THE FIELD OF THE DEAD The fierce plunging of my horse in his death agony, and his final pitching forward across my prostrate body, were doubtless all that saved my life.

Yielding to their mad desire for plunder, the savages scattered when I fell, and left me lying there for dead.

I do not think I quite lost consciousness in those first moments, although everything became blurred to my sight, and I was imprisoned by the weight above me so that the slightest effort to move proved painful; indeed, I breathed only with the greatest difficulty.
But I both heard and saw, and my mind was intensely occupied with the rush of thought, the horror of all that was going on about me.

How I wish I might blot it out,--forget forever the hellish deeds of those dancing devils who made mock of human agony and laughed at tears and prayers! It was plain, as the wild cries of rejoicing rose on every side, that the Indians had swept the field.

The distant sound of firing ceased, and I could hear the pitiful cries of women, the frightened shrieks of children, the shrill note of intense agony wrung from tortured lips.