now getting
late in the season, they had better defer their journey until spring
came again. At the same time they offered to take them in their
village, and provide for them until they could depart in safety. They
would not listen to this proposition, but accepted with eagerness their
hospitality for a few days, in order to have an opportunity of making
further inquiries as to the route and locality of the country they
would have to pass through.

Chapter Eighteenth.

Thirty persons in the village. Their stay with the Indians. They
proceed on their journey. Jane bitten by a rattlesnake. Taken back to
the village. Frightful effects of the poison. It causes a violent fever
to set in. Fatal consequences apprehended. She becomes delirious. The
chief's unremitting exertions to counteract the disease. It slowly
abated and Jane finally recovers. A war party returns having two white
prisoners. Fears entertained of their safety. Minawanda assists them to
escape by a sound indicating that of a whippoorwill. The white men also
accompany them as guides. Their joy at their anticipated deliverance
from the wilds of the forests. Miscellaneous conversation. They proceed
on their flight unmolested.

There were about thirty persons in the lodges, the rest of the Indians,
with their women and children, having gone out on one of their yearly
hunting expeditions, as well for the excitement as for the supplies
which they gather from them. These few were left to look after the
village in the absence of the rest, and were principally those who were
too old or ill to travel and hunt. After remaining a few days to
prepare themselves, they set out, persuading an old Indian to accompany
them as a guide two days' journey, in order to get them once more
started in the right direction. They had no hope of returning directly
to their friends. In fact, they knew that would be an impossibility to
do by crossing the Sierra, and their object at that time was to find a
settlement where they might know their whereabouts, and in what
direction to go in order to return. The old Indian was positive there
were people like themselves over the mountain of snow, and knowing they
must have wandered a great way to come to it, they determined to make
the most direct route to the nearest European habitation; for they had
wandered so long that their friends had become a secondary object with
them. Their first thoughts were to free themselves from the
interm