A Prairie-Schooner Princess

From under the curving top of a canvas-covered "prairie schooner" a boy of about fifteen leaned out, his eyes straining intently across the brown, level expanse of the prairies.

"Father," he called, with a note of anxiety in his voice, "look back there to the northeast! What is that against the horizon? It looks like a cloud of dust or smoke."

In a second prairie schooner, just ahead of the one the boy was driving, a man with a brown, bearded face looked out hastily, then continued to scan the horizon with anxious gaze.

Beside him in the wagon sat a blue-eyed, comely woman with traces of care in her face. As the boy's voice reached her she started, then leaned out of the wagon, her startled gaze sweeping the lonely untrodden plains over which they were traveling.

Inside the wagon under the canvas cover a boy of nine, two little girls of seven and twelve, a curly-headed little girl of five, and a baby boy of two years, lay on the rolled-up bedding sleeping heavily.

The time was midsummer, 1856, and the family of Joshua Peniman, crossing the plains to the Territory of Nebraska, which had recently been organized, were traveling over the uninhabited prairies of western Iowa.

"Does thee think it could be Indians, Joshua?" asked Hannah Peniman, her face growing white as she viewed the cloud of dust which appeared momentarily to be coming nearer.

"I can't tell--I can't see yet," answered her husband, turning anxious eyes from the musket he was hastily loading toward the cloud of dust. "But whatever it is, it is coming this way. It might be a herd of elk or buffalo, but anyway, we must be prepared. Get inside, Hannah, and thee and the little ones keep well under cover."

In the other wagon two younger boys had joined the lad who was driving. On the seat beside him now sat a merry-faced, brown-eyed lad of fourteen, and leaning on their shoulders peering out between them was a boy of twelve, the twin of the twelve-year-old girl in the other wagon, with red hair, laughing blue eyes, and a round, freckled face.

Sam was the mischief of the family, and was generally larking and laughing, but now his face looked rather pale beneath its coat of tan and freckles, and the eyes which he fastened on the horizon had in them an expression of terror.

"Do you suppose it's Indians, Joe?" he whispered huskily. "Did you hear what that man told Father at Fort Dodge the other day? He said that Indians had set on an emigrant train near Fontanelle and murdered the whole party."

The boy on the driver's seat did not answer. With his wide grey eyes focused intently on the cloud of dust in the distance, his tanned face strained and set, he craned forward, every muscle of his body at rigid attention.

Presently he handed the lines to the brother who sat beside him and reaching up into the curving top of the wagon took down a heavy old muzzle-loading musket.

"Do you think it is Indians?" the boy asked, his hands a bit tremulous on the lines.

"I dunno. Can't tell yet. But we've got to be ready anyhow. Better load up your rifle, Lige."

The brown-eyed boy wound the lines around the whip-stock and took from a rack under the cover a long-barreled rifle.

They had seen many roving bands of Indians on their journey, but had never been molested by them, but at the last settlement they had passed through they had heard horrifying accounts of the scalping and massacre of settlers and emigrants by the red men. On the old Overland Trail between Fort Laramie and the South Fork of the Platte there had occurred an Indian uprising a few days before, the terrifying news of which had reached them at their last stopping place.

As Joe leaned forward with eyes fastened on the horizon he suddenly uttered a cry.

"It's a wagon," he shouted,-"an emigrant wagon-like ours!"

From out of the cloud of dust that drifted across the prairie an object could now be discerned, a large object, with a white canvas cover.

Joshua Peniman, who had never removed his intent gaze from the approaching cloud, echoed the cry.

"It is a wagon-an emigrant wagon!" Then as the dust drifted aside and he could see more clearly,-"and they are driving at a fearful pace!"

For many weeks now the family had been traveling over the desolation of the prairies, for days at a time seeing no human creature but one another. For miles all about them lay the prairies, brown, dry, scorched by the hot summer sun, level as a floor, with never a tree, a shrub, a bush, a hill, or a mound to break the dreary monotony of the plains that stretched endlessly away all about them to the very horizon in every direction.

It was therefore with the greater excitement and astonishment that the family saw a wagon drawn by two furiously plunging horses emerge from the cloud of dust that had concealed it, and come swaying and lurching across the plains.

They had stopped their teams now, and the whole family were standing up looking backward.

"Jerusalem! the folks in that wagon must be in a terrible hurry, whoever they are!" ejaculated Elijah, more commonly called "Lige" by his family.

"They'll tip their old schooner over if they don't look out!" cried Sam. "Look at her tilt!"

"Pretty risky driving, I should say," said Mrs. Peniman, shading her eyes with her hand.

"Something must be the matter," cried Ruth, who, wakened by the talking, had come to the rear of the wagon. "I don't believe anybody'd drive like that if they didn't have to! Oh, Mother, do you suppose the Indians are after them?"

"I think not, Ruthie, there does not appear to be any sign of any one after them. What does thee make of it, Joshua?"

"I don't know what to make of it," replied Joshua Peniman, leaping out of the wagon and keeping his gaze fixed on the approaching vehicle. "I never saw such driving. What can they be thinking of to drive their horses like that on such a day! The man must be drunk-or crazy! He'll kill his team!"

The white-topped prairie schooner was now clearly visible, the horses galloping madly, the wagon swaying and lurching from side to side, the white curtain at the back streaming out on the wind.

"Something must be wrong there," cried Joe; "nobody in his senses would drive like that! Do you suppose the team could be running away? No, they're leaving the road! Look, they're turning in here! They must have seen us! I wonder--"

With strained gaze the travelers stood motionless, every faculty absorbed in watching the oncoming vehicle.

Suddenly Mrs. Peniman uttered a startled cry:

"Why, that isn't a man driving-it's a woman!"

Joshua Peniman, with hands bowed across his eyes, exclaimed breathlessly, "My God, so it is!"

As the prairie schooner drew nearer the wonder and excitement of the family increased.

On the high driver's seat in the front of the wagon they could now make out a woman; a woman young, beautiful, white and livid as death; a mass of hair that gleamed like molten gold in the sunshine blowing wildly about her shoulders, her eyes distended, her arms bare to the elbows extended far in front of her, one hand clutching the reins, the other lashing the panting, staggering horses, that, lathered with foam and sweat, were heaving and stumbling, ready to drop with exhaustion.

"Help, help, help!" her wild, piercing shriek came to them above the clattering of the wagon.

Joshua Peniman, Joe and Lige leaped from their wagons and ran forward to meet her. As they reached her she threw down the reins and reeled and tottered on the seat.

"My husband-my husband!" she gasped, and pointed to the inside of the wagon.

Joshua Peniman took the poor exhausted beasts by their bits and led them up to his own encampment.

"What is it? What has happened?" Hannah Peniman cried, running to the woman and with strong, tender arms lifting her down from the seat.

The woman staggered, and would have fallen if it were not for her strong support.

"My husband-Lee-my husband!" she cried again, and breaking from the supporting arms ran to the rear of the wagon.

Joshua Peniman was there before her.

On the roll of bedding under the canvas cover he saw the figure of a man lying. Springing into the wagon he bent over it, then lifting it in his arms bore it to the opening at the rear, where Joe waited. Between them they carried it to the shade of the wagons, where they laid it on the grass.

As they did so Hannah Peniman stooped over it, then uttered a sharp cry.

"Oh, look, look what has happened to him!" she gasped.

Joshua Peniman bent over the prostrate figure. Protruding from the breast, with a great pool of blood staining the shirt about it, was an arrow, buried well up on its feathered shaft.

"An arrow!" whispered Hannah Peniman in accents of horror.

"Indians!" cried Joe, a creepy chill running down his back.

The strange woman had run to the body and precipitated herself upon it with agonized cries.

"Oh, Lee, Lee!" she shrieked. "Oh, surely he isn't dead! Surely he would not leave us all alone!"

Joshua Peniman motioned to his wife, and with gentle hands she raised the frail, delicate figure of the young wife and bore it away to the other side of the wagon. Mr. Peniman stripped off the coat and laid his hand, then his ear, over the heart of the prostrate figure.

"He is not dead," he whispered, "his heart is beating faintly. Get me a pan of water, Joe, and the spirits of ammonia. Hurry, lad, a life may depend on our efficiency now!"

When he had sponged the blood away he tried to draw the arrow from the wound, but it was too deeply imbedded. His efforts only succeeded in starting a terrific flow of blood, in the midst of which the wounded man moaned and opened his eyes.

"Marian!" his lips shaped rather than spoke the word. Surmising that it must be the name of his wife, Joshua Peniman sent Lige running to call her. Then he bent over the wounded man, saying distinctly, "Thee is with friends, friend. Thy wife is safe, and with my wife back of the wagons."

The wounded man rolled his eyes about, then whispered tensely, "Nina! Nina!"

Not knowing what he meant, the Quaker nodded reassuringly.

"Indians?" he asked, pointing to the arrow.

The man slowly raised his hand and groped toward the wound. To the intense astonishment of both father and sons he shook his head. "Tell-Marian-watch out-watch out for-for--" his head dropped back, the blood gushed from his mouth, and with a gurgling cry he sank back on the grass.

Joshua Peniman knelt beside him.

"Gone!" he said solemnly, reverently removing his hat.