Emerson Bennett & Sidney Walter Moss

“ In what quarter of the habitable globe, aud under what circumstances? Should we be among the living, or the dead? The dead! What a solemn thought, to think that our bones might be reposing in the soil of the stranger thousands of miles from all we loved, and from all that loved us! What a startling idea! And vet, in our journeyings, how indifferent, how careless had we been of life! With what fooihardiness had we even dared death to meet us! And still, with all the frightful warnings of the past before us, how recklessly were we plunging on to new scenes of danger! ”

“ Modest, unassuming, retiring in their manners, weak in physical powers, unused to hardships and dangers, with a superior refinement in thought and feeling I had supposed them the first to shrink at anv alarm. Judge of my astonishment, then, when I saw them gliding over the earth, as over a soft carpet, and, with scarcely an appearance of fear, by their acts and language, shaming the more frightened to silence. The arrival of the trappers, too well armed and their seeming indifference to danger, reassured all in a measure, and served to restore order and quiet. ”

“ There are times when the mind has power to paralize the body. When racking thought forces us to live an age in a minute. When we see and know all that is going on around us, an'd yet seem to be separate from the world to exist in a world of ideality a spiritual state. When our whole life, like a map, seems laid before us, and we behold at a single glance, in a second of time, what has taken us years to enact. ”

“ Without a second thought, crack went his rifle, and instantly, as if by magic, a dark spot to the north of us became peo pled by some fifty savages, who, finding themselves discovered, and doubtless think ing this the alarm of the sentinel, uttered frightful yells, and sprang forward, in a body. Rushing to the point of attack, we haslily formed a line, and placing our rifles to our shoulders, silently waited until not more than twenty yards divided us from the main body of our enemies. ”

“ On concluding, she tightened her rein as if to depart but still lingered as if to add something more.
"Heaven bless you, Prairie Flower! you are always seeking the good of others."
She sighed, turned her head away, and strove to say, carelessly :
"Your friend I I is well is he?"
"Alas! I cannot answer."
"Ha! what! how!" she cried, quickly, turning full upon me, and grasping my arm, which chanced to be resting on the neck of her pony. " Explain!" and I felt her grasp tighten. ”

“ But the Irishman, in spite of my fears, amused me. Instead of bring ing up his rifle ready for an aim, Teddy had griped it midway, and was whirling it over his head as he would a shelaleh, the while raising first one foot and then the other in great excitement, as if treading on live coals, his face flushed, his eyes fixed in one direction, his nostrils expand ed, and his breast heaving with hard breathing.
"Quick!" exclaimed Black George; "fetch round the animals and make a breastwork to cover." ”

“ Patrick wear brogans when he kicked the toad so far?" asked Huntly, gravely.
"Brogans!" cried Teddy, with a comical look of surprise, that any one should be so ignorant: "Brogans, ye spalpeen!—beg pardon! your honor I mane—why he was a saint, a howly saint, ye divil—beg pardon! your honor—and didn't naad the hilp of kivering to kaap the crathurs from biting him."
"O, yes," said Huntly, feigning to re collect; " I remember now, he was a saint; and of course he could kick anybody, or anything, whether bare-footed or shod." ”

“ With death he be comes so familiar, that all fear of the dread king of mortality is lost. True, he oling to life with great tenacity but then there is no whimpering and whining at his fate. When he finds his time has come to go, he stands up like a man, and takes the result with the stoicism of a martyr. ”

“ As he came up, so that his eye could
rest upon me, he suddenly started back, with a look of horror, threw up both handa and exclaimed :
"Merciful God! can this be Francig Leigh ton?" and staggering to my side, he dropped down upon the ground and burst into tears.
"Beware! beware!" cried Prairie Flower earnestly, her features turning deadly pale. " Remember, Charles Hunt ly remember my warning! or you will
do what can never be undon
and all our have been
efforts to save you both will made in vain." ”

“ I saw some of the spectators smile, and some look pityingly upon me, and this decidee my course of action. My temper rose, my eyes flashed, and my cheeks burned, as I thought of the insulting words of the other.
"Some men live by bullying," I replied, pointedly; " and I suppose you are one of them; if not, you will keep your advice till one of us is the victor." ”

“ Have we power to think of more than one thing at the same time? I contend that we have or else that thought, swift beyond comparison, sets before us differ ent scenes, with such rapidity, that we seem to behold two at once sometimes half-a- dozen and yet, each perhaps, as opposite and distant as the north and south poles.
While I comprehended what was going on around me, my mind flew back to youth to the time when I first felt a passion foe Lilian and traced every event of my. life up to the present moment. ”

“ I rejoined, "would be worse than vnin; words could not speak it; the heart alone can, and that you cannot see, only through external expressions. Of one thipg, fair being, rest assured : that in the secret chambers of the souls of Francis Leighton and Charles Huntly, is engraved a name that will never be erased that of the noble and generous Prairie Flower." ”

“ About noon, the appearance of the ground began to change for the worse, which, in spite of ourselves, was productive of no little alarm. Gradually it became more and more sandy, and an hour's further progress brought us to a desert more barren than ever, where not a living thing, vegetable or animal, could be seen, over a dreary expanse, that, for all we knew, might be hundreds of miles in extent. ”

“ Are there many more like you, sweet Prairie Flower?"
"Our tribe numbers between sixty and seventy souls."
"Is this your fixed abiding place?"
"Only for a time. Our home is every where between the rising and the setting sun. We go wherever we think ourselves the most beneficial in effecting good." ”

“ Turning our gaze to the eastward, we beheld the snowy peaks of the Wahsatch Mountains, which we had left behind us, looming up in grandeur; while, to the westward, nothing was visible but an un broken, barren, pathless desert. Here was certainly a prospect anything but charming yet not for a moment did we waver in our determination to press onward. ”

“ On all sides resounded hideous yells, and curses, and groans, and shouts min gled with the reports of firearms, and the clash of deadly weapons. Fear we knew not at least I judge by myself for under the intoxicating excitement of the time, I experienced no passion but uncontrollable rage, and a desire to vent it upon our swarthy foe. Success so far had been with us, and" numbers of the enemy had fallen to rise no more, while all but two of our own party were in their saddles, though some of them badly wounded. ”

“ Unlike his com panions, his features were very fine, almost effeminate, with a mild, dignified expression, that instantly won the regard of all with whom he came in contact. He had a large, full, clear blue eye, which rarely varied in expression, be the circumstances what they might. Cool and collected at all times, he was never more so than when surrounded by imminent danger. There was no risk he would not run to serve a friend, and on no occasion had he ever been known to display the least sign of fear hence was he called Daring Tom. ”

“ Should a man take the solemn vows of marriage to please himself or friends? Should he do so mere ly to make a display in public, and render his heart in private the seat of misery? Of what value is gold, if it add nothing to a man's happiness? Riches are unstable, and often, as the proverb has it, 'take to themselves wings and fly away.' And then, to him who has made these his god whc has wedded them and not the woman what is the result? A few days of misery and an unhappy end. Do not conclude from this, my dear Frank, that I have re solved to marry Prairie Flower ”

“ Next appeared Prairie Flower, with three other maidens, and approaching the youths, all clasped hands and formed a ring outside the circle of kneeling and weeping relatives. Then they commenced walking round the living and dead, and as they passed the head of the latter, each uttered a short prayer that his noble spirit might find eternal rest beyond the grave. ”

“ Was she of the Indian race? I could not believe it. She seem ed too fair and lovely, and without the lineaments which distinguish this people from those nations entitled to the name of pale-face. Might she not be a missionary, who, blessed with great self-denial and a
desire to render herself useful while on earth, and yet too modest to avow it, had, at a tender age, gone boldly among the savages and labored zealously in her noble calling, to enlighten their dark minds and teach them the sacred truths of Christiani ty? ”

“ Hovering around me in the still watches of night, as it were the guar dian angel of my destiny. Lilian was loved. Time and distance proved it. Loved with a heart that could never for sake never so love another. ”

“ That I was a gay, wild youth once, is no evidence I should always remain one. To me there appears nothing remarkable, that one whose life has been a scene of folly, should become changed by the near approach of death. ”

“ Below us, facing the west, we beheld a barren tract of land, with here and there a few green spots, and an oc casional stream sparkling in the bright sunlight, which led us to the inference that there might be oases, at intervals of a day's ride, across the whole Great Basin, to the foot of the Sierra Nevada or Snowy Range, which divides it from the pleasant valleys of the Sacramento and San Joaquin. ”

“ The Indians of the Far West, of the present day, are not the Indians of former times, whose wigwams once rose where now stand our cities and hamlets, and whose daring in war, when led by a Phil lip, a Pontiac, or a Tecumseh, could only be excelled by their cunning and ferocity. ”

“ To add to the horrors of our situation, our horses were evidently on the point of giving out for as they buried their feet in the white, hot sand, they occasionally floundered, and reeled, and seemed inclined to lie down while our own throats, lips, and tongues began to swell, and the skin of our faces and hands to blister and crack. ”

“ On the ocean, on the prairie, or in the forest, man is not alone; he does not feel alone; for he is with Nature in all her wildness in all her beauty; and she ever has a voice, which reaches his inner heart, and, in sweet companionship, whispers him to behold her wonders, and through her look up to the Author of all her God and his ' But in the great city it is differ ent vastly different. ”

“ Besides, we should probably fall into the hands of the savages, and death here looks full as tempting as there."
"But our horses, Frank poor beasts! see how they suffer."
"I know it, and would to Heaven I could relieve them! But we cannot even help ourselves." ”

“ We who had been through so many perils, and made so many miracu lous escapes, where death seemed inevita ble why should we now, comparatively safe, already on our return, for a moment harbor the thought that a misfortune, be fore which all we had suffered sunk into insignificance, was impending us? How little does man know his destiny! Poor, blind mortal! what presumption in him to attempt to read the scroll of fate! But let me not anticipate.
It was a bright, warm day in the spring of 1842, that we arrived at Pueblo de los Angelos, where the Great Spanish Trail comes in from Santa Fe. ”

“ I replied, "there is danger in either choice so choose for yourself."
"Well, I am for exploring this region left blank on the map."
"Then we will go, live or die," I rejoined; " for I long myself to behold what has never as yet been seen by one of my race."
The matter thus decided, we mounted our horses, and keeping to the south of the Utah Lake, crossed a small stream, and about noon came to a halt on the brow of a high hill, forming a portion of the Wahsatch range. ”