principle in
the home where woman is the bright and potent genius.

We have spoken of the western form of homestead-life because the
frontier-line of to-day lies in the occident. But in each stage of the
movement that carried our people onward in their destined course from ocean
to ocean, the wife and the mother were centers from which emanated a force
to impel forward, and to fix firmly in the chosen abode those organisms of
society which forms the molecular atoms out of which, by the laws of our
being, is built the compact structure of civilization.

In approximating towards some estimate of woman's peculiar influence in
those lonely and far-off western homes, we must not fail to take into
account the humanizing and refining power which she exerts to soften the
rugged features of frontier-life. Different classes of women all worked in
their way towards this end.

"The young married people, who form a considerable part of the pioneer
element in our country, are simple in their habits, moderate in their
aspirations, and hoard a little old-fashioned romance--unconsciously
enough--in the secret nooks of their rustic hearts. They find no fault with
their bare loggeries, with a shelter and a handful of furniture, they have
enough." If there is the wherewithal to spread a warm supper for the "old
man" when he comes in from work, the young wife forgets the long, solitary,
wordless day and asks no greater happiness than preparing it by the help of
such materials and utensils as would be looked at with utter contempt in
the comfortable kitchens of the East.

They have youth, hope, health, occupation, and amusement, and when you have
added "meat, clothes, and fire," what more has England's queen?

We should, however, remember that there is another large class of women
who, for various reasons, have left comfortable homes in older communities,
and risked their happiness and all that they have in enterprises of pioneer
life in the far West. What wonder that they should sadly miss the thousand
old familiar means and appliances! Some utensil or implement necessary to
their husbandry is wanting or has been lost or broken, and cannot be
replaced. Some comfort or luxury to which she has been used from childhood
is lacking, and cannot be furnished. The multifarious materials upon which
household art can employ itself are reduced to the few absolute essentials.
These difficulties are felt more by the woman than the man. To quote the
words of a writer who was herself a pioneer housewife in the West:

"The husband goes to his work with the same axe or hoe which fitted his
hand in his old woods and fields; he tills the same soil or perhaps a far
richer and more hopeful one; he gazes on the same book of nature which he
has read from his infancy and sees only a fresher and more glowing page,
and he returns home with the sun, strong in heart and full of
self-congratulation on the favorable change in his lot. Perhaps he finds
the home bird drooping and disconsolate. She has found a thousand
difficulties which her rougher mate can scarcely be taught to feel as
evils. She has been looking in vain for any of the cherished features of
her old fireside. What cares he if the time-honored cupboard is meagerly
represented by a few oak boards lying on pegs called shelves. His tea
equipage shines as it was wont, the biscuits can hardly stay on the
brightly glistening plates. His bread never was better baked. What does he
want with the great old-fashioned rocking chair? When he is tired he goes
to bed, for he is never tired till bed-time. The sacrifices in moving West
have been made most largely by women."

It is this very dearth of so many things that once made her life easy and
comfortable which throws her back upon her own resources. Here again is
woman's strength. Fertile in expedients, apt in device, an artisan to
construct and an artist to embellish, she proceeds to supply what is
lacking in her new home. She has a miraculous faculty for creating much out
of little, and for transforming the coarse into the beautiful. Barrels are
converted into easy chairs and wash-stands, spring beds are manufactured
with rows of slender, elastic saplings; a box covered with muslin stuffed
with hay serves for a lounge. By the aid of considerable personal exertion,
while she adds to the list of useful and necessary articles, she also
enlarges the circle of luxuries. An hour or two of extra work now and then
enables her to hoard enough to buy a new looking-glass, and to make from
time to time small additions to the showy part of the household.

After she has transformed the rude cabin into a cozy habitation, she turns
her attention to the outside surroundings. Woodbine and wild cucumber are
trailed over the doors and windows; little beds of sweet-williams and
marigolds line the path to the clearing's edge or across the prairie-sward
to the well; and an apple or pear tree is put in here and there. In all
these works, either of use or embellishment, if not done by her own hand
she is at least the moving spirit. Thus over the rugged and homely features
of her lot she throws something of the magic of that ideal of which the
poet sings:

  "Nymph of our soul and brightener of our being
  She makes the common waters musical--
  Binds the rude night-winds in a silver thrall,
  Bids Hybla's thyme and Tempe's violet dwell
  Round the green marge of her moon-haunted cell."

It is the thousand nameless household offices performed by woman that makes
the home: it is the home which moulds the character of the children and
makes the husband what he is. Who can deny the vast debt of gratitude due
from the present generation of Americans to these offices of woman in
refining and ameliorating the rude tone of frontier life? It may well be
said that the pioneer women of America have made the wilderness bud and
blossom like the rose. Under their hands even nature itself, no longer a
wild, wayward mother, turns a more benign face upon her children. A land
bright with flowers and bursting with fruitage testifies to the labors and
influence of those who embellish the homestead and make it attractive to
their husbands and children.

A traveler on the vast prairies of Kansas and Nebraska will often see
cabins remote from the great thoroughfares embowered in vines and shrubbery
and bright with beds of flowers. Entering he will discern the rugged
features of frontier life softened in a hundred ways by the hand of woman.
The steel is just as hard and more serviceable after it is polished, and
the oak-wood as strong and durable when it is trimmed and smoothed. The
children of the frontier are as hardy and as manly though the gentle voice
of woman schools their rugged ways and her kind hand leads them through the
paths of refinement and moulds them in the school of humanity.




CHAPTER IX.

SOME REMARKABLE WOMEN


Of all the tens of thousands of devoted women who have accompanied the
grand army of pioneers into the wilderness, not one but that has been
either a soldier to fight, or a laborer to toil, or a ministering angel to
soothe the pains and relieve the sore wants of her companions. Not seldom
has she acted worthily in all these several capacities, fighting, toiling,
and ministering by turns. If a diary of the events of their pioneer-lives
had been kept by each of these brave and faithful women, what a record of
toil and warfare and suffering it would present. How many different types
of female character in different spheres of action it would show--the
self-sacrificing mother, the tender and devoted wife, the benevolent
matron, the heroine who blenched not in battle! Unnumbered thousands have
passed beautiful, strenuous and brave lives far from the scenes of
civilization, and gone down to their graves leaving only local, feeble
voices, if any, to celebrate their praises and to-day we know not the place
of their sepulcher. Others have had their memories embalmed by the pens of
faithful biographers, and a few also have left diaries containing a record
of the wonderful vicissitudes of their lives.

Woman's experience of life in the wilderness is never better told than in
her own words. More impressible than man, to passing events; more
susceptible to pain and pleasure; enjoying and sorrowing more keenly than
her sterner and rougher mate, she possesses often a peculiarly graphic
power in expressing her own thoughts and feelings, and also in delineating
the scenes through which she passes.

A woman's diary of frontier-life, therefore, possesses an intrinsic value
because it is a faithful story, and at the same time one of surpassing
interest, in consequence of her personal and active participation in the
toils, sufferings, and dangers incident to such a life.

Such a diary is that of Mrs. Williamson which in the quaint style of the
olden time relates her thrilling experience in the wilds of Pennsylvania.
We see her first as an affectionate, motherless girl accompanying her
father to the frontier, assisting him to prepare a home for his old age in
the depths of the forest and enduring with cheerful resolution the manifold
hardships and trials of pioneer-life, and finally closing her aged parent's
eyes in death. Then we see her as a wife, the partner of her husband's
cares and labors, and as a mother, the faithful guardian of her sons; and
again as a widow, her husband having been torn from her arms and butchered
by a band of ruthless savages. After her sons had grown to be sturdy men
and had left her to make homes for themselves, she shows herself the strong
and self-reliant matron of fifty still keeping her outpost on the border,
and cultivating her clearing by the assistance of two negroes. At last
after a life of toil and danger she is attacked by a band of savages, and
defends her home so bravely that after making her their captive they spare
her life and in admiration of her courage adopt her into their tribe. She
dissembles her reluctance, humors her savage captors and forces herself to
accompany them on their bloody expeditions wherein she saves many lives and
mitigates the sufferings of her fellow-captives.

The narrative of her escape we give in her own quaint words.

"One night the Indians, very greatly fatigued with their day's excursion,
composed themselves to rest as usual. Observing them to be asleep, I tried
various ways to see whether it was a scheme to prove my intentions or not,
but, after making a noise, and walking about, sometimes touching them with
my feet, I found there was no fallacy. My heart then exulted with joy at
seeing a time come that I might, in all probability be delivered from my
captivity; but this joy was soon dampened by the dread of being discovered
by them, or taken by any straggling parties; to prevent which, I resolved,
if possible, to get one of their guns, and, if discovered, to die in my
defense, rather than be taken. For that purpose I made various efforts to
get one from under their heads (where they always secured them), but in
vain.

"Frustrated in this my first essay towards regaining my liberty, I dreaded
the thought of carrying my design into execution: yet, after a little
consideration, and trusting myself to the divine protection, I set forward,
naked and defenceless as I was; a rash and dangerous enterprise! Such was
my terror, however, that in going from them, I halted and paused every four
or five yards, looking fearfully toward the spot where I had left them,
lest they should awake and miss me; but when I was about two hundred yards
from them, I mended my pace, and made as much haste as I could to the foot
of the mountains; when on sudden I was struck with the greatest terror and
amaze, at hearing the wood-cry, as it is called, they make when any
accident happens them. However, fear hastened my steps, and though they
dispersed, not one happened to hit upon the track I had taken. When I had
run near five miles, I met with a hollow tree, in which I concealed myself
till the evening of the next day, when I renewed my flight, and next night
slept in a canebrake. The next morning I crossed a brook, and got more
leisurely along, returning thanks to Providence, in my heart, for my happy
escape, and praying for future protection. The third day, in the morning, I
perceived two Indians armed, at a short distance, which I verily believed
were in pursuit of me, by their alternately climbing into the highest
trees, no doubt to look over the country to discover me. This retarded my
flight for that day; but at night I resumed my travels, frightened and
trembling at every bush I passed, thinking each shrub that I touched, a
savage concealed to take me. It was moonlight nights till near morning,
which favored my escape. But how shall I describe the fear, terror and
shock that I felt on the fourth night, when, by the rustling I made among
the leaves, a party of Indians, that lay round a small fire, nearly out,
which I did not perceive, started from the ground, and seizing their arms,
ran from the fire among the woods. Whether to move forward, or to rest
where I was, I knew not, so distracted was my imagination. In this
melancholy state, revolving in my thoughts the now inevitable fate I
thought waited on me, to my great astonishment and joy, I was relieved by
a parcel of swine that made towards the place where I guessed the savages
to be; who, on seeing the hogs, conjectured that their alarm had been
occasioned by them, and directly returned to the fire, and lay down to
sleep as before. As soon as I perceived my enemies so disposed of, with
more cautious step and silent tread, I pursued my course, sweating (though
the air was very cold) with the fear I had just been relieved from.
Bruised, cut, mangled and terrified as I was, I still, through divine
assistance, was enabled to pursue my journey until break of day, when,
thinking myself far off from any of those miscreants I so much dreaded, I
lay down under a great log, and slept undisturbed until about noon, when,
getting up, I reached the summit of a great hill with some difficulty; and
looking out if I could spy any inhabitants of white people, to my
unutterable joy I saw some, which I guessed to be about ten miles distance.
This pleasure was in some measure abated, by my not being able to get among
them that night; therefore, when evening approached I again re-commended
myself to the Almighty, and composed my weary mangled limbs to rest. In the
morning I continued my journey towards the nearest cleared lands I had seen
the day before; and about four o'clock in the afternoon I arrived at the
house of John Bell."

Mrs. Daviess was another of these women who, like Mrs. Williamson, was a
born heroine, of whom there were many who acted a conspicuous part in the
territorial history of Kentucky. Large and splendidly formed, she possessed
the strength of a man with the gentle loveliness of the true woman. In the
hour of peril, and such hours were frequent with her, she was firm, cool,
and fertile of resource; her whole life, of which we give only a few
episodes, was one continuous succession of brave and noble deeds. Both she
and Mrs. Williamson appear to have been real instances of the poet's ideal:

  "A perfect woman nobly planned
  To warn, to comfort, and command."

[Footnote: Collins' Historical Sketches.] Her husband, Samuel Daviess, was
an early settler at Gilmer's Lick, in Lincoln County, Kentucky. In the
month of August, 1782, while a few rods from his house, he was attacked
early one morning by an Indian, and attempting to get within doors he found
that his house was already occupied by the other Indians. He succeeded in
making his escape to his brother's station, five miles off, and giving the
alarm was soon on his way back to his cabin in company with five stout,
well armed men.

Meanwhile, the Indians, four in number, who had entered the house while the
fifth was in pursuit of Mr. Daviess, roused Mrs. Daviess and the children
from their beds and gave them to understand that they must go with them as
prisoners. Mrs. Daviess occupied as long a time as possible in dressing,
hoping that some relief would come. She also delayed the Indians nearly two
hours by showing them one article of clothing and then another, explaining
their uses and expatiating on their value.

While this was going on the Indian who had been in pursuit of her husband
returned with his hands stained with pokeberries, waving his tomahawk with
violent gestures as if to convey the belief that he had killed Mr. Daviess.
The keen-eyed wife soon discovered the deception, and was satisfied that
her husband had escaped uninjured.

After plundering the house, the savages started to depart, taking Mrs.
Daviess and her seven children with them. As some of the children were too
young to travel as rapidly as the Indians wished, and discovering, as she
believed, their intention to kill them, she made the two oldest boys carry
the two youngest on their backs.

In order to leave no trail behind them, the Indians traveled with the
greatest caution, not permitting their captives to break a twig or weed as
they passed along, and to expedite Mrs. Daviess' movements one of them
reached down and cut off with his knife a few inches of her dress.

Mrs. Daviess was accustomed to handle a gun and was a good shot, like many
other women on the frontier. She contemplated as a last resort that, if not
rescued in the course of the day, when night came and the Indians had
fallen asleep, she would deliver herself and her children by killing as
many of the Indians as she could, believing that in a night attack the rest
would fly panic-stricken.

Mr. Daviess and his companions reaching the house and finding it empty,
succeeded in striking the trail of the Indians and hastened in pursuit.
They had gone but a few miles before they overtook them. Two Indian spies
in the rear first discovered the pursuers, and running on overtook the
others and knocked down and scalped the oldest boy, but did not kill him.
The pursuers fired at the Indians but missed. The latter became alarmed and
confused, and Mrs. Daviess taking advantage of this circumstance jumped
into a sink-hole with her infant in her arms. The Indians fled and every
child was saved.

Kentucky in its early days, like most new countries, was occasionally
troubled with men of abandoned character, who lived by stealing the
property of others, and after committing their depredations, retired to
their hiding-places, thereby eluding the operation of the law. One of these
marauders, a man of desperate character, who had committed extensive thefts
from Mr. Daviess, as well as from his neighbors, was pursued by Daviess and
a party whose property he had taken, in order to bring him to justice.

While the party were in pursuit, the suspected individual, not knowing that
any one was pursuing him, came to the house of Daviess, armed with his gun
and tomahawk,--no person being at home but Mrs. Daviess and her children.
After he had stepped into the house, Mrs. Daviess asked him if he would
drink something; and having set a bottle of whiskey upon the table,
requested him to help himself. The fellow not suspecting any danger, set
his gun by the door, and while he was drinking Mrs. Daviess picked it up,
and placing herself in the doorway had the weapon cocked and leveled upon
him by the time he turned around, and in a peremptory manner ordered him to
take a seat or she would shoot him. Struck with terror and alarm, he asked
what he had done. She told him he had stolen her husband's property, and
that she intended to take care of him herself. In that condition she held
him prisoner until the party of men returned and took him into their
possession.

[Illustration: STRATAGEM OF MRS. DAVIESS IN CAPTURING A KENTUCKY ROBBER.]

These are only a few out of many similar acts which show the character of
Mrs. Daviess. She became noted all through the frontier settlements of that
region during the troublous times in which she lived, not only for her
courage and daring, but for her shrewdness in circumventing the stratagems
of the wily savages by whom her family were surrounded. Her oldest boy
inherited his mother's character, and promised to be one of the most famous
Indian fighters of his day, when he met his death at the hands of his
savage foes in early manhood.

If Mrs. Williamson and Mrs. Daviess were representative women in the more
stormy and rugged scenes of frontier life, Mrs. Elizabeth Estaugh may stand
as a true type of the gentle and benevolent matron, brightening her forest
home by her kindly presence, and making her influence felt in a thousand
ways for good among her neighbors in the lonely hamlet where she chose to
live.

Her maiden name was Haddon; she was the oldest daughter of a wealthy and
well educated but humble-minded Quaker of London. She was endowed by nature
with strength of mind, earnestness, energy, and with a heart overflowing
with kindness and warmth of feeling. The education bestowed upon her, was,
after the manner of her sect, a highly practical one, such as might be
expected to draw forth her native powers by careful training of the mind,
without quenching the kindly emotions by which she was distinguished from
her early childhood.

At the age of seventeen she made a profession of religion, uniting herself
with the Quakers. During her girlhood William Penn visited the house of her
father, and greatly interested her by describing his adventures with the
Indians in the wilds of Pennsylvania. From that hour her thoughts were
directed towards the new world, where so many of her sect had emigrated,
and she longed to cross the ocean and take up her abode among them. She
pictured to herself the toils and privations of the Quaker-pioneers in that
new country, and ardently desired to join them and share their labors and
dangers, and alleviate their sufferings by charitably dispensing a portion
of that wealth which she was destined to possess.

Her father sympathized with her views and aims, and was at length induced
to buy a large tract of land in New Jersey, where he proposed to go and
settle in company with his daughter Elizabeth, and there carry out the
plans which she had formed. His affairs in England took such a turn that he
decided to remain in his native land.

This was a sad disappointment to Elizabeth. She had arrived at the
conviction that among her people in the new world was to be her sphere of
duty; she felt a call thither which she could not disregard; and when her
father, who was unwilling that the property should lie unimproved, offered
the tract of land in New Jersey to any relative who would settle upon it,
she gladly availed herself of the proffer, and begged that she might go
herself as a pioneer into that far-off wilderness.

It was a sore trial for her parents to part with their beloved daughter;
but her character was so stable, and her convictions of duty so unswerving,
that at the end of three months and after much prayer, they consented
tearfully that Elizabeth should join "the Lord's people in the new world."

Arrangements were accordingly made for her departure, and all that wealth
could provide or thoughtful affection devise, was prepared, both for the
long voyage across that stormy sea and against the hardships and trials in
the forest home which was to be hers. In the spring of 1700 she set sail,
accompanied by a poor widow of good sense and discretion, who had been
chosen to act as her friend and housekeeper, and two trustworthy
men-servants, members of the Society of Friends.

Among the many extraordinary manifestations of strong faith and religious
zeal connected with the early settlement of this country, few are more
remarkable than this enterprise of Elizabeth Estaugh. Tenderly reared in a
delightful home in a great city, where she had been surrounded with
pleasing associations from infancy, and where as a lovely young lady she
was the idol of the circle of society in which she moved, she was still
willing and desirous at the call of religious duty, to separate herself
from home, friends, and the pleasures of civilization, and depart to a
distant clime and a wild country. Hardly less remarkable and admirable was
the self-sacrificing spirit of her parents in giving up their child in
obedience to the promptings of her own conscience. We can imagine the
parting on the deck of the vessel which was spreading its sails to bear
this sweet missionary away from her native land and the beloved of her old
home. Angelic love beams and sorrow darkles from the serene countenances of
the father, and mother, and daughter, and yet no tear is shed on either
side. The vessel drops down the harbor, and the family stand on the wharf
straining their eyes to catch the last look from the departing maiden, who
leans on the bulwark and answers the silent and sorrowful faces with a
heavenly smile of love and pity. Even during the long and tedious voyage
Elizabeth never wept. Her sense of duty controlled every other emotion of
her soul, and she maintained her martyr-like cheerfulness and serenity to
the end.

That part of New Jersey where the Haddon tract lay was at that period an
almost unbroken wilderness. Scarcely more than twenty years had then
elapsed since the twenty or thirty cabins had been built which formed the
germ-settlement out of which grew the city of Brotherly Love, and nine
miles of dense forest and a broad river separated the maiden and her
household from the people in the hamlet across the Delaware.

The home prepared for her reception stood in a clearing of the forest,
three miles from any other dwelling. She arrived in June, when the
landscape was smiling in youthful beauty, and it seemed to her as if the
arch of heaven was never before so clear and bright, the carpet of the
earth never so verdant. As she sat at her window and saw evening close in
upon her in that broad forest home, and heard for the first time the
mournful notes of the whippoorwill, and the harsh scream of the jay in the
distant woods, she was oppressed with a sense of vastness, of infinity,
which she never before experienced, not even on the ocean. She remained
long in prayer, and when she lay down to sleep beside her matron-friend, no
words were spoken between them. The elder, overcome with fatigue, soon sank
into a peaceful slumber; but the young enthusiast lay long awake, listening
to the lone voice of the whippoorwill complaining to the night. Yet,
notwithstanding this prolonged wakefulness, she arose early and looked out
upon the lovely landscape. The rising sun pointed to the tallest trees with
his golden finger, and was welcomed with a gush of song from a thousand
warblers. The poetry in Elizabeth's soul, repressed by the severe plainness
of her education, gushed up like a fountain. She dropped on her knees, and
with an outburst of prayer, exclaimed fervently, "Oh, Father, very
beautiful hast thou made this earth! How beautiful are thy gifts, O Lord!"

To a spirit less meek and brave, the darker shades of the picture would
have obscured these cheerful gleams; for the situation was lonely, and the
inconveniences innumerable. But Elizabeth easily triumphed over all
obstacles, by practical good sense and by the quick promptings of her
ingenuity. She was one of those clear, strong natures, who always have a
definite aim in view, and who see at once the means best suited to the end.
Her first inquiry was, what grain was best adapted to the soil of her farm;
and being informed that rye would yield the best, "Then, I shall eat rye
bread," was the answer.

When winter came, and the gleaming snow spread its unbroken silence over
hill and plain, was it not dreary then? It would have been dreary indeed to
one who entered upon this mode of life for mere love of novelty, or a vain
desire to do something extraordinary. But the idea of extended usefulness,
which had first lured this remarkable girl into a path so unusual,
sustained her through all her trials. She was too busy to be sad, and
leaned too trustingly on her Father's hand to be doubtful of her way. The
neighboring Indians soon loved her as a friend, for they always found her
truthful, just, and kind. From their teachings she added much to her
knowledge of simple medicines. So efficient was her skill, and so prompt
her sympathy, that for many miles round, if man, woman, or child were
alarmingly ill, they were sure to send for Elizabeth Haddon; and wherever
she went, her observing mind gathered some hint for the improvement of farm
or dairy. Her house and heart were both large, and as her residence was on
the way to the Quaker meeting-house in Newtown, it became a place of
universal resort to Friends from all parts of the country traveling that
road, as well as an asylum for benighted wanderers.

Late one winter's evening a tinkling of sleigh-bells was heard at the
entrance of the clearing, and soon the hoofs of horses were crunching the
snow as they passed through the great gate towards the barn. The arrival of
strangers was a common occurrence, for the home of Elizabeth Haddon was
celebrated far and near as the abode of hospitality. The toil worn or
benighted traveler there found a sincere welcome, and none who enjoyed that
friendly shelter and abundant cheer ever departed without regret. But now
there was an unwonted stir in that well-ordered family; great logs were
piled in the capacious fireplace, and hasty preparations were made as if to
receive guests who were more than ordinarily welcome. Elizabeth, looking
from the window, had recognized one of the strangers in the sleigh as John
Estaugh, with whose preaching years before in London she had been deeply
impressed, and ever since she had treasured in her memory many of his
words. It was almost like a glimpse of her dear old English home to see him
enter, and stepping forward with more than usual cordiality she greeted
him, saying,

"Thou art welcome, friend Estaugh, the more so for being entirely
unexpected."

"And I am glad to see thee, Elizabeth," he replied, with a friendly shake
of the hand, "it was not until after I had landed in America that I heard
the Lord had called thee hither before me; but I remember thy father told
me how often thou hadst played the settler in the woods, when thou wast
quite a little girl."

"I am but a child still," she replied, smiling.

"I trust thou art," he rejoined; "and as for those strong impressions in
childhood, I have heard of many cases when they seemed to be prophecies
sent from the Lord. When I saw thy father in London, I had even then an
indistinct idea that I might sometime be sent to America on a religious
visit."

"And hast thou forgotten, friend John, the ear of Indian corn which my
father begged of thee for me? I can show it to thee now. Since then I have
seen this grain in perfect growth; and a goodly plant it is, I assure thee.
See," she continued, pointing to many bunches of ripe corn which hung in
their braided husks against the wall of the ample kitchen; "all that, and
more, came from a single ear, no bigger than the one thou didst give my
father. May the seed sown by thy ministry be as fruitful!" "Amen," replied
both the guests.

That evening a severe snow-storm came on, and all night the blast howled
round the dwelling. The next morning it was discovered that the roads were
rendered impassable by the heavy drifts. The home of Elizabeth had already
been made the center of a settlement composed mainly of poor families, who
relied largely upon her to aid them in cases of distress. That winter they
had been severely afflicted by the fever incident to a new settled country,
and Elizabeth was in the habit of making them daily visits, furnishing them
with food and medicines.

The storm roused her to an even more energetic benevolence than ordinary.
Men, oxen, and sledges were sent out, and pathways were opened; the whole
force of Elizabeth's household, under her immediate superintendence,
joining in the good work. John Estaugh and his friend tendered their
services joyfully, and none worked harder than they. His countenance glowed
with the exercise, and a cheerful childlike outbeaming honesty of soul
shone forth, attracting the kind but modest regards of the maiden. It
seemed to her as if she had found in him a partner in the good work which
she had undertaken.

When the paths had been made, Elizabeth set out with a sled-load of
provisions to visit her patients, and John Estaugh asked permission to
accompany her.

While they were standing together by the bedside of the aged and suffering,
she saw her companion in a new and still more attractive guise. His
countenance expressed a sincerity of sympathy warmed by rays of love from
the Sun of mercy and righteousness itself. He spoke to the feeble and the
invalid words of kindness and consolation, and his voice was modulated to a
deep tone of tenderness, when he took the little children in his arms.

The following "first day," which world's people call the Sabbath, meeting
was attended at Newtown by the whole family, and then John Estaugh was
moved by the Spirit to speak words that sank into the hearts of his
hearers. It was a discourse on the trials and temptations of daily life,
drawing a contrast between this course of earthly probation, with its
toils, sufferings, and sorrows, and that higher life, with its rewards to
the faithful beyond the grave.

Elizabeth listened to the preacher with meek attention; he seemed to be
speaking to her, for all the lessons of the discourse were applicable to
herself. As the deep tones of the good man ceased to vibrate in her ears,
and there was stillness for a full half hour in the house, she pondered
over it deeply. The impression made by the young preacher seemed to open a
new window in her soul; he was a God-sent messenger, whose character and
teachings would lift still higher her life, and sanctify her mission with a
holier inspiration.

A few days of united duties and oneness of heart made John and Elizabeth
more thoroughly acquainted with each other than they could have been by
years of ordinary fashionable intercourse.

They were soon obliged to separate, the young preacher being called to
other meetings of his sect in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. When they bade
each other farewell, neither knew that they would ever meet again, for John
Estaugh's duty might call him from the country ere another winter, and his
avocations in the new world were absorbing and continuous. With a full
heart, but with the meekness characteristic of her sect, Elizabeth turned
away to her daily round of good works with a new and holier zeal.

In May following they met again. John Estaugh, in company with numerous
other Friends, stopped at her house to lodge while on their way to the
quarterly meeting at Salem. The next day a cavalcade started from her
hospitable door on horseback, for that was before the days of wagons in
Jersey.

John Estaugh, always kindly in his impulses, busied himself with helping a
lame and very ugly old woman, and left his hostess to mount her horse as
she could. Most young women would have felt slighted; but in Elizabeth's
noble soul the quiet, deep tide of feeling rippled with an inward joy. "He
is always kindest to the poor and neglected," thought she; "verily he is a
good youth."

She was leaning over the side of her horse, to adjust the buckle of the
girth, when he came up on horseback and enquired if anything was out of
order. She thanked him, with slight confusion of manner, and a voice less
calm than her usual utterance. He assisted her to mount, and they trotted
along leisurely behind the procession of guests, speaking of the soil and
climate of this new country, and how wonderfully the Lord had here provided
a home for his chosen people. Presently the girth began to slip, and the
saddle turned so much on one side that Elizabeth was obliged to dismount.
It took some time to readjust the girth, and when they again started, the
company were out of sight. There was brighter color than usual in the
maiden's cheeks, and unwonted radiance in her mild, deep eyes.

After a short silence, she said, in a voice slightly tremulous, "Friend
John, I have a subject of importance on my mind, and one which nearly
interests thee. I am strongly impressed that the Lord has sent thee to me
as a partner for life, I tell thee my impression frankly, but not without
calm and deep reflection, for matrimony is a holy relation, and should be
entered into with all sobriety. If thou hast no light on the subject, wilt
thou gather into the stillness and reverently listen to thy own inward
revealings? Thou art to leave this part of the country to-morrow, and not
knowing when I should see thee again, I felt moved to tell thee what lay
upon my mind."

The young man was taken by surprise. Though accustomed to that suppression
of emotion which characterizes his religious sect, the color came and went
rapidly in his face, for a moment. But he soon, became calmer, and replied,
"This thought is new to me, Elizabeth, and I have no light thereon. Thy
company has been right pleasant to me, and thy countenance ever reminds me
of William Penn's title-page, '<i>Innocency with her open face</i>.' I have
seen thy kindness to the poor, and the wise management of thy household. I
have observed, too, that thy warm-heartedness is tempered with a most
excellent discretion, and that thy speech is ever sincere. Assuredly, such
is the maiden I would ask of the Lord as a most precious gift; but I never
thought of this connection with thee. I came to this country solely on a
religious visit, and it might distract my mind to entertain this subject at
present. When I have discharged the duties of my mission, we will speak
further."

"It is best so," rejoined the maiden, "but there is one thing disturbs my
conscience. Thou hast spoken of my true speech; and yet, friend John, I
have deceived thee a little, even now, while we conferred together on a
subject so serious. I know not from what weakness the temptation came, but
I will not hide it from thee. I allowed thee to suppose, just now, that I
was fastening the girth of my horse securely; but, in plain truth, I was
loosening the girth, John, that the saddle might slip, and give me an
excuse to fall behind our friends; for I thought thou wouldst be kind
enough to come and ask if I needed thy services."

They spoke no further upon this topic; but when John Estaugh returned to
England in July, he pressed her hand affectionately, as he said, "Farewell,
Elizabeth: if it be the Lord's will I shall return to thee soon."

The young preacher made but a brief sojourn in England. The Society of
Friends in London appreciated his value as a laborer among them and would
have been pleased to see him remain, but they knew how fruitful of good had
been his labors among the brethren in the wilderness, and deemed it a wise
resolution when he informed them that he should shortly return to America.
Early in September he set sail from London and reached New York the
following month. A few days after landing he journeyed on horseback to the
dwelling where Elizabeth was awaiting him, and they were soon after married
at Newtown Meeting according to the simple form of the Society of Friends.
Neither of them made any change of dress for the occasion; there was no
wedding feast; no priest or magistrate was present; in the presence of
witnesses they simply took each other by the hand and solemnly promised to
be kind and faithful to each other. The wedded pair then quietly returned
to their happy home, prepared to resume together that life of good words
and kind deeds which each had thus far pursued alone.

Thrice during the long period of their union did she cross the Atlantic to
visit her aged parents, and not seldom he left her for a season when called
to preach abroad. These temporary separations were hard for her to bear,
but she cheerfully gave him up to follow in the path of his duty wherever
it might lead him. Amid her cares and pleasures as a wife she neither grew
self-absorbed nor, like many of her sex, bounded her benevolence within the
area of the household. Her heart was too large, her charity too abounding,
to do that, and her sense of duty to her fellow-men always dominated that
narrow feeling which concentrates kindness on self or those nearest to one.
While her husband performed his noble work in the care of souls, she
pursued her career within the sphere where it was so allotted. As a
housewife she was notable; to her might be applied the words of King
Lemuel, in the Proverbs of Solomon, celebrating and describing the good
wife, "and her works praised her in the gates." As a neighbor she was
generous and sympathetic; she stretched out her hand to the poor and needy;
she was at once a guardian and a minister of mercy to the settlement.

When, after forty years of happiness in wedlock, her husband was taken from
her, she gave evidence of her appreciation of his worth in a preface which
she published to one of his religious tracts entitled, "Elizabeth Estaugh's
testimony concerning her beloved husband, John Estaugh." In this preface
she says:

"Since it pleased Divine Providence so highly to favor me with being the
near companion to this dear worthy, I must give some small account of him.
Few, if any, in a married state, ever lived in sweeter harmony than we did.
He was a pattern of moderation in all things; not lifted up with any
enjoyments, nor cast down at disappointments; a man endowed with many good
gifts, which rendered him very agreeable to his friends, and much more to
me, his wife, to whom his memory is most dear and precious."

Elizabeth survived her excellent husband twenty years, useful and honored
to the last. The monthly meeting of Haddonfield, in a published
testimonial, speaks of her thus:

"She was endowed with great natural abilities, which, being sanctified by
the Spirit of Christ, were much improved; whereby she became qualified to
act in the affairs of the church, and was a serviceable member, having been
clerk to the woman's meeting nearly fifty years, greatly to their
satisfaction She was a sincere sympathizer with the afflicted; of a
benevolent disposition, and in distributing to the poor, was desirous to do
it in a way most profitable and durable to them, and, if possible, not to
let the right hand know what the left did. Though in a state of affluence
as to this world's wealth, she was an example of plainness and moderation.
Her heart and house were open to her friends, whom to entertain seemed one
of her greatest pleasures. Prudently cheerful and well knowing the value of
friendship, she was careful not to wound it herself nor to encourage others
in whispering supposed failings or weaknesses. Her last illness brought
great bodily pain, which she bore with much calmness of mind and sweetness
of spirit. She departed this life as one falling asleep, full of days,
'like unto a shock of corn fully ripe.'"

The maiden name of this gentle and useful woman has been preserved in
Haddonfield, thus appropriately commemorating her manifold services in the
early days of the settlement of which she was the pioneer-mother.




CHAPTER X.

ROMANCE OF THE BORDER.


The romance of border-life is inseparably associated with woman, being her
natural attendant during her wanderings through the wilderness. A
distinguished American orator has suggested that a series of novels might
be written founded upon the true stories of the border-women of our
country. Such a contribution to our literature has thus far been made only
to a limited extent. The reason for this deficiency will be obvious on a
moment's reflection. The <i>true stories</i> of the pioneer wives and
mothers are often as interesting as any work of fiction, and need no
embellishment from the imagination of a writer, because they are crowded
with incidents and situations as thrilling as those which form the staple
out of which novels are fabricated; love and adventure, hair-breadth
escapes, heart-rending tragedies on the frontier, are thus woven into a
narrative of absorbing and permanent interest, <i>permanent</i> because it
is part of the history and biography of America. Some of the truest of
these stories are those which are most deeply fraught with tenderness and
romance. What is more calculated to move the mind and heart of man for
example than a story of two lovers environed by some deadly danger, or of
separation and reunion, or a love faithful unto death?

Many years ago a young pioneer traveling across the plains met a lady to
whom he became attached, and after a short courtship they were united in
marriage. A trip over the plains in those days was not one to be chosen for
a honey-moon excursion but the pair bore their labors and privations
cheerfully; perils and hardships only seemed to draw them closer together,
and they were looking forward to a home on the Pacific slope where in
plenty and repose they would be indemnified for the pains and fatigues of
the journey. But their life's romance was destined, alas! to a sudden and
mournful end. While crossing one of the rapid mountain streams their boat
filled with water, and though the young man struggled manfully to gain the
shore with his bride, the rush of the torrent bore them down and they sank
to rise no more. An hour later their bodies were found locked together in a
last embrace. The rough mountaineers had not the heart to unclasp that
embrace but buried them by the side of the river in one grave.

The Indian was of course an important factor in the composition of these
border romances. He was generally the villain in the plot of the story, and
too often a successful villain whose wiles or open attacks were the means
of separating two lovers. These tales have often a tragical catastrophe,
but sometimes the <i>denouement</i> is a happy one, thanks to the courage
and constancy of the heroine or hero.

[Footnote: Potters Life of Daniel Boone] Among the adventurers whom Daniel
Boone the famous hunter and Indian fighter of Kentucky, describes as having
re-inforced his little colony was a young gentleman named Smith, who had
been a major in the militia of Virginia, and possessed a full share of the
gallantry and noble spirit of his native State. In the absence of Boone he
was chosen, on account of his military rank and talent, to command the rude
citadel which contained all the wealth of this patriarchal band, their
wives, their children, and their herds. It held also an object particularly
dear to this young soldier--a lady, the daughter of one of the settlers, to
whom he had pledged his affections. It came to pass upon a certain day when
a siege was just over, tranquillity restored, and the employment of
husbandry resumed, that this young lady, with a lady companion, strolled
out, as young ladies in love are very apt to do, along the bank of the
Kentucky River.

Having rambled about for some time they espied a canoe lying by the shore,
and in a frolic stepped into it, with the determination of visiting a
neighbor on the opposite bank. It seems that they were not so well skilled
in navigation as the Lady of the Lake who paddled her own canoe very
dexterously; for instead of gliding to the point of destination they were
whirled about by the stream, and at length thrown on a sandbar from which
they were obliged to wade to the shore. Full of the mirth excited by their
wild adventure they hastily arranged their dresses and were proceeding to
climb the bank, when three Indians rushed from a neighboring covert, seized
the fair wanderers, and forced them away. Their savage captors evincing no
sympathy for their distress, nor allowing them time for rest or reflection,
hurried them along during the whole day by rugged and thorny paths. Their
shoes were worn off by the rocks, their clothes torn, and their feet and
limbs lacerated and stained with blood. To heighten their misery one of the
savages began to make love to Miss ------, (the intended of Major S.) and
while goading her along with a pointed stick, promised in recompense for
her sufferings to make her his squaw. This at once roused all the energies
of her mind and called its powers into action. In the hope that her friends
would soon pursue them she broke the twigs as she passed along and delayed
the party as much as possible by tardy and blundering steps. The day and
the night passed, and another day of agony had nearly rolled over the heads
of these afflicted girls, when their conductors halted to cook a hasty
repast of buffalo meat.

The ladies meanwhile were soon missed from the garrison. The natural
courage and sagacity of Smith now heightened by love, gave him the wings of
the wind and the fierceness of the tiger. The light traces of feminine feet
led him to the place of embarkation; the canoe was traced to the opposite
shore; the deep prints of the moccasin in the sand told the rest of the
story.

The agonized Smith, accompanied by a few of his best woodsmen, pursued the
spoil-encumbered foe. The track once discovered they kept it with that
unerring sagacity so peculiar to our hunters. The bended grass, the
disentangled briars, and the compressed shrubs afforded the only, but to
them the certain indication of the route of the enemy. When they had
sufficiently ascertained the general course of the retreat of the Indians,
Smith quitted the trace, assuring his companions that they would fall in
with them at the pass of a certain stream-head for which he now struck a
direct course, thus gaining on the foe who had taken the most difficult
paths.

Having arrived at the stream, they traced its course until they discovered
the water newly thrown upon the rocks. Smith, leaving his party, now crept
forward upon his hands and knees, until he discovered one of the savages
seated by a fire, and with a deliberate aim shot him through the heart. The
women rushed towards their deliverer, and recognizing Smith, clung to him
in the transport of newly awakened joy and gratitude; while a second Indian
sprang towards him with his tomahawk. Smith, disengaging himself from the
ladies, aimed a blow at his antagonist with his rifle, which the savage
avoided by springing aside, but at the same moment the latter received a
mortal wound from another hand. The other and only remaining Indian fell in
attempting to escape. Smith with his interesting charge returned in triumph
to the fort where his gallantry no doubt was repaid by the sweetest of
all rewards.

The May flower, or trailing arbutus, has been aptly styled our national
flower. It lifts its sweet face in the desolate and rugged hillside, and
flourishes in the chilly air and earth of early spring. So amid the rude
scenes of frontier-life, love and romance peep out, and courtship is
conducted in log cabins and even in more untoward places.

A tradition of the early settlement of Auburn, New York, relates that while
Captain Hardenberg, the stout young miller, was busy with his sacks of
grain in his little log-mill, he was unexpectedly assaulted and overwhelmed
with the arrows not of the savages but of love. The sweet eyes as well as
the blooming health and courage of the daughter of Roeliffe Brinkerhoff who
had been sent by her father to the mill, made young Hardenberg capitulate,
and during the hour while she was waiting for the grist he managed
thoroughly to assure her of the state of his affections; the courtship thus
well begun resulted soon after in a wedding.

The imagination of the poet garnering the anecdotes and early traditions of
the frontier around which lingers an aroma of love, has clothed them with
new life, adorned them with bright colors, endowed them with fresh and
vernal perfume and then woven them into a wreath with the magic art of
poesy. From out of a group of stern features on Plymouth rock, graven with
the deep lines of austere and almost cruel duty, the sweet face of Rose
Standish looks winningly at us. The rugged captain of the Pilgrim band
wooes Priscilla Mullins, through his friend John Alden, and finds too late
that love does not prove fortunate when made by proxy; and Evangeline,
maid, wife and widow comes back to us in beauty and sorrow from the far
Acadian border. These romances of our eastern country have been fortunate
in having a poet to make them immortal. But the West is equally fruitful in
incidents which furnish material, and only lack the poet or novelist to
work them up into enduring form.

The western country seems naturally fitted in many ways for love and
romance. In that region the mind is uncramped and unfettered by the
excessive schooling and over-training which prevails in the older
settlements of the East. The heart heats more freely and warmly when its
current is unchecked by conventionalities. Life is more intense in the
West. The transitions of life are more frequent and startling. Both men and
things are continually changing. In such a society impulse governs largely:
the cooler and more selfish faculties of man's nature are less dominant.
When we add to these conditions, the changes, hardships, and enforced
separations of the frontier as frequent concomitants, we have exactly a
state of society which is fruitful in romantic incidents--brides torn from
their husband's embrace and hurried away; but restored as suddenly and
strangely; two faithful lovers parted forever or re-united miraculously;
and thrilling scenes in love's melodrama acted and re-acted on different
stages but always with startling effect.

The effects of the romantic incidents in the lives of our pioneer women are
also heightened by the extraordinary freshness and ever-changing scenery of
the wilderness. Nature there spreads out like a mighty canvas: the forest,
the mountains, and the prairies show clear and distinct through the crystal
air so that peak and tree and even the tall blades of grass are outlined
with a microscopic nearness. Over this vivid surface bison are browsing,
and antelopes gambolling; plumed warriors flit by on their ponies, as the
pioneer-men and women with wagons, oxen and horses are moving westward.
This is the scene where love springs spontaneously out of the close
companionship which danger enforces.

The story of the Chase family is an illustration of the adage that truth is
often stranger than fiction, and might readily furnish the groundwork upon
which the genius of some future Cooper could construct an American romance
of thrilling interest.

The stage whereon this drama of real life was acted lay in that rich, broad
expanse between the Arkansas and the South Platte Rivers. The time, 1847.
The principal actors were the Chase family, consisting of old Mr. Chase,
his wife, sons, and grandsons, Mary, his daughter, La Bonte and Kilbuck two
famous hunters and mountaineers, Antoine a guide and Arapahoe Indians.

The scene opens with a view of three white-tilted Conestoga wagons or
"prairie schooners," each drawn by four pair of oxen rumbling along through
a plain enameled with the verdure and many tinted flowers of spring. The
day is drawing to its close, and the rays of the sinking sun throw a mellow
light over a waving sea of vernal herbage. The wagons are driven by the
sons of Mr. Chase and contain the women and the household goods of the
family. Behind the great swaying "schooners" walk the men with shouldered
rifles, and a troup of mounted men have just galloped up to bid adieu to
the departing emigrants. From out this group, the mild face of Mary Chase
beams with a parting smile in response to rough but kindly farewells of
these her old friends and neighbors. The last words of warning and
God-speed are spoken by the mounted men, who gallop away and leave them
making their first stage on a journey which will carry them northward and
westward more than two thousand miles from their old home in Missouri.

And now the sun has set, and still in the twilight the train moves on,
stopping as the darkness falls, at a rich bottom, where the loose cattle,
starting some hours before them, have been driven and corralled. The oxen
are unyoked, the wagons drawn up, so as to form the sides of a small
square. A huge fire is kindled, the women descend and prepare the evening
meal, boiling great kettles of coffee, and baking corn-cakes in the embers.
The whole company stretch themselves around the fire, and having finished
their repast, address themselves to sweet sleep, such as tired voyagers
over the plains can so well enjoy. The men of the party are soon soundly
slumbering; but the women, depressed with the thoughts that they are
leaving their home and loved friends and neighbors, perhaps forever, their
hearts filled with forebodings of danger and misfortune, cast only wakeful
eyes upon the darkened plain or up to the inscrutable stars that are
shining with marvelous brightness in the azure firmament. Far into the
night they wake and watch, silently weeping until nature is exhausted, and
a sleep, troubled with sad dreams, visits them.

With the first light of morning the camp is astir, and as the sun rises,
the wagons are again rolling along across the upland prairies, to strike
the trail leading to the south fork of the Platte. Slowly and hardly,
fifteen miles each day, they toil on over the heavy soil. At night, while
in camp, the hours are beguiled by Antoine, their Canadian guide, who tells
stories of wild life and perilous adventures among the hunters and trappers
who make the prairies and mountains their home. His descriptions of Indian
fights and slaughters, and of the sufferings and privations endured by the
hunters in their arduous life, fix the attention of the women of the party,
and especially of Mary Chase, who listens with greater interest because she
remembers that such was the life led by one very dear to her--one long
supposed to be dead, and of whom, since his departure, fifteen years
before, she has heard not a syllable. Her imagination now pictures him
anew, as the most daring of these adventurous hunters, and conjures up his
figure charging through the midst of yelling savages, or as stretched on
the ground, perishing of wounds, or of cold and famine.

Among the characters that figure in Antoine's stories is a hunter named La
Bonte, made conspicuous by his deeds of hardihood and daring. At the first
mention of his name Mary's face is suffused with blushes; not that she for
a moment dreamed that it could be her long lost La Bonte, for she knows
that the name is a common one, but because from associations which still
linger in her memory, it recalled a sad era in her former life, to which
she could not revert without a strange mingling of pleasure and pain. She
remembers the manly form of La Bonte as she first saw him, and the love
which sprang up between them; and then the parting, with the hope of speedy
reunion. She remembers how two years passed without tidings of her lover,
when, one bitter day, she met a mountaineer, just returned from the far
West to settle in his native State; and, inquiring tremblingly after La
Bonte, he told how he had met his death from the Blackfeet Indians in the
wild gorges of the Yellowstone country.

Now, on hearing once more that name, a spring of sweet and bitter
recollections is opened and a vague hope is raised in her breast that the
lover of her youth is still alive. She questions the Canadian, "Who was
this La Bonte who you say was such a brave mountaineer?" Antoine replies,
"He was a fine fellow--strong as a buffalo-bull, a dead shot, cared not a
rush for the Indians, left a girl that he loved in Missouri, said the girl
did not love him, and so he followed the trail to the mountains. He hasn't
gone under yet; be sure of that," says the good natured guide, observing
the emotion which Mary showed, and suspecting that she took a more than
ordinary interest in the young hunter.

As the guide ceased to speak, Mary turns away and bursts into a flood of
tears. The mention of the name of one whom she had long believed dead, and
the recital of his praiseworthy qualities, awake the strongest feelings
which she had cherished towards one whose loss she still bewails.

The scene now changes to the camp of a party of hunters almost within
rifle-shot of the spot where the Chase family are sitting around their
evening fire. There are three in this party: one is Kilbuck, so known on
the plains, another is a stranger who has chanced to join them, the third
is a hunter named <i>La Bonte</i>.

The conversation turning on the party encamped near them, the stranger
remarks that their name is Chase. La Bonte looks up a moment from the lock
of his rifle, which he is cleaning, but either does not hear, or, hearing,
does not heed, for he resumes his work. "Traveling alone to the Platte
valley," continues the stranger, "they'll lose their hair, sure." "I hope
not," rejoins Kilbuck, "for there's a girl among them worth more than
that." "Where does she come from, stranger," inquires La Bonte. "Down below
Missouri, from Tennessee, I hear." "And what's her name?" The colloquy is
interrupted by the entrance into the camp of an Arapahoe Indian. The
hunters address him in his own language. They learn from him that a
war-party of his people was out on the Platte-trail to intercept the
traders on their return from the North Fork. He cautions them against
crossing the divide, as the braves, he says, are "a heap mad, and take
white scalp." The Indian, rewarded for his information with a feast of
buffalo-meat, leaves the camp and starts for the mountains. The hunters
pursue their journey the next day, traveling leisurely along, and stopping
where good grass and abundant game is found, until, one morning, they
suddenly strike a wheel-track, which left the creek-bank and pursued a
course at right angles to it in the direction of the divide. Kilbuck
pronounces it but a few hours old, and that of three wagons drawn by oxen.
"These are the wagons of old Chase," says the strange hunter: "they're
going right into the Rapahoe trap," cries Kilbuck. "I knew the name of
Chase years ago," says La Bonte in a low tone, "and I should hate the worst
kind to have mischief happen to any one that bore it. This trail is fresh
as paint, and it goes against me to let these simple critters help the
Rapahoes to their own hair. This child feels like helping them out of the
scrape. What do you say, old hos?" "I think with you, my boy," replies
Kilbuck, "and go in for following the wagon-trail and telling the poor
critters that there's danger ahead of them." "What's your talk, stranger?"
"I'm with you," answered the latter; and both follow quickly after La
Bonte, who gallops away on the trail.

Returning now to the Chase family, we see again the three white-topped
wagons rumbling slowly over the rolling prairie and towards the upland
ridge of the divide which rose before them, studded with dwarf pines and
cedar thickets. They are evidently traveling with caution, for the quick
eye of Antoine, the guide, has discovered recent Indian signs upon the
trail, and with the keenness of a mountaineer he at once sees that it is
that of a war-party, for there were no horses with them and after one or
two of the moccasin tracks there was the mark of a rope which trailed upon
the ground. This was enough to show him that the Indians were provided with
the usual lassoes of skin with which to secure the horses stolen on the
expedition. The men of the party accordingly are all mounted and thoroughly
armed, the wagons are moving in a line abreast, and a sharp lookout is kept
on all sides. The women and children are all consigned to the interior of
the wagons and the former also hold guns in readiness to take part in the
defense should an attack be made. As they move slowly on their course no
Indians make their presence visible and the party are evidently losing
their fears if not their caution.

As the shadows are lengthening they reach Black Horse Creek, and corrall
their wagons, kindle a fire, and are preparing for the night, when three or
four Indians suddenly show themselves on the bluff and making friendly
signals approach the camp. Most of the men are away attending to the cattle
or collecting fuel, and only old Chase and a grandson fourteen years of age
are in the camp. The Indians are hospitably received and regaled with a
smoke, after which they gratify their curiosity by examining the articles
lying around, and among others which takes their fancy the pot boiling over
the fire, with which one of them is about very coolly to walk off, when old
Chase, snatching it from the Indian's hands, knocks him down. One of his
companions instantly begins to draw the buckskin cover from his gun and is
about to take summary vengeance for the insult offered to his companion,
when Mary Chase, courageously advancing, places her left hand on the gun
which he is in the act of uncovering and with the other points a pistol at
his breast.

Whether daunted by this bold act of the girl, or admiring her devotion to
her father, the Indian, drawing back with a deep grunt, replaces the cover
on his piece and motioning to the other Indians to be peaceable, shakes
hands with old Chase, who all this time looks him steadily in the face.

The other whites soon return, the supper is ready, and all hands sit down
to the repast. The Indians then gather their buffalo-robes about them and
quickly withdraw. In spite of their quiet demeanor, Antoine says they mean
mischief. Every precaution is therefore taken against surprise; the mules
and horses are hobbled, the oxen only being allowed to run at large; a
guard is set around the camp; the fire is extinguished lest the savages
should aim by its light at any of the party; and all slept with rifles and
pistols ready at their side.

The night, however, passes quietly away, and nothing disturbs the
tranquility of the camp except the mournful cry of the prairie wolf chasing
the antelope. The sun has now risen; they are yoking the cattle to the
wagons and driving in the mules and horses, when a band of Indians show
themselves on the bluff and descending it approach the camp with an air of
confidence. They are huge braves, hideously streaked with war-paint, and
hide the malignant gleams that shoot from their snaky eyes with assumed
smiles and expressions of good nature.

Old Chase, ignorant of Indian treachery and in spite of the warnings of
Antoine, offering no obstruction to their approach, has allowed them to
enter the camp. What madness! They have divested themselves of their
buffalo-robes, and appear naked to the breech-clout and armed with bows and
arrows, tomahawks, and scalping knives. Six or seven only come in at first,
but others quickly follow, dropping in by twos and threes until a score or
more are collected around the wagons.

Their demeanor, at first friendly, changes to insolence and then to
fierceness. They demand powder and shot, and when they are refused begin to
brandish their tomahawks. A tall chief, motioning to the band to keep back,
now accosts Mr. Chase, and through Antoine as an interpreter, informs him
that unless the demands of his braves are complied with he will not be
responsible for the consequences; that they are out on the war-trail and
their eyes red with blood so that they cannot distinguish between white
man's and Utah's scalps; that the party and all their women and wagons are
in the power of the Indian braves; and therefore that the white chief's
best plan will be to make what terms he can; that all they require is that
they shall give up their guns and ammunition on the prairie and all their
mules and horses, retaining only the medicine-buffaloes (the oxen) to draw
their wagons. By this time the oxen have been yoked to the teams and the
teamsters stand whip in hand ready for the order to start. Old Chase
trembles with rage at the insolent demand. "Not a grain of powder to save
my life," he yells; "put out boys!" As he turns to mount his horse which
stands ready saddled, the Indians leap upon the wagons and others rush
against the men who make a brave fight in their defence. Mary, who sees her
father struck to the ground, springs with a shrill cry to his assistance at
the moment when a savage, crimson with paint and looking like a red demon,
bestrides his prostrate body, brandishing a glittering knife in the air
preparatory to plunging it into the old man's heart. All is wild confusion.
The whites are struggling heroically against overpowering numbers. A single
volley of rifles is heard and three Indians bite the dust. A moment later
and the brave defenders are disarmed amid the shrieks of the women and the
children and the triumphant whoops of the savages.

Mary, flying to her father's rescue, has been overtaken by a huge Indian,
who throws his lasso over her shoulders and drags her to the earth, then
drawing his scalping-knife he is about to tear the gory trophy from her
head. The girl, rising upon her knees, struggles towards the spot where her
father lies, now bathed in blood. The Indian jerks the lariat violently and
drags her on her face, and with a wild yell rushes to complete the bloody
work.

At that instant a yell as fierce as his own is echoed from the bluff, and
looking up he sees La Bonte charging down the declivity, his long hair and
the fringes of his garments waving in the breeze, his trusty rifle
supported in his right arm, and hard after him Kilbuck and the stranger
galloping with loud shouts to the scene of action. As La Bonte races madly
down the side of the bluff, he catches sight of the girl as the ferocious
savage is dragging her over the ground. A cry of horror and vengeance
escapes his lips, as driving his spurs to the rowels into his steed he
bounds like an arrow to the rescue. Another instant and he is upon his foe;
pushing the muzzle of his rifle against the broad chest of the Indian he
pulled the trigger, literally blowing out the savage's heart. Cropping his
rifle, he wheels his trained horse and drawing a pistol from his belt he
charges the enemy among whom Kilbuck and the stranger are dealing
death-blows. The Indians, panic-stricken by the suddenness of the attack,
turn and flee, leaving several of their number dead upon the field.

Mary, with her arms bound to her body by the lasso, and with her eyes
closed to receive the fatal stroke, hears the defiant shout of La Bonte,
and glancing up between her half-opened eyelids, sees the wild figure of
the mountaineer as he sends the bullet to the heart of her foe. When the
Indians flee, La Bonte, the first to run to her aid, cuts the skin-rope,
raises her from the ground, looks long and intently in her face, and sees
his never-to-be-forgotten Mary Chase. "What! can it be you, Mary?" he
exclaims, gazing at the trembling maiden, who hardly believes her eyes as
she returns his gaze and recognizes in her deliverer her former lover. She
only sobs and clings closer to him in speechless gratitude and love.

Turning from these lovers reunited so miraculously, we see stretched on the
battle-field the two grandsons of Mr. Chase, fine lads of fourteen or
fifteen, who after fighting like men fall dead pierced with arrows and
lances. Old Chase and his sons are slightly wounded, and Antoine shot
through the neck and half scalped. The dead boys are laid tenderly beneath
the prairie-sod, the wounds of the others are dressed, and the following
morning the party continue their journey to the Platte. The three hunters
guide and guard them on their way, Mary riding on horseback by the side of
her lover.

For many days they pursued their journey, but with feelings far different
from those with which they had made its earlier stages. Old Mr. Chase
marches on doggedly and in silence; his resolution to seek a new home on
the banks of the Columbia has been shaken more by the loss of his
grandsons, than by the fatigues and privations incident to the march. The
unbidden tears often steal down the cheeks of the women, who cast many a
longing look behind them towards the southeastern horizon, far beyond whose
purple rim lay their old home. The South Fork of the Platte has been
passed, Laramie reached, and for a fortnight the lofty summits of the
mountains which overhang the "pass" to California have been in sight; but
when they strike the broad trail which would conduct them to their promised
land in the valley of the Columbia, the party pause, gaze for a moment
steadfastly at the mountain-summits, and then as if by a common impulse,
the heads of the horses and oxen are faced to the east, and men, women, and
children toss their hats and bonnets in the air, hurrahing lustily for home
as the huge wagons roll down along the banks of the river Platte. The
closing scene in this romantic melodrama was the marriage of Mary and La
Bonte, in Tennessee, four months after the rescue of the Chase family from
the Indians.

The following "romance of the forest" we believe has never before been
published. The substance of it was communicated to the writer by a
gentleman who received it from his grandfather, one of the early settlers
of Michigan.

In the year 1762 the Great Pontiac, the Indian Napoleon of the Northwest,
had his headquarters in a small secluded island at the opening of Lake St.
Clair. Here he organized, with wonderful ability and secrecy, a
wide-reaching conspiracy, having for its object the destruction of every
English garrison and settlement in Michigan. His envoys, with blood-stained
hatchets, had been despatched to the various Indian tribes of the region,
and wherever these emblems of butchery had been accepted the savage hordes
were gathering, and around their bale-fires in the midnight pantomimes of
murder were concentrating their excitable natures into a burning focus
which would light their path to carnage and rapine.

While these lurid clouds, charged with death and destruction, were
gathering, unseen, about the heads of the adventurous pioneers, who had
penetrated that beautiful region, a family of eastern settlers, named
Rouse, arrived in the territory, and, disregarding the admonitions of the
officers in the fort at Detroit, pushed on twenty miles farther west and
planted themselves in the heart of one of those magnificent oak-openings
which the Almighty seems to have designed as parks and pleasure-grounds for
the sons and daughters of the forest.

Miss Anna Rouse, the only daughter of the family, had been betrothed before
her departure from New York State to a young man named James Philbrick, who
had afterward gone to fight the French and Indians. It was understood that
upon his return he was to follow the Rouse family to Michigan, where, upon
his arrival, the marriage was to take place.

In a few months young Philbrick reached the appointed place, and in the
following week married Miss Rouse in the presence of a numerous assemblage
of soldiers and settlers, who had come from the military posts and the
nearest plantations to join in the festivities.

All was gladness and hilarity; the hospitality was bounteous, the company
joyous, the bridegroom brave and manly, and the bride lovely as a wild
rose. When the banquet was ready the guests trooped into the room where it
was spread, and even the sentinels who had been posted beside the muskets
in the door-yard, seeing no signs of prowling savages, had entered the
house and were enjoying the feast. Scarcely had they abandoned their post
when an ear-piercing war-whoop silenced in a moment the joyous sound of the
revelers. The soldiers rushed to the door only to be shot down. A few
succeeded in recovering their arms, and made a desperate fight. Meanwhile
the savages battered down the doors, and leaped in at the windows. The
bridegroom was shot, and left for dead, as he was assisting to conceal his
bride, and a gigantic warrior, seizing the latter, bore her away into the
darkness. After a short but terrific struggle, the savages were driven out
of the house, but the defenders were so crippled by their losses and by the
want of arms which the enemy had carried away, that it was judged best not
to attempt to pursue the Indians, who had disappeared as suddenly as they
came.

When the body of the bridegroom was lifted up it was discovered that his
heart still beat, though but faintly. Restoratives were administered, and
he slowly came back to life, and to the sad consciousness that all that
could make life happy to him was gone for ever.

The family soon after abandoned their new home and moved to Detroit, owing
to the danger of fresh attacks from Pontiac and his confederates. Years
rolled away; young Philbrick, as soon as he recovered from his wounds, took
part in the stirring scenes of the war, and strove to forget, in turmoil
and excitement, the loss of his fair young bride. But in vain. Her
remembrance in the fray nerved his arm to strike, and steadied his eye to
launch the bullet at the heart of the hated foes who had bereft him of his
dearest treasure; and in the stillness of the night his imagination
pictured her, the cruel victim of her barbarous captors.

Peace came in 1763, and he then learned that she had been carried to
Canada. He hastened down the St. Lawrence and passed from settlement to
settlement, but could gain no tidings of her. After two years, spent in
unavailing search, he came back a sad and almost broken-hearted man.

Her image, as she appeared when last he saw her, all radiant in youth and
beauty, haunted his waking hours, and in his dreams she was with him as a
visible presence. Months, years rolled away; he gave her up as dead, but he
did not forget his long-lost bride.

One summer's day, while sitting in his cabin in Michigan, in one of those
beautiful natural parks, where he had chosen his abode, he heard a light
step, and, looking up, saw his bride standing before him, beautiful still,
but with a chastened beauty which told of years of separation and grief.

Her story was a long one. When she was borne away from the marriage feast
by her savage captor, she was seen by an old squaw, the wife of a famous
chief who had just lost her own daughter, and being attracted by the beauty
of Miss Rouse, she protected her from violence, and finally adopted her.
Twice she escaped, but was recaptured. The old squaw afterwards took her a
thousand miles into the wilderness, and watched her with the ferocious
tenderness that the tigress shows for her young. At length, after nearly
six years, her Indian mother died. She succeeded then in making her escape,
traveled four hundred miles on foot, reached the St. Lawrence, and after
passing through great perils and hardships, arrived at Detroit. There she
soon found friends, who relieved her wants and conveyed her to her husband,
whom she had remembered with fondness and loved with constancy during all
the weary years of her captivity.




CHAPTER XI.

PATHETIC PASSAGES OF PIONEER LIFE.


A hundred ills brood over the cabin in the wilderness. Some are
ever-present; others lie in wait, and start forth at intervals.

Labor, Solitude, Fear; these are the companions of woman on the border: to
these come other visitants--weariness, and that longing, yearning, pining
of the heart which the Germans so beautifully term <i>sehn-sucht</i>--hunger,
vigils, bodily pain and sickness, the biting cold, the drenching storm, the
fierce heat, with savage eyes of man and beast glaring from the thicket.
Then sorrow takes bodily shape and enters the house; loved ones are borne
away--the child, or the father, or saddest of all, the mother; the long
struggle is over, and the devoted woman of the household lays her wasted
form beneath the grassy sod of the cabin yard.

Bereavement is hard to bear in even the houses where comfort, ease, and
luxury surround the occupants, where friends and kinsfolk crowd to pour out
sympathy and consolation. But what must it be in the rude cabin on the
lonely border? The grave hollowed out in the hard soil of the little
inclosure, the rough shell-coffin hewn with tears from the forest tree, the
sorrowing household ranged in silence beside the form which will gladden
the loneliness of that stricken family no longer, and then the mourners
turn away and go back to their homely toils.

If from the time of the landing we could recall the long procession of the
actors and the events of border-life, and pass them before the eye in one
great moving panorama, how somber would be the colors of that picture! All
along the grand march what scenes of captivity, suffering, bereavement,
sorrow, and in these scenes, woman the most prominent figure, for she was
the constant actress in this great drama of woe!

The carrying away and the return of captives in war has furnished themes by
which poets and artists in all ages have moved the heart of man. The
breaking up of homes, the violent separations of those who are kindred by
blood, and the sundering for ever of family ties were ordinary and every
day incidents in the border-wars of our country: but the frequency of such
occurrences does not detract from the mournful interest with which they are
always fraught.

At the close of the old French and Indian War, Colonel Henry Bouquet
stipulated with the Indian tribes on the Ohio frontier as one of the
conditions of peace that they should restore all the captives which they
had taken. This was agreed to, and on his return march he was met by a
great company of settlers in search of their lost relatives. "Husbands
found their wives and parents their children, from whom they had been
separated for years. Women frantic between hope and fear, were running
hither and thither, looking piercingly into the face of every child, to
find their own, which, perhaps, had died--and then such shrieks of agony!
Some of the little captives shrank from their own forgotten mothers, and
hid in terror in the blankets of the squaws that had adopted them. Some
that had been taken away young, had grown up and married Indian husbands or
Indian wives, and now stood utterly bewildered with conflicting emotions. A
young Virginian had found his wife; but his little boy, not two years old
when captured, had been torn from her, and had been carried off, no one
knew whither. One day a warrior came in, leading a child. No one seemed to
own it. But soon the mother knew her offspring and screaming with joy,
folded her son to her bosom. An old woman had lost her granddaughter in the
French war, nine years before. All her other relatives had died under the
knife. Searching, with trembling eagerness, in each face, she at last
recognized the altered features of her child. But the girl who had
forgotten her native tongue, returned no answer, and made no sign. The old
woman groaned, wept, and complained bitterly, that the daughter she had so
often sung to sleep on her knees, had forgotten her in her old age.
Soldiers and officers were alike overcome. 'Sing,' whispered Bouquet, 'sing
the song you used to sing.' As the low, trembling tones began to ascend,
the wild girl gave one sudden start, then listening for a moment longer,
her frame shaking like an ague, she burst into a passionate flood of tears.
That was sufficient. She was the lost child. All else had been effaced from
her memory, but the music of the nursery-song. During her captivity she had
heard it in her dreams."

Another story of the same character is that of Frances Slocum, the "Lost
child of Wyoming," which though perhaps familiar to some of our readers,
will bear repeating.

In the time of the Revolution the house of Mr. Slocum in the Wyoming
valley, was attacked by a party of Delawares. The inmates of the house, at
the moment of the surprise, were Mrs. Slocum and four young children, the
eldest of whom was a son aged thirteen, the second, a daughter aged nine,
the third, Frances Slocum, aged five, and a little son aged two and a half.

The girl, aged nine years old, appears to have had the most presence of
mind, for while the mother ran into a copse of wood near by, and Frances
attempted to secrete herself behind a staircase, the former seized her
little brother, the youngest above mentioned, and ran off in the direction
of the fort. True she could not make rapid progress, for she clung to the
child, and not even the pursuit of the savages could induce her to drop her
charge. The Indians did not pursue her far, and laughed heartily at the
panic of the little girl, while they could not but admire her resolution.
Allowing her to make her escape, they returned to the house, and after
helping themselves to such articles as they chose, prepared to depart.

The mother seems to have been unobserved by them, although, with a yearning
bosom, she had so disposed of herself that while she was screened from
observation she could notice all that occurred. But judge of her feelings
at the moment when they were about to depart, as she saw her little Frances
taken from her hiding place, and preparations made to carry her away into
captivity. The sight was too much for maternal tenderness to endure.
Rushing from her place of concealment, she threw herself upon her knees at
the feet of the captors, and with the most earnest entreaties pleaded for
the restoration of the child. But their bosoms were made of sterner stuff
than to yield even to the most eloquent and affectionate entreaties of a
mother, and with characteristic stoicism they prepared to depart. Deaf
alike to the cries of the mother, and the shrieks of the child, Frances was
slung over the shoulder of a stalwart Indian with as much indifference as
though she were a slaughtered fawn.

The long, lingering look which the mother gave to her child, as her captors
disappeared in the forest, was the last glimpse of her sweet features that
she ever had. But the vision was for many a long year ever present to her
fancy. As the Indian threw the child over his shoulder, her hair fell over
her face, and the mother could never forget how the tears streamed down her
cheeks, when she brushed it away as if to catch a last sad look of the
mother from whom, her little arms outstretched, she implored assistance in
vain.

These events cast a shadow over the remaining years of Mrs. Slocum. She
lived to see many bright and sunny days in that beautiful valley--bright
and sunny, alas! to her no longer. She mourned for the lost one, of whom no
tidings, at least during her pilgrimage, could be obtained. After her sons
grew up, the youngest of whom, by the way, was born but a few months
subsequent to the events already narrated, obedient to the charge of their
mother, the most unwearied efforts were made to ascertain what had been the
fate of the lost sister. The forest between the Susquehanna and the Great
Lakes, and even the most distant wilds of Canada, were traversed by the
brothers in vain, nor could any information respecting her be derived from
the Indians. Once, indeed, during an excursion of one of the brothers into
the vast wilds of the West, a white woman, long ago captive, came to him in
the hopes of finding a brother; but after many anxious efforts to discover
evidences of relationship, the failure was as decisive as it was mutually
sad.

There was yet another kindred occurrence, still more painful. One of the
many hapless female captives in the Indian country becoming acquainted with
the inquiries prosecuted by the Slocum family, presented herself to Mrs.
Slocum, trusting that in her she might find her long lost mother. Mrs.
Slocum was touched by her appearance, and fain would have claimed her. She
led the stranger about the house and yards to see if there were any
recollections by which she could be identified as her own lost one. But
there was nothing written upon the pages of memory to warrant the desired
conclusion, and the hapless captive returned in bitter disappointment to
her forest home. In process of time these efforts were all relinquished as
hopeless. The lost Frances might have fallen beneath the tomahawk or might
have proved too tender a flower for transplantation into the wilderness.
Conjecture was baffled, and the mother, with a sad heart, sank into the
grave, as did also the father, believing with the Hebrew patriarch that the
"child was not."

Long years passed away and the memory of little Frances was forgotten, save
by two brothers and a sister, who, though advanced in the vale of life,
could not forget the family tradition of the lost one. Indeed it had been
the dying charge of their mother that they must never relinquish their
exertions to discover Frances.

Fifty years and more had passed since the disappearance of little Frances,
when news came to the surviving members of the bereaved family that she was
still alive. She had been adopted into the tribe of the Miami Indians, and
was passing her days as a squaw in the lodges of that people.

The two surviving brothers and their sister undertook a journey to see, and
if possible, to reclaim, the long lost Frances. Accompanied by an
interpreter whom they had engaged in the Indian country, they reached at
last the designated place and found their sister. But alas! how changed!
Instead of the fair-haired and laughing girl, the picture yet living in
their imagination, they found her an aged and thoroughbred squaw in
everything but complexion. She was sitting when they entered her lodge,
composed of two large log-houses connected by a shed, with her two
daughters, the one about twenty-three years old, and the other about
thirty-three, and three or four pretty grandchildren. The closing hours of
the journey had been made in perfect silence, deep thoughts struggling in
the bosoms of all. On entering the lodge, the first exclamation of one of
the brothers was,--"Oh, God! is that my sister!" A moment afterward, and
the sight of her thumb, disfigured in childhood, left no doubt as to her
identity. The following colloquy, conducted through the interpreter,
ensued:

"What was your name when a child?"

"I do not recollect."

"What do you remember?"

"My father, my mother, the long river, the staircase under which I hid when
they came."

"How came you to lose your thumb-nail?"

"My brother hammered it off a long time ago, when I was a very little girl
at my father's house."

"Do you know how many brothers and sisters you had?"

She then mentioned them, and in the order of their ages.

"Would you know your name if you should hear it repeated?"

"It is a long time since, and perhaps I should not."

"Was it Frances?"

At once a smile played upon her features, and for a moment there seemed to
pass over the face what might be called the shadow of an emotion, as she
answered, "<i>Yes</i>."

Other reminiscences were awakened, and the recognition was complete. But
how different were the emotions of the parties! The brothers paced the
lodge in agitation. The civilized sister was in tears. The other, obedient
to the affected stoicism of her adopted race, was as cold, unmoved, and
passionless as marble.

The brothers and sister returned unable, after urgent and loving
entreaties, to win back their tawny sister from her wilds. Her Indian
husband and children were there; there was the free, open forest, and she
clung to these; and yet the love of her kinsfolk for her, and her's for
them, was not quenched.

[Illustration: PARTED FOREVER.]

Transporting ourselves far from the beautiful valley of Wyoming, where the
grief-stricken mother will wake never more to the consciousness of the loss
of her sweet Frances, we stand on the prairies of Kansas. The time is 1856.
One of the settlers who, with his wife, was seeking to build up a community
in the turmoil, which then made that beautiful region such dangerous
ground, has met his death at the hands of a rival faction. We enter the
widow's desolated home. A shelter rather than a house, with but two
wretched rooms, it stands alone upon the prairie. The darkness of a stormy
winter's evening was gathering over the snow-clad slopes of the wide, bare
prairie, as, in company with a sympathizing friend, we enter that lonely
dwelling.

In the scantily-furnished apartment into which we are shown, two or three
women and as many children are crowding around a stove, for the night is
bitter cold, and even the large wood-fire scarcely heated a space so thinly
walled. Behind a heavy pine table, on which stands a flickering
tallow-candle, and leaning against a half-curtained window on which the
sleet and winter's blast beat drearily, sits a woman of some forty years of
age, clad in a dress of dark, coarse stuff, resting her head on her hand,
and seeming unmindful of all about her.

She was the widow of Thomas W. Barber, one of the victims of the Kansas
war. The attenuated hand supporting the aching head, and half shielding the
tear-dimmed eyes, the silent drops trickling down the wasted cheeks, told
but too well the sad story.

"They have left me," she cried, "a poor, forsaken creature, to mourn all my
days! Oh, my husband, my husband, they have taken from me all that I hold
dear! one that I loved better than I loved my own life!"

Thomas W. Barber was a careful and painstaking farmer, a kind neighbor, and
an inoffensive, amiable man. His "untimely taking off" was indeed a sad
loss to the community at large, but how much more to his wife! She had
loved him with a love that amounted to idolatry. When he was returning from
his daily toil she would go forth to meet him. When absent from home, if
his stay was prolonged, she would pass the whole night in tears; and when
ill, she would hang over his bed like a mother over her child. With a
presentiment of evil, when he left his home for the last time, after
exhausting every argument to prevent him from going, she had said to him,
"Oh, Thomas! if you should be shot, I shall be left all alone, with no
child and nothing in the wide world to fill your place!" This was their
last parting.

The intelligence of his death was kept in mercy from her, through the
kindness of friends, who hoped to break it to her gently. This thoughtful
and sympathetic purpose was marred by the unthinking act of a young man,
who had been sent with a carriage to convey her to the hotel where her
husband's body lay. As he rode up he shouted, "Thomas Barber is killed!"
His widow half-caught the dreadful words, and rushing to the door cried,
"Oh, God! What do I hear?" Seeing the mournful and sympathetic faces of the
bystanders, she knew the truth and filled the house with her shrieks. When
they brought her into the apartment where her husband lay, she threw
herself upon his corpse, and kissing the dead man's face, called down
imprecations on the heads of those who had bereaved her of all she held
dear.

The prairies of the great West resemble the ocean in more respects than in
their level vastness, and the travelers who pass over them are like
mariners who guide themselves only by the constellations and the great
luminaries of heaven. The trail of the emigrant, like the track of the
ship, is often uncrossed for days by others who are voyaging over this
mighty expanse. Distance becomes delusive, and after journeying for days
and failing to reach the foot-hills of the mountains, whose peaks have
shone to his eyes in so many morning suns, the tired emigrant is tempted by
the abounding richness of the country to pause. He is one hundred miles
from the nearest settlement. Beside a stream he builds his cabin. He is
like a voyager whose ship has been burned, leaving him in a strange land
which he must conquer or die.

Such was the situation of that household on the prairie of Illinois,
concerning whom is told a story full of mournful pathos. We should note, in
passing on to our story, one of the dangers to which prairie-dwellers are
exposed. They live two or three months every year in a magazine of
combustibles. One of the peculiarities of the climate in those regions is
the dryness of its summers and autumns. A drought often commences in August
which, with the exception of a few showers towards the close of that month,
continues, with little interruption, throughout the full season. The
immense mass of vegetation with which the fertile soil loads itself during
the summer is suddenly withered, and the whole earth is covered with
combustible materials. A single spark of fire falling anywhere upon these
plains at such a time, instantly kindles a blaze that spreads on every
side, and continues its destructive course as long as it finds fuel, these
fires sweeping on with a rapidity which renders it hazardous even to fly
before them.

The flames often extend across a wide prairie and advance in a long line;
no sight can be more sublime than to behold at night a stream of fire
several miles in breadth advancing across these plains, leaving behind it a
black cloud of smoke, and throwing before it a vivid glare which lights up
the whole landscape with the brilliancy of noonday. A roaring and crackling
sound is heard like the rushing of the hurricane; the flame, which, in
general, rises to the height of about twenty feet, is seen sinking and
darting upward in spires precisely as the waves dash against each other,
and as the spray flies up into the air; the whole appearance is often that
of a boiling and flaming sea violently agitated. Woe to the farmer whose
ripe corn-field extends into the prairie, and who has carelessly suffered
the tall grass to grow in contact with his fences; the whole labor of a
year is swept away in a few hours.

More than sixty years since, and before the beautiful wild gardens of
Illinois had been tilled by the hand of the white man, an emigrant with his
family came thither from the East in search of a spot whereon to make his
home. One bright spring day his white-topped wagon entered a prairie richer
in its verdure and more brilliant in its flowers, than any that had yet met
his eyes. At night-fall it halted beside a clump of trees not far from a
creek. On this site a log-cabin soon rose and sent its smoke curling
through the overhanging boughs.

The only neighbors of the pioneers were the rambling Indians. Their
habitation was the center of a vast circle not dwelt in, and rarely even
crossed by white settlers; oxen, cows, and a dog were their only domestic
animals. For many months after their cabin was built they depended on wild
game and fruits for subsistence; the rifle of the father, and traps set by
the boys, brought them an abundant supply of meat. The wife and mother
wrought patiently for those she loved. Her busy hands kept a well-ordered
house by day, and at night she plied the needle to repair the wardrobe of
her little household band. It was already growing scanty, and materials to
replace it could only be procured at a distance, and means to procure it
were limited. Patching and darning until their garments were beyond repair,
she then supplied their place with skins stripped from the deer which the
father had shot. Far into the night, by the flickering light of a single
candle, this gentle housewife plied "her busy care," while her husband,
worn out with his day's work, and her children, tired by their rambles,
were slumbering in the single chamber of the cabin.

October came, and a journey to the nearest settlement for winter goods and
stores, must be made. After due preparation the father and his eldest son
started in the emigrant wagon, and expected to be absent many days, during
which the mother and her children, with only the dog for their protection,
looked hourly forth upon the now frost-embrowned prairie, and fondly hoped
for their return.

Day after day passed, and no sign of life was visible upon the plain save
the deer bounding over the sere herbage, or the wolf loping stealthily
against the wind which bore the scent of his prey. A rising haze began to
envelope the landscape, betokening the approach of the Indian summer,

  "The melancholy days had come,
  The saddest of the year,"

and the desolation of nature found an answering mood in the soul of that
lone woman. One day she was visited by a party of Indian warriors, and from
them she learned that there was a war between the tribes through whose
country the journey of her husband lay. A boding fear for his safety took
possession of her, and after the warriors had partaken of her hospitality
and departed, and night came, she laid her little ones in their bed, and
sat for hours on the threshold of the cabin door, looking out through the
darkness and praying silently for the return of her loved ones. The wind
was rising and driving across the sky black masses of clouds which looked
like misshapen specters of evil. The blast whistled through the leafless
trees and howled round the cabin. Hours passed, and still the sorrowful
wife and mother sat gazing into the gloom as if her eyes would pierce it
and lighten on the wished-for object.

But what is that strange light which far to the north gleams on the
blackened sky? It was not the lightning's flash, for it was a steady
brightening glow. It was not the weird flash of the aurora borealis, but a
redder and more lurid sheen; nor was it the harbinger of the rising sun
which lit that northern sky. From a tinge it brightens to a gleam, and
deepened at last into a broad glare. That lonely heart was overwhelmed with
the dreadful truth. The prairie is on fire! Often had they talked of
prairie fires as a spectacle of grandeur. But never had she dreamed of the
red demon as an enemy to be encountered in that dreadful solitude.

Her heart sank within her as she saw the danger leaping toward her like
some fiery and maddened race-horse. Was there no escape? Her children were
sweetly sleeping, and the faithful dog, her only guardian, was gazing as if
with mute sympathy into her face. Within an hour she calculates the
conflagration would be at her very door. All around her is one dry ocean of
combustibles. She cannot reach the tree-tops, and if she could, to cling
there would be impossible amid those towering flames. The elements seemed
to grow madder as the fire approached; fiercer blew the blast, intermitting
for a moment only to gather fresh potency and mingle its own strength with
that of the flames. She still had a faint hope that a creek a few miles
away would be a barrier over which the blaze could not leap. She saw by the
broad light which made even the distant prairie like noonday, the tops of
the trees that fringed the creek but for a few moments, and then they were
swallowed up in that crimson furnace. Alas! the stream had been crossed by
the resistless flames, and her last hope died away.

Bewildered and half stupefied by the terrors of her situation, she had not
yet wakened her children. But now no time was to be lost. Already in
imagination she felt the hot breath of her relentless foe. It was with much
difficulty that she awoke them and aroused them to a sense of their awful
danger. Hastily dressing them she encircled them in her arms and kissed and
fondled them as if for a last farewell. Now for the first time she missed
the dog, the faithful companion and guardian of her solitude, and on whose
aid she still counted in the hour of supreme peril. She called him loudly,
but in vain. Turning her face northward she saw one unbroken line of flame
as far as the eye could reach, and forcing its way towards her like an
infuriated demon, roaring, crackling, sending up columns of dun-colored
smoke as it tore along over the plain. A few minutes more and her fate
would be decided. Falling on her knees she poured out her heart in prayer,
supplicating for mercy and commending herself and her helpless babes to
Almighty God. As she rose calmed and stayed by that fervent supplication a
low wistful bark fell on her ear; the dog came bounding to her side;
seizing her by the dress as if he would drag her from the spot, he leaped
away from her, barking and whining, looking back towards her as he ran.
Following him a few steps and seeing nothing, she returned and resumed her
seat, awaiting death beside her children.

Again the dog returned, pawing, whining, howling, and trying in every way
to attract her attention. What could he mean? Then for the first time
flashed upon her the thought which had already occurred to the sagacious
instinct of the dumb brute! The ploughed field! Yes, there alone was hope
of safety! Clasping the two youngest children with one arm she almost
dragged the eldest boy as she fled along the trodden path, the dog going
before them showing every token of delight. The fire was at their heels,
and its hot breath almost scorched their clothes as they ran. They gained
the herbless ploughed field and took their station in its center just as
the flames darted round on each side of them.

The exhausted mother, faint with the sudden deliverance, dropped on the
ground among her helpless babes. Father of mercies! what an escape!

In a few moments the flames attacked the haystack, which was but a morsel
to its fury, and then seizing the house devoured it more slowly, while the
great volume of the fire swept around over the plain. Long did the light of
the burning home blight the eye of the lone woman after the flames had done
their worst on the prairie around her and gone on bearing ruin and
devastation to the southern plains and groves.

The vigils and the terrors of that fearful night wrought their work on the
lonely woman, and she sank into a trance-like slumber upon the naked earth,
with her babes nestling in her lap and the dog, her noble guardian,
crouching at her feet. She awoke with the first light of morning to the
terrible realities from which for a few brief hours she had had a blessed
oblivion. She arose as from a dream and cast a dazed look southward over a
charred and blackened expanse stretching to the horizon, over which the
smoke was hanging like a pall. Turning away, stunned by the fearful
recollection, her eyes fell upon the smouldering ruins of her once happy
home. She tottered with her chilled and hungry children towards the heap of
smoking rafters and still glowing embers of the cabin, with which the
morning breezes were toying as in merry pastime, and sat down upon a mound
which stood before what had once been the door. Here, at least, was warmth,
but whither should she go for shelter and food. There was no house within
forty miles and the cruel flames had spared neither grain nor meat. There
was no shelter but the canopy of heaven and no food but roots and
half-burned nuts.

Wandering hither and thither under the charred and leafless trees, she
picked up with her numb and nerveless fingers the relics of the autumn nuts
or feebly dug in the frost-stiffened ground for roots. But these were rare;
here and there she found a nut shielded by a decayed log, and the edible
roots were almost hidden by the ashes of the grass. She returned to the
fire, around which her innocent children had begun to frolic with childlike
thoughtlessness. The coarse morsels which she gave them seemed for the
moment to quiet their cravings, and the strange sight of their home in
ruins diverted their minds. The mother saw with joy that they were amusing
themselves with merry games and had no part in her bitter sorrows and
fears. Long and earnestly did she bend her eyes on the wide, black plains
to see if she could discern the white-topped wagon moving over that dark
expanse. Noon came and passed but brought not the sight for which she
yearned: only the brown deer gamboling and the prairie hen wheeling her
flight over the scorched waste!

Night came with its cold, its darkness, its hunger, its dreadful solitude!
The chilled and shelterless woman sat with the heads of her sleeping
children pillowed in her lap, and listened to the howling of the starved
wolves, the dog her only guardian. She had discovered a few ground-nuts,
which she had divided among the children, reserving none for herself; she
had stripped off nearly all her clothing in order to wrap them up warmly
against the frosty air, and with pleasant words, while her head was
bursting, she had soothed them to sleep beside the burning pile; and there,
through the watches of the long night, she gazed fondly at them and prayed
to the Father of mercies that they, at least, might be spared.

The night was dark: beyond the circle of the burning embers nothing could
be discerned. At intervals, her blood was curdled by the long, mournful
howl of the gaunt gray wolf calling his companions to their prey. The cold
wind whistled around her thinly clad frame and chilled it to the core. As
the night grew stiller a drowsiness against which she contended in vain,
overcame her, her eyelids drooped, her shivering body swayed to and fro,
until by the tumbling down of the embers she was again aroused, and would
brace herself for another hour's vigil. At last the darkness became
profoundly silent and even the wind ceased to whisper, the nocturnal
marauders stole away, and night held her undisputed reign. Then came a
heavy dreamless sleep and overpowered the frame of the watcher, chilled as
it was, and faint with hunger, and worn with fatigue and vigils: she curled
her shivering limbs around her loved ones and became oblivious to all.

It was the cry of her babes that waked her from slumber. The fire was
slowly dying; the sun was looking down coldly from the leaden sky; slowly
his beams were obscured by dark, sullen masses of vapor, which at last
curtained the whole heavens. Rain! When she sat watching in the darkness, a
few hours before, she thought nothing could make her condition worse. But
an impending rain-storm which, thirty-six hours before, would have been
hailed as merciful and saving, would now only aggravate their situation.
Darker and darker grew the sky. She must hasten for food ere the clouds
should burst. Her limbs were stiff with cold, her sight was dim, and her
brain reeled as she rose to her feet and tottered to the grove to search
for sustenance to keep her wailing babes alive. Her own desire for food was
gone, but all exhausted as she was she could not resist the pleadings of
the loved ones who hung upon her garments and begged for food.

Gleaning a few more coarse morsels on the ground so often searched, she
tottered back to the spot which still seemed home though naught of home was
there. Strange, racking pains wrung her wasted body, and sinking down
beside her children she felt as if her last hour had come. Yes! she would
perish there beside those consecrated ashes with her little ones around
her. A drizzling rain was falling faster and faster. The fire was dying and
she pushed the brands together, and gathered her trembling babes about her
knees, and between the periods of her agony told them not to forget their
mamma nor how they had lost her; she gave the eldest boy many tender
messages to carry to her husband and to her first born. With wondering and
tearful face he promised to do as she desired, but begged her to tell him
where she would be when his father came and whether his little brother
would go with her and leave him all alone.

The rain poured down mercilessly and chilly blew the blast. The embers
hissed and blackened and shed no more warmth on the suffering group. Keener
and heavier grew the mother's pangs, and there beside the smoking ruins of
her home, prone on the drenched soil, with the pitiless sky bending above
her, her helpless children wailing around her writhing form, the hapless
woman gave birth to a little babe, whose eyes were never opened to the
desolation of its natal home.

Unconscious alike to the cries of the terror stricken children and of the
moaning caresses of her dumb friend, that poor mother's eyes were only
opened on the dreadful scene when day was far advanced. Through the cold
rain, still pouring steadily down, the twilight seemed to her faint eyes to
be creeping over the earth. Sweet sounds were ringing in her ears. These
were but dreams that deluded her weakened mind and senses. She strove to
rise, but fell back and again relapsed into insensibility. Once again her
eyes opened. This time it was no illusion. The eldest of the little
watchers was shouting, in her ear, "Mother, I see father's wagon!" There it
was close at hand. All day it had been slowly moving across the blackened
prairie. The turf had been softened by the rain and the last few miles had
been inconceivably tedious. The charred surface of the plain had filled the
heart of both father and son with terror, which increased as they advanced.

When they were within a mile of the spot where the cabin stood and could
see no house, they both abandoned the wagon, and leaving the animals to
follow as they chose, they flew shouting loudly as they sped on till they
stood over the perishing group. They could not for the moment comprehend
the dreadful calamity, but stared at the wasted faces of the children, the
infant corpse, the dying wife, the desolate home.

Cursing the day that he had been lured by the festal beauty of those
prairies, the father lifted the dying woman in his arms, gazed with an
agonized face upon her glassy eyes, and felt the faint fluttering in her
breast that foretold the last and worst that could befall him. Slowly, word
by word, with weak sepulchral voice, she told the dreadful story.

He slipped off his outer garments and wrapped them around her, and wiping
off the rain-drops from her face drew her to his heart. But storm or
shelter was all the same to her now, and the death-damp on her brow was
colder than the pelting shower. He accused himself of her cruel murder and
wildly prayed her forgiveness. From these accusations she vindicated him,
besought him not to grieve for her, and with many prayers for her dear
children and their father, she resigned her breath with the parting light
of that sad autumnal day.

After two days and nights of weeping and watching, he laid her remains deep
down below the prairie sod, beside the home which she had loved and made
bright by her presence.




CHAPTER XII.

THE HEROINES OF THE SOUTHWEST


No portion of our country has been the scene of more romantic and dangerous
adventures than that region described under the broad and vague term the
"Southwest." Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona, are vast, remote, and varied
fields with which danger and hardship, wonder and mystery are ever
associated. The country itself embraces great contrarieties of scenery and
topography--the rich farm, the expansive cattle ranch, the broad lonely
prairie watered by majestic rivers, the barren desert, the lofty plateau,
the secluded mining settlement, and vast mountain ranges furrowed by
torrents into black cañons where sands of gold lie heaped in inaccessible,
useless riches.

The forms of human society are almost equally diverse. Strange and
mysterious tribes, each with different characteristics, here live side by
side. Vile mongrel breeds of men multiply to astonish the ethnologist and
the moralist. Here roam the Comanches and the Apaches, the most remorseless
and bloodthirsty of all the North American aboriginal tribes. Mexican
bandits traverse the plains and lurk in the mountain passes, and American
outlaws and desperadoes here find a refuge from justice.

As the Anglo-Saxon after fording the Sabine, the Brazos, and the Colorado
River of Texas, advances westward, he is brought face to face with these
different races with whom is mixed in greater or less proportion the blood
of the old Castilian conquerors. Each of these races is widely alien from,
and most of them instinctively antagonistic to the North European people.

Taking into view the immense distances to be traversed, the natural
difficulties presented by the face of the country, the remoteness of the
region from civilization, and the mixed, incongruous and hostile character
of the inhabitants, we might naturally expect that its occupation by
peaceful settlers,--by those forms of household life in which woman is an
essential element--would be indefinitely postponed. But that energy and
ardor which marks alike the men and the women of our race has carried the
family, that germ of the state, over all obstacles and planted it in the
inhospitable soil of the most remote corners of this region, and there it
will flourish and germinate doubtless till it has uprooted every
neighboring and noxious product.

The northeastern section of this extensive country is composed of that
stupendous level tract known as the "Llano Estacado," or "Staked Plain."
Stretching hundreds of miles in every direction, this sandy plain,
treeless, arid, with only here and there patches of stunted herbage,
whitened by the bones of horses and mules, and by the more ghastly
skeletons of too adventurous travelers, presents an area of desolation
scarcely more than paralleled by the great African Desert.

In the year 1846, after news had reached the States that our troops were in
peaceful occupation of New Mexico, a party of men and women set out from
the upper valley of the Red River of Louisiana, with the intention of
settling in the valley of the river Pecos, in the eastern part of the newly
conquered territory. The company consisted of seven persons, viz.: Mr. and
Mrs. Benham and their child of seven years, Mr. and Mrs. Braxton and two
sons of fifteen and eighteen years respectively.

They made rapid and comfortable progress through the valley of the Red
River, and in two weeks reached the edge of the "Staked Plain," which they
now made preparations to cross, for the difficulties and dangers of the
route were not unknown to them. Disencumbering their pack-mules of all
useless burdens and supplying themselves with water for two days, they
pushed forward on their first stage which brought them on the evening of
the second day to a kind of oasis in this desert where they found wood,
water, and grass. From this point there was a stretch of ninety miles
perfectly bare of wood and water, and with rare intervals of scanty herbage
for the beasts. After this desolate region had been passed they would have
a comparatively easy journey to their destination.

On the evening of the second day of their passage across this arid tract
they had the misfortune to burst their only remaining water cask, and to
see the thirsty sands drink up in a moment every drop of the precious
liquid. They were then forty miles from the nearest water. Their beasts
were jaded and suffering from thirst. The two men were incapacitated for
exertion by slight sun-strokes received that day, and one of the boys had
been bitten in the hand by a rattlesnake while taking from its burrow a
prairie dog which he had shot.

The next day they pursued their march only with the utmost difficulty; the
two men were barely able to sit on their horses, and the boy which had been
bitten was faint and nerveless from the effect of the poison. The heat was
felt very severely by the party as they dragged themselves slowly across
the white expanse of sand, which reflected the rays of the sun with a
painful glare into the haggard eyes of the wretched wanderers. Before they
had made fifteen miles, or little more than one-third of the distance that
would have to be accomplished before reaching water, the horses and mules
gave out and at three o'clock in the afternoon the party dismounted and
panting with heat and thirst stretched themselves on the sand. The sky
above them was like brass and the soil was coated with a fine alkali
deposit which rose in clouds at their slightest motion, filling their
nostrils and eyes, and increasing the agonies they were suffering.

Their only hope was that they would be discovered by some passing train of
hunters or emigrants. This hope faded away as the sun declined and nothing
but the sky and the long dreary dazzling expanse of sand met their eyes.

The painful glare slowly softened, and with sunset came coolness; this was
some slight mitigation to their sufferings; sleep too, promised to bring
oblivion; and hope, which a merciful Providence has ordained to cast its
halo over the darkest hours, told its flattering tale of possible relief on
the morrow.

The air of that desert is pellucid as crystal, and the last beams of the
sun left on the unclouded azure of the sky a soft glow, through which every
thing in the western horizon was outlined as if drawn by some magic pencil.
Casting their eyes in that direction the wretched wayfarers saw far away a
dun-colored haze through which small black specks seemed to be moving.
Growing larger and more distinct it approached them slowly over the vast
expanse until its true nature was apparent. It was a cloud of dust such as
a party of horsemen make when in rapid motion over a soil as fine and light
as ashes. Was it friend or foe? Was it American cavalry or was it a band of
Mexican guerrillas that was galloping so fiercely over that arid plain?
These torturing doubts were soon solved. Skimming over the ground like
swallows, six sunburnt men with hair as black as the crow's wing, gaily
dressed, and bearing long lances, soon reined in their mustangs within
twenty paces of the party and gazed curiously at them. One of the band
then rode up and asked in broken English if they were "Americans:" having
thus made a reconnoisance and seeing their helplessness, without waiting
for a reply, he beckoned to his companions who approached and demanded the
surrender of the party. Under other circumstances a stout resistance would
have been made; but in their present forlorn condition they could do
nothing.

Their guns, a part of their money, and whatever the unfortunate families
had that pleased the guerrillas, was speedily appropriated, the throats of
their horses and mules were cut, Mrs. Braxton and Mrs. Benham were seized,
and in spite of their struggles and shrieks each of them was placed in
front of a swarthy bandit, and then the Mexicans rode away cursing "Los
Americanos," and barbarously leaving them to die of hunger and thirst.

After a four hours' gallop, the marauders reached an adobe house on Picosa
Creek, a tributary of the Rio Pecos. This was the headquarters of the gang,
and here they kept relays of fresh horses, mustangs, fiery, and full of
speed and bottom. Mrs. Benham and Mrs. Braxton were placed in a room by
themselves on the second story, and the door was barricaded so that escape
by that avenue was impossible; but the windows were only guarded by stout
oaken bars, which the women, by their united strength, succeeded in
removing. Their captors were plunged in a profound slumber, when Mrs.
Benham and her companion dropped themselves out of the window and succeeded
in reaching the stable without discovery. Here they found six fresh horses
ready saddled and bridled, the others on which the bandits had made their
raid being loose in the enclosure.

It was a cruel necessity which impelled our brave heroines to draw their
knives across the hamstrings of the tired horses, thus disabling them so as
to prevent pursuit. Then softly leading out the six fresh mustangs, each of
our heroines mounted one of the horses man-fashion and led the others
lashed together with lariats; walking the beasts until out of hearing, they
then put them to a gallop, and, riding all night, came, at sunrise, to the
spot where their suffering friends lay stretched on the sand, having
abandoned all hope.

After a brief rest, the whole party pushed rapidly forward on their
journey, arriving that evening at a place of safety. Two days after, they
reached the headwaters of the Pecos. Here they purchased a large adobe
house, and an extensive tract, suitable both for grazing and tillage.

These events occurred early in the autumn. During the following winter the
Mexicans revolted, and massacred Governor Bent and his military household.
On the same day seven Americans were killed at Arroyo Hondo; a large
Mexican force was preparing to march on Santa Fé, and for a time it seemed
as if the handful of American soldiers would be driven out of the
territory. This conspiracy was made known to the authorities by an American
girl, who was the wife of one of the Mexican conspirators, and becoming,
through her husband, acquainted with the plan of operations, divulged them
to General Price in season to prevent a more general outbreak. As it was,
the American settlers were in great danger.

The strong and spacious house in which the Benhams and Braxtons lived had
formerly been used as a stockade and fortification against Indian attack.
Its thick walls were pierced with loop-holes, and its doors, of double oak
planks, were studded with wrought-iron spikes, which made it bullet-proof.
A detachment of United States troops were stationed a short distance from
their ranch, and the two families, in spite of the disturbed condition of
the country, felt reasonably secure. The troops were withdrawn, however,
after the revolt commenced, leaving the new settlers dependent upon their
own resources for protection. Their cattle and horses were driven into the
enclosure, and the inmates of the house kept a sharp lookout against
hostile parties of marauders, whether Indian or Mexican.

Early on the morning of January 24th a mounted party of twelve Mexicans
made their appearance in front of the enclosure, which they quickly scaled,
and discharged a volley of balls, one of which passed through a loop-hole,
and, entering Mr. Braxton's eye as he was aiming a rifle at the assailants,
laid him dead at the feet of his wife. Mrs. Braxton, with streaming eyes,
laid the head of her husband in her lap and watched his expiring throes
with agony, such as only a wife and mother can feel when she sees the dear
partner of her life and the father of her sons torn in an instant from her
embrace. Seeing that her husband was no more, she dried her tears and
thought only of vengeance on his murderers.

The number of the besieged was twelve at the start, viz.: Mr. and Mrs.
Braxton, Mr. and Mrs. Benham and their children, three Irish herders, and a
half-breed Mexican and his wife, who were house servants. The death of Mr.
Braxton had reduced their number to eleven. A few moments later the
Mexican half-breed disappeared, but was not missed in the excitement of the
defense.

The besieged returned with vigor the fire of their assailants, two of whom
had already bit the dust. The women loaded the guns and passed them to the
men, who kept the Mexicans at a respectful distance by the rapidity of
their fire. Mrs. Benham was the first to mark the absence of Juan the
Mexican half-breed, and, suspecting treachery, flew to the loft with a
hatchet in one hand and a revolver in the other. Her suspicion was correct.
Juan had opened an upper window, and, letting down a ladder, had assisted
two of the attacking party to ascend, and they were preparing to make an
assault on those below by firing through the cracks in the floor, when the
intrepid woman despatched Juan with a shot from her revolver and clove the
skull of another Mexican; the third leaped from the window and escaped.

As Mrs. Benham was about to descend from the loft, after drawing up the
ladder and closing the window, she was met by the wife of the treacherous
half-breed, who aimed a stroke at her breast with a <i>machete</i> or large
knife, such as the Mexicans use. She received a flesh wound in the left arm
as she parried the blow, and it was only with the mixed strength of Mrs.
Braxton and one of the herders, who had now ascended to the loft, that the
infuriated Mexican whom Mrs. Benham had made a widow, could be mastered and
bound.

Three of the attacking party had now been killed and three others placed
<i>hors de combat</i>; the remnant were apparently about to retire from the
siege, when six more swarthy desperadoes, mounted on black mustangs, came
galloping up and halted on a hill just out of rifle shot.

Mrs. Braxton and Mrs. Benham, looking through a field glass, at once
recognized them as the band which had made them captives a few months
before.

After a few moments of consultation one of the band, who appeared to be
only armed with a bow and arrow, advanced towards the house waving a white
flag. Within thirty paces of the door stood a large tree, and behind this
the envoy, bearing the white flag, ensconced himself, and, striking a
light, twanged his bow and sent a burning arrow upon the roof of the house,
which, being dry as tinder, in a moment was in a blaze.

Both of the women immediately carried water to the roof and extinguished
the flames. Another arrow, wrapped in cotton steeped in turpentine, again
set the roof on fire, and as one of the intrepid matrons threw a bucket of
water upon the blaze, the dastard stepped from behind the tree and sent a
pistol ball through her right arm, but at the same moment received two
rifle balls in his breast, and fell a corpse.

Mrs. Benham, for it was she who had been struck, was assisted by her
husband to the ground floor, where her wound was examined and found to be
fortunately not a dangerous one. A new peril, however, now struck terror to
their hearts; the water was all exhausted. The fire began to make headway.
Mrs. Braxton, calling loudly for water to extinguish it, and meeting no
response, descended to the ground floor, where the defenders were about to
give up all hope, and either resign themselves to the flames, or by
emerging from the house, submit to massacre at the hands of the now
infuriated foe. As Mrs. Braxton rolled her eyes hither and thither in
search of some substitute for water, they fell on the corpse of her
husband. His coat and vest were completely saturated with blood. It was
only the sad but terrible necessity which immediately suggested to her the
use to which these garments could be put. Shuddering, she removed them
quickly but tenderly from the body, flew to the roof and succeeded, by
these dripping and ghastly tokens of her widowhood, in finally
extinguishing the flames.

The attack ceased at night-fall, and the Mexicans withdrew. The outbreak
having been soon quelled by the United States forces, the territory was
brought again into a condition of peace and comparative security.

At the close of the war in 1848, Mrs. Braxton married a discharged
volunteer named Whitley, and having disposed of the late Mr. Braxton's
interest in the New Mexican ranche, removed, in 1851, with her husband and
family, to California, where they lived for two years in the Sacramento
valley.

Whitley was possessed of one of those roving and adventurous spirits which
is never happy in repose, and when he was informed by John Crossman, an old
comrade, of the discovery of a rich placer which he had made during his
march as a United States soldier across the territory of Arizona, at that
time known as the Gadsden purchase, he eagerly formed a partnership with
the discoverer, who was no longer in the army, and announced to his wife
his resolution to settle in Arizona. She endeavored by every argument she
could command to dissuade him from this rash step, but in vain, and finding
all her representations and entreaties of no avail, she consented, though
with the utmost reluctance, to accompany him. They accordingly sold their
place and took vessel with their household goods, for San Diego, from which
point they purposed to advance across the country three hundred miles to
the point where Crossman had located his placer.

The territory of Arizona may be likened to that wild and rugged mountain
region in Central Asia, where, according to Persian myth, untold treasures
are guarded by the malign legions of Ahriman, the spirit of evil. Two of
the great elemental forces have employed their destructive agencies upon
the surface of the country until it might serve for an ideal picture of
desolation. For countless centuries the water has seamed and gashed the
face of the hills, stripping them of soil, and cutting deep gorges and
cañons through the rocks. The water then flowed away or disappeared in the
sands, and the sun came with its parching heat to complete the work of
ruin. Famine and thirst stalk over those arid plains, or lurk in the
waterless and gloomy cañons; as if to compensate for these evils, the soil
of the territory teems with mineral wealth. Grains of gold glisten in the
sandy <i>débris</i> of ancient torrents, and nuggets are wedged in the
faces of the precipices. Mountains of silver and copper are waiting for the
miner who is bold enough to venture through that desolate region in quest
of these metals.

The journey from San Diego was made with pack mules and occupied thirty
days, during which nearly every hardship and obstacle in the pioneer's
catalogue was encountered. When they reached the spot described by Crossman
they found the place, which lay at the bottom of a deep ravine, had been
covered with boulders and thirty feet of sand by the rapid torrents of five
rainy seasons. They immediately commenced "prospecting." Mrs. Braxton had
the good fortune to discover a large "pocket," from which Crossman and her
husband took out in a few weeks thirty thousand dollars in gold. This
contented the adventurers, and being disgusted with the appearance of the
country, they decided to go back to California.

Instead of returning on the same route by which they came, they resolved to
cross the Colorado river higher up and in the neighborhood of the Santa
Maria. They reached the Colorado river after a toilsome march, but while
searching for a place to pass over, Crossman lost his footing and fell
sixty feet down a precipice, surviving only long enough to bequeath his
share of the treasure to his partner. Here, too, they had the misfortune to
lose one of their four pack-mules, which strayed away. Pressing on in a
northwesterly direction they passed through a series of deep valleys and
gorges where the only water they could find was brackish and bitter, and
reached the edge of the California desert. They had meanwhile lost another
mule which had been dashed to pieces by falling down a cañon. Mr. Whitley's
strength becoming exhausted his wife gave up to him the beast she had been
riding, and pursued her way on foot, driving before her the other mule,
which bore the gold-dust with their scanty supply of food and their only
remaining cooking utensils. Their tents and camp furniture having been lost
they had suffered much from the chilly nights in the mountains, and after
they had entered the desert, from the rays of the sun. Before they could
reach the Mohave river Mr. Whitley became insane from thirst and hunger,
and nothing but incessant watchfulness on the part of his wife could
prevent him from doing injury to himself. Once while she was gathering
cactus-leaves to wet his lips with the moisture they contained, he bit his
arm and sucked the blood. Upon reaching the river he drank immoderately of
the water and in an hour expired, regaining his consciousness before death,
and blessing his devoted wife with his last breath. Ten days later the
brave woman had succeeded in reaching Techichipa in so wasted a condition
that she looked like a specter risen from the grave. Here by careful
nursing she was at length restored to health. The gold-dust which had cost
so dearly was found after a long search, beneath the carcass of the mule,
twenty miles from Techichipa.

The extraordinary exploits of Mrs. Braxton can only be explained by
supposing her to be naturally endowed with a larger share of nerve and
hardihood than usually falls to the lot of her sex. Some influence, too,
must be ascribed to the peculiarly wild and free life that prevails in the
southwest. Living so much of the time in the open air in a climate
peculiarly luxuriant and yet bracing, and environed with dangers in
manifold guise, all the latent heroism in woman's nature is brought out to
view, her muscular and nervous tissues are hardened, and her moral
endurance by constant training in the school of hardship and danger, rests
upon a strong and healthy physique. Upon this theory we may also explain
the following incident which is related of another border-woman of the
southwest.

[Footnote: Marcy's Border Reminiscences.] Beyond the extreme outer line of
settlements in western Texas, near the head waters of the Colorado River,
and in one of the remotest and most sequestered sections of that sparsely
populated district, there lived in 1867, an enterprising pioneer by the
name of Babb, whose besetting propensity and ambition consisted in pushing
his fortunes a little farther toward the setting sun than any of his
neighbors, the nearest of whom, at the time specified, was some fifteen
miles in his rear.

The household of the borderer consisted of his wife, three small children,
and a female friend by the name of L------, who, having previously lost her
husband, was passing the summer with the family. She was a veritable type
of those vigorous, self-reliant border women, who encounter danger or the
vicissitudes of weather without quailing.

Born and nurtured upon the remotest frontier, she inherited a robust
constitution, and her active life in the exhilarating prairie air served to
develop and mature a healthy womanly physique. From an early age she had
been a fearless rider, and her life on the frontier had habituated her to
the constant use of the horse until she felt almost more at home in the
saddle than in a chair.

Upon one bright and lovely morning in June, 1867, the adventurous borderer
before mentioned, set out from his home with some cattle for a distant
market, leaving his family in possession of the ranch, without any male
protectors from Indian marauders.

They did not, however, entertain any serious apprehensions of molestation
in his absence, as no hostile Indians had as yet made their appearance in
that locality, and everything passed on quietly for several days, until one
morning, while the women were busily occupied with their domestic affairs
in the house, the two oldest children, who were playing outside, called to
their mother, and informed her that some mounted men were approaching from
the prairie. On looking out, she perceived, to her astonishment, that they
were Indians coming upon the gallop, and already very near the house. This
gave her no time to make arrangements for defense; but she screamed to the
children to run in for their lives, as she desired to bar the door, being
conscious of the fact that the prairie warriors seldom attack a house that
is closed, fearing, doubtless, that it may be occupied by armed men, who
might give them an unwelcome reception.

The children did not, however, obey the command of their mother, believing
the strangers to be white men, and the door was left open. As soon as the
alarm was given, Mrs. L------ sprang up a ladder into the loft, and
concealed herself in such a position that she could, through cracks in the
floor, see all that passed beneath.

Meantime the savages came up, seized and bound the two children outdoors,
and, entering the house, rushed toward the young child, which the
terror-stricken mother struggled frantically to rescue from their clutches;
but they were too much for her, and tearing the infant from her arms, they
dashed it upon the floor; then seizing her by the hair, they wrenched back
her head and cut her throat from ear to ear, putting her to death
instantaneously.

Mrs. L------, who was anxiously watching their proceedings from the loft,
witnessed the fiendish tragedy, and uttered an involuntary shriek of
horror, which disclosed her hiding-place to the barbarians, and they
instantly vaulted up the ladder, overpowered and tied her; then dragging
her rudely down, they placed her, with the two elder children, upon horses,
and hurriedly set off to the north, leaving the infant child unharmed, and
clasping the murdered corpse of its mangled parent.

In accordance with their usual practice, they traveled as rapidly as their
horses could carry them for several consecutive days and nights, only
making occasional short halts to graze and rest their animals, and get a
little sleep themselves, so that the unfortunate captives necessarily
suffered indescribable tortures from harsh treatment, fatigue, and want of
sleep and food. Yet they were forced by the savages to continue on day
after day, and night after night, for many, many weary miles toward the
"Staked Plain," crossing <i>en route</i> the Brazos, Wachita, Red,
Canadian, and Arkansas Rivers, several of which were at swimming stages.

The warriors guarded their captives very closely, until they had gone so
great a distance from the settlements that they imagined it impossible for
them to make their escape and find their way home, when they relapsed their
vigilance slightly, and they were permitted to walk about a little within
short limits from the bivouacs; but they were given to understand by
unmistakable pantomime that death would be the certain penalty of the first
attempt to escape.

In spite of this, Mrs. L------, who possessed a firmness of purpose truly
heroic, resolved to seize the first favorable opportunity to get away, and
with this resolution in view, she carefully observed the relative speed and
powers of endurance of the different horses in the party, and noted the
manner in which they were grazed, guarded, and caught; and upon a dark
night, after a long, fatiguing day's ride, and while the Indians were
sleeping soundly, she noiselessly and cautiously crawled away from the bed
of her young companions, who were also buried in profound slumber, and
going to the pasture-ground of the horses, selected the best, leaped upon
his back <i>à la garçon</i>, with only a lariat around his neck, and
without saddle or bridle, quietly started off at a slow walk in the
direction of the north star, believing that this course would lead her to
the nearest white habitations. As soon as she had gone out of hearing from
the bivouac, without detection or pursuit, she accelerated the speed of the
horse into a trot, then to a gallop, and urged him rapidly forward during
the entire night.

At dawn of day on the following morning she rose upon the crest of an
eminence overlooking a vast area of bald prairie country, where, for the
first time since leaving the Indians, she halted, and, turning round,
tremblingly cast a rapid glance to the rear, expecting to see the savage
blood-hounds upon her track; but, to her great relief, not a single
indication of a living object could be discerned within the extended scope
of her vision. She breathed more freely now, but still did not feel safe
from pursuit; and the total absence of all knowledge of her whereabouts in
the midst of the wide expanse of dreary prairie around her, with the
uncertainty of ever again looking upon a friendly face, caused her to
realize most vividly her own weakness and entire dependence upon the
Almighty, and she raised her thoughts to Heaven in fervent supplication.

The majesty and sublimity of the stupendous works of the great Author and
Creator of the Universe, when contrasted with the insignificance of the
powers and achievements of a vivified atom of earth modeled into human
form, are probably under no circumstances more strikingly exhibited and
felt than when one becomes bewildered and lost in the almost limitless
amplitude of our great North American "pampas," where not a single
foot-mark or other trace of man's presence or action can be discovered, and
where the solitary wanderer is startled at the sound even of his own voice.

The sensation of loneliness and despondency resulting from the appalling
consciousness of being really and absolutely lost, with the realization of
the fact that but two or three of the innumerable different points of
direction embraced within the circle of the horizon will serve to extricate
the bewildered victim from the awful doom of death by starvation, and in
entire ignorance as to which of these particular directions should be
followed, without a single road, trail, tree, bush, or other landmark to
guide or direct--the effects upon the imagination of this formidable array
of disheartening circumstances can be fully appreciated only by those who
have been personally subjected to their influence.

A faint perception of the intensity of the mental torture experienced by
these unfortunate victims may, however, be conjectured from the fact that
their senses at such junctures become so completely absorbed and
overpowered by the cheerless prospect before them, that they oftentimes
wander about in a state of temporary lunacy, without the power of
exercising the slightest volition of the reasoning faculties.

The inflexible spirit of the heroine of this narrative did not, however,
succumb in the least to the imminent perils of the situation in which she
found herself, and her purposes were carried out with a determination as
resolute and unflinching as those of the Israelites in their protracted
pilgrimage through the wilderness, and without the guidance of pillars of
fire and cloud.

The aid of the sun and the broad leaves of the pilot-plant by day, with the
light of Polaris by night, enabled her to pursue her undeviating course to
the north with as much accuracy as if she had been guided by the magnetic
needle.

She continued to urge forward the generous steed she bestrode, who, in
obedience to the will of his rider, coursed swiftly on hour after hour
during the greater part of the day, without the least apparent labor or
exhaustion.

It was a contest for life and liberty that she had undertaken, a struggle
in which she resolved to triumph or perish in the effort: and still the
brave-hearted woman pressed on, until at length her horse began to show
signs of exhaustion, and as the shadows of evening began to appear he
became so much jaded that it was difficult to coax or force him into a
trot, and the poor woman began to entertain serious apprehensions that he
might soon give out altogether and leave her on foot.

At this time she was herself so much wearied and in want of sleep that she
would have given all she possessed to have been allowed to dismount and
rest; but, unfortunately for her, those piratical quadrupeds of the plains,
the wolves, advised by their carnivorous instincts that she and her
exhausted horse might soon fall an easy sacrifice to their voracious
appetites, followed upon her track, and came howling in great numbers about
her, so that she dared not set her feet upon the ground, fearing they would
devour her; and her only alternative was to continue urging the poor beast
to struggle forward during the dark and gloomy hours of the long night,
until at length she became so exhausted that it was only with the utmost
effort of her iron will that she was enabled to preserve her balance upon
the horse.

Meantime the ravenous pack of wolves, becoming more and more emboldened and
impatient as the speed of her horse relaxed, approached nearer and nearer,
until, with their eyes flashing fire, they snapped savagely at the heels of
the terrified horse, while at the same time they kept up their hideous
concert like the howlings of ten thousand fiends from the infernal regions.

Every element in her nature was at this fearful juncture taxed to its
greatest tension, and impelled her to concentrate the force of all her
remaining energies in urging and coaxing forward the wearied horse, until,
finally, he was barely able to reel and stagger along at a slow walk; and
when she was about to give up in despair, expecting every instant that the
animal would drop down dead under her, the welcome light of day dawned in
the eastern horizon, and imparted a more cheerful and encouraging influence
over her, and, on looking around, to her great joy, there were no wolves in
sight.

She now, for the first time in about thirty-six hours, dismounted, and
knowing that sleep would soon overpower her, and the horse, if not secured,
might escape or wander away, and there being no tree or other object to
which he could be fastened, she, with great presence of mind, tied one end
of the long lariat to his neck, and, with the other end around her waist,
dropped down upon the ground in a deep sleep, while the famished horse
eagerly cropped the herbage around her.

She was unconscious as to the duration of her slumber, but it must have
been very protracted to have compensated the demands of nature, for the
exhaustion induced by her prodigious ride.

Her sleep was sweet, and she dreamed of happiness and home, losing all
consciousness of her actual situation until she was suddenly startled and
aroused by the pattering sound of horses' feet, beating the earth on every
side.

Springing to her feet in the greatest possible alarm, she found herself
surrounded by a large band of savages, who commenced dancing around,
flouting their war-clubs in terrible proximity to her head, while giving
utterance to the, most diabolical shouts of exultation.

Her exceedingly weak and debilitated condition at this time, resulting from
long abstinence from food, and unprecedented mental and physical trials,
had wrought upon her nervous system to such an extent that she imagined the
moment of her death had arrived, and fainted.

The Indians then approached, and, after she revived, placed her again upon
a horse, and rode away with her to their camp, which, fortunately, was not
far distant. They then turned their prisoner over to the squaws, who gave
her food and put her to bed; but it was several days before she was
sufficiently recovered to be able to walk about the camp.

She learned that her last captors belonged to "Lone Wolf's" band of Kiowas.

Although these Indians treated her with more kindness than the Comanches
had done, yet she did not for an instant entertain the thought that they
would ever voluntarily release her from bondage; neither had she the
remotest conception of her present locality, or of the direction or
distance to any white settlement; but she had no idea of remaining a slave
for life, and resolved to make her escape the first practicable moment that
offered.

During the time she remained with these Indians a party of men went away to
the north, and were absent six days, bringing with them, on their return,
some ears of green corn. She knew the prairie tribes never planted a seed
of any description, and was therefore confident the party had visited a
white settlement, and that it was not over three days' journey distant.
This was encouraging intelligence for her, and she anxiously bided her time
to depart.

Late one night, after all had become hushed and quiet throughout the camp,
and every thing seemed auspicious for the consummation of her purposes, she
stole carefully away from her bed, crept softly out to the herd of horses,
and after having caught and saddled one, was in the act of mounting, when a
number of dogs rushed out after her, and by their barking, created such a
disturbance among the Indians that she was forced, for the time, to forego
her designs and crawl hastily back to her lodge.

On a subsequent occasion, however, fortune favored her. She secured an
excellent horse and rode away in the direction from which she had seen the
Indians returning to camp with the green corn. Under the certain guidance
of the sun and stars she was enabled to pursue a direct bearing, and after
three consecutive days of rapid riding, anxiety, fatigue, and hunger, she
arrived upon the border of a large river, flowing directly across her
track. The stream was swollen to the top of its banks; the water coursed
like a torrent through its channel, and she feared her horse might not be
able to stem the powerful current; but after surmounting the numerous
perils and hardships she had already encountered, the dauntless woman was
not to be turned aside from her inflexible purpose by this formidable
obstacle, and she instantly dashed into the foaming torrent, and, by dint
of encouragement and punishment, forced her horse through the stream and
landed safely upon the opposite bank.

After giving her horse a few moments' rest, she again set forward, and had
ridden but a short distance when, to her inexpressible astonishment and
delight, she struck a broad and well-beaten wagon-road, the first and only
evidence or trace of civilization she had seen since leaving her home in
Texas.

Up to this joyful moment the indomitable inflexibility of purpose of our
heroine had not faltered for an instant, neither had she suffered the
slightest despondency, in view of the terrible array of disheartening
circumstances that had continually confronted her, but when she realized
the hopeful prospect before her of a speedy escape from the reach of her
barbarous captors, and a reasonable certainty of an early reunion with
people of her own sympathizing race, the feminine elements of her nature
preponderated, her stoical fortitude yielded to the delightful
anticipation, and her joy was intensified and confirmed by seeing, at this
moment, a long train of wagons approaching over the distant prairie.

The spectacle overwhelmed her with ecstasy, and she wept tears of joy while
offering up sincere and heartfelt thanks to the Almighty for delivering her
from a bondage more dreadful than death.

She then proceeded on until she met the wagons in charge of Mr. Robert
Bent, whom she entreated to give her food instantly, as she was in a state
bordering upon absolute starvation. He kindly complied with her request,
and after the cravings of her appetite had been appeased he desired to
gratify his curiosity, which had been not a little excited at the unusual
exhibition of a beautiful white woman appearing alone in that wild country,
riding upon an Indian saddle, with no covering on her head save her long
natural hair, which was hanging loosely and disorderly about her shoulders.
Accordingly, he inquired of her where she lived, to which she replied, "In
Texas." Mr. B. gave an incredulous shake of his head at this response,
remarking at the same time that he thought she must be mistaken, as Texas
happened to be situated some five or six hundred miles distant. She
reiterated the assurance of her statement, and described to him briefly the
leading incidents attending her capture and escape; but still he was
inclined to doubt, believing that she might possibly be insane.

He informed her that the river she had just crossed was the Arkansas, and
that she was then on the old Santa Fé road, about fifteen miles west of Big
Turkey Creek, where she would find the most remote frontier house. Then,
after thanking him for his kindness, she bade him adieu, and started away
in a walk toward the settlements, while he continued his journey in the
opposite direction.

On the arrival of Mr. Bent at Fort Zara, he called upon the Indian agent,
and reported the circumstance of meeting Mrs. L------, and, by a singular
coincidence, it so happened that the agent was at that very time holding a
council with the chiefs of the identical band of Indians from whom she had
last escaped, and they had just given a full history of the entire affair,
which seemed so improbable to the agent that he was not disposed to credit
it until he received its confirmation through Mr. Bent. He at once
dispatched a man to follow the woman and conduct her to Council Grove,
where she was kindly received, and remained for some time, hoping through
the efforts of the agents to gain intelligence of the two children she had
left with the Comanches, as she desired to take them back to their father
in Texas; but no tidings were gained for a long while.

The two captive children were afterwards ransomed and sent home to their
father.

It will readily be seen, by a reference to the map of the country over
which Mrs. L------ passed, that the distance from the place of her capture
to the point where she struck the Arkansas river could not have been short
of about five hundred miles, and the greater part of this immense expanse
of desert plain she traversed alone, without seeing a single civilized
human habitation.

It may well be questioned whether any woman either in ancient or modern
times ever performed such a remarkable equestrian feat, and the story
itself would be almost incredible were we not in possession of so many well
authenticated instances of the hardihood and powers of endurance shown by
woman on the frontiers of our country.




CHAPTER XIII.

WOMAN'S EXPERIENCE ON THE NORTHERN BORDER.


The vanguard of the "Great Army" which for nearly three centuries has been
hewing its pathway across the continent, may be divided into certain
<i>corps d'armée</i>, each of which moves on a different line, thus acting
on the Napoleonic tactics, and subjugating in detail the various regions
through which it passes. One corps, spreading out in broad battalions,
marches across the great prairies and winding through the gorges of the
Rocky mountains, encamps on the shore of Peaceful sea: another, skirting
the waves of the gulfs and fording the wide rivers of the South, plants its
outposts on the Rio Grande; a third cuts its way through the trackless
forests on the northern border till it strikes the lakes, and then crossing
these inland seas or passing round them, pauses and breathes for a season
in that great expanse known as the country of the Red River of the North.

Each of these mighty pioneer divisions has its common toils, dangers, and
sufferings. Each, too, has toils, dangers, and sufferings peculiar to
itself. The climate is the deadly foe of the northern pioneer. The
scorching air of a brief summer is followed closely by the biting frost of
a long winter. The snow, piled in drifts, blocks his passage and binds him
to his threshold. Sometimes by a sudden change in the temperature a thaw
converts the vast frozen mass into slush. In the depth of those arctic
winters sometimes fire, that necessary but dangerous serf, breaks its
chains and devastates its master's dwelling; then frost allies its power to
that of fire, and the household often succumbs to disaster, or barely
survives it.

Fire, frost, starvation, and wild beasts made frantic by winter's hunger,
are the imminent perils of the northern pioneer!

The record of woman in these regions on the northern frontier is crowded
with incidents which display a heroism as stern, a hardihood as rugged, a
fortitude as steadfast, as was ever shown by her sex under the most trying
situations into which she is brought by the exigencies of border life.

Such a record is that of Mrs. Dalton, who spent her life from early
womanhood in that region.

Naturally of a frail and delicate organization, reared in the ease and
luxury of an eastern home, and possessed of those strong local attachments
which are characteristic of females of her temperament, it was with the
utmost reluctance that she consented to follow her husband into the
wilderness. Having at last consented, she showed the greatest firmness in
carrying out a resolution which involved the loss of a happy home at the
place of her nativity, and consigned her to a life of hardship and danger.

Her first experience in this life was in the wilds of northern New York,
her husband having purchased a small clearing and a log-cabin in that
region on the banks of the Black river. She was transported thither,
reaching her destination one cold rainy evening early in May, after a
wearisome journey, for this was before the days of rapid transit.

Her first impressions must have been gloomy indeed. Without was pouring
rain and a black sky; the forest was dark as Erebus; within no fire blazed
on the hearth in the only room on the first floor of the cabin, and the
flickering light of a tallow candle made the darkness but the more visible;
a rude table and settles made out of rough planks, were all the furniture
the cabin could boast; there was no ladder to reach the loft which was to
be her sleeping room; the only window, without sash or glass, was a mere
opening in the side of the cabin; the rain beat in through the cracks in
the door and through the open window, and trickled through the roof, which
was like a sieve, while the wind blew keenly through a hundred seams and
apertures in the log walls.

The night, the cold, the storm, the dark and cheerless abode, were too much
to bear; the delicate young wife threw herself upon a settle and burst into
a flood of tears. This was but a momentary weakness. Rising above the
depression produced by the dreary scene, the woman's genius for creating
comfort out of the slenderest materials and bringing sunshine into
darkness, soon began to manifest itself.

We will not detail the various trials and cares by which that forlorn cabin
was transformed into a comfortable home, nor how fared Mrs. Dalton the
first rather uneventful year of her life in the woods. The second spring
saw her a mother, and the following autumn she became again a homeless
westward wanderer. Her husband had sold the cabin and clearing in New York,
and having purchased an extensive tract of forest-land a few miles south of
Georgian Bay in Upper Canada, decided to move thither.

The family with their household goods took sloop on Lake Ontario late in
October, and sailed to Toronto; from this place on the 15th day of
November, they proceeded across the peninsula in sleighs. Their party
consisted of Mr. and Mrs. Dalton and their child, and John McMurray, their
hired man, and his wife.

The first forty miles of their journey lay over a well-beaten road, and
through a succession of clearings, which soon began to diminish until they
reached a dense forest, which rose in solemn stillness around them and cast
across their path a shadow which seemed to the imagination of Mrs. Dalton
an omen of coming evil.

The sun had now set, but the party still drove on through the
forest-shadows; the moon having risen giving a new and strange beauty to
the scenery. The infant had fallen asleep. A deep silence fell upon the
party; night was above them with her mysterious stars; the ancient forest
stretched around them on every side; nature lay wrapped in a snowy winding
sheet; the wind was rising, and a drifting scud of clouds from the
northeast passed across the moon, and gave a still more weird and somber
character to the scene. A boding sadness sank into the heart of Mrs. Dalton
as the sleighs drove up to the cabin in the clearing where they were to
pass the night. It was occupied by an old negro and his wife, who had found
in the Canadian woods a safe refuge from servitude.

Hardly had they and their horses been safely bestowed under shelter when
the sky became entirely overcast, the wind rose to a gale, and a driving
storm of snow and sleet filled the air. All night, and the following day
the tempest raged without intermission, and on the morning of the second
day the sun struggling through the clouds looked down on the vast drifts of
snow, some of them nearly twenty feet in depth, completely blocking their
farther passage, and enforcing a sojourn of some days in their present
quarters.

During this time the babe fell ill, and grew worse so rapidly that Mr.
Dalton determined to push through the snow-drifts on horseback to the
nearest settlement, which lay eight miles south of them, and procure the
services of a physician. He started early in the morning, expecting to
return in the afternoon. But afternoon and evening passed, and still Mr.
Dalton did not return. His course was a difficult one through forest and
thicket, and when evening came, and night passed with its bitter cold, Mrs.
Dalton's anxiety was increased to torture. Her only hope was that her
husband had reached the settlement in safety, and had been induced to
remain there till the following morning before undertaking to return.

Soon after the sun rose that morning, Mrs. Dalton and the hired man set out
on horseback in search of the missing one. Tracing his course through the
snow for four miles they at length caught sight of him standing up to his
waist in a deep drift, beside his horse. His face was turned toward them.
So lifelike and natural was his position that it was only when his wife
grasped his cold rigid fingers that she knew the terrible truth. Her
husband and the horse were statues of ice thus transformed by the deadly
cold as they were endeavoring to force a passage through those immense
drifts.

From the speechless, tearless trance of grief into which Mrs. Dalton was
thrown by the shock of her awful loss, she was roused only by the
recollection of the still critical condition of her child and the necessity
that she should administer to its wants. Its recovery from illness a few
days after, enabled the desolate widow to cast about her in grief and
doubt, and decide what course she should pursue.

As her own marriage portion as well as the entire fortune of her late
husband was embarked in the purchase of the forest tract, she concluded to
continue her journey twenty miles farther to the point of her original
destination, and there establish herself in the new house which had been
provided for her in the almost unbroken wilderness.

A thaw which a few days after removed a large body of the snow, enabled her
with her companions, the McMurrays, to reach her destination, a large and
commodious cabin built of cedar-logs in a spacious clearing by the former
owner of the tract.

Her first impressions of her new home were scarcely more prepossessing than
those experienced upon reaching the dreary cabin on the banks of the Black
river. A small lake hard by was hemmed in by a somber belt of pine-woods.
The clearing was dotted by charred and blackened stumps, and covered with
piles of brushwood. The snowy shroud in which lifeless nature was wrapped
and the utter stillness and solitude of the scene, completed the funereal
picture which Mrs. D. viewed with eyes darkened by grief and
disappointment.

The cares and labors of pioneer-life are the best antidotes to the
corrosion of sorrow and regret, and Mrs. Dalton soon found such a relief in
the myriad toils and distractions which filled those wintry days. A
thousand duties were to be discharged: a thousand wants to be provided for:
night brought weariness and blessed oblivion: morning again supplied its
daily tasks and labor grew to be happiness.

Midwinter was upon them with its bitter cold and drifting snows; but with
abundant stores of food and fuel, Mrs. D. was thanking God nightly for his
many mercies, little dreaming that a new calamity impended over her
household.

One bitter day in January the two women were left alone in the cabin,
McMurray having gone a mile away to fell trees for sawing into boards. Mrs.
McM. had stuffed both the stoves full of light wood; the wind blowing
steadily from the northwest, produced a powerful draught, and in a few
moments the roaring and crackling of the fire and the suffocating smell of
burning soot attracted Mrs. Dalton's attention. To her dismay, both the
stoves were red hot from the front plates to the topmost pipes which passed
through the plank-ceiling and projected three feet above the roof. Through
these pipes the flames were roaring as if through the chimney of a blast
furnace.

A blanket snatched from the nearest bed, that stood in the kitchen, and
plunged into a barrel of cold water was thrust into the stove, and a few
shovels full of snow thrown upon it soon made all cool below. The two women
immediately hastened to the loft and by dashing pails full of water upon
the pipes, contrived to cool them down as high as the place where they
passed through the roof. The wood work around the pipes showed a circle of
glowing embers, the water was nearly exhausted and both the women running
out of the house discovered that the roof which had been covered the day
before by a heavy fall of snow, showed an area of several square feet from
which the intense heat had melted the snow; the sparks falling upon the
shingles had ignited them, and the rafters below were covered by a sheet of
flame.

A ladder, which, for some months, had stood against the house, had been
moved two days before to the barn which stood some thirty rods away; there
seemed no possibility of reaching the fire. Moving out a large table and
placing a chair upon it, Mrs. D. took her position upon the chair and tried
to throw water upon the roof, but only succeeded in expending the last
dipper full of water that remained in the boiler, without reaching the
fire.

Mrs. McMurray now abandoned herself to grief and despair, screeching and
tearing her hair. Mrs. D., still keeping her presence of mind, told her to
run after her husband, and to the nearest house, which was a mile away, and
bring help.

Mrs. McM., after a moment's remonstrance, on account of the depth of the
snow, regained her courage, and, hastily putting on her husband's boots,
started, shrieking "fire!" as she passed up the road, and disappeared at
the head of the clearing.

Mrs. D. was now quite alone, with the house burning over her head. She
gazed at the blazing roof, and, pausing for one moment, reflected what
should first be done.

The house was built of cedar-logs, and the suns and winds of four years had
made it as dry as tinder; the breeze was blowing briskly and all the
atmospheric conditions were favorable to its speedy destruction. The cold
was intense, the thermometer registering eighteen degrees below zero. The
unfortunate woman thus saw herself placed between two extremes of heat and
cold, and apprehended as much danger from the one as from the other.

In the bewilderment of the moment, the direful extent of the calamity never
struck her, though it promised to put the finishing stroke to her
misfortune, and to throw her naked and houseless upon the world.

"What shall I first save?" was the question rapidly asked, and as quickly
answered. Anything to serve for warmth and shelter--bedding, clothing, to
protect herself and babe from that cruel cold! All this passed her mind
like a flash, and the next moment she was working with a right good will to
save what she could of these essential articles from her burning house.

Springing to the loft where the embers were falling from the burning roof,
she quickly threw the beds and bedding from the window, and emptying trunks
and chests conveyed their contents out of reach of the flames and of the
burning brands which the wind was whirling from the roof. The loft was like
a furnace, and the heat soon drove her, dripping with perspiration, to the
lower room, where, for twenty minutes, she strained every nerve to drag out
the movables. Large pieces of burning pine began to fall through the
boarded ceiling about the lower rooms, and as the babe had been placed
under a large dresser in the kitchen, it now became absolutely necessary to
remove it. But where? The air was so bitter that nothing but the fierce
excitement and rapid motion had preserved Mrs. Dalton's hands and feet from
freezing. To expose the tender nursling to that direful cold was almost as
cruel as leaving it to the mercy of the fire.

A mother's wit is not long at fault where the safety of her child is
concerned. Emptying out all the clothes from a large drawer which she had
dragged a safe distance from the house, she lined it with blankets and
placed the child inside, covering it well over with bedding, and keeping it
well wrapped up till help should arrive.

The roof was now burning like a brush heap; but aid was near at hand. As
she passed out of the house for the last time, dragging a heavy chest of
clothes, she looked once more despairingly up the clearing and saw a man
running at full speed. It was McMurray. Her burdened heart uttered a deep
thanksgiving, as another and another figure came skipping over the snow
towards her burning house.

She had not felt the intense cold, although without bonnet or shawl, and
with hands bare and exposed to the biting air. The intense anxiety to save
all she could had so diverted her thoughts from herself that she took no
heed of the peril in which she stood from fire and frost. But now the
reaction came; her knees trembled under her, she grew giddy and faint, and
dark shadows swam before her.

The three men sprang on the roof and called for water in vain; it had long
been exhausted. "Snow! snow! Hand us up pails full of snow!" they shouted.

It was bitter work filling the pails with frozen snow, but the two women
(for Mrs. McMurray had now returned) scooped up pails full of snow with
their bare hands and passed them to the men on the roof.

By spreading this on the roof, and on the floor of the loft, the violence
of the fire was checked. The men then cast away the smoldering rafters and
flung them in the snow-drifts.

The roof was gone, but the fire was at last subdued before it had destroyed
the walls. Within one week from the time of the fire the neighboring
settlers built a new roof for Mrs. Dalton in spite of the intense cold, and
while it was building Mrs. D. and her household were sheltered at the
nearest cabin.

The warm breath of spring brought with it some halcyon days, as if to
reconcile Mrs. Dalton to her life of solitude and toil. The pure beauty of
the crystal waters, the august grandeur of the vast forest, and the
aromatic breezes from the pines and birches, cast a magic spell upon her
spirit. She soon learned the use of the rifle, the paddle, and the fishing
rod. Charming hours of leisure and freedom were passed upon the water of
the lake, or in rambles through the arches of the forest. In these
pleasures, enhanced by the needful toils of the household or the field, the
summer sped away.

August came, and the little harvest of oats and corn were all safely
housed. For some days the weather had been intensely hot, although the sun
was entirely obscured by a bluish haze, which seemed to render the unusual
heat of the atmosphere more oppressive. Not a breath of air stirred the
vast forest, and the waters of the lake took on a leaden hue.

Before the sun rose on the morning of the 12th the heavens were covered
with hard looking clouds of a deep blue-black color, fading away to white
at their edges, and in form resembling the long, rolling waves of a heavy
sea, but with the difference that the clouds were perfectly motionless,
piled in long curved lines, one above the other.

As the sun rose above the horizon, the sky presented a magnificent
spectacle. Every shade of saffron, gold, rose-color, scarlet, and crimson,
mottled with the deepest violet, were blended there as on some enormous
tapestry. It was the storm-fiend who shook that gorgeous banner in the face
of the day-god!

As the day advanced the same blue haze obscured the sun, which frowned
redly through his misty veil. At ten o'clock the heat was suffocating. The
thermometer in the shade ranged after midday from ninety-six to
ninety-eight degrees. The babe stretched itself upon the floor of the
cabin, unable to jump about or play, the dog lay panting in the shade, the
fowls half-buried themselves in the dust, with open beaks and outstretched
wings. All nature seemed to droop beneath the scorching heat. At three
o'clock the heavens took on a sudden change. The clouds, that had before
lain so still, were now in rapid motion, hurrying and chasing each other
round the horizon. It was a strangely awful sight. Before a breath had been
felt of the mighty blast that had already burst on the other side of the
lake, branches of trees, leaves, and clouds of dust were whirled across the
water, which rose in long, sharp furrows, fringed with foam, as if moved in
their depths by some unseen but powerful agent.

The hurricane swept up the hill, crushing and overturning everything in its
course. Mrs. Dalton, standing at the open door of her cabin, speechless and
motionless, gazed at the tremendous spectacle. The babe crept to its
mother's feet, its cheeks like marble, and appealed to her for protection.
Mrs. McMurray, in helpless terror, had closed her eyes and ears to the
storm, and sat upon a chest, muffled in a shawl.

The storm had not yet reached its acme. The clouds, in huge cumuli, were
hurrying as to some great rendezvous, from which they were to be let loose
for their work of destruction. The roaring of the blast and the pealing of
the thunder redoubled in violence. Turning her eyes to the southwest, Mrs.
Dalton now saw, far down the valley, the tops of the huge trees twisted and
bowed, as if by some unseen but terrible power. A monstrous dun-colored
cloud marked the course of this new storm-titan. Nearer and nearer it came,
with a menacing rumble, and swifter than a race-horse.

The cabin lay directly in its track. In a moment it would be upon them.
Whither should they fly? One place of safety occurred on the instant to the
unfortunate woman; clasping her babe to her breast and clutching the gown
of her companion, she ran to the trap-door which conducted to the cellar
and raising it pushed Mrs. McMurray down the aperture and quickly following
her, Mrs. Dalton closed the trap.

Not five seconds later the hurricane struck the cabin with such force that
every plank, rafter, beam, and log was first dislocated and then caught up
in the whirlwind and scattered over the forest in the wake of the storm. As
the roar of the blast died away the rain commenced pouring in torrents
accompanied by vivid flashes of lightning and loud peals of thunder.

The air in the close shallow cellar, where the women were, soon grew
suffocating, and as the fury of the tempest was spent, they took courage
and pushed at the trap. It stuck fast; again they both applied their
shoulders to it but only succeeded in raising it far enough to see that the
trunk of an enormous tree lay directly across the door.

The cellar in which they were, was little more than a large pit, eight feet
by six, and served as a receptacle for their winter's stores; as it lay
directly in the center of the floor which was formed of large logs split in
halves and their surfaces smoothed, there was no mode of egress except by
digging underneath the floor as far as the walls of the cabin and so
emerging; but this was a work of extreme difficulty, owing to the fact that
the soil was full of the old roots of trees which had been cut down to make
room for the cabin.

The first danger, however, was from suffocation; to meet this Mrs. Dalton
and her companion pried open the door as far as the fallen trunk would
allow, and kept it in position by means of a large chip which they found in
the pit. This gave them sufficient air through a chink three inches in
width; and they next looked about them for means of egress. After trying in
vain to dislodge one of the floor logs, they proceeded to dig a passage
through the earth underneath the floor. Discouraged by the slowness of
their progress in this undertaking, and drenched with the rain which poured
in through the crevice in the door, they began to give themselves up for
lost. Their only hope was that McMurray or some one of the neighbors would
come to their relief.

The rain lasted only one hour, and the sun soon made its appearance. This
was after six o'clock, as the prisoners judged from the shadows cast over
the ruins of the cabin. The shades of evening fell and at last utter
darkness; still no one came. No sound was borne to the ears of the women in
their earthly dungeon save that of the rushing waters of the creek and the
mournful howling of wolves who, like jackals, were prowling in the track of
the tempest. Several of these animals, attracted by the infant's cries,
came and put their noses at the door of the pit and finding that it held
prey, paced the floor above it all night: but with the first light of
morning they scampered away into the woods.

Meanwhile the women resumed their efforts to burrow their way out, taking
turns in working all night. By daybreak the passage lacked only four feet
of the point where an outlet could be had. Ere noon, if their strength held
out, they would reach the open air.

But after four hours more of severe toil they met an unexpected obstacle:
their progress was blocked by a huge boulder embedded in the soil. Weary
with their protracted toil and loss of sleep, and faint from want of food,
they desisted from further efforts and sat down upon the damp earth of that
dungeon which now promised to be their tomb.

Sinking upon her knees Mrs. Dalton lifted her heart to God in prayer that
he might save her babe, her faithful domestic and herself from the doom
which, threatened them. Hardly had she risen from her knees, when, as if a
messenger had been sent in answer to her prayer, voices were heard and
steps sounded upon the floor above them. The party had come from a
neighboring settlement for the express purpose of relieving the sufferers
from the recent storm. A few blows with an axe and the prisoners were free.
Recognizing their preservation as a direct answer to prayer, and with deep
gratitude both of the women fell on their knees and lifted up their hearts
in humble thanksgiving to that God who had saved them by an act of his
providence from an awful death. When all hope was gone His hand was
stretched forth, making his strength manifest in the weakness of those
hapless women and that helpless babe.

Before the first of October a new cabin had been built for Mrs. D. by her
generous neighbors, and the other ravages of the storm had been repaired.
Once more fortune, so often adverse, turned a smiling face upon the
household. Two weeks sped away and then the fickle goddess frowned again
upon this much enduring family.

A long continued drought had parched the fields and woods until but a spark
was needed to kindle a conflagration. Two parties of hunters on the 16th of
October, had rested one noon on opposite sides of Mrs. Dalton's clearing
and carelessly dropped sparks from their pipes into the dried herbage. Two
hours after their departure, the flames, fanned by a gentle breeze, had
formed a junction and encircled the cabin with a wall of fire. A dense
canopy of smoke hung over the clearing, and as it lifted, tongues of flame
could be seen licking the branches of the tall pines. Showers of sparks
fell upon the roof. The atmosphere grew suffocating with the pitchy smoke
and it became a choice of deaths, either that of choking or that of
burning.

Only one avenue of escape was left open to the family; if they could reach
the lake and embark in the canoe which lay moored near the shore they would
be safe: a single passage conducted to the water, and that was a burning
lane lined with trees and bushes which were bursting into fiercer flames
every moment as they gazed down it.

Nearer and nearer crept the fire, and hotter and hotter grew the choking
air. There was no other choice. McMurray threw water on the gowns of his
wife and Mrs. Dalton until they were drenched; then wrapping the baby in a
blanket and enveloping their heads in shawls, the whole party abandoned
their house to destruction, and ran the gauntlet of the flames. They passed
the spot of ordeal in safety, reached the canoe and embarking pushed off
into the lake. From this point of security they caught glimpses of the
element as it crept steadily on its way towards the cabin. Through the
rifts in the smoke they saw the fiery tongues licking the lower timbers and
darting themselves into the cracks between the logs like some gluttonous
monster preparing to gorge himself. The women clasped their hands and
looked up. Both were supplicating the Father of All that their home might
be spared.

A rescue was coming from an unlooked for source. While Mrs. Dalton's face
was upturned to heaven in silent prayer, a large drop splashed upon her
brow; another followed--the first glad heralds of a pouring rain which
extinguished the fire just as it had begun to feed on that unlucky
habitation.

After such an almost unbroken series of disasters and losses, we might well
inquire whether the subsequent life of Mrs. Dalton was saddened and
darkened by similar experiences.

"Every cloud has a silver lining." The hardest and saddest lives have their
hours of softness, their gleams of sunshine. It is a wise and beautiful
arrangement in the economy of Divine Providence that the law of physical
and moral compensation is always operating to equalize the pains and the
pleasures, the hardships and the comforts, the joys and the sorrows of
human life. Before continuous, patient, and conscientious endeavors, the
obstacles that fill the pathway of the pioneer through the wilderness are
surmounted, the rough places are made smooth, and the last days of the
dwellers in the desert and forest become like the latter days of the
patriarch, "more blessed than the beginning."

We may truly say of Mrs. Dalton, that her "latter days were more blessed
than the beginning." A happy marriage which she entered into the following
spring, and a long life of prosperity and peace after her escape from the
last great danger, as we have narrated, were the fitting reward of the
courage, diligence, and devotion displayed during the two first summers and
winters which she passed in the northern wilderness.

The wide region, lying between the sources of the Mississippi and the bends
of the Missouri in Dakota, and stretching thence far up to the Saskatchewan
in the north, has been appropriately styled "the happy hunting ground." The
<i>rendezvous</i> to which the mighty nimrods of the northwest return from
the chase are huge cabins, built to stand before the howling blasts, and
give shelter against the arctic regions of the winter. In these abodes
dwell the wives and children of many of those rugged men, and create even
there, by their devoted toils and gentle companionship, at least the
semblance of a home. Almost whelmed in the snow, and when even the mercury
freezes in the bulb of the thermometer, these anxious and loving housewives
feed the lamp and keep the fire burning on the hearth. Dressing the skins
of the deer, they keep their husbands well shod and clothed. The long
winter of eight months passes monotonously away; the men, accustomed to a
life of excitement, chafe and grow surly under their enforced imprisonment;
but the women, by their kind offices and sweet words, act as a constant
sedative upon these morose outbreaks. The hunters, it is said, grow softer
in their manners as the winter wanes. They are unconscious scholars in the
refining school of woman.

Among the diversions which serve to while away the tediousness of those
winter nights are included the narration of personal adventures passed
through by the different hunters in their wild life. Tales of narrow
escapes, of Indian fights, of desperate encounters with beasts of the
forests; and through the rough texture of these narratives now and then
appears a pathetic incident in which woman is the prominent figure.
Sometimes it is a hunter's wife who is the heroine, and again the scene is
laid in the home of the settler, where woman faces some dreadful danger for
her loved ones, or endures extraordinary suffering faithfully to the end.
Such an incident as the following was preserved in the memory of a hunter,
who recently communicated the essential facts to the writer.

Minnesota well deserves the name of the pioneer's paradise. Occupying as it
does that high table-land out of which gush into the pure bracing air, the
thousand fountains of the Father of waters and of the majestic Red river;
studded with lakes that glisten like molten silver in the sunshine;
shadowed by primeval forests; now stretching out in prairies which lose
themselves in the horizon; now undulating with hills and dales dotted with
groves and copses, nature here, like some bounteous and imperial mother,
seems to have prepared with lavish hand a royal park within which her
roving sons and daughters may find a permanent abode.

The country through which the Red river flows from Otter Tail lake towards
Richville, is unsurpassed for rural beauty. Trending northward it then
passes along towards Pembina, a border town on our northern boundary,
through a plain of vast extent, dotted with groves of oak planted as if by
hand. Voyaging down this noble river in midsummer, between its banks
embowered with wild roses we breathe an air loaded with perfume and view a
scene of wild but enchanting loveliness. Here summer celebrates her brief
but splendid reign, then lingering for a while in the lap of dreamy, balmy
autumn, flies at length into southern exile, abdicating her throne to
winter, which stalks from the frozen zone and rules the region with
undisputed and rigorous sway.

In the month of March, 1863, a party of four hunters set out from Pembina,
where they had passed the winter, and undertook to reach Shyenne, a small
trading post on the west bank of the Red river, in the territory of Dakota.
A partial thaw, followed by a cold snap, had coated the river in many
places with ice, and by the alternate aid of skates and snow-shoes, they
reached on the third evening after their departure, Red Lake river in
Minnesota, some eighty miles distant from Pembina. Clearing away the snow
in a copse, they scooped a shallow trench in the frozen soil with their
hatchets, and kindling a fire so as to cover the length and breadth of the
excavation, they prepared their frugal repast of hunters' fare. Then
removing the fire to the foot of the trench and piling logs upon it, they
lay down side by side on the warmed soil, and wrapping their blankets
around them slept soundly through the still cold night, until the sun's
edge showed itself above the rim of the vast plain that stretched to the
east. As the hunters rose from their earthy couch and stretched their
cramped limbs, casting their eyes hither and thither over the boundless
expanse, they descried upon the edge of a copse some quarter of a mile to
the south a bright-red object, apparently a living thing, crouched upon the
snow as if sunning itself. Rising simultaneously and with awakened
curiosity they approached the spot. Before they had taken many steps the
object disappeared suddenly. Fixing their eyes steadily on the point of its
last appearance, they slowly advanced with cocked rifles until they reached
a large tree with arching roots, around which were the traces of small
<i>shoeless</i> feet. An orifice barely large enough to admit a man showed
them beneath the tree a cave. One of the hunters, peering through the
aperture, spied within, a girl of ten years crouched in the farthest corner
of the recess, covered with a thick red flannel cloak, and shivering with
cold and terror. Speaking kind words to the little stranger they succeeded
at length in reassuring her. She came out from her hiding-place, and the
hunters with rugged kindness wrapped her feet and limbs in their coats and
bore her to the fire. The first words she uttered were, "mother! go for
mother!" She had gone away to shoot game the night before, the little girl
said, and had not returned.

Two of the hunters hastened back and succeeded in tracing the mother's
course a mile up the river to a thicket; there, covered thinly with leaves
and with her rifle in her stiffened hand, they found the hapless wanderer,
but alas! cold in death. Her set and calm features, her pinched and wasted
face, her scantily robed form, mutely but eloquently told a tale of fearful
suffering borne with unflinching fortitude. Weak and weary, the deadly cold
had stolen upon her in the darkness and with its icy grip had stilled for
ever the beating of her brave true heart. Excavating a grave in the snow
they decently straightened her limbs, and piling logs and brush upon her
remains to keep them from the beasts of prey, silently and sorrowfully left
the scene.

Who were these lonely wanderers in that wild and wintry waste! The presence
of the rifle and of the large high boots which she wore, together with
other circumstances, were evidences which enabled the shrewd hunters to
guess a part of their story. It appeared that the family must have
consisted originally of three persons, a man and wife, with the child now
the sole survivor of the party. Voyaging down the Red river during the
preceding summer and autumn; lured onward by the fatal beauty of the
region, and deluded by the ease with which their wants could be supplied,
they had evidently neglected to provide against the winter, which at length
burst upon them all unprepared to encounter its rigors.

The rest of this heart-rending story was gathered from the lips of their
little protege. Her father, mother, and herself had started from Otter Tail
lake in September, 1862, after the quelling of the Sioux outbreak, and
voyaged down the Red river in a canoe, intending to settle in the wild-rice
region a few miles southeast of the spot where they then were. Their canoe
with most of their household goods had broken from its moorings in
November, one night while they were encamped on the shore. The father had
gone to bring it back, and being overtaken by a terrible snow-storm, had
never returned. [His body was found the following spring.] The mother had
managed to procure barely sufficient game during the winter to keep herself
and her child alive. The cave, their only shelter, was strewed with the
beaks and feathers of birds, and with the teeth and claws of small animals;
all the other portions of the game she had shot had been devoured in the
extremity to which hunger had reduced them. Her mother, the little girl
said, was very weak the last day, and could hardly walk. "I begged to go
with her when she took her gun and went out to shoot something for supper,
but she told me I must stay at <i>home</i> and keep warm." Home! could that
wretched shelter be a home for the hapless mother and her child? Tears were
wrung from those rugged sons of the wilderness, and coursed down their iron
cheeks when they visited the spot where parental tenderness had striven to
shield the object of its affection from the bitter blast. The snow banked
about the roots of the tree and showing the marks of her numbed fingers,
the crevices stuffed with moss, the bed of dried leaves and the bedding
which she had stripped from her own person to cover her child, were proofs
and tokens of the love which would have created comfort in the midst of
desolation and given even that miserable nook in winter's dreary domain the
semblance of a home. In the heart of that frozen waste, far from human
fellowship, with hunger gnawing at her vitals and the frost curdling the
genial current in her veins, still burned brightly in that poor lonely
heart the pure and deathless flame of maternal love.




CHAPTER XIV.

ENCOUNTERS WITH WILD BEASTS--COURAGE AND DARING


The inhabitants of the frontier from the earliest times have had to face
the fiercest and most ravenous wild beasts which prowl in the forests of
this continent; and the local histories of the various sections and single
settlements on our border-land abound in thrilling accounts of combats
between those pests of the forest and individual men and women.

Wolves, like the poor, were always with the frontiersmen. Bears, both black
and brown, were familiar visitors. The cougar, American lion, catamount, or
"<i>painter</i>" (panther), as it is variously styled, was a denizen of
every forest from Maine to Georgia, and from the St. Croix River to the
Columbia. Wild cats, and even deer, when brought to bay, proved themselves
dangerous combatants. Last, but not the least terrible in the catalogue,
comes the grizzly bear, the monarch of the rocky waste that lies between
the headwaters of the Platte and the Missouri rivers, and the sierras of
the Pacific slope.

The stories of <i>rencontres</i> and combats between pioneer women and
these savage rangers of the woods, are numerous and thrilling. Sometimes
they seem almost improbable, especially to such as have only known Woman as
she appears to the dwellers of our eastern cities, and in homes where
luxury and ease have softened the sex.

A story like the following, for example, as told by one of our most
veracious travelers, may be listened to with at least some degree of
incredulity by gentlemen and ladies of the lounge and easy chair. A woman
living on the Saskatchewan accompanied her husband on a hunting expedition
into the forest. He had been very successful, and having killed one more
deer than they could well carry home, he went to the house of a neighboring
settler to dispose of it, leaving his wife to take care of the rest until
his return. She sat carelessly upon the log with his hunting knife in her
hand, when she heard the breaking of branches near her, and turning round,
beheld a great bear only a few paces from her.

It was too late to retreat, and, seeing that the animal was very hungry and
determined to come to close quarters, she rose, and placed her back against
a small tree, holding her knife close to her breast, and in a straight line
with the bear.

The shaggy monster came on. She remained motionless, her eyes steadily
fixed upon her enemy's, and, as his huge arms closed around her, she slowly
drove the knife into his heart. The bear uttered a hideous cry, and sank
dead at her feet. When her husband returned, he found the courageous woman
taking the skin from the carcass of the formidable brute. "How," some of
our readers will exclaim, "can a woman possess such iron nerves as to dare
and do such a deed as this?" And yet, evidence of masculine courage and
daring, displayed by women in this and multitudes of other cases where
confronted by danger in this form, is direct and unimpeachable.

Such stories, however startling and extraordinary, become credible when we
remember the circumstances by which woman is surrounded in pioneer life,
and how those circumstances tend to strengthen the nerves and increase the
hardihood of the softer sex. Hunting is there one of the necessary
avocations, in which women often become practiced, in order to supply the
wants of existence. On our northwestern frontier, especially, female
hunters have, from the start, been noted for their courage and skill.

One of the famous huntresses of the northwest, while returning home from
the woods with a wild turkey which she had shot, unexpectedly encountered a
large moose in her path, which manifested a disposition to attack her. She
tried to avoid it, but the animal came towards her rapidly and in a furious
manner. Her rifle was unloaded, and she was obliged to take shelter behind
a tree, shifting her position from tree to tree as the brute made at her.

At length, as she fled, she picked up a pole, and quickly untying her
moccasin strings, she bound her knife to the end of the pole. Then, placing
herself in a favorable position, as the moose came up, she stabbed him
several times in the neck and breast. At last the animal, exhausted with
the loss of blood, fell. She then dispatched it, and cut out its tongue to
carry home as a trophy of victory. When they went back to the spot for the
carcass, they found the snow trampled down in a wide circle, and copiously
sprinkled with blood, which gave the place the appearance of a
battle-field. It proved to be a male of extraordinary size.

The gray wolf species, two centuries ago and later, was spread over the
Atlantic States from Maine to Georgia, and was in most newly-settled
regions a frequent and obnoxious visitor to cattle yards and sheep-folds.
We are told that the first Boston immigrants were obliged to build high and
strong fences around their live stock to keep them from the depredations of
these marauders.

Less bold than his European kindred, the gray wolf of North America is
still an extremely powerful and dangerous animal, as may be proved by
recalling the frequent encounters of the early settlers--both men and
women--with these prowling pests. When pinched with hunger or driven to
extremities, they will attack men or women and fight desperately, either to
satiate their appetites or to save their skins from an assailant. A great
number of stories and incidents concerning collisions between women and
these savage brutes are scattered through the local histories of our early
times, and illustrate the nerve and daring which, as we have shown, were
habitual to the women in the border settlements.

About the middle of the last century, a household in the hill country of
Georgia was greatly vexed by the frequent incursions of a large animal of
this species which prowled about the cow-yard, and carried off calves and
sheep, sometimes even venturing up to the door of the cabin. The family
consisted of a man and his wife and three daughters, all grown up. Each one
of the five had shot ineffectually at the brute, which seemed to bear a
charmed life. A strong steel trap was finally set near the calf pen, in a
stout enclosure, and in a few days the trappers were delighted to hear a
commotion in that quarter which indicated the success of their stratagem.
His wolfship, sure enough, had been caught by one of his hind legs, and was
found to be furiously gnawing at the trap and the chain which held him. The
womenkind, rejoicing in the capture of their old enemy, all entered the
enclosure and stood watching the struggles of the fierce beast, while the
father was loading his gun to dispatch it.

In one of his leaps, the staple that held the chain gave way, and the wolf
would have bounded over the fence, and made his escape to the woods, but
for the ready courage of the eldest daughter of the family, a large,
powerful woman of twenty-five. Seizing the chain, she held it firmly in
both her hands; the wolf snapped at her arms, and at last, in his
desperation, sprang at her throat with such force that he overthrew her,
but still she did not relax her grip of the chain, though the animal, in
his struggles, dragged her on the ground across the enclosure. Her father,
at this critical moment, returned with his loaded gun and dispatched the
brute. The young woman, barring a few bruises and scratches, was entirely
uninjured.

The speed and endurance of these animals, when in pursuit of their prey,

  "With their long gallop, which can tire
  The hound's deep hate, the hunter's fire,"

makes them very dangerous assailants, when ravenous with hunger. We recall,
in this connection, the thrilling story of a brave Kentucky girl, who, with
her sisters, was pursued by a pack of black wolves.

The pluck and ready wit for which the Kentucky girls have been so
celebrated is well illustrated by this adventure, which, after threatening
consequences of the most tragical nature, had finally a comical
<i>denouement</i>.

In the year 1798, a family of Virginia emigrants settled in central
Kentucky in the midst of a dense forest, where, by the aid of three negro
men whom they had brought with them, a spacious cabin was soon erected and
a large clearing made. The family consisted of Mr. and Mrs. Carter, three
daughters, well grown, buxom girls, full of life and fun, and a son, who,
though only fourteen years of age, was a fine rider and versed in
forest-craft.

The country where they lived was rich and beautiful. One could ride on
horseback for miles through groves of huge forest trees, beneath which the
turf lay firm and green. Through this open wood a wagon could be driven
without difficulty; but locomotion in those days and regions was largely on
horseback. There were no roads, except between the larger settlements;
unless those passage-ways through the woods could be called roads. These
were made by cutting down a tree or clearing away the undergrowth here and
there, and "blazing" the trees along the passage by chopping off a portion
of the bark as high as a man could reach with an axe.

At that period Kentucky was a famous hunting-ground! All kinds of game
abounded in those magnificent forests and beneath that genial clime. Wild
turkeys roosted in immense flocks in the chestnut, beech, and oak trees;
pigeons by the million darkened the air; deer could be shot by any hunter
by stopping a few moments in the forest where they came to feed.

The fiercer and more ravenous beasts abounded in proportion. Bears,
catamounts, and wolves swarmed in the denser parts of the forests, and in
the winter the two last named beasts were a great annoyance to the settlers
by the boldness with which they invaded the cattle and poultry-yards and
pig-pens.

The black wolf of the Western country was and is a very destructive and
fierce annual, hunting in large packs, which, after using every stratagem
to circumvent their prey, attacked it with great ferocity.

Like the Indian, they always endeavored to surprise their victims and
strike the mortal blow without exposing themselves to danger. They seldom
attack a man except when asleep or wounded, or otherwise taken at a
disadvantage.

As the Carter homestead was ten miles from any settlement, it was fairly
haunted by these wild beasts, which considered the cattle, calves, colts,
sheep, and pigs of the new comers their legitimate prey.

Young Carter and his sisters having emigrated from the most populous part
of Virginia where social entertainments were frequent, found the time
during the winter months hang heavy on their hands, and as the young
ladies' favorite colts and pet lambs had often suffered from incursions of
the wolves and panthers, they amused themselves by setting traps for them
and occasionally giving them a dose of cold lead, for they were all good
shots with the rifle,--the girls as well as their brother.

Two or three years passed in the forest taught them to despise the wolves
and panthers as cowardly brutes, and the girls were not afraid to pass
through the forest at any time of the day or night. Often just at dusk,
when returning from a picnic or walk, they would see half a dozen or more
wolves prowling in the woods; the girls would run towards them screaming
and shaking their mantles, and the whole pack would scurry away through the
undergrowth.

This cowardly conduct of the wolves taught their fair pursuers to
underestimate the ferocious nature of the beasts, as we shall hereafter
see.

The winter of 1801 was a severe one. Heavy snows fell, and the passage
through the woods was difficult, either by reason of the snows or from the
thaws which succeeded them. Never before had the wolves been so bold and
ferocious. It happened that in the depth of this winter a merry-making was
announced to take place in the nearest settlement, ten miles distant.

The Carter girls were of course among the invited guests, for their beauty
and spirit were famed through the whole region. Their parents having
perfect confidence in the ability of the girls to take care of themselves,
and also considering that their brother was to accompany them on horseback,
Mr. Carter, the elder, ordered their house-servant, an old negro named
Hannibal, to tackle up a pair of stout roadsters to a two-seated wagon and
drive his daughters to the merry-making.

Hannibal was a fiddler of renown and that of course formed a double reason
why he should go to the ball.

The snow was not so deep as to delay the party materially. They were
determined under any circumstances to reach the scene of Christmas
festivities, where the young ladies, as well as their partners, anticipated
a "good time" in the dance, and perchance "<i>possibilities</i>" which
might be protracted until a late hour upon the following morning, when the
guests would disperse upon the understanding that they were to meet and
continue their amusements the same evening.

In spite of the urgent invitations of their friends that the young ladies
should pass the night at the settlement, they set out on their way home, to
which they were lighted by a full moon, whose light was reflected from the
snow and filled the air with radiance.

The girls were assisted into the old two-seated wagon, Hannibal, rolling
his eyes and showing his teeth, clambered on the front seat, placing his
fiddle in its case between his knees, and grasping the reins shouted to the
horses, which started off at a rattling pace, young Carter and an escort of
admiring cavaliers riding behind as a guard of honor.

After accompanying them on their way for three miles, the escort took leave
of them amid much doffing of hats and waving of handkerchiefs.

The wagon was passing through the dense forest which it had traversed the
night before, when a deep, mournful howl was borne to the ears of the
party. Another followed, and then a succession of similar sounds, till the
forest resounded with the bayings as if of a legion of wolves.

Upon the departure of the escort, young Carter, with youthful impetuosity
and thoughtlessness, had put spurs to his horse, a beast of blood and
mettle, and was now far in advance of the wagon, which was moving slowly
through the forest, barely lighted by the moon, which cast its beams
through the interlacing boughs.

The girls were not in the least scared by the wolfish concert. Not so
Hannibal, who rolled his eyes up and down the woods, whipped up the horses,
and uttered sundry ejaculations in the negro dialect expressive of his
alarm and apprehension on the young ladies' account.

An open space in the forest soon showed to the party a half dozen dark,
gaunt objects squatted on their haunches, whining and sniffing, directly in
the track of the wagon. They rose and ranged themselves by the side of the
road, the vehicle passing so near that Hannibal was able to give them with
his whip two or three cuts which sent them snarling to the rear.

The howling ceased, and for a few moments the girls thought their
disagreeable visitors had bid them good night. Looking back, however, one
of the girls saw a dozen or more loping stealthily behind them. They soon
reached the wagon, and one of the boldest of the pack leaped up behind and
tore away a piece of the shawl in which one of the girls was wrapped, but a
smart blow on the snout from the hand of the brave girl sent him yelping
back to his fellows.

The horses becoming frightened, tore, snorting, through the woods, lashed
by the old negro, half beside himself with terror: but the wolves only
loped the faster and grew the bolder in proportion to the speed of the
wagon. Sometimes they would throw their forepaws as high as the hind seat,
and snap at the throats of the girls, who thereupon gave their wolfships
severe buffets with their fists and thus drove them back.

The wolves were increasing in number and ferocity every moment, and but for
a happy thought of the oldest Miss Carter, the whole party would have
undoubtedly fallen a prey to the ferocious animals.

An old deserted cabin stood in the forest close to the track which they
were following. Seizing the reins from the hands of the affrighted darkey,
she guided the wagon up to the door of the cabin, and the whole party
dismounting rushed into the door. Here Miss Carter stood with a stout
stick, while the negro helped her sisters up into a loft by means of a
ladder.

The pack again squatted on their haunches and whined wistfully, but were
kept at bay by the daring maiden. After her sisters had been safely housed
in the loft, with Hannibal who had in his fright quite forgotten her, she
immediately joined them and had scarcely ascended the ladder when more than
twenty of the wolves rushed pell-mell into the cabin.

The rest of the pack made an attack on the horses, which by their kicking
and plunging broke loose from the harness, and dashed homewards through the
woods followed by the yelling pack.

While this was going on, the young women recovered their equanimity, and
hearing the horses break away from their assailants, directed the negro to
close the door; which after some difficulty he succeeded in doing. Twenty
wolves were thus snugly trapped.

One of the girls soon proposed that the old fiddler should play a few tunes
to the animals, which were now whining in their cage.

The darkey accordingly took his violin, which he had clung to through all
their mad drive, and struck up "Money Musk," which he played as correctly
and in as good time as was possible under the circumstance. Soon collecting
his nerve and coolness as he went on, he scraped out his whole
<i>répertoire</i> of dancing tunes, "<i>St. Patrick's day in the
morning</i>," "<i>The Irish Washerwoman</i>," "<i>Pop goes the Weasel</i>,"
winding up with a "<i>Breakdown</i> and <i>Fishers' Hornpipe</i>."

The effect of the music, while it cheered and amused the girls in their
strange situation, seemed to have a directly contrary effect on the wolves,
who crouched, yelped, and trembled until they seemed utterly powerless and
harmless. What threatened to be a tragedy was in this way turned into
something that resembled a comedy.

By daylight Mr. Carter, with his son and two negroes, arrived on the scene,
armed to the teeth with guns and axes, and made short work with the brutes,
climbing on the roof of the cabin and descending into the loft from which
place they shot them in detail. The bounty which at that time was paid for
wolves' heads was awarded to Miss Carter by whose ingenuity the brutes were
trapped.

The wild cat of this continent is sai