encampment
where mother was watching and waiting for me with an eager, aching
heart. When my straining eyes had seen the last of that solitary
figure riding off into the black desert, I turned abruptly away, and
Milt and I crept back over the vast desert. Before there was a glimmer
of dawn I was safely clasped in mother's arms, repeated my comforting
news over and over again that we had found father, that he was well
and on his way to that land toward which our own faces were turned."

In this simple, direct fashion has Virginia Reed told of a heroic deed
in the history of brave pioneer girls--but as the story comes from her
pen, it is scarcely possible to realize the anxiety, the torturing
fear, the hideous danger of such an expedition as that one of hers
when at midnight, on the great plains, she set out to find her father.

"After that," she says, "though we were obliged to travel on, and
though the party tried to be friendly with us, our hearts were sore
and our thoughts were centered on father, journeying on alone. But as
we went on we found welcome surprises by the way. A note written by
him, stuck on a forked twig by the wayside, feathers scattered over
the path to show that he had killed a bird and was not hungry. When we
had found such evidence of his being alive and well, mother would be
light-hearted for a whole day. Then the signs ceased, and mother's
despair was pitiful to see. Had he been killed by the Indians or
perhaps died of starvation? Patty and I were afraid we would lose
mother, too. But starvation was menacing the whole party, and she was
roused to new strength in a desire to protect her children from that
fate. And even more ominous in their portent of disaster, before us
rose the snow-capped Sierra Nevada mountains, which we must cross
before the heavy snows fell, and the question was, could we do it? We
left our wagon behind, which was too heavy for the mountain trip,
placed in it every article we could do without, packed what we needed
in another, and struggled on as best we could until the 19th of
October, when we had a great joy. As we were wearily traveling along
the Truckee, up rode Mr. Stanton and with him were seven mules loaded
with provisions! No angel from the skies could have been more welcome,
and, hungry though we were, better than food was the news that father
was alive and pushing on to the west. Mr. Stanton had met him near
Sutter's Fort, and had given him provisions and a fres