A THRILLING SKETCH.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LVII, Issue 6505, 2 January 1882, Page 6

A THRILLING SKETCH.

A I/ADY’a Aoooxmx 0» AK IJTDIAK ATTACK. One mm day in August, upon, the .banks of the mnddy. Colorado, we children were lasily sitting about on the ground. Onesister was stringing bead* taken from an old moccasin, and aao»t nt the ilßflping under the waggons through the heat o*^ »fknnmn» akoro wm » great stillness upon every thing, save for the children's chatter, and a heat rose from the ground that smote the eyes. Suddenly there was a dreadful scream, echoed, re-echoed, multiplied, then another, and another, as when one strikes the hand upon the mouth, till in One second of the time the air seemed rent and torn with yells. In just that second the close chapparal had become blaok with Indians, who had crawled, serpent-like, on hands and knees, till, right upon ns, in concert they could leap into sight. They wore clothe upon their loins, and had some feathers wound in their hair, with hideous paint glowing on face and breast. leased in dumb amazement, benumbed with surprise, and then I think I awoke to the excitement of the occasion. The women and children, through an air thick with flying arrows, were marshalled into one covered waggon, and there my mother wrapped us all round with feather beds, blankets and comforters. 1 do not think I was frightened, not because of any precocity of courage, but because of a wild excitement that filled me. I half leaned upon the knee of my sister. She said she was conscious of no pain, she felt no sudden pang, but something warm seemed running down her side, and, looking down, she saw an arrow which had pierced her flesh and protruded its flinty head from the wound. “Mother,” the exclaimed, “I am shot," and fainted. My mother, the woman whose spirit never failed her in this or the dreadful trials which succeeded this disastrous fight, put forth her hand and drew the arrow backward through the wound. It was while thus supporting the head of the girl she supposed dying, it somehow became known to her that her husband was lying quite dead and filled with arrows under the great cotton-wood tree round which the camp was made. It was but a few moments more till one of the men spoke from the front of the waggon. Said he: “Our ammunition is giving out, and we do not know but it may come to a hand-to-hand fight. Get out the knives you have in the bed of the waggon.” Through the backward march which followed it was ever the women who rose superior to suffering and to danger. The men lost courage, hope and spirit, the women never. A few moments after the demand for the knives, a Methodist preacher, who had seized my father's rifle, aimed at the chief with the dinner-bell depending from his belt, and saw him fall. In five minutes not an Indian was to be seen, the living dragging with them the dead us they went. In the meantime, under cover of the fight, our great herd of cattle had been made to swim the river, and were safely corraled in the Mojave villages.— California ». j