RESCUES BY THE MILITARY. 243 



massacres upon the Saline and Solomon, and white 

 women toiled in the wigwams of their husbands' 

 murderers. One of the captives, Mrs. Daley, was 

 killed by the savages, to prevent rescue ; the other 

 was saved, and restored to her husband. 



Somewhat later, two women from the Solomon 

 were taken captive, one of them being a bride of 

 but four months who had recently come out with her 

 young husband from the State of New York. Cus- 

 tar seized some chiefs and, with noosed lariats dang- 

 ling before their eyes, bade them send and have 

 those prisoners brought in, or suffer the penalties. 

 Indians have an unconquerable prejudice against be- 

 ing hung, as it prevents their spirits entering the 

 happy hunting grounds, and the captives were 

 promptly sent to Custar's camp. We afterward saw 

 one of them, Mrs. Morgan, on the Solomon. What 

 an agony must have been hers, as she came in sight 

 of her old home, and the memory of her wrongs since 

 leaving it, rose anew before her ! 



But to return to the history of our emigrants. Af- 

 ter the murders, Mr. Sydney and his daughters aban- 

 doned their farms, and with the same wagon and 

 oxen which two years before had brought the family 

 out from Ohio, they started for the recently discov- 

 ered mines in 'New Mexico. The journey was te- 

 dious, and, when at length arrived there, he found 

 but little gold, and even less relief from his mighty 

 sorrow. The old home, with its graves, beckoned 

 him back, and thither he was now returning to 

 spend his remaining days, unless, as he laconically 

 stated, some one had "jumped the claim." Lest my 



