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 _corps d'armée_, 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.