the Holloway party occurred at a point on the
Humboldt River some thirty miles east of where Winnemucca is located,
a few miles west of Battle Mountain. This becomes apparent by careful
estimates of distance traveled per day, rather than by landmarks noted
at the time, there being no settlements there, nor elsewhere along the
route, at that time.

[Illustration: Jerry Bush, 1914]

It was perhaps a year later when I went to a camp-meeting one Sunday,
at Mark West Creek, in Sonoma County, California. The people attending
a service were in a small opening among trees. Standing back of
those who were seated, I saw among them a woman whose profile seemed
familiar, and later I recognized her as Mrs. Holloway.

My interest in her career, due to her extraordinary part in the Indian
massacre on the plains, was heightened by the fact that I had known
her previously, as the daughter of Mr. Bush, a prosperous farmer, and
had been present when she married Mr. Holloway, in a little
schoolhouse, near Rockport, Atchison County, Missouri. It seemed a
natural impulse which prompted me to ask her for particulars of the
tragedy, so disastrous to herself and her family; though later there
were misgivings regarding the propriety of doing so.

Mrs. Holloway appeared at that time to be in good health, and was
cheerful, possessing perfect control of her faculties. Her head was
covered by a wig, made of her own hair, taken from the scalp that was
recovered at the scene of the massacre.

All the heartrending experiences that she had endured were imprinted
upon her mind in minutest detail, and she related them in the exact
order of their occurrence. The recalling of the terrible ordeal,
however, so wrought upon her emotions that she wept, to the limit of
mild hysteria, which brought our conversation to a close, and soon
thereafter she left the place.

I saw her no more; but learned sometime afterwards that her health
failed, then of the giving away of her mental powers, and still later
of her death, at Napa City; caused primarily by shock, and brooding
over the misfortunes she had met on the bank of the Humboldt River.

[Illustration: Mrs. Nancy Holloway, 1857]

It is difficult to believe that a woman, any woman--or any man--could,
in a state of consciousness, endure such torture as was inflicted upon
Mrs. Holloway, and refrain from disclosing to her tormentors that
she was alive. But that she did so endure was her positive statement,
a