In the spring I went to the end of the road further west, with an excursion party, to a place called Sheridan. On our return we stopped at Fort Hays, where I met two Indians who recognized me, and I also knew them. We conversed together. I learned they had a camp in the vicinity, and they were skulking around, reconnoitering. They were well treated here and very liberally dealt with. They inquired where I lived; I told them way off, near to the rising sun. The next morning, when the train left town, the band, riding on horseback, jumped the ditch, and looked into the windows of the cars, hoping to see me. They told the people that I belonged to them, and they would take my papoose and me way off to their own country; we were their property, and must go with them. It was supposed that if I had been in the cars the Indians would have attempted to take the train. CHAPTER XXVI. ELIZABETH BLACKWELL—MORMON HOME—A BRUTAL FATHER—THE MOTHER AND DAUGHTERS FLEE TO THE MOUNTAINS—DEATH OF THE MOTHER AND SISTERS FROM EXPOSURE—ELIZABETH SAVED BY AN INDIAN—A WHITE WOMAN TORTURED—RESCUED CHILDREN—THE BOXX FAMILY—CAPTURE OF MRS. BLYNN. Some few weeks after the events just related, I received a note from a stranger, requesting me to call on her at the dwelling of a hunter, where she was stopping. Her name was Elizabeth Blackwell, and emigrated with her parents from England, who became proselytes of the ruling prophet of Salt Lake City, where they remained until Elizabeth’s father took another wife. This created trouble; words ensued, soon followed by blows, and Elizabeth, in endeavoring to protect her mother, was struck by her brute of a father with a knife, and one of her eyes destroyed. Being discouraged and broken-hearted, the wretched mother and daughters (for Elizabeth had two sisters) resolved to escape. They wandered away among the mountains, and, having no place of shelter, all perished with the cold, except Elizabeth, who was found by the Indians, nearly frozen to death. They lifted her up and carried her to camp, where they gave her every attention requisite for restoration. She remained with the Indians until she was able to go east, where she underwent the severe operation of having both legs amputated above the knee. The treatment received from the Indians so attached her to them that she prefers to live a forest life, and when she gave me her narrative, she was on her way from the States to her Indian home. Her father soon wearied of his Mormon wife, and escaped to the Rocky Mountains, where he became a noted highwayman. Hearing of Elizabeth’s residence among the Indians, he visited her, and gave her a large sum of money. The fate of his family had great effect on him, and remorse drove him to desperation. The husband of Elizabeth took his second wife and Elizabeth’s child from Salt Lake to Cincinnati, where they now live.