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Leaving me at the tavern, my husband drove out to Fort Lowell, to
see about quarters and things in general. In a few hours he
returned with the overwhelming news that he found a dispatch
awaiting him at that post, ordering him to return immediately to
his company at Camp MacDowell, as the Eighth Infantry was ordered
to the Department of California.

Ordered "out" at last! I felt like jumping up onto the table,
climbing onto the roof, dancing and singing and shouting for joy!
Tired as we were (and I thought I had reached the limit), we were
not too tired to take the first stage back for Florence, which
left that evening. Those two nights on the Tucson stage are a
blank in my memory. I got through them somehow.

In the morning, as we approached the town of Florence, the great
blue army wagon containing our household goods, hove in
sight--its white canvas cover stretched over hoops, its six
sturdy mules coming along at a good trot, and Sergeant Stone
cracking his long whip, to keep up a proper pace in the eyes of
the Tucson stage-driver.

Jack called him to halt, and down went the Sergeant's big brakes.
Both teams came to a stand-still, and we told the Sergeant the
news. Bewilderment, surprise, joy, followed each other on the old
Sergeant's countenance. He turned his heavy team about, and
promised to reach Camp MacDowell as soon as the animals could
make it. At Florence, we left the stage, and went to the little
tavern once more; the stage route did not lie in our direction, so
we must hire a private conveyance to bring us to Camp MacDowell.
Jack found a man who had a good pair of ponies and an open
buckboard. Towards night we set forth to cross the plain which
lies between Florence and the Salt River, due northwest by the
map.

When I saw the driver I did not care much for his appearance. He
did not inspire me with confidence, but the ponies looked strong,
and we had forty or fifty miles before us.

After we got fairly into the desert, which was a trackless waste,
I became possessed by a feeling that the man did not know the
way. He talked a good deal about the North Star, and the fork in
the road, and that we must be sure not to miss it.

It was a still, hot, starlit night. Jack and the driver sat on
the front seat. They had taken the back seat out, and my little
boy and I sat in the bottom of the wagon, with the hard cushions
to lean against through the night. I suppose we were drowsy with
sleep; at all events, the talk about the fork of the road and the
North Star faded away into dreams.

I awoke with a chilly feeling, and a sudden jolt over a rock. "I
do not recollect any rocks on this road, Jack, when we came over
it in the ambulance," said I.

"Neither do I," he replied.

I looked for the North Star: I had looked for it often when in
open boats. It was away off on our left, the road seemed to be
ascending and rocky: I had never seen this piece of road before,
that I was sure of.

"We are going to the eastward," said I, "and we should be going
northwest."

"My dear, lie down and go to sleep; the man knows the road; he is
taking a short cut, I suppose," said the Lieutenant. There was
something not at all reassuring in his tones, however.

The driver did not turn his head nor speak. I looked at the North
Star, which was getting farther and farther on our left, and I
felt the gloomy conviction that we were lost on the desert.

Finally, at daylight, after going higher and higher, we drew up
in an old deserted mining-camp.

The driver jerked his ponies up, and, with a sullen gesture,
said, "We must have missed the fork of the road; this is Picket
Post."

"Great Heavens!" I cried; "how far out of the way are we?"

"About fifteen miles," he drawled, "you see we shall have to go
back to the place where the road forks, and make a new start."

I nearly collapsed with discouragement. I looked around at the
ruined walls and crumbling pillars of stone, so weird and so grey
in the dawning light: it might have been a worshipping place of
the Druids. My little son shivered with the light chill which
comes at daybreak in those tropical countries: we were hungry and
tired and miserable: my bones ached, and I felt like crying.

We gave the poor ponies time to breathe, and took a bite of cold
food ourselves.

Ah! that blighted and desolate place called Picket Post! Forsaken
by God and man, it might have been the entrance to Hades.

Would the ponies hold out? They looked jaded to be sure, but we
had stopped long enough to breathe them, and away they trotted
again, down the mountain this time, instead of up.

It was broad day when we reached the fork of the road, which we
had not been able to see in the night: there was no mistaking it
now.

We had travelled already about forty miles, thirty more lay
before us; but there were no hills, it was all flat country, and
the owner of these brave little ponies said we could make it.

As we neared the MacDowell canon, we met Captain Corliss marching
out with his company (truly they had lost no time in starting for
California), and he told his First Lieutenant he would make slow
marches, that we might overtake him before he reached Yuma.

We were obliged to wait at Camp MacDowell for Sergeant Stone to
arrive with our wagonful of household goods, and then, after a
mighty weeding out and repacking, we set forth once more, with a
good team of mules and a good driver, to join the command. We
bade the Sixth Cavalry people once more good-bye, but I was so
nearly dead by this time, with the heat, and the fatigue of all
this hard travelling and packing up, that the keener edge of my
emotions was dulled. Eight days and nights spent in travelling
hither and thither over those hot plains in Southern Arizona, and
all for what?

Because somebody in ordering somebody to change his station, had
forgotten that somebody's regiment was about to be ordered out of
the country it had been in for four years. Also because my
husband was a soldier who obeyed orders without questioning them.
If he had been a political wire-puller, many of our misfortunes
might have been averted. But then, while I half envied the wives
of the wire-pullers, I took a sort of pride in the blind
obedience shown by my own particular soldier to the orders he
received.

After that week's experience, I held another colloquy with
myself, and decided that wives should not follow their husbands
in the army, and that if I ever got back East again, I would
stay: I simply could not go on enduring these unmitigated and
unreasonable hardships.

The Florence man staid over at the post a day or so to rest his
ponies. I bade him good-bye and told him to take care of those
brave little beasts, which had travelled seventy miles without
rest, to bring us to our destination. He nodded pleasantly and
drove away. "A queer customer," I observed to Jack.

"Yes," answered he, "they told me in Florence that he was a 'road
agent' and desperado, but there did not seem to be anyone else,
and my orders were peremptory, so I took him. I knew the ponies
could pull us through, by the looks of them; and road agents are
all right with army officers, they know they wouldn't get
anything if they held 'em up."

"How much did he charge you for the trip?" I asked.

"Sixteen dollars," was the reply. And so ended the episode.
Except that I looked back to Picket Post with a sort of horror, I
thought no more about it.




CHAPTER XXVII

THE EIGHTH FOOT LEAVES ARIZONA

And now after the eight days of most distressing heat, and the
fatigue of all sorts and varieties of travelling, the nights
spent in a stage-coach or at a desert inn, or in the road agent's
buckboard, holding always my little son close to my side, came
six days more of journeying down the valley of the Gila.

We took supper in Phoenix, at a place known as "Devine's." I was
hearing a good deal about Phoenix; for even then, its gardens,
its orchards and its climate were becoming famous, but the season
of the year was unpropitious to form a favorable opinion of that
thriving place, even if my opinions of Arizona, with its
parched-up soil and insufferable heat, had not been formed
already.

We crossed the Gila somewhere below there, and stopped at our old
camping places, but the entire valley was seething hot, and the
remembrance of the December journey seemed but an aggravating
dream.

We joined Captain Corliss and the company at Antelope Station,
and in two more days were at Yuma City. By this time, the
Southern Pacific Railroad had been built as far as Yuma, and a
bridge thrown across the Colorado at this point. It seemed an
incongruity. And how burning hot the cars looked, standing there
in the Arizona sun!

After four years in that Territory, and remembering the days,
weeks, and even months spent in travelling on the river, or
marching through the deserts, I could not make the Pullman cars
seem a reality.

We brushed the dust of the Gila Valley from our clothes, I
unearthed a hat from somewhere, and some wraps which had not seen
the light for nearly two years, and prepared to board the train.

I cried out in my mind, the prayer of the woman in one of
Fisher's Ehrenberg stories, to which I used to listen with
unmitigated delight, when I lived there. The story was this:
"Mrs. Blank used to live here in Ehrenberg; she hated the place
just as you do, but she was obliged to stay. Finally, after a
period of two years, she and her sister, who had lived with her,
were able to get away. I crossed over the river with them to
Lower California, on the old rope ferry-boat which they used to
have near Ehrenberg, and as soon as the boat touched the bank,
they jumped ashore, and down they both went upon their knees,
clasped their hands, raised their eyes to Heaven, and Mrs. Blank
said: 'I thank Thee, oh Lord! Thou hast at last delivered us from
the wilderness, and brought us back to God's country. Receive my
thanks, oh Lord!'"

And then Fisher used to add: "And the tears rolled down their
faces, and I knew they felt every word they spoke; and I guess
you'll feel about the same way when you get out of Arizona, even
if you don't quite drop on your knees," he said.

The soldiers did not look half so picturesque, climbing into the
cars, as they did when loading onto a barge; and when the train
went across the bridge, and we looked down upon the swirling red
waters of the Great Colorado from the windows of a luxurious
Pullman, I sighed; and, with the strange contradictoriness of the
human mind, I felt sorry that the old days had come to an end.
For, somehow, the hardships and deprivations which we have
endured, lose their bitterness when they have become only a
memory.




CHAPTER XXVIII

CALIFORNIA AND NEVADA

A portion of our regiment was ordered to Oregon, to join General
Howard, who was conducting the Bannock Campaign, so I remained
that summer in San Francisco, to await my husband's return.

I could not break away from my Arizona habits. I wore only white
dresses, partly because I had no others which were in fashion,
partly because I had become imbued with a profound indifference
to dress.

"They'll think you're a Mexican," said my New England aunt (who
regarded all foreigners with contempt). "Let them think," said I;
"I almost wish I were; for, after all, they are the only people
who understand the philosophy of living. Look at the tired faces
of the women in your streets," I added, "one never sees that sort
of expression down below, and I have made up my mind not to be
caught by the whirlpool of advanced civilization again."

Added to the white dresses, I smoked cigarettes, and slept all
the afternoons. I was in the bondage of tropical customs, and I
had lapsed back into a state of what my aunt called
semi-barbarism.

"Let me enjoy this heavenly cool climate, and do not worry me," I
begged. I shuddered when I heard people complain of the cold
winds of the San Francisco summer. How do they dare tempt Fate,
thought I, and I wished them all in Ehrenberg or MacDowell for
one summer. "I think they might then know something about
climate, and would have something to complain about!"

How I revelled in the flowers, and all the luxuries of that
delightful city!

The headquarters of the Eighth was located at Benicia, and
General Kautz, our Colonel, invited me to pay a visit to his
wife. A pleasant boat-trip up the Sacramento River brought us to
Benicia. Mrs. Kautz, a handsome and accomplished Austrian,
presided over her lovely army home in a manner to captivate my
fancy, and the luxury of their surroundings almost made me
speechless.

"The other side of army life," thought I.

A visit to Angel Island, one of the harbor defences, strengthened
this impression. Four years of life in the southern posts of
Arizona had almost made me believe that army life was indeed but
"glittering misery," as the Germans had called it.

In the autumn, the troops returned from Oregon, and C company was
ordered to Camp MacDermit, a lonely spot up in the northern part
of Nevada (Nevada being included in the Department of
California). I was sure by that time that bad luck was pursuing
us. I did not know so much about the "ins and outs" of the army
then as I do now.

At my aunt's suggestion, I secured a Chinaman of good caste for a
servant, and by deceiving him (also my aunt's advice) with the
idea that we were going only as far as Sacramento, succeeded in
making him willing to accompany us.

We started east, and left the railroad at a station called
"Winnemucca." MacDermit lay ninety miles to the north. But at
Winnemucca the Chinaman balked. "You say: 'All'e same
Saclamento': lis place heap too far: me no likee!" I talked to
him, and, being a good sort, he saw that I meant well, and the
soldiers bundled him on top of the army wagon, gave him a lot of
good-natured guying, and a revolver to keep off Indians, and so
we secured Hoo Chack.

Captain Corliss had been obliged to go on ahead with his wife,
who was in the most delicate health. The post ambulance had met
them at this place.

Jack was to march over the ninety miles, with the company. I
watched them starting out, the men, glad of the release from the
railroad train, their guns on their shoulders, stepping off in
military style and in good form.

The wagons followed--the big blue army wagons, and Hoo Chack,
looking rather glum, sitting on top of a pile of baggage.

I took the Silver City stage, and except for my little boy I was
the only passenger for the most of the way. We did the ninety
miles without resting over, except for relays of horses.

I climbed up on the box and talked with the driver. I liked these
stage-drivers. They were "nervy," fearless men, and kind, too,
and had a great dash and go about them. They often had a quiet
and gentle bearing, but by that time I knew pretty well what sort
of stuff they were made of, and I liked to have them talk to me,
and I liked to look out upon the world through their eyes, and
judge of things from their standpoint.

It was an easy journey, and we passed a comfortable night in the
stage.

Camp MacDermit was a colorless, forbidding sort of a place. Only
one company was stationed there, and my husband was nearly always
scouting in the mountains north of us. The weather was severe,
and the winter there was joyless and lonesome. The extreme cold
and the loneliness affected my spirits, and I suffered from
depression.

I had no woman to talk to, for Mrs. Corliss, who was the only
other officer's wife at the post, was confined to the house by
the most delicate health, and her mind was wholly absorbed by the
care of her young infant. There were no nurses to be had in that
desolate corner of the earth.

One day, a dreadful looking man appeared at the door, a person
such as one never sees except on the outskirts of civilization,
and I wondered what business brought him. He wore a long, black,
greasy frock coat, a tall hat, and had the face of a sneak. He
wanted the Chinaman's poll-tax, he said.

"But," I suggested, "I never heard of collecting taxes in a
Government post; soldiers and officers do not pay taxes."

"That may be," he replied, "but your Chinaman is not a soldier,
and I am going to have his tax before I leave this house."

"So, ho," I thought; "a threat!" and the soldier's blood rose in
me.

I was alone; Jack was miles away up North. Hoo Chack appeared in
the hall; he had evidently heard the man's last remark. "Now," I
said, "this Chinaman is in my employ, and he shall not pay any
tax, until I find out if he be exempt or not."

The evil-looking man approached the Chinaman. Hoo Chack grew a
shade paler. I fancied he had a knife under his white shirt; in
fact, he felt around for it. I said, "Hoo Chack, go away, I will
talk to this man."

I opened the front door. "Come with me" (to the tax-collector);
"we will ask the commanding officer about this matter." My heart
was really in my mouth, but I returned the man's steady and
dogged gaze, and he followed me to Captain Corliss' quarters. I
explained the matter to the Captain, and left the man to his
mercy. "Why didn't you call the Sergeant of the Guard, and have
the man slapped into the guard-house?" said Jack, when I told him
about it afterwards. "The man had no business around here; he was
trying to browbeat you into giving him a dollar, I suppose."

The country above us was full of desperadoes from Boise and
Silver City, and I was afraid to be left alone so much at night;
so I begged Captain Corliss to let me have a soldier to sleep in
my quarters. He sent me old Needham. So I installed old Needham
in my guest chamber with his loaded rifle. Now old Needham was
but a wisp of a man; long years of service had broken down his
health; he was all wizened up and feeble; but he was a soldier; I
felt safe, and could sleep once more. Just the sight of Needham
and his old blue uniform coming at night, after taps, was a
comfort to me.

Anxiety filled my soul, for Jack was scouting in the Stein
Mountains all winter in the snow, after Indians who were avowedly
hostile, and had threatened to kill on sight. He often went out
with a small pack-train, and some Indian scouts, five or six
soldiers, and I thought it quite wrong for him to be sent into
the mountains with so small a number.

Camp MacDermit was, as I have already mentioned, a "one-company
post." We all know what that may mean, on the frontier. Our
Second Lieutenant was absent, and all the hard work of winter
scouting fell upon Jack, keeping him away for weeks at a time.

The Piute Indians were supposed to be peaceful, and their old
chief, Winnemucca, once the warlike and dreaded foe of the white
man, was now quiet enough, and too old to fight. He lived, with
his family, at an Indian village near the post.

He came to see me occasionally. His dress was a curious mixture
of civilization and savagery. He wore the chapeau and dress-coat
of a General of the American Army, with a large epaulette on one
shoulder. He was very proud of the coat, because General Crook
had given it to him. His shirt, leggings and moccasins were of
buckskin, and the long braids of his coal-black hair, tied with
strips of red flannel, gave the last touch to this incongruous
costume.

But I must say that his demeanor was gentle and dignified, and,
after recovering from the superficial impressions which his
startling costume had at first made upon my mind, I could well
believe that he had once been the war-leader, as he was now the
political head of his once-powerful tribe.

Winnemucca did not disdain to accept some little sugar-cakes from
me, and would sit down on our veranda and munch them.

He always showed me the pasteboard medal which hung around his
neck, and which bore General Howard's signature; and he always
said: "General Howard tell me, me good Injun, me go
up--up--up"--pointing dramatically towards Heaven. On one
occasion, feeling desperate for amusement, I said to him:
"General Howard very good man, but he make a mistake; where you
go, is not up--up--up, but," pointing solemnly to the earth below
us, "down--down--down." He looked incredulous, but I assured him
it was a nice place down there.

Some of the scattered bands of the tribe, however, were restless
and unsubdued, and gave us much trouble, and it was these bands
that necessitated the scouts.

My little son, Harry, four years old, was my constant and only
companion, during that long, cold, and anxious winter.

My mother sent me an appealing invitation to come home for a
year. I accepted gladly, and one afternoon in May, Jack put us
aboard the Silver City stage, which passed daily through the
post.

Our excellent Chinese servant promised to stay with the "Captain"
and take care of him, and as I said "Good-bye, Hoo Chack," I
noticed an expression of real regret on his usually stolid
features.

Occupied with my thoughts, on entering the stage, I did not
notice the passengers or the man sitting next me on the back
seat. Darkness soon closed around us, and I suppose we fell
asleep. Between naps, I heard a queer clanking sound, but
supposed it was the chains of the harness or the stage-coach
gear. The next morning, as we got out at a relay station for
breakfast, I saw the handcuffs on the man next to whom I had sat
all the night long. The sheriff was on the box outside. He very
obligingly changed seats with me for the rest of the way, and
evening found us on the overland train speeding on our journey
East. Camp MacDermit with its dreary associations and
surroundings faded gradually from my mind, like a dream.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* *

The year of 1879 brought us several changes. My little daughter
was born in mid-summer at our old home in Nantucket. As I lay
watching the curtains move gently to and fro in the soft
sea-breezes, and saw my mother and sister moving about the room,
and a good old nurse rocking my baby in her arms, I could but
think of those other days at Camp Apache, when I lay through the
long hours, with my new-born baby by my side, watching, listening
for some one to come in. There was no one, no woman to come,
except the poor hard-working laundress of the cavalry, who did
come once a day to care for the baby.

Ah! what a contrast! and I had to shut my eyes for fear I should
cry, at the mere thought of those other days.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* * * *

Jack took a year's leave of absence and joined me in the autumn
at Nantucket, and the winter was spent in New York, enjoying the
theatres and various amusements we had so long been deprived of.
Here we met again Captain Porter and Carrie Wilkins, who was now
Mrs. Porter. They were stationed at David's Island, one of the
harbor posts, and we went over to see them. "Yes," he said, "as
Jacob waited seven years for Rachel, so I waited for Carrie."

The following summer brought us the good news that Captain
Corliss' company was ordered to Angel Island, in the bay of San
Francisco. "Thank goodness," said Jack, "C company has got some
good luck, at last!"

Joyfully we started back on the overland trip to California,
which took about nine days at that time. Now, travelling with a
year-old baby and a five-year-old boy was quite troublesome, and
we were very glad when the train had crossed the bleak Sierras
and swept down into the lovely valley of the Sacramento.

Arriving in San Francisco, we went to the old Occidental Hotel,
and as we were going in to dinner, a card was handed to us. "Hoo
Chack" was the name on the card. "That Chinaman!" I cried to
Jack."How do you suppose he knew we were here?"

We soon made arrangements for him to accompany us to Angel
Island, and in a few days this "heathen Chinee" had unpacked all
our boxes and made our quarters very comfortable. He was rather a
high-caste man, and as true and loyal as a Christian. He never
broke his word, and he staid with us as long as we remained in
California.

And now we began to live, to truly live; for we felt that the
years spent at those desert posts under the scorching suns of
Arizona had cheated us out of all but a bare existence upon
earth.

The flowers ran riot in our garden, fresh fruits and vegetables,
fresh fish, and all the luxuries of that marvellous climate, were
brought to our door.

A comfortable Government steamboat plied between San Francisco
and its harbor posts, and the distance was not great--only three
quarters of an hour. So we had a taste of the social life of that
fascinating city, and could enjoy the theatres also.

On the Island, we had music and dancing, as it was the
headquarters of the regiment. Mrs. Kautz, so brilliant and gay,
held grand court here--receptions, military functions, lawn
tennis, bright uniforms, were the order of the day. And that
incomparable climate! How I revelled in it! When the fog rolled
in from the Golden Gate, and enveloped the great city of Saint
Francis in its cold vapors, the Island of the Angels lay warm and
bright in the sunshine.

The old Spaniards named it well, and the old Nantucket whalers
who sailed around Cape Horn on their way to the Ar'tic, away back
in the eighteen twenties, used to put in near there for water,
and were well familiar with its bright shores, before it was
touched by man's handiwork.

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