Who Was She?

      October the ninth, eighteen hundred and forty-nine, an hour before sunset. We three were leisurely riding over the prairie — Davenant, his little daughter Minnie, and I. We had left the fort at noon for an hour's ride; and, tempted by the crisp, bracing atmosphere and the magnificence of the scene, beguiling the way with friendly chat, we had gone on and on until the day was well-nigh spent. Grand spectacle indeed was that! A cloudless autumn sky overhead; a treeless, level expanse of plain sketching out everywhere to the horizon, with no living thing in view a place where man could be all alone with his Maker. We drew rein at last with a common impulse, and looked all about us. Then Davenant and I exchanged glances which were quite intelligent, without words. So far had our course brought us. that the fort and all the landmarks near it were beyond our vision; there was nothing to guide us back. We were plainly and palpably lost in the prairie. What we might have thought, what done, must be forever conjectured; the danger that was presently thrust upon our attention drove the lesser evil from our thoughts.

      "Look there!" exclaimed the child. "How funny!"

      Her finger pointed to the east. Against the clear sky, brought into full relief by the setting sun, a dozen dark objects appeared moving in our direction. We watched them for a few moments as they seemed to increase in size.

      "They are coming this way," I said.

      "They are Indians," suddenly cried Davenant. "Ride — ride for your lives!"

      The child was used to horseback exercise, and could ride at top speed. They were mounted on the ponies common to the plains; I bestrode a powerful bay thoroughbred, the favorite mount of the commandant of the post. He answered my spur with half a dozen bounds which took me away from my companions; but I heeded their cry, and checked him to their pace. For ten minutes we galloped steadily on without a word. Then a faint yell rose behind us; our pursuers were gaining.

      "These wretched animals!" Davenant muttered through his teeth. "They will destroy us — Ha!"

      The exclamation was caused by the whistle of something overhead, which buried itself in the ground. It was an arrow.

      I held the curb close on my noble horse, while the ponies toiled painfully along under the whip to keen pace with him. A savage whoop sounded frightfully near, and a shower of missiles clove the air around us. With a groan Davenant dropped from his pony. I pulled short up.

      "Don't stop," he cried. "I'm done for. Good-by, old fellow! Save Minnie and God bless you!"

      I dashed on; and a minute later a chorus of demoniac cries in the rear told me of the horrible late of my friend. In five minutes more, the fiendish troop would overtake the pony that carried Minnie. I could not leave her; what could be done? There was one expedient, and I took it. Biding close beside her, I lifted her clear off the saddle and placed her in front of me. "Cling to me, now, for your life!" I cried; and her arms were fast n out my neck.

      And now, under whip and spur, my gallant bay stretched out in a tremendous pace. Redoubled yells, continual flights of arrows assailed us as we tore on — so swiftly, indeed, that to my excited fancy the prairie seemed to sink beneath us, and we were flying through the air. A glance over my shoulder gladdened me with hope; our flight was fast distancing our pursuers; their cries had grown fainter the arrows did not reach us. The sun had set, but a fiery glow was spread half to the zenith, when I drew rein. Not a savage was in sight; we were saved. I dismounted, and helped my precious charge to the ground. She lay passive in my arms; she had fainted. Carefully I laid her down, and fanned her with my hat till she revived. She unclosed her eyes and sighed, but no color camo back to her cheek.

      Poor father," she murmured, "they have killed him — and — and I am dreadfully hurt."

      To my horror and distress, I now saw that an arrow had entered her side. I took her hands, and my tears fell on them.

      "You cannot help me," she whispered. "You have been so good to me and so brave! I am not leaving you forever O, no! Some time — some time —"

      Her faint accents failed as I bent low to hear them.

      The ruddy glow of the western heavens still faintly lighted the somber prairie when a scouting-party from the fort reached the spot. The horse was quietly cropping the short grass near by; I was kneeling by the beautiful dead child, holding her tear-wet hands.

*       *       *       *       *       *      *

      An event like that just described, occurring to an ardent and generous youth of twenty, will inevitably produce a powerful impression. So it was with me. Davenant, though much older than I, was my dearest friend. He was a widower; Minnie was his only child; and we three had journeyed to what was then the far West, for recreation and pleasure. And this was the melancholy ending of our journey! Lonely and sad, I returned to my Eastern home. So terrible were the details of this tragedy, and so sacred seemed the sufferings and the words of that dear child, that I only recurred to these things in my own sad retrospection. Never, after leaving the fort, until the occasion now to be named had I spoken nor written of them.

      In 1867 I had become thirty-eight years of ago. Something then happened that was as surprising to myself as to any of my acquaintances. I married a wife. It was the old story: habit, preconceived opinion, lapse of time, all were against the probability of such a thing; with any other woman it would have been an impossibility — but this one ⸻

      No matter; enough of this. She was twenty years my junior, and it was a marriage of affection, pure and simple. A glorious creature! but enough of this, too. And she was quite an artist; much more than an amateur. Young as she was she had gained a reputation; her work was in demand; she was living by her brush when I found her.

      In the early days of our wedded life she delighted to show me her early work, all of which she had carefully preserved. Unlike most workers in the arts, she was not at all ashamed of it; crude though it was, she was interested in tracing the progress that these attempts showed, and certainly it was with real pleasure that I looked them over and listened to her explanations.

      On one occasion, during our bridal trip, while we were stopping for a few days at a seaside resort, Marian and I, accompanied by her favorite, Zip, a pure-blooded Skye terrier, found a secluded nook commanding a view of the sea. There she seated herself upon a moss-covered rock, with some fancy needlework to give a semblance of occupation, while I lazily reclined at her feet.

      Then she resumed the subject of her early endeavors in art, and when we had reached the end of the collection she seemed to hesitate, and then said:

      "Jasper, I have one more, a little water-color, that I painted when only ten years old. My friends called it good, and flattered me too much about it; but there was one thing that makes me almost tremble whenever I see it — that is, the way it was done. It was commenced, continued, and finished without the least idea in my head of a subject. Scenery and figures were executed just as they occurred to me; my hand worked almost mechanically. And, Jasper" — she grew very serious here, and her voice trembled "when I first met you, six months ago, that picture instantly came into my head. Your face and your voice have always ever since reminded me of it. Strange, is it not? I am not troubled about it at all; but there is something in this curious association of yourself with that picture that I can not understand."

      She brought it to me, and, if ever the dead shall rise before my waking vision, I shall not be more startled. The picture was of a ruddy twilight sky, a boundless prairie, a horse freely cropping the gras, a girly lying dead on the ground, and a man kneeling beside her, holding her hands. I gazed at it as if fascinated.

      "Marian," I cried, when the power of speech returned to me, "who told you of this subject?"

      "Nobody. I painted it just as I told you, without thought or design."

      "And you never heard nor read of an incident that you intended to illustrate by this?"

      "Never; and I do not know now what it means."

      "But the locality the Western prairie you haye seen it?"

      She smiled as she replied, "I have never been outside the Stato of Connecticut in my life."

      Mechanically I turned the picture over in my hand. A card was in the corner of the frame; Marian took it out and dusted it with her handkerchief.

      "This I wrote when the picture was done," she said, "for a kind of name. Don't ask me why I selected such a curious one; I can no more tell you that than why I painted the picture itself."

      She held up the card to my eyes. A sweet, sad voice f:om beyond the tomb seemed to fill my ears as I read:

      "I am not leaving you forever!"

      We sat in silence for a while. She saw that I was strongly moved, and she did not disturb me; only her hand stole quietly into mine.

      "Marian," I said at last, "I think you told me once that you had your mother s large family Bible."

      "Yes. They are all dead but me. There was no one else to have it."

      "Please let me see it."

      She brought it, and I turned to the "Family Record," where births, marriages, and deaths the brief epitome of human life — were entered in a large, round hand. There I read:

"MARIAN REDMOND,
"Born October 9, 1849."

      It was the day of Minnie Davenant's death.