At his saddle hung a bright and well-known little shawl, and from the other side was suspended a child’s scalp of long, fair hair. As my eyes rested on the frightful sight, I trembled in my saddle and grasped the air for support. A blood-red cloud seemed to come between me and the outer world, and I realized that innocent victim’s dying agonies. The torture was too great to be endured—a merciful insensibility interposed between me and madness. I dropped from the saddle as if dead, and rolled upon the ground at the horse’s feet. When I recovered, I was clinging to a squaw, who, with looks of astonishment and alarm, was vainly endeavoring to extricate herself from my clutches. With returning consciousness, I raised my eyes to the fearful sight that had almost deprived me of reason; it was gone. The Indian had suspected the cause of my emotion, and removed it out of sight. They placed me in the saddle once more, and not being able to control the horrible misery I felt, I protested wildly against their touch, imploring them to kill me, and frantically inviting the death I had before feared and avoided. When they camped, I had not the power or reason to seek my own tent, but fell down in the sun, where the chief found me lying. He had been out at the head of a scouting party, and knew nothing of my sufferings. Instantly approaching me, he inquired who had misused me. I replied, “No one. I want to see my dear mother, my poor mother, who loves me, and pines for her unhappy child.” I had found, by experience, that the only grief with which this red nation had any sympathy was the sorrow one might feel for a separation from a mother, and even the chief seemed to recognize the propriety of such emotion. On this account I feigned to be grieving solely for my dear widowed mother, and was treated with more consideration than I had dared to expect. Leaving me for a few moments, he returned, bringing me some ripe wild plums, which were deliciously cooling to my fever-parched lips. Hunger and thirst, sorrow and fear, with unusual fatigue and labor, had weakened me in mind and body, so that, after trying to realize the frightful vision that had almost deprived me of my senses, I began to waver in my knowledge of it, and half determined that it was a hideous phantom, like many another that had tortured my lonely hours. I tried to dismiss the awful dream from remembrance, particularly as the days that followed found me ill and delirious, and it was some time before I was able to recall events clearly. About this time there was another battle; and many having already sank under the united misery of hunger and fatigue, the camp was gloomy and hopeless in the extreme. The Indians discovered my skill in dressing wounds, and I was called immediately to the relief of the wounded brought into camp. The fight had lasted three days, and, from the immoderate lamentations, I supposed many had fallen, but could form no idea of the loss.