A THRILLING SPECTACLE. A Lady's account of an Indian attack.

Waikato Times, Volume XVIII, Issue 1489, 19 January 1882, Page 3

A THRILLING SPECTACLE. A Lady's account of an Indian attack.

One warm day in August, upon the banks of the muddy Colorado, we children were lazily sitting about on the ground. One sister was Wringing beads taken from an old mocassion, and most of the men were sleeping under the waggons through the heat- ot the afternoon. There was a great stillness upon every- - 'thing, save for the children's chatter, and a heat rose from the ground that smote the eyes. Suddenly there ws>s a dreadful scream, echoed, re-echoed, multiplied, then another, and another, as mien 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 cbapparal had become black with Indians, who had ! crawled, serpent-like, on hands and knees, till, right upon us, in concert they could leap into sight. They wore cloths upon their loins, and had some feathers wftund in their hair, with hideous paint arlowingvon face and breast. I gazed in dumb, ajMizement, benumbed with surprise, «tt 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/ feajtlier beds, TaWnkets and comforters.; ,rdo>'not think I'l'wSw frightened, not Because of any,preof courage, but because oils, wild

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," she 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 th« 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 margh winch 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 as 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. — Ualiforman.

-• A gilded youth, who had met with misfortunes, entered a fourth-class restaurant. He there encountered a waiter whom he had formerly seen in the luxurious establishments which he himself had frequented. " What !" said the waiter, " do you dine here, sir ?" " Well," returned the other gloomily, "you wait here, dont you ?" "It is true sir," replied the waiter, with conscious dignity ; " but I do not eat here."