Overland Tales

by Josephine Clifford

  _MARCHING WITH A COMMAND._

  From Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania, we were ordered to FortLeavenworth, Kansas, there to join General Sykes' command, then fittingout for the march across the Plains. General Sykes commanded the FifthInfantry, while my husband belonged to the Third Cavalry; but as thelatter regiment was to take up the line of march from Little Rock,Arkansas, through Texas, the lieutenant, as well as some three or fourother officers of the Third, were well satisfied to be assigned to theinfantry command, and sent in charge of recruits from Washington andCarlisle, to join General Sykes at Fort Leavenworth.

  The two regiments (Fifth Infantry and Third Cavalry) were to rendezvousat Fort Union, New Mexico, where General Carleton was to meet thetroops, and assign them to the different forts, camps, and stations inhis department. This was immediately after the close of the war; andthese eight hundred men of the Fifth Infantry and the Third Cavalry,under Colonel Howe, were the first regulars sent out to the Territories,from whence they had been called in to do some of the hard fighting whenthe rebellion broke out--volunteers and colored troops taking theirplace on the frontiers.

  It was early June--the sky radiant, the earth laughing. Birds of thewestern prairies warbled their greeting from out the rose-trellises andsweet-scented flowers of the little enclosures in front of the officers'quarters, which, surrounding the well kept parade-ground, gave the placethe look of one large bright-blooming garden. For days there had beenat the fort signs and sounds as of a swarm of bees preparing to leavethe hive. The carriage of the general flew back and forth between thetown and the fort; the quartermaster dashed through the corrals, and bythe workshops on his handsome sorrel; females of all shades and colorswere interviewed and interrogated by officers' wives, who meant toprovide themselves with luxuries for the journey; and new faces wereseen and scanned in the mess-room every day.

  The first day out from Fort Leavenworth we made but a few miles; thegeneral seemed bent only on getting his command away from the barracks,for, though warned for weeks of the day of starting, there were thosewho seemed as little prepared for the march now as they had been twoweeks ago. Well I remember the camp we made that first day--amid grassso high that we felt and looked like ants moving among the blades--andthe confusion in our own establishment and that of our neighbors. Theadvantages of having secured the services of an old army-woman becameapparent at this early stage. Without having at all consulted me, Mrs.Melville had boiled a ham, and stowed bread, cheese, and sardines, whereshe could readily lay hands on the articles, in the mess-chest. Coffeewas quickly cooked, and we could sit down to our meal and invite othersto it, before we had fairly realized the discomforts of a first night incamp.

  A good woman was Mrs. Melville, but dreadfully tyrannical--domineeringruthlessly over myself and her husband, and only in awe of thelieutenant when he insisted on having his own way. They had alwaysserved in the cavalry, and had now again enlisted (I mean the husband,who drove our carriage, had enlisted) in the Third; and as Melville wasthe only cavalry recruit with the command, it had been a matter of somedifficulty to appropriate him and his wife. It was not till the secondday, when we made camp, that I saw how large the command was; and Iremember thinking that it had taken since yesterday for the "tail-end"of the train of wagons, mules, and horses to leave the corrals and getinto camp. When we left our camping-ground in the morning and returnedto the highway, there was a broad road with deep ruts behind us, andhundreds of acres of prairie-land made bare and torn up, as though acity had been swept away, where the day before no sign of human life hadbeen and the tall grass had waved untouched over the soft, black soil.Fancy the tramp of eight hundred men, the keen, light-turning wheels ofa dozen or two of carriages, and the heavy, crunching weight of twohundred army-wagons, drawn each by six stout mules! No wonder the grassnever grew again where General Sykes's command had passed!

  Besides the twelve hundred mules in the wagons, there were some twohundred head extra, and a number of horses for the officers. All ofthese animals had been drawn from the government corrals at FortLeavenworth; but I never realized how many there were, till one eveningabout four days out from the fort.

  Elsewhere I have spoken of my white horse, Toby, who had so quicklybecome domesticated that he _would_ insist on returning to our tent, nomatter how emphatically he was told that he must be turned out, and staywith the rest of the herd. The mules had been accustomed to follow thelead of a white "bell-mare" in the corrals; and as Toby was the onlywhite horse in the outfit, they became greatly attached to him, andwould follow him in his vagaries wherever he led. Unfortunately, when hetook his way back to the camp and to our tent this evening, the herderswere not on the alert as usual, and before they could turn the tidethere was a stampede, and a perfect overflow of mules in the camp. Suchyelling and bellowing as those animals set up, when they foundthemselves floundering among the tents, and belabored with clubs, ropes,and picket-pins by the enraged soldiers, was never heard before norsince. Even Toby's serenity was disturbed, and he stood half-way in thetent, trembling, and looking as though he knew that the wagon-master wasmaking his way to our settlement. Though I could forgive the man's rage,as he pushed the horse to one side and passed into the tent, neither thelieutenant nor myself took kindly to his offer to "shoot the horse thenext time he undertook to stampede the herd;" and I held close on toToby till the mules were driven back, and the wagon-master's wrath hadcooled.

  Truth to tell, before the next forty-eight hours were over, I waswellnigh converted to the belief that we had drawn the meanest stock thegovernment-stables had ever contained. I forgot to say that each of theofficers had been assigned a company of the recruits, and as theymarched with them, we ladies were left in our carriages alone. No soonerwas the command fairly on the road this morning than Molly and Jenny, apair of green mules drawing our carriage, fell to jumping and kicking ona rough piece of ground, and a moment later the carriage was laid proneon one side, while I quietly clambered out on the other. A chorus oflittle screams went up from the rest of the carriages--expressing morehorror, I think, at my getting up without the assistance of the doctor,who came flying up on his square-headed bay, than at the accidentitself.

  This was not enough of evil for the day. We made camp early (the generalmade not over fifteen miles a day when first starting out with therecruits), and Molly and Jenny, fastened to each other by a light chainaround the neck, followed Toby through the camp, where they had come tobe accepted as standing nuisances. Away up near the general's tent, Tobymust have fancied there was good grazing, for he went there, the twomules _en train_. What followed I learned from the grinning orderly, whorapped at our tent soon after, holding the mules by the chain, andsaying that "the general sent his compliments to the lieutenant, andhe'd shoot the mules, and the white horse too, the next time they pulledthe tent-fly down over him."

  I looked stealthily out, and saw Toby in the distance, contemplativelyswitching his tail, and half a dozen men at work re-erecting thegeneral's tent. The story was too good to keep; and the general himselftold how, lying asleep on his cot, under the tent-fly, where it wascool, he had been waked up by Toby's nose brushing his face. Raisinghimself, and hurling one boot and an invective at the horse, he wassurprised at seeing the two mules trying to stare him out of countenanceat the open end of the fly. The other boot was shied at them, but therewas no time to send anything else. The chain fastening the mulestogether had become twisted around, the pole holding up the fly, and theprecipitate retreat of the long-eared pair brought the heavy canvas downon the general's face.

  Would I could end my "tale of woe" right here; but a love of truthcompels me to say that the meanness of that horse seemed endless, andhis capacity for wickedness was such that portions of it fell on Mollyand Jenny, when a particularly rich harvest rewarded his efforts atdeviltry. When Toby came to the tent-door, early next morning, I noticeda strangely bright polish on his fore-hoofs, and a suspicious greasinessabout his nose and face. Molly and Jenny had greasy streaks running allov
er them, and seemed so well fed that I wondered to myself which of theofficers' horses had to suffer last night, and go supperless to bed.Toby sniffed disdainfully at the bread I offered him, and turned to walkoff very suddenly when he saw Melville coming toward the tent. I mustexplain that the tents were always pitched in the same order--thelieutenant's on one side of us; Captain Newbold's on the other; thebaggage-wagon assigned to each officer drawn up behind the tent; themules, of course, turned out with the rest of the herd. Melvillepointed to the wagon behind Captain Newbold's tent, where a knot of menwere gathered, bending to the ground; but he seemed too full forutterance. Almost instinctively I knew what he wanted to tell me.Newbold had brought two large jars of butter with him from Leavenworth,and Toby had encountered them last night, wiping his mouth on Molly andJenny when he found the butter not to his taste. Over and above that, hehad hauled six or eight grain-sacks out of the wagon, opened the sackswith his teeth, and scattered the grain for the two mules to eat.

  I wanted to kill Toby on the spot; for the Newbolds were the best ofneighbors, sharing with us, through the whole of that journey, the milktheir cow (the only one with the whole train) was pleased to give. Not aword of complaint was heard from the captain or his little wife; but Idid hope honestly that the miserable white horse might die of his extrafeed of butter and oats.

  In the evening Colonel Lane gathered the ladies together, led us to thetop of a hill, and pointed out where Fort Riley lay, like a grandfortress, with long, white walls, rising on a green eminence. We reachedit next day by night-fall, and though camped several miles outside ofit, there were so many things which we found we actually needed, andwhich could only be had at this, the last post of any importance, thatthe greater number of officers were constantly to be seen between thesutler-store and the saddler-shop, the quartermaster's office and thecorrals.

  After a rest of three days, we took up the line of march again throughprairie-land, dotted with farms and broken by forests and streams,through which (after having crossed the Kansas river at Manhattan, on apontoon-bridge, before reaching Fort Riley) the soldiers seemed to thinkit rare sport to wade, barefooted, carrying shoes and stockings in theirhands.

  The country grew wilder and more desolate; and passing a farm-house oneday, near which there were buffaloes grazing in the pasture with oxenand cows, it seemed nothing extraordinary, though, of course, we did notsee the buffalo in his native freedom till some time after. At Ellsworth(now Fort Harker) we halted again for a day, and then gradually enteredthe wilderness. Fort Zarah seems to have grown where it is, only to helpmake the country look sadder and more desolate; but the well they haveis splendid. I think so at least, for I was _so_ thirsty when we turnedin there at noon, though we continued the march and did not make camp.The general seemed to consider the feet of his men fully seasoned bythis time; and they certainly made some hard days' marches before theyreached Fort Union. The days' marches were harder for them than theywere for us, on the whole; though many a time, creeping slowly over thetediously level ground, did I wish that I could march with them, or helpdrive mules, or lead horses--anything rather than sit in the carriagefor hours, the sun beating down in just the same direction, the men infront moving along in just the same measure. But there was somethinggrand about it at the same time--a forest of bayonets in front of us, anendless train of wagons behind us, moving silently through the solemnwilds; hosts of red-winged black-birds fluttering along with us, therarer blue-jay flying haughtily over their heads.

  There was always something to see; the prairie-flowers were sodazzlingly colored some days, or the rock lay in such odd strata; and inone place we saw the remains of some rough fortifications built of therocks--thrown up hastily, perhaps, one day when the party of braveemigrants spied "ye noble savage" bearing down on them. In campeverything looked pleasant and cheerful. The general had traversed thecountry more than once, knew every spring on the road, and had thecamping-ground kept so neat that we could have stopped in one place agood many days without any discomfort. Beyond that, he was courteous andthoughtful of our comfort, as only a soldier can be; and there was not alady "marching with the command" who would not have voted him amajor-general of the United States army, or into the Presidential chair,if he had preferred it.

  At Fort Dodge, where officers and men burrowed half under ground (atthat time), I had not the least desire to remain. However, a few milesback, where the river makes the bend, there is a singular grandeur aboutthe country, with nothing to break the utter loneliness, save the sad,heavy murmur of the water. And now we are out on the plains again; dayafter day we travel over land that lies so level and so still that not abeing but the lark seems living here beside us. How hot and fierce thesun glares down on the slowly-winding column--a serpent it seems, withits length outstretched, as it moves over the bare, brown prairie. Thespirit grew oppressed, and the heart fainted in the noon-day sun; thecommand to halt was always received with joy; and more than once we hadto make forced marches to reach water. Yet we lost but one man out ofthe eight hundred, and he died the day we struck the Arkansasagain--died in the road almost--and we carried him with us to camp; andat night, when the stars had come out and tear-drops hung in the eyes ofthe flowers by the river-bank, they carried him to his lonely grave. Iwent to the tent-door when I heard the muffled drums, and stood outside,in the dark, where I could see the short procession passing. Lanternswere carried in the train that moved ghostly away from the camp-firesand the white-looming tents. The grave was not far, and when they hadlowered the coffin I saw the form of a man bowing over it, as though inprayer, and then the earth was shovelled back. The soldiers returnedwith measured tread, and left their comrade on the wide, lone prairie,with only the Arkansas to sing his dirge.

  I went to sleep with tears in my eyes; but we were to make an earlystart in the morning, and before daybreak we were all awake and astir.Sadness could not live in the heart those early mornings, and I thoughtsometimes the general had _reveille_ sounded so early purposely, to showus how beautiful Nature was at sunrise.

  Sunrise on the plains! Is there anything in music, in painting, inpoetry, that can bring before eyes that have never beheld it, thepassing beauty of such a scene? There are strains in music which bring afaint shadow of the picture back to me; no art can ever reproduce it.How balmy the faint breath of wind that seems to lift upward the light,gray clouds, to make way for the rosy tints creeping athwart thehorizon! Watch the clouds as they rise higher in the heavens; see howthe sun-god has kissed them into blushes as bright as the damask-rose,sending a flood of yellow light to cover them with greater confusion.Now they float gently upward till they reach the clear, blue sky, fromwhere the yellow light has faded; and, watching bevies of other clouds,still dancing in the light above the first rays of the rising sun, thecolor fades from them, and they waft hither and thither--white clouds ondeep blue ground--till the morning breeze bears them away from oursight. But words are weak and tame; and the yellow-breasted prairie-larkalone, rising high in the sun-bright air as the day begins, gives fitexpression to her thanks for the glories of creation, in the wordlesssong she sings forever.

  We were always far on the day's journey before the sun was fairly up; itwas very early, to be sure, and often as the tents were struck when the_generale_ was sounded, the families occupying them could be seentumbling out, the children only half-dressed; and it happened sometimesthat carriages were left behind, when not ready to fall into line whenthe march was beaten. In times of danger from Indians, of course, thiswould not have happened; but at that time there was thought to be nodanger, except at night.

  Mrs. Melville had developed into an unmitigated tyrant, and one of hervictims was an Englishman, a raw recruit, who had been given thelieutenant as servant. His name was either Ackley or Hackley, Ockley orHockley. If he insisted it was one, Mrs. Melville said it was the other;and so completely cowed was he at last that he no longer dared to asserthis right to any name. I often thought it was a national revenge she waswreaking on the poor fellow (s
he and her husband had sprung from theEmerald Isle). He had to do all the work that should have fallen to hershare, and he never had a moment to spare for the lieutenant or myself.From the first day of starting, I had detected, among the detail of mensent to pitch our tent, a countryman of mine, a poor Dutchman, thegreenest of his kind. I electrified him one day by speaking German tohim, and ever after his pale, worn face would brighten, and his eyeslight up, when I asked of him any little service or assistance. Thegeneral, knowing me to be a German, allowed the man to wait on us; andMohrman was happy as a king when he could fondle Toby, or put our tentto rights, and fix things comfortably for me in the carriage. He was acabinet-maker, and the camp-table he made for us was the envy of thewhole camp. The poor fellow was weak in the chest (something unusual forone of his nationality), and a big Irish corporal, who was a good enoughfellow otherwise, had always imposed on Mohrman, because he was ignorantof the language, and could make no complaint to his officer. Hecontinued to bear with Stebbins's petty persecutions like a saint, tillone morning he made his appearance at the tent-door, with tears in hiseyes, and complained that the corporal had deprived him of the lastthing he had left, coming from the "Fatherland"--his _Gesang-Buch_,which his mother had given him on the day of confirmation.

  I stepped outside, where Corporal Stebbins with his detail stood,waiting to strike the tent at the sounding of the _generale_. There wasa lurking grin on the corporal's face, as he approached at my summons.

  "Corporal," said I, "have you Mohrman's book?"

  "Sure, ma'am, and is it his prayer-book the poor b'y wants? Ye see, hecomplained yesterday that his knapsack was so heavy that he couldn'tpack me blankets; so I thought I'd carry this for him a while;" and,amidst a half-suppressed snicker, he solemnly drew forth from hiscapacious pocket a big black hymn-book, substantially German-looking,about ten inches in length by five inches across.

  "I'll take that book," said I, looking severe, and turning very quicklyto hide my face.

  After this Mohrman seemed to have more peace; and we journeyed onserenely till we reached Fort Lyon, Colorado, the first human habitationwe had laid eyes on for many weeks. Sterile and rock-strewn as thecountry is, it was the boast of the post commander that he had as fine acompany-garden as could be seen, twenty miles away from here; to whichhis wife added, "the only pity was that the vegetables should always bedry and wilted before they reached the garrison."

  I was well pleased to think that our destination lay beyond Fort Lyon;though there were those among the ladies who so dreaded the crossing ofthe Arkansas just before us, and the passage of the Raton Mountainslater, that they would have remained here, where no flower could becoaxed into blossom, rather than have gone on. The Arkansas river was tobe crossed at Bent's old fort, where the overland mail-stage also hadits crossing. The carriages were discreetly sent a mile or two above thefording-place, for the soldiers--poor fellows--had to swim across, theirclothes, knapsack, and gun in one hand, while with the other they heldto the stout ropes stretched from shore to shore. Not a man of the eighthundred was lost. There were mounted men in the river, ready to lend ahelping hand at the first cry for aid, and they all crossed safely,though many, I dare say, in fear and trembling. When the men were over,the married officers were permitted to join the ladies, and we wereferried across in the skiff belonging to the stage line, for whichlittle water-excursion we paid two dollars a head to the Overland MailCompany. Carriages and wagons were brought over by the wagon-master andteamsters; and when the whole train was on the other side, we thought wehad spent rather a pleasant day.

  Like sailors scanning the edge of the horizon for land, so the soldiershad for days been watching the nearer approach of the Spanish Peakslooming faintly in the distance, and breaking the grand monotone of thelevel, changeless plain, verging, where the eye could see no further,into limitless space. Those who had been out this way before commencedtalking of the "Picketwire," and the beautiful valleys we should see,and the big onions the Mexicans would bring to the camp to sell. After awhile I discovered that the "Picketwire" was a little river--the"Purgatoir" or "Purgatory"--along whose banks the Mexican raisedvegetables and fruit, of which I saw specimens, later, in the big onionspoken of. I had not been in California then, and the onions producedthere, of the size of a large saucer, certainly had a stunning effect onme.

  I am not prepared to say why the little river was called Purgatory. Forthe most part the country was good enough--lovely, even; and sometimesgrand. One or two days seemed rather purgatorial though, come to thinkof it. On one occasion we passed through steep, barren hills, strewn allover with little cylindrical pieces of iron, that looked exactly asthough they had been melted in that place just below purgatory, andthrown up here to cool. Another day we marched along the bed of a river,over boulders from three to six feet high; if _we_ did not think itpurgatory, the horses and mules certainly did. But the worst day of allremained.

  It broke at last--the dreaded day in which the Raton Pass was to beattempted. The horrors of the Pass, however, must have been less vividin the eyes of the general than in the minds of the ladies belonging tohis command; for, contrary to all hopes and expectations, he allowednone of the married officers to remain with the carriages. It was a"steep" pass, undeniably. To this day I have not forgotten the sound ofthe grating of the wheels on the bare, unmitigated rock, as the carriagemade ascents and descents that were truly miraculous--one wheel pointingheavenward sometimes, while the other three were wedged in below;scraping along a rock wall, bounding from rock to rock, with thepleasant prospect, on the other side, of a launch from a jagged,well-deep precipice, into eternity.

  The crowning point to our terror, and to the grandeur of the scene, wasa fearfully inclined plane of solid rock, with a frowning bank on oneside, a gaping drop-off on the other, and a dark, heavy wall risingsquare in front of us; against which, to all appearances, the mules mustdash their brains out, for neither bit nor brake was of the least availon this road. Just where the crash against the wall seemed inevitable,there was a narrow curve, and the road ran on in spite of the seemingimpossibility. True to the saying, that there is but a step from thesublime to the ridiculous, I fell to laughing here, so that Melvilleturned in surprise to see whether fear and terror had robbed me of mysober senses; but I had seen in passing, painted on that dreadful wallof frowning rock, the cabalistic words and signs: "Old Cabin Bitters;S---- T---- 1860 ---- X----;" and below this, "Brandreth's VegetablePills."

  These horrors past, there lay before us valleys, hills, crags--thatformed as picturesque a landscape as tourist's eye was ever gladdenedby. At the foot of tall, straight pines, crowning the heights andcovering the sloping hill-sides, was a carpet of short, soft grass, outof which laughed the merriest flower-eyes, and over which nodded theslenderest stalks, bearing blossoms that seemed exotic in theirintensely bright hues. The balm-laden breath of the wind told enticingtales of the untrod velvet on the heights above, where the pine-treesbent and swayed in the passing breeze. We had come upon this all sounexpectedly that the lieutenant insisted on my mounting Toby to obtaina better view of the whole country. My saddle was in the wagonsomewhere, and there was no time to hunt it up; but as I had seen Mrs.Lane start off on the colonel's horse and saddle sometime before, Iclambered on Toby's back at once, into the lieutenant's saddle. Bycrossing some little low hills, which the command had to march around, Ifound myself pretty soon ahead of the train. Not aware that we were topass any place where human beings dwelt, I kept bravely on--feeling allthe more safe from seeing Captain Newbold's cow, with her guardian, justin front of me. When I saw a rude kind of gateway a little later, Icould not resist the promptings of my curiosity, and quite forgot thecommand, which approached just then with beating drums and flyingcolors. Had I realized how near they were upon me, I think my nativemodesty would have prompted me to let General Sykes, with his command,pass in front of me; but seeing Captain Newbold's cow march through thegate, and an avenue of Mexican and Indian faces, I followed the lead,barely escaping t
he feet of the drummer-boys, who were close on myheels.

  It was the residence of an old pioneer--old Wooten--a pioneer in theboldest sense of the word. In conversation with one of the officers,when Kit Carson was mentioned, he spoke of him as being a comparativestranger in these parts, having been in the country only sometwenty-five or thirty years.

  If, in the eyes of the straggling Mexicans gathered around, it was anhonor to ride in front of the command--next after Captain Newbold'scow--that honor, and the privilege of riding in the lieutenant's saddle,was dearly paid for before night. Determined not to have thedrummer-boys so close behind me again, I turned aside from the road,lured on by the magnificent fresh, soft grass before me. Toby seemedstrangely averse to crushing the grass, for he stepped very gingerly,and made two or three attempts to turn back. Sky-gazing, I urged him on,till a sudden plunge he made had nearly thrown me out of the slipperysaddle, and for the first time I saw that the fresh, treacherous greenhad only covered an ugly quagmire, in which Toby was wildly plungingabout, getting in deeper at every fresh effort to raise himself. Thecommand had nearly passed; only Colonel Bankhead lingered behind,picking the rare flowers for his wife--gallant man!--and my wild shoutscaused him to look around. It was a slow job to rescue me; and by thetime I was on dry soil, the colonel's clothing was very much the colorof Toby's legs just then, for the frightened horse would not move astep, and Colonel Bankhead--I repeat my thanks to him now--had made hisway into the horrible bog at the risk of his life almost. After this Icould let Toby have the reins, and go anywhere--he never got miredagain. But I took to the carriage that day, and never mounted Toby againtill we reached Fort Union, some time later.

  They were building very comfortable quarters at Fort Union when we gotin, but that did us no good. General Sykes had his camping-groundassigned by General Carleton a mile or two outside the post; and ourplace was with the Fifth Infantry, until our regiment should get in. Nowwe used to strain our eyes looking for signs of "our regiment;" not thatwe were not well enough off where we were, but we used to congregate atthe tent of some officer of the Third, and feel clannish, and speak ofthe delight we should feel when "old Howe" got in with the regiment--allout of sheer contrariness, I suppose.

  One day Melville rushed wildly into the tent, and announced a great dustarising in the distance. We all rushed out, and a perfect fever tookpossession of the camp--cavalry and infantry, officers and men. Tablesand mess-chests were brought out and spread; bottles were uncorked, andfruit-cans opened; dried-apple pie (a great luxury, I assure you) andsalt pickles, raw sliced onions and raspberry jelly, were joyfullyplaced side by side.

  Nearer rolled the dust--slowly--slowly; a snail might have moved faster,I thought, than this regiment, famed once as the Rifles, and blessedwith the reputation of being very unlike a snail in general character.Mrs. Melville needed no stimulant to do her best; affection and ambitionprompted her alike--she had served with the Third before, and was nowagain of them--and she worked like a beaver to have the table wellspread for the expected guests. The slow, heavy tramp of the approachingtroops shook the earth like far-off thunder; but the dust was so thickthat it was hard to tell where the soldiers left off and the wagonscommenced, while the train moved. At last there came the sudden clangingof trumpets, so shrill and discordant that I put my hands up to my ears,and then the command halted near our camp.

  Let no one dream of a band of gay cavaliers riding grandly into thegarrison on prancing steeds, and with flying banners! Alas, for romanceand poetry! Gaunt, ragged-looking men, on bony, rough-coatedhorses--sun-burned, dust-covered, travel-worn, man and beast. Was therenothing left of the old material of the dashing, death-daring Rifles?Ah, well! These men had seen nothing for long weeks but the red,sun-heated soil of the Red River country; had drank nothing but thethick, blood-red water of the river; had eaten nothing but the one dry,hard cracker, dealt out to them each day; for they had been led wrong bythe guide, had been lost, so that they reached Fort Union long after,instead of long before, the Fifth Infantry.

  Their camping-ground was assigned them quite a distance from the Fifth,and we rode over the next day to visit the ladies who had come with thecommand. The difference between the two camps struck me all the moreforcibly, I presume, because General Sykes was famed for the order andprecision he enforced; and when we rode up to his tent two days later,to bid him good-bye (the officers of the Third having received orders tojoin their regiment), I exclaimed, in tones of mild despair:

  "Oh, general, can you not come with us, and take command of the Third?"

  He shook his head solemnly, looking over to the cavalry camp.

  "Nothing would give me greater pleasure, madame, than to accede to yourwishes; but really in this instance I must decline. _There are too manyunruly horses for me in that camp._"

  I hope the general meant only what he said; I hope too the Third willforgive me, when I say that an old soldier in the ranks, a German, oncetold me in confidence that every member of that regiment could passmuster for the Wild Huntsman, so well known in the annals of terror inGerman fable-history.

  II.

  It was a novel court-martial, whose last sitting was held at the dead ofnight, between Fort Union and Los Vegas, in New Mexico. Let no one thinkthat a love of the romantic induced the general commanding to order thisassembling at the "witching hour, when church-yards yawn," but direnecessity--"the exigencies of the service," as they have it. GeneralSykes, who was president of the court, was under orders to take up theline of march with his infantry, on the day following, for Fort Sumner,while Colonel Howe, with five companies of cavalry, was to proceed toFort Craig; and as General Carleton understood no joking in regard toorders once issued, and as the board had not been able to finish up thebusiness brought before it while convened at Fort Union, this midnightsession was agreed upon--the command to separate and march in oppositedirections, as soon as the court adjourned.

  Of the prisoners at the bar, the lieutenant was one, though I haveforgotten for what heinous crime arraigned; doubtless the chargesagainst him and the other unfortunate wights were very grave and seriousin the eyes of their superior officers, though trivial they might be inthe estimation of civilians. Just as the gray dawn crept up the horizon,the lieutenant entered the tent, where I was waiting, fully dressed forthe march, knowing that the tents would be struck as soon as the courtwas over.

  Slowly the long train arranged itself, and lumberingly it wound its wayout of the camp, entered only at a late hour the evening before. Theblast of the bugle seemed fairly to cut the crisp morning air, and thehorses neighed and stamped, while here and there a mule couple--part ofthe six attached to each wagon--would begin frisking and jumping, tillcalled to order by the blacksnake of the irritable driver. As thelieutenant was under arrest, he was relieved from duty; and as thisstate of things was likely to continue until the proceedings andfindings of the court had been sent to Washington and returned, we setout with the intention of enjoying the journey as well as was possibleunder the circumstances. We were expected to march with the command, butin the rear of the cavalry, and preceding the army-wagons. The dust,however, was anything but pleasant here, and as, altogether, Uncle Samholds the lines of government somewhat slacker in these frontiercountries, the lieutenant was allowed to take his carriage, the orderly,and the wagon containing our tent and camp furniture, to the end of theentire train. In this way we could make a halt, or an excursion into theneighboring country, whenever we felt inclined, and could catch up againwith the command by the time it went into camp--where I was an object ofenvy to the other ladies, whose husbands were not under arrest.

  Toward noon we reached Los Vegas, the first Mexican town I hadseen--Fort Union being but the entrance to New Mexico. The countryaround Los Vegas is flat and uninteresting, but by no means barren,though only a small portion of it is cultivated. A little stream, theGallinas, runs by the place, emptying later into the Rio Pecos; but theMexicans are not content with this water-course alone--they have dugirrigating canals,
which look again like little streams where grass andwild flowers have sprung up on the banks. It is the only branch of artor industry cultivated anywhere in New Mexico--this digging ofirrigating ditches--and in it the Mexicans surely excel. Wherever we seea patch of green, we may be certain of finding canals on at least twosides of it; and they can lead the water where a Yankee, with all hisingenuity, would despair of bringing it.

  The houses of Los Vegas, though looking very much so to me then, are notso hopelessly Mexican as those I found later along the Rio Grande andfarther in the interior. The houses were one story high, the roofs ofmud, of which material were also mantle-shelves, window-sills, walls andfloors. But the little enclosed fire-places, with overarching mantle,were smooth and white, as were the walls; and the more pretentioushouses, and where Americans lived, were set with glass. In the houses ofthe Mexicans I noticed that a width of red or yellow calico was tackedsmoothly up around the wall, at a distance of three or four feet fromthe ground. The use of this drapery is just as incomprehensible to meas what benefit the trunks derive from being placed on two chairs, whilethe members of the family and visitors are requested to be seated on thefloor. But then it is not every New Mexican family that can boast ofhaving a trunk; and those who have one, and no chairs, build a kind ofplatform or pedestal for it to rest on.

  The troops, while we were sight-seeing in Los Vegas, were not allowed tohalt at all, but marched on toward Puertocito, where camp was made. AtFort Union a new driver had been assigned to our baggage-wagon--a littlemonkey-faced old man, Manuel--who had addressed me in Spanish, earlythat morning, praying that we should allow him to stop at Los Vegas,where his wife and his "pretty little girls" were living. I understoodno Spanish, but his eyes looked so beseechingly when his request wasmade known to me, that I was glad to tell him we should stop there. Theman was to go with us to the end of our journey, and it might be a longtime till he could see his people again.

  When the lieutenant sent the orderly for Manuel, with directions to moveon and overtake the command, I saw the old man tumbling out of a littlelow house near by, his faithful wife and "pretty little girls" tumblingout after him--half a dozen of the scrawniest, most apish-lookingspecimens I ever saw of Spanish or Mexican people. For miles the "prettylittle girls" followed the father and the army-wagon, and wherever wepassed a house on the road, one or more women would come to thedoor--large-eyed and sweet-voiced--wishing good-day and good-journey toold Manuel. As far as my Spanish goes, _Puertocito_ signifies littlegate, or entrance. It should be Grand Gate, so majestically do rocks andboulders arise from out of green meadows and tree-covered hillocks.

  Large flocks of sheep are herded here, and the whole is said to belongto a Spanish widow lady, living either in Mexico or Spain. In the courseof my travels through the country, I met with accounts of this or someother widow, owning fabulous stretches of land, mines, and treasures, sooften that I came to regard this widow-institution as a myth or ahumbug; but the people living here were always very earnest in theirassurances to the contrary. However this might be, it was a beautiful,romantic spot, such as we came upon time and again in this strangecountry. Well do I remember the succession of little narrow valleys onthe route between Fort Union and Santa Fe; the hard, smooth road, thetall gramma-grass on each side of it, and the shapely-grown evergreensbordering the lawn-like fields, till lines of taller trees, coming upclose to the road, seemed to divide off one little valley from theother. Yet never a house did we see the whole of that day, though thegarden for many a one seemed ready planted by kind mother Nature'shands. The land was but a desert, in spite of the waving grass and thedark green trees. There was no water to be found for long, long wearymiles.

  Before we had been long on our journey, an unfortunate circumstancebrought us to doubt the honesty of poor old Manuel so seriously that ithad almost resulted disastrously to him. We had made camp not far fromSan Jose, a place consisting of two and a half houses, on the Pecosriver. We were to cross the river here; and in the morning, when thetents were being struck, and we were already seated in the carriage,waiting for the mules to be harnessed to it, these same mules werereported missing. The command moved on, of course, leaving ourbaggage-wagon, our cook, our orderly, and ourselves, behind; the oldcolonel chuckling to himself that as we were in the habit of looking outfor ourselves, we might do so on this occasion too.

  The mules were unharnessed from the wagon at once, Charley mounted onone, Pinkan on the other, Manuel on the third, and the lieutenant on thefourth, all starting off in different directions to search for thetruants, while I was left in charge of the other two mules and the restof our effects. A long time passed before any of them returned; and whenCharley came back, soon after the lieutenant, he said he had heard froma Dutchman in San Jose that two mules answering the description had beenseen driven by a Mexican, just at daybreak, over the bridge near thetown; and the supposition now was that Manuel had sold them to some ofhis countrymen, always going in gangs through the Territory. Manuel sooncame in, without the mules. When the lieutenant told him of hissuspicions his face fell; and when the vague threat of summary justiceto be executed was added, his shrivelled, monkeyish face grew livid, andhe turned to me trembling, and begging, for the sake of his "prettylittle girls," that I should intercede, and assure the lieutenant thatindeed, _indeed_, he hadn't stolen the mules. I felt sorry for the oldman; but just when things looked darkest for him, Pinkan was seen in thedistance driving up the runaways.

  The reaction of the fright experienced by old Manuel had the effect ofmaking him drunk when we got to San Jose (perhaps the _aguardiente_imbibed at the house of his _compadre_ had something to do with it,too); and just as I was making my first trial of _chile-con-carne_ inthe low room of the Mexican inn, he came and spread before me, besidethe fiery dish which had already drawn tears from my eyes, paperscertifying that he had rendered good services as teamster in the Mexicanwar, under General Zack Taylor, and could be trusted by Americans. If itwas laughable to see the air of pride with which he struck his breast,declaring in Spanish that he was "a much honorable and brave man," therewas yet a touch of true dignity in the low bow he made while thanking mefor having called him an honest man, while the rest had taken him for ahorse-thief, a _ladrone_ and _picaro_.

  We easily caught up with the command at night, and laid our plans whilein camp for the next few days to come. The troops were not to passthrough Santa Fe, and, though we could have made the detour without thecolonel's knowledge, it was not safe to run into the very jaws ofdanger, as General Carleton's headquarters were at Fort Marcy, and hehad probably returned to Santa Fe from Fort Union long before this time,travelling with only an escort and the best mules in the department. Wehad letters to Doctor Steck, "running" a gold-mine about thirty milesfrom Santa Fe; and as the command passed near by, we started off intothe mountains where the mine lay. Wild and rugged as the scenery was, itwas not so dreary as I had always fancied every part of the Territorymust be. In some places it seemed as if man had done a great deal tomake the face of nature hideous. Great unseemly holes were dug here,there, and everywhere--the red, staring earth thrown up, and then leftin disgust at not finding the treasures looked for. The company of whichDoctor Steck was superintendent seemed to have found the treasures,however, for in their mill half a dozen stamps were viciously crushingand crunching the rock brought down from the mountains above onmule-back.

  The doctor is a Pennsylvanian, and he tried to have his ranch look asmuch as possible like a Pennsylvania homestead. There were necessarilyslight deviations, more particularly in the furniture of thedwelling-house, which here consisted mainly of double-barrelledshot-guns and repeating rifles. These were merely a set-off, I presume,to the chunks of gold he showed us (the size of a fist), each being aweek's "cleanup." There was quicksilver used in gaining the gold (what Iknow about gaining gold is very little), and the doctor turned a streamof water on the plates under the crushers, and then scraped up the goldfor me to look at.

  I did not learn till months la
ter--though I readily believed it--thatthis man could travel alone and unarmed through the midst of the Apachecountry; and did he ever miss his road or want assistance, he had but tomake a signal of distress, when the savages would fly to him from theirlurking-places, shelter him, and guide him safely back to his whitebrethren. This I learned first from an old Mexican guide at our camp,who said that the Indians stood in awe of him as a great medicine-man,and loved him for his uniform kindness to them.

  Santa Fe Mountain behind us, there were no more hills save thesand-hills, that seem shifting and changing from day to day, so thatvery often in the neighborhood of the Rio Grande, the river itself isfollowed as a landmark, the land being more unreliable than the water.The big sand-hill opposite Albuquerque, however, seems to be stationary;people who had been here twenty years before remembered the location.

  There is something singular about these Mexican towns or cities. Youhear them spoken of as important places, where the law-givers and thedignitaries of the American _regime_ reside, and where renowned familiesof the Spanish period had their homes; where large commercial interestslie, and where things flourish generally. When you approach them, acollection of what seem only mud hovels lie scattered before you. Youlook for order and regularity of streets, and you find yourself runningup against square mud-piles at every other step; you look for doors andwindows in these structures, and find a narrow opening, reaching to theground, on one side, and high up in the wall a little square holewithout glass or shutter. This is the first impression. But you arecompelled to remain at such a place; and as the eye grows to shrink lessfrom the sight of the hard clay and cheerless sand, you discover thetips of the pomegranate tree peering curiously over the high mud wallenclosing a neat _adobe_ with well-cultivated garden. In astonishmentyou press your face to the railing of the rude gate, and directly thesoft voice of a dark-faced woman calls to you from within: "Enter,_senora_; you are welcome!"

  When you leave the garden, where peaches, grapes, and pomegranates havebeen showered on you, together with assurances of the kindest feelingson the part of your hostess, the whole place somehow looks different.There are streets and lanes which you did not notice before, where thebroad, double doors of the houses stand hospitably open, and the largesquare windows, if not provided with sash and glass, are latticed infanciful designs, as we see them in old Spanish and Italian paintings.And there is such a dreamy languor in the air; such a soft tint in theblue of the heavens; such a wooing, balmy breeze, that seems to floatdown from the mountain yonder. There is no necessity for keeping one'seyes fixed on the sand-hill that hid Albuquerque from us at first. Lookover again to the mountain. Could artist with brush and pencil createanything more perfect than the gentle rise away off there, over whichhouses and vineyards are scattered, and which climbs up steeper andhigher, till the faintest shadow of a passing cloud seems resting on theblue-green peak? And winding its way slowly from the foot of themountain, comes a train of black-eyed, barefooted Pueblo Indian women,bearing on their heads home-made baskets filled to overflowing withwell-displayed fruit--melons, peaches, grapes--in such perfection, andwith such rich, ripe coloring, as are seldom found away from Mexico.

  Of historical interest, too, there is much in Albuquerque. The daughterof a Spanish lady belonging to the old family of the Bacas, was marriedto an officer in our army, and with her I visited the house of GeneralArmijo. The younger daughters alone received us, the older marriedsister being sick or absent. The house was furnished with elegantmaterial--the heavy Brussels carpet spread out on the mud floor,flowers and figures running up and down, just as the carpet had been cutoff at the length of the room, and then rolled back again and cut off atthe other end. The breadths were laid side by side, but not a stitch hadbeen taken to hold them together. Cushioned chairs were ranged along thewalls of the room, the line broken only where marble-top tables,what-nots, and a Chickering piano were introduced among them--all setagainst the wall without symmetry or taste. On the walls hung pictures,in embroidery, water-colors, and oil, executed by the young ladies whilein a convent school; but in vain I looked for a picture of GeneralArmijo among them. It was here at Albuquerque that I saw for the firsttime--and alas! the last--Kit Carson, and the less renowned but equallybrave Colonel Pfeiffer.

  Beyond Albuquerque the road lies again over the sand-hills and throughthe valleys of the Rio Grande; and we lost our way among the hills oneday, when the command had passed but a short distance in advance of us.For hours we toiled through the shifting sand, hoping that each mound weclimbed might bring the marching column to our view. Fortunately,Manuel, with the wagon, had fallen in line with the train that morning,and only Pinkan, riding the lieutenant's horse and leading mine, waswith us. The lieutenant was driving, and I could see from the way hiseyes wandered over the interminable range of low sand-hills that he wascompletely bewildered. All at once we came on a house, which, from adistance, we had taken to be another sand-pile; and the Mexicans livinghere, after treating us to the best their house afforded--eggs, and thesweet, unsalted goat-milk cheese--piloted us to Los Pinos, where we wereto camp for the night. Here the command crossed the Rio Grande--fordedit, bag and baggage--and the next day remained in camp below Peralta,where the tents were pitched in a delightful grove of cottonwood trees.

  It has been said that a Mexican is born with a lasso in his hand. Thefeat old Manuel performed with his was quite new to me. Wood was soscarce that not the smallest bit of a dry limb or broken twig could befound under the trees. The lower branches having been lopped off, andthe soldiers forbidden to cut down any trees, our old Mexican at oncewent to work with his rope, throwing it so dexterously over the brittlelimbs that a snap and a crash followed every excursion of the rope.

  We made a flying trip to Peralta the next morning, while the command wasmarching in the opposite direction. The place, with its pretty churchand scattered houses, surrounded by walled-in gardens, made quite apleasing impression. Then we turned back and joined the command.

  The road now was one continuous level, with hills, uniformly bare andbrown, in the distance. Bare and brown as they look, thousands of goatsare herded on them, and, to judge from the milk and cheese we got on theroad, find pretty good picking till such time as "Lo! the poor Indians"think proper to drive off the herds for their own use, when they are inmost cases generous enough to leave the herders behind--dead. And thesun, smiling down so placidly on the river and the little towns lyingnear its banks, seems never to heed the death-cry of the helpless _peon_or the lonely wayfarer laid low in the dust by the prowling savage, butgoes on lighting up the cloudless sky-dome, and bringing into strongrelief the different features of scenery, life, and customs, that make ajourney through New Mexico resemble a sojourn in the Holy Land. Throughall those towns along the Rio Grande do we see the daughters of theland, barefooted, their faces half hidden by the oriental-looking_rebozo_, the earthen _olla_ poised gracefully on the head, going ateventide to the well for water. Belen, Sabinal, Polvedaro--here are thelow-built houses, the flat roofs, the gray-green olive here and there;even the wheaten cake, the _tortilla_, is set before the stranger whenhe comes. Then this dead, dead silence! The barking of the dogs as wecome through the villages, the drawling sing-song of the children,calling to each other at the unusual spectacle we present, seem hardlyto break the slumber of the mid-day air.

  So wearying as the one color--clay--grows to the eye! the ground, thehouses, the fence-walls, the bake-ovens, all, all the same color. Evenwhere there are gardens, with the enclosing wall seems to terminatevegetation; never a vagabond grass-blade or a straggling vine can findits way outside. Bake-ovens are an institution and a marked feature inthe landscape; every house has one, and as they are built with adome-like top, they are more pleasing to the eye than the houses, andvery often nearly as large. I remember seeing one day a dog and a littlenaked child (clothing is considered superfluous on children) mount fromthe mud fence to the top of the bake-oven, and from there to the houseroof, with no more difficulty than we would experie
nce in going up aflight of easy stairs. The bread that the Mexicans bake in these ovensis the sweetest and whitest that can be found.

  Then came Socarro, where most of the officers spent the day, while thecommand went into camp some miles below. An English family kept a verypleasant house there, whose good cheer the old colonel had not forgottenfrom long ago. The garden back of the neatly-built house I thought oneof the loveliest spots on earth; not from the fact alone that itcontained flowers and some few tall trees, but from the view it affordedof the far-off mountain--probably of the Sierra Maddalena chain, butcalled Socarro Mountain here. There was the same dreamy haze that hungover the mountain near Albuquerque, and the same bluish-green tint thatmade it appear wooded to the top. A hot spring takes its rise in themountain somewhere, and the tiny stream at my feet seemed hardly coldyet, though its waters had travelled many miles from its source.

  Fort Craig, though an important military post, is not celebrated for thebeauties or grandeur of the country surrounding. We crossed the RioGrande here again--two companies only, the colonel, with the otherthree, having been assigned to Fort Craig. Toward the Jornada del Muertowe journeyed, making camp before entering the desert at Parajo, the FraCristobal of the Texan Santa Fe prisoners who were driven through herein 1842, on their long, weary journey to the city of Mexico. They hadbeen captured, or rather tricked into a surrender, near Anton Chico,and, from Albuquerque down, I traced them all along the Rio Grande. Theyhad been marched on the opposite side of the river, taking in their waySandia, Valencia, Tome, Casa Colorada, and La Joya, crossing the riverat Socarro, and recrossing probably near where Fort Craig now stands.

  Such heart-rending tales as were told us of the sufferings and thediabolical treatment of these helpless men--mere youths, some of them,the sight of whom brought out all the native tenderness, the truecharity there is in the heart of every Mexican woman! As in Albuquerque,the shadow of Governor Armijo--tall and stately, though with somethingof a braggart in his carriage, and the glare of a hyena in his eye--wasever rising before me, so in this wretched place did I seem always tohear the gentle, pitying "_Pobrecitos!_" of the kind-hearted women, whobrought the last bit of _tornale_, the last scrap of _tortilla_ thattheir miserable homes afforded, to these men who were so soon to bedriven like cattle, and shot down like dogs, when their bleeding feetrefused to carry them further on their thorny path. Had the horriblestretch of ninety-five miles of desert-land now before us not beenchristened "Dead Man's Journey" before these unfortunates passed overit, the baptism of the blood of those wantonly slaughtered there wouldhave fastened on it that name forever.

  Two companies of United States cavalry are not hastily attacked by yenoble red man, and we slept peacefully on the Jornada--though close toour tent, the first night, were two graves, dug for their murderedcomrades years ago by some of the men now in the company.

  A number of wagons had been loaded with water-casks, filled beforeentering the Jornada, so that we did not suffer; yet we were all gladwhen, on the third day, Fort Seldon was reached. After a rest of twodays, we once more crossed the river, on a ferry-boat moved with a rope,leaving the other company at Fort Seldon, and proceeding alone, with thelast company, to the farthest out-post of the department. At this placewe disposed of our carriage to the post surgeon, as we were told thatamong the mountains in the vicinity of Pinos Altos we should have no usefor it, while the officers of this garrison could make excursions toDonna Ana, Los Cruces, and even La Messilla, over the level and ratherpleasant country.

  The first day out, a heavy rain-storm came on, and I was glad enough toleave the saddle and seek shelter in the linen-covered army-wagon, whereManuel arranged quite a comfortable bed for me--seat it could not becalled. And here let me say that, with bedding and blankets, spread overboxes and bundles underneath, there is more comfort to be found in oneof these big wagons, where you can recline at full length, than in themost elegant travelling-carriage, where you have always to maintain thesame position.

  The stretch between Fort Seldon and Fort Cummings proved harder for usthan the Jornada del Muerto. It was reported that large bands of Indianswere hovering round us, and we could make no fires to cook by, but werehurried on as fast as possible. Many of the horses gave out and had tobe shot; and my poor Toby was sometimes so tired from carrying me overthe rough country, and up and down the rocky hills, that more then oncehe stopped and nibbled at my stirrup-foot--asking me in this peculiarlanguage to dismount.

  The soldiers were better off than we were, for they had their rations ofhard-tack and salt bacon, which needed no cooking; while the dressedchickens and tender-steaks we had providently brought from Fort Seldonwith us, uncooked, were going to decay in the provision-box, and wemight have gone hungry had not the men divided with us. No one can thinkhow sweet a bit of bacon tastes with a piece of hard-tack, when offeredby a soldier whose eyes are shining with honest delight at being able torepay some trifling kindness shown him on the march.

  The rock-strewn mountains of Cook's canyon frowned darkly on us as wemade our way into Fort Cummings. The sable garrison, it is said, neverventured beyond the high mud walls with less than twenty-five in theparty, were it only to bring a load of wood from the nearest grove ofscanty timber.

  At no post, I am fain to confess, have I seen a larger number ofmementos of Indian hostility than at this fort. And the negroes had allthe more cause to dread attacks from the Indians, as they had beenaccosted the first time they went out--a fatigue-party, to cut wood--byan Indian chief, who told them that he was their brother, and that itwas their duty to come and join his band against their common enemy, thewhite man. The black braves refused, returning to the post without theirload of wood; and since that time no fatigue-party ever returned thatdid not bring back at least one of their number dead or wounded.

  The last thing we did before leaving this post was to stop at the largebasin of water, Cook's Spring, there to drink, and let the animalsdrink, a last draught of the pure, clear flood. How many a heart hadthis spring gladdened, when its sight broke on the longing eyes of theemigrant, before human habitations were ever to be found here! Just atthe foot of the rough, endless mountain, the men who had come underprotection of our train from Fort Cummings pointed out where the twomail-riders coming from Camp Bayard--our destination--had been ambushedand killed by the Indians only the week before. I had heard of these twomen while at the Fort, one of whom, a young man hardly twenty, seemed tohave an unusually large number of friends among men of all classes andgrades. When smoking his farewell pipe before mounting his mule for thetrip to Camp Bayard, he said: "Boys, this is my last trip. Mother writesthat she is getting old and feeble; she wants me to come home; so I'vethrown up my contract with Uncle Sam, and I'm going back to Boonevillejust as straight as God will let me, when I get back from Bayard. It'shard work and small pay, anyhow--sixty dollars a month, and your scalpat the mercy of the red devils every time you come out." The letter wasfound in the boy's pocket when the mutilated body was brought in.

  It was no idle fancy when I thought I could see the ground torn up inone place as from the sudden striking out of horses' hoofs. One of themen confirmed the idea that it was not far from the place where the bodyhad been found. The mule had probably taken the first fright just there,where the rider had evidently received the first arrow, aimed with suchdeadly skill that he fell in less than two minutes after it struck him.

  This gloomy spot passed, the country opened far and wide before us;level and rather monotonous, but with nothing of the parched, sterileappearance that makes New Mexico so dreaded by most people. Trees werefew and far between; but later, where the Mimbres river rolls its placidwaters by, there are willows, and ash even, as I have heard peopleaffirm. But I must not forget the hot spring we camped by for an houror two, the _Aqua Caliente_ of the Mexicans. A square pond, to approachwhich you must clamber up a natural mud wall some two feet high, laybubbling and steaming near the shade of some half dozen wide-spreadingtrees. That corner of the pond where the water boils
out of the earthhad once been tapped, apparently, and the water led to the primitivebath-tubs, made by digging down into the hard, clayey ground. Adismantled building showed that the place had at some time beenpermanently occupied, which was said to be the case by the Mexicanfamily living under one of the trees, and who were sojourning here forthe purpose of having life restored to the paralyzed limbs of one of thechildren. The people who had lived here were driven off by Indians, butI have heard since that the place had been rebuilt.

  The second day after leaving Fort Cummings we came in sight of a lovelyvalley, enclosed on all sides by low wooded hills, with bold,picturesque mountains rising to the sky beyond. A clear brook--so clearthat it was rightly baptized Minne-ha-ha--gambolled and leaped andflashed among the green trees and the white tents they overhung; and intheir midst a flag-staff, at whose head the stars and stripes wereflying, told me that we had reached our journey's end.