Tonopah bonanza. [volume] (Butler City [i.e. Butler], Nev.) 1901-1909, 1909-05-22
SHE

Hudded upon the stone floor OF a jail in Eko county, her blank
ct drawn closely around her, her head bent upon her knees in sor-
have said that she has committed a crime and she is waiting for
the words that perhaps will make her life that of a felon.
In the days before the hills were SCARED by the white mans
hands and the iron horse had not snorted his way over the hills
and rolling plains. the Great Spirit came down in a cloud frsm the
Happy Hunting Ground and told to the medicine man of the day
wonderous things and these We're told to the many tribes when they
gathered from far and wide, that they might profit thereby and be
wise.
The years rolled on, the white man came and with a strange
God, but sul the wind sighed through the trees. the echoes re-
bounded from the mountain sides in their same mysterious ways,
the birds sung their sweet songs and all was just the same IS OF the
long ago. AT night one could sit by the campfire on the outskirts
of the white mans town and see through the clouds the wonderous
pictures OF the Happy Hunting Ground and at times the voice of the
Great Spirit spoke in tender tones and the dogs raised their heads
aloft and howled in unison, their dismal wall of fear at the COM
manding voice
Sickness came to the brown sons of the hills more often than of
old and the medicine man with all his art was powerless to stay the
hand of death.
The lone woman of the prison cell had been taught the lessons
of her people. She too. had heard the voice of the Great Hunter.
and when her master,-her husband-was sick unto death upon the
beaten floor Of the wigwam, she had appealed to the clouds and to
the Great Spirit, who placed within her mind the thought that one
must die that the life of the man she loved must be saved.
Whose life should be given for the life of her master but the life
of the mother who gave him birth. This woman was aged, care
worn, decreph, and furthermore was one who also loved the man on
the bed of pain. The aged woman knew that her life was to be for
feited that ne sn might he "a me mandate OF hr acc. II
was the law that had been handed down from father 70 son that in
certain cases one should die that another should live. Life was
sweet to her and for a time she wavered and in s. doing stole
away from the campfire of her nome, out into the darkness of the
sandswept desert and there, gathering the dead sage, build
ing herself a fire and communed with the spirit. Here she
was found by the wife who had left the bedside of her lord to car
out the will of the Great Spirit. Here the mother and wife allowed
their tears to drop togethe~ Is they talked over the weakness of the
husband and son. Here the mother bowed her head to the blow of
the iron rod welded by the daughter-nlawf-the instrument of the
Fedmans religion.
The mother sank wHh r mufaed moan to the dark, grey sand
while the life blood gushed rom the jagged wound upon her brow.
The wife rolled the senseless body upon the dying embers aud
heaped thereon more of the greasy sage, and in the lurfd light
mounted her cayouse and fastened back to the humble tepee to
sbring the glad tding to the race that the sick man would S o N be
we'll for the Great Spirit had been appeased.
When the white men had learned the story, the stern law of the
land, with iron hand, brough. the trembling, ignorant woman, wcr-
shipper of a strange God, to suffer for obeying his mandates. She
told the tales in a hating way and showing where the charred bones
of the woman lay; she had not sinned, no crime was hers, sde had
done the duty of her race, had fulfilled the laws of her religion and
she wonders why the pa4e faces lock her in the house with The IRON
barred windows, and somehow, we also wonder-Carson News.