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

The two regiments (Fifth Infantry and Third Cavalry) were to rendezvous at Fort Union, New Mexico, where General Carleton was to meet the troops, and assign them to the different forts, camps, and stations in his department. This was immediately after the close of the war; and these 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 when the rebellion broke out—volunteers and colored troops taking their place on the frontiers.

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

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

A good woman was Mrs. Melville, but dreadfully tyrannical—domineering ruthlessly over myself and her husband, and only in awe of the lieutenant when he insisted on having his own way. They had always served in the cavalry, and had now again enlisted (I mean the husband, who drove our carriage, had enlisted) in the Third; and as Melville was the only cavalry recruit with the command, it had been a matter of some difficulty to appropriate him and his wife. It was not till the second day, when we made camp, that I saw how large the command was; and I remember thinking that it had taken since yesterday for the "tail-end" of the train of wagons, mules, and horses to leave the corrals and get into camp. When we left our camping-ground in the morning and returned to the highway, there was a broad road with deep ruts behind us, and hundreds of acres of prairie-land made bare and torn up, as though a city had been swept away, where the day before no sign of human life had been and the tall grass had waved untouched over the soft, black soil. Fancy the tramp of eight hundred men, the keen, light-turning wheels of a dozen or two of carriages, and the heavy, crunching weight of two hundred army-wagons, drawn each by six stout mules! No wonder the grass never grew again where General Sykes's command had passed!

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

Elsewhere I have spoken of my white horse, Toby, who had so quickly become domesticated that he would insist on returning to our tent, no matter how emphatically he was told that he must be turned out, and stay with the rest of the herd. The mules had been accustomed to follow the lead of a white "bell-mare" in the corrals; and as Toby was the only white horse in the outfit, they became greatly attached to him, and would follow him in his vagaries wherever he led. Unfortunately, when he took his way back to the camp and to our tent this evening, the herders were not on the alert as usual, and before they could turn the tide there was a stampede, and a perfect overflow of mules in the camp. Such yelling and bellowing as those animals set up, when they found themselves floundering among the tents, and belabored with clubs, ropes, and picket-pins by the enraged soldiers, was never heard before nor since. Even Toby's serenity was disturbed, and he stood half-way in the tent, trembling, and looking as though he knew that the wagon-master was making 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 the lieutenant nor myself took kindly to his offer to "shoot the horse the next time he undertook to stampede the herd;" and I held close on to Toby till the mules were driven back, and the wagon-master's wrath had cooled.

Truth to tell, before the next forty-eight hours were over, I was wellnigh converted to the belief that we had drawn the meanest stock the government-stables had ever contained. I forgot to say that each of the officers had been assigned a company of the recruits, and as they marched with them, we ladies were left in our carriages alone. No sooner was the command fairly on the road this morning than Molly and Jenny, a pair of green mules drawing our carriage, fell to jumping and kicking on a rough piece of ground, and a moment later the carriage was laid prone on one side, while I quietly clambered out on the other. A chorus of little screams went up from the rest of the carriages—expressing more horror, I think, at my getting up without the assistance of the doctor, who came flying up on his square-headed bay, than at the accident itself.

This was not enough of evil for the day. We made camp early (the general made not over fifteen miles a day when first starting out with the recruits), and Molly and Jenny, fastened to each other by a light chain around the neck, followed Toby through the camp, where they had come to be accepted as standing nuisances. Away up near the general's tent, Toby must have fancied there was good grazing, for he went there, the two mules en train. What followed I learned from the grinning orderly, who rapped at our tent soon after, holding the mules by the chain, and saying that "the general sent his compliments to the lieutenant, and he'd shoot the mules, and the white horse too, the next time they pulled the tent-fly down over him."

I looked stealthily out, and saw Toby in the distance, contemplatively switching his tail, and half a dozen men at work re-erecting the general's tent. The story was too good to keep; and the general himself told how, lying asleep on his cot, under the tent-fly, where it was cool, he had been waked up by Toby's nose brushing his face. Raising himself, and hurling one boot and an invective at the horse, he was surprised at seeing the two mules trying to stare him out of countenance at the open end of the fly. The other boot was shied at them, but there was no time to send anything else. The chain fastening the mules together had become twisted around, the pole holding up the fly, and the precipitate retreat of the long-eared pair brought the heavy canvas down on the general's face.

Would I could end my "tale of woe" right here; but a love of truth compels me to say that the meanness of that horse seemed endless, and his capacity for wickedness was such that portions of it fell on Molly and Jenny, when a particularly rich harvest rewarded his efforts at deviltry. When Toby came to the tent-door, early next morning, I noticed a strangely bright polish on his fore-hoofs, and a suspicious greasiness about his nose and face. Molly and Jenny had greasy streaks running all over them, and seemed so well fed that I wondered to myself which of the officers' horses had to suffer last night, and go supperless to bed. Toby sniffed disdainfully at the bread I offered him, and turned to walk off very suddenly when he saw Melville coming toward the tent. I must explain that the tents were always pitched in the same order—the lieutenant's on one side of us; Captain Newbold's on the other; the baggage-wagon assigned to each officer drawn up behind the tent; the mules, of course, turned out with the rest of the herd. Melville pointed to the wagon behind Captain Newbold's tent, where a knot of men were gathered, bending to the ground; but he seemed too full for utterance. 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 and Jenny when he found the butter not to his taste. Over and above that, he had hauled six or eight grain-sacks out of the wagon, opened the sacks with 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 of neighbors, sharing with us, through the whole of that journey, the milk their cow (the only one with the whole train) was pleased to give. Not a word of complaint was heard from the captain or his little wife; but I did hope honestly that the miserable white horse might die of his extra feed of butter and oats.

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

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

The country grew wilder and more desolate; and passing a farm-house one day, near which there were buffaloes grazing in the pasture with oxen and cows, it seemed nothing extraordinary, though, of course, we did not see the buffalo in his native freedom till some time after. At Ellsworth (now Fort Harker) we halted again for a day, and then gradually entered the wilderness. Fort Zarah seems to have grown where it is, only to help make the country look sadder and more desolate; but the well they have is splendid. I think so at least, for I was so thirsty when we turned in 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 by this time; and they certainly made some hard days' marches before they reached Fort Union. The days' marches were harder for them than they were for us, on the whole; though many a time, creeping slowly over the tediously level ground, did I wish that I could march with them, or help drive mules, or lead horses—anything rather than sit in the carriage for hours, the sun beating down in just the same direction, the men in front moving along in just the same measure. But there was something grand about it at the same time—a forest of bayonets in front of us, an endless train of wagons behind us, moving silently through the solemn wilds; hosts of red-winged black-birds fluttering along with us, the rarer blue-jay flying haughtily over their heads.

There was always something to see; the prairie-flowers were so dazzlingly colored some days, or the rock lay in such odd strata; and in one place we saw the remains of some rough fortifications built of the rocks—thrown up hastily, perhaps, one day when the party of brave emigrants spied "ye noble savage" bearing down on them. In camp everything looked pleasant and cheerful. The general had traversed the country more than once, knew every spring on the road, and had the camping-ground kept so neat that we could have stopped in one place a good many days without any discomfort. Beyond that, he was courteous and thoughtful of our comfort, as only a soldier can be; and there was not a lady "marching with the command" who would not have voted him a major-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 (at that time), I had not the least desire to remain. However, a few miles back, where the river makes the bend, there is a singular grandeur about the 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; day after day we travel over land that lies so level and so still that not a being but the lark seems living here beside us. How hot and fierce the sun glares down on the slowly-winding column—a serpent it seems, with its length outstretched, as it moves over the bare, brown prairie. The spirit grew oppressed, and the heart fainted in the noon-day sun; the command to halt was always received with joy; and more than once we had to make forced marches to reach water. Yet we lost but one man out of the eight hundred, and he died the day we struck the Arkansas again—died in the road almost—and we carried him with us to camp; and at night, when the stars had come out and tear-drops hung in the eyes of the flowers by the river-bank, they carried him to his lonely grave. I went to the tent-door when I heard the muffled drums, and stood outside, in the dark, where I could see the short procession passing. Lanterns were carried in the train that moved ghostly away from the camp-fires and the white-looming tents. The grave was not far, and when they had lowered the coffin I saw the form of a man bowing over it, as though in prayer, and then the earth was shovelled back. The soldiers returned with 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 early start in the morning, and before daybreak we were all awake and astir. Sadness could not live in the heart those early mornings, and I thought sometimes the general had reveille sounded so early purposely, to show us how beautiful Nature was at sunrise.

Sunrise on the plains! Is there anything in music, in painting, in poetry, that can bring before eyes that have never beheld it, the passing beauty of such a scene? There are strains in music which bring a faint 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 the horizon! Watch the clouds as they rise higher in the heavens; see how the 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, from where the yellow light has faded; and, watching bevies of other clouds, still dancing in the light above the first rays of the rising sun, the color fades from them, and they waft hither and thither—white clouds on deep blue ground—till the morning breeze bears them away from our sight. But words are weak and tame; and the yellow-breasted prairie-lark alone, rising high in the sun-bright air as the day begins, gives fit expression to her thanks for the glories of creation, in the wordless song she sings forever.

We were always far on the day's journey before the sun was fairly up; it was very early, to be sure, and often as the tents were struck when the gÉnÉrale was sounded, the families occupying them could be seen tumbling out, the children only half-dressed; and it happened sometimes that carriages were left behind, when not ready to fall into line when the march was beaten. In times of danger from Indians, of course, this would not have happened; but at that time there was thought to be no danger, except at night.

Mrs. Melville had developed into an unmitigated tyrant, and one of her victims was an Englishman, a raw recruit, who had been given the lieutenant as servant. His name was either Ackley or Hackley, Ockley or Hockley. 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 assert his right to any name. I often thought it was a national revenge she was wreaking on the poor fellow (she and her husband had sprung from the Emerald Isle). He had to do all the work that should have fallen to her share, 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 men sent to pitch our tent, a countryman of mine, a poor Dutchman, the greenest of his kind. I electrified him one day by speaking German to him, and ever after his pale, worn face would brighten, and his eyes light up, when I asked of him any little service or assistance. The general, knowing me to be a German, allowed the man to wait on us; and Mohrman was happy as a king when he could fondle Toby, or put our tent to rights, and fix things comfortably for me in the carriage. He was a cabinet-maker, and the camp-table he made for us was the envy of the whole camp. The poor fellow was weak in the chest (something unusual for one of his nationality), and a big Irish corporal, who was a good enough fellow otherwise, had always imposed on Mohrman, because he was ignorant of the language, and could make no complaint to his officer. He continued to bear with Stebbins's petty persecutions like a saint, till one morning he made his appearance at the tent-door, with tears in his eyes, and complained that the corporal had deprived him of the last thing 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 gÉnÉrale. There was a 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, he complained yesterday that his knapsack was so heavy that he couldn't pack me blankets; so I thought I'd carry this for him a while;" and, amidst a half-suppressed snicker, he solemnly drew forth from his capacious 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 quickly to hide my face.

After this Mohrman seemed to have more peace; and we journeyed on serenely till we reached Fort Lyon, Colorado, the first human habitation we had laid eyes on for many weeks. Sterile and rock-strewn as the country is, it was the boast of the post commander that he had as fine a company-garden as could be seen, twenty miles away from here; to which his wife added, "the only pity was that the vegetables should always be dry 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 of the Arkansas just before us, and the passage of the Raton Mountains later, that they would have remained here, where no flower could be coaxed into blossom, rather than have gone on. The Arkansas river was to be crossed at Bent's old fort, where the overland mail-stage also had its crossing. The carriages were discreetly sent a mile or two above the fording-place, for the soldiers—poor fellows—had to swim across, their clothes, knapsack, and gun in one hand, while with the other they held to the stout ropes stretched from shore to shore. Not a man of the eight hundred was lost. There were mounted men in the river, ready to lend a helping 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 were ferried across in the skiff belonging to the stage line, for which little water-excursion we paid two dollars a head to the Overland Mail Company. Carriages and wagons were brought over by the wagon-master and teamsters; and when the whole train was on the other side, we thought we had spent rather a pleasant day.

Like sailors scanning the edge of the horizon for land, so the soldiers had for days been watching the nearer approach of the Spanish Peaks looming faintly in the distance, and breaking the grand monotone of the level, changeless plain, verging, where the eye could see no further, into limitless space. Those who had been out this way before commenced talking of the "Picketwire," and the beautiful valleys we should see, and the big onions the Mexicans would bring to the camp to sell. After a while I discovered that the "Picketwire" was a little river—the "Purgatoir" or "Purgatory"—along whose banks the Mexican raised vegetables and fruit, of which I saw specimens, later, in the big onion spoken of. I had not been in California then, and the onions produced there, of the size of a large saucer, certainly had a stunning effect on me.

I am not prepared to say why the little river was called Purgatory. For the most part the country was good enough—lovely, even; and sometimes grand. One or two days seemed rather purgatorial though, come to think of it. On one occasion we passed through steep, barren hills, strewn all over with little cylindrical pieces of iron, that looked exactly as though they had been melted in that place just below purgatory, and thrown 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 it purgatory, the horses and mules certainly did. But the worst day of all remained.

It broke at last—the dreaded day in which the Raton Pass was to be attempted. The horrors of the Pass, however, must have been less vivid in the eyes of the general than in the minds of the ladies belonging to his command; for, contrary to all hopes and expectations, he allowed none of the married officers to remain with the carriages. It was a "steep" pass, undeniably. To this day I have not forgotten the sound of the grating of the wheels on the bare, unmitigated rock, as the carriage made ascents and descents that were truly miraculous—one wheel pointing heavenward sometimes, while the other three were wedged in below; scraping along a rock wall, bounding from rock to rock, with the pleasant 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, was a fearfully inclined plane of solid rock, with a frowning bank on one side, a gaping drop-off on the other, and a dark, heavy wall rising square in front of us; against which, to all appearances, the mules must dash their brains out, for neither bit nor brake was of the least avail on 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 seeming impossibility. True to the saying, that there is but a step from the sublime to the ridiculous, I fell to laughing here, so that Melville turned in surprise to see whether fear and terror had robbed me of my sober senses; but I had seen in passing, painted on that dreadful wall of frowning rock, the cabalistic words and signs: "Old Cabin Bitters; S—— T—— 1860 —— X——;" and below this, "Brandreth's Vegetable Pills."

These horrors past, there lay before us valleys, hills, crags—that formed as picturesque a landscape as tourist's eye was ever gladdened by. At the foot of tall, straight pines, crowning the heights and covering the sloping hill-sides, was a carpet of short, soft grass, out of which laughed the merriest flower-eyes, and over which nodded the slenderest stalks, bearing blossoms that seemed exotic in their intensely bright hues. The balm-laden breath of the wind told enticing tales of the untrod velvet on the heights above, where the pine-trees bent and swayed in the passing breeze. We had come upon this all so unexpectedly that the lieutenant insisted on my mounting Toby to obtain a better view of the whole country. My saddle was in the wagon somewhere, 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, I clambered on Toby's back at once, into the lieutenant's saddle. By crossing some little low hills, which the command had to march around, I found myself pretty soon ahead of the train. Not aware that we were to pass any place where human beings dwelt, I kept bravely on—feeling all the more safe from seeing Captain Newbold's cow, with her guardian, just in front of me. When I saw a rude kind of gateway a little later, I could not resist the promptings of my curiosity, and quite forgot the command, which approached just then with beating drums and flying colors. Had I realized how near they were upon me, I think my native modesty would have prompted me to let General Sykes, with his command, pass in front of me; but seeing Captain Newbold's cow march through the gate, and an avenue of Mexican and Indian faces, I followed the lead, barely escaping the feet of the drummer-boys, who were close on my heels.

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

If, in the eyes of the straggling Mexicans gathered around, it was an honor to ride in front of the command—next after Captain Newbold's cow—that honor, and the privilege of riding in the lieutenant's saddle, was dearly paid for before night. Determined not to have the drummer-boys so close behind me again, I turned aside from the road, lured on by the magnificent fresh, soft grass before me. Toby seemed strangely 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 slippery saddle, and for the first time I saw that the fresh, treacherous green had only covered an ugly quagmire, in which Toby was wildly plunging about, getting in deeper at every fresh effort to raise himself. The command had nearly passed; only Colonel Bankhead lingered behind, picking the rare flowers for his wife—gallant man!—and my wild shouts caused him to look around. It was a slow job to rescue me; and by the time I was on dry soil, the colonel's clothing was very much the color of Toby's legs just then, for the frightened horse would not move a step, and Colonel Bankhead—I repeat my thanks to him now—had made his way into the horrible bog at the risk of his life almost. After this I could let Toby have the reins, and go anywhere—he never got mired again. But I took to the carriage that day, and never mounted Toby again till we reached Fort Union, some time later.

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

One day Melville rushed wildly into the tent, and announced a great dust arising in the distance. We all rushed out, and a perfect fever took possession of the camp—cavalry and infantry, officers and men. Tables and mess-chests were brought out and spread; bottles were uncorked, and fruit-cans opened; dried-apple pie (a great luxury, I assure you) and salt pickles, raw sliced onions and raspberry jelly, were joyfully placed 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 blessed with the reputation of being very unlike a snail in general character. Mrs. Melville needed no stimulant to do her best; affection and ambition prompted her alike—she had served with the Third before, and was now again of them—and she worked like a beaver to have the table well spread for the expected guests. The slow, heavy tramp of the approaching troops shook the earth like far-off thunder; but the dust was so thick that it was hard to tell where the soldiers left off and the wagons commenced, while the train moved. At last there came the sudden clanging of 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 the garrison on prancing steeds, and with flying banners! Alas, for romance and poetry! Gaunt, ragged-looking men, on bony, rough-coated horses—sun-burned, dust-covered, travel-worn, man and beast. Was there nothing 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 the thick, 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 by the 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 the command. The difference between the two camps struck me all the more forcibly, I presume, because General Sykes was famed for the order and precision 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 to join 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 your wishes; but really in this instance I must decline. There are too many unruly horses for me in that camp."

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

II.

It was a novel court-martial, whose last sitting was held at the dead of night, between Fort Union and Los Vegas, in New Mexico. Let no one think that a love of the romantic induced the general commanding to order this assembling at the "witching hour, when church-yards yawn," but dire necessity—"the exigencies of the service," as they have it. General Sykes, who was president of the court, was under orders to take up the line of march with his infantry, on the day following, for Fort Sumner, while Colonel Howe, with five companies of cavalry, was to proceed to Fort Craig; and as General Carleton understood no joking in regard to orders once issued, and as the board had not been able to finish up the business brought before it while convened at Fort Union, this midnight session was agreed upon—the command to separate and march in opposite directions, as soon as the court adjourned.

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

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

Toward noon we reached Los Vegas, the first Mexican town I had seen—Fort Union being but the entrance to New Mexico. The country around Los Vegas is flat and uninteresting, but by no means barren, though only a small portion of it is cultivated. A little stream, the Gallinas, runs by the place, emptying later into the Rio Pecos; but the Mexicans are not content with this water-course alone—they have dug irrigating canals, which look again like little streams where grass and wild flowers have sprung up on the banks. It is the only branch of art or industry cultivated anywhere in New Mexico—this digging of irrigating ditches—and in it the Mexicans surely excel. Wherever we see a patch of green, we may be certain of finding canals on at least two sides of it; and they can lead the water where a Yankee, with all his ingenuity, would despair of bringing it.

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

The troops, while we were sight-seeing in Los Vegas, were not allowed to halt at all, but marched on toward Puertocito, where camp was made. At Fort Union a new driver had been assigned to our baggage-wagon—a little monkey-faced old man, Manuel—who had addressed me in Spanish, early that morning, praying that we should allow him to stop at Los Vegas, where his wife and his "pretty little girls" were living. I understood no Spanish, but his eyes looked so beseechingly when his request was made known to me, that I was glad to tell him we should stop there. The man was to go with us to the end of our journey, and it might be a long time till he could see his people again.

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

Large flocks of sheep are herded here, and the whole is said to belong to a Spanish widow lady, living either in Mexico or Spain. In the course of my travels through the country, I met with accounts of this or some other widow, owning fabulous stretches of land, mines, and treasures, so often that I came to regard this widow-institution as a myth or a humbug; but the people living here were always very earnest in their assurances to the contrary. However this might be, it was a beautiful, romantic spot, such as we came upon time and again in this strange country. Well do I remember the succession of little narrow valleys on the route between Fort Union and Santa FÉ; the hard, smooth road, the tall gramma-grass on each side of it, and the shapely-grown evergreens bordering the lawn-like fields, till lines of taller trees, coming up close to the road, seemed to divide off one little valley from the other. Yet never a house did we see the whole of that day, though the garden for many a one seemed ready planted by kind mother Nature's hands. The land was but a desert, in spite of the waving grass and the dark green trees. There was no water to be found for long, long weary miles.

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

The mules were unharnessed from the wagon at once, Charley mounted on one, Pinkan on the other, Manuel on the third, and the lieutenant on the fourth, all starting off in different directions to search for the truants, while I was left in charge of the other two mules and the rest of our effects. A long time passed before any of them returned; and when Charley came back, soon after the lieutenant, he said he had heard from a Dutchman in San Jose that two mules answering the description had been seen driven by a Mexican, just at daybreak, over the bridge near the town; and the supposition now was that Manuel had sold them to some of his countrymen, always going in gangs through the Territory. Manuel soon came in, without the mules. When the lieutenant told him of his suspicions his face fell; and when the vague threat of summary justice to be executed was added, his shrivelled, monkeyish face grew livid, and he turned to me trembling, and begging, for the sake of his "pretty little girls," that I should intercede, and assure the lieutenant that indeed, indeed, he hadn't stolen the mules. I felt sorry for the old man; but just when things looked darkest for him, Pinkan was seen in the distance driving up the runaways.

The reaction of the fright experienced by old Manuel had the effect of making 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 in the low room of the Mexican inn, he came and spread before me, beside the fiery dish which had already drawn tears from my eyes, papers certifying that he had rendered good services as teamster in the Mexican war, under General Zack Taylor, and could be trusted by Americans. If it was 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," there was yet a touch of true dignity in the low bow he made while thanking me for having called him an honest man, while the rest had taken him for a horse-thief, a ladrone and picaro.

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

The doctor is a Pennsylvanian, and he tried to have his ranch look as much as possible like a Pennsylvania homestead. There were necessarily slight deviations, more particularly in the furniture of the dwelling-house, which here consisted mainly of double-barrelled shot-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 a week's "cleanup." There was quicksilver used in gaining the gold (what I know about gaining gold is very little), and the doctor turned a stream of water on the plates under the crushers, and then scraped up the gold for me to look at.

I did not learn till months later—though I readily believed it—that this man could travel alone and unarmed through the midst of the Apache country; and did he ever miss his road or want assistance, he had but to make a signal of distress, when the savages would fly to him from their lurking-places, shelter him, and guide him safely back to his white brethren. 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 FÉ Mountain behind us, there were no more hills save the sand-hills, that seem shifting and changing from day to day, so that very often in the neighborhood of the Rio Grande, the river itself is followed 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. You hear them spoken of as important places, where the law-givers and the dignitaries of the American rÉgime reside, and where renowned families of the Spanish period had their homes; where large commercial interests lie, and where things flourish generally. When you approach them, a collection of what seem only mud hovels lie scattered before you. You look for order and regularity of streets, and you find yourself running up against square mud-piles at every other step; you look for doors and windows in these structures, and find a narrow opening, reaching to the ground, on one side, and high up in the wall a little square hole without glass or shutter. This is the first impression. But you are compelled to remain at such a place; and as the eye grows to shrink less from the sight of the hard clay and cheerless sand, you discover the tips of the pomegranate tree peering curiously over the high mud wall enclosing a neat adobe with well-cultivated garden. In astonishment you press your face to the railing of the rude gate, and directly the soft voice of a dark-faced woman calls to you from within: "Enter, seÑora; you are welcome!"

When you leave the garden, where peaches, grapes, and pomegranates have been showered on you, together with assurances of the kindest feelings on the part of your hostess, the whole place somehow looks different. There are streets and lanes which you did not notice before, where the broad, double doors of the houses stand hospitably open, and the large square windows, if not provided with sash and glass, are latticed in fanciful 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 the blue of the heavens; such a wooing, balmy breeze, that seems to float down from the mountain yonder. There is no necessity for keeping one's eyes fixed on the sand-hill that hid Albuquerque from us at first. Look over again to the mountain. Could artist with brush and pencil create anything more perfect than the gentle rise away off there, over which houses and vineyards are scattered, and which climbs up steeper and higher, till the faintest shadow of a passing cloud seems resting on the blue-green peak? And winding its way slowly from the foot of the mountain, comes a train of black-eyed, barefooted Pueblo Indian women, bearing on their heads home-made baskets filled to overflowing with well-displayed fruit—melons, peaches, grapes—in such perfection, and with such rich, ripe coloring, as are seldom found away from Mexico.

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

Beyond Albuquerque the road lies again over the sand-hills and through the valleys of the Rio Grande; and we lost our way among the hills one day, 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 we climbed 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, was with us. The lieutenant was driving, and I could see from the way his eyes wandered over the interminable range of low sand-hills that he was completely bewildered. All at once we came on a house, which, from a distance, we had taken to be another sand-pile; and the Mexicans living here, after treating us to the best their house afforded—eggs, and the sweet, unsalted goat-milk cheese—piloted us to Los Pinos, where we were to camp for the night. Here the command crossed the Rio Grande—forded it, 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. The feat old Manuel performed with his was quite new to me. Wood was so scarce that not the smallest bit of a dry limb or broken twig could be found under the trees. The lower branches having been lopped off, and the soldiers forbidden to cut down any trees, our old Mexican at once went to work with his rope, throwing it so dexterously over the brittle limbs 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 was marching in the opposite direction. The place, with its pretty church and scattered houses, surrounded by walled-in gardens, made quite a pleasing impression. Then we turned back and joined the command.

The road now was one continuous level, with hills, uniformly bare and brown, in the distance. Bare and brown as they look, thousands of goats are herded on them, and, to judge from the milk and cheese we got on the road, 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 in most cases generous enough to leave the herders behind—dead. And the sun, smiling down so placidly on the river and the little towns lying near 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, but goes on lighting up the cloudless sky-dome, and bringing into strong relief the different features of scenery, life, and customs, that make a journey through New Mexico resemble a sojourn in the Holy Land. Through all those towns along the Rio Grande do we see the daughters of the land, barefooted, their faces half hidden by the oriental-looking rebozo, the earthen olla poised gracefully on the head, going at eventide to the well for water. Belen, Sabinal, Polvedaro—here are the low-built houses, the flat roofs, the gray-green olive here and there; even the wheaten cake, the tortilla, is set before the stranger when he comes. Then this dead, dead silence! The barking of the dogs as we come through the villages, the drawling sing-song of the children, calling to each other at the unusual spectacle we present, seem hardly to break the slumber of the mid-day air.

So wearying as the one color—clay—grows to the eye! the ground, the houses, the fence-walls, the bake-ovens, all, all the same color. Even where there are gardens, with the enclosing wall seems to terminate vegetation; never a vagabond grass-blade or a straggling vine can find its way outside. Bake-ovens are an institution and a marked feature in the landscape; every house has one, and as they are built with a dome-like top, they are more pleasing to the eye than the houses, and very often nearly as large. I remember seeing one day a dog and a little naked child (clothing is considered superfluous on children) mount from the mud fence to the top of the bake-oven, and from there to the house roof, with no more difficulty than we would experience in going up a flight of easy stairs. The bread that the Mexicans bake in these ovens is the sweetest and whitest that can be found.

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

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

Such heart-rending tales as were told us of the sufferings and the diabolical treatment of these helpless men—mere youths, some of them, the sight of whom brought out all the native tenderness, the true charity there is in the heart of every Mexican woman! As in Albuquerque, the shadow of Governor Armijo—tall and stately, though with something of a braggart in his carriage, and the glare of a hyena in his eye—was ever rising before me, so in this wretched place did I seem always to hear the gentle, pitying "Pobrecitos!" of the kind-hearted women, who brought the last bit of tornale, the last scrap of tortilla that their miserable homes afforded, to these men who were so soon to be driven like cattle, and shot down like dogs, when their bleeding feet refused to carry them further on their thorny path. Had the horrible stretch of ninety-five miles of desert-land now before us not been christened "Dead Man's Journey" before these unfortunates passed over it, the baptism of the blood of those wantonly slaughtered there would have fastened on it that name forever.

Two companies of United States cavalry are not hastily attacked by ye noble red man, and we slept peacefully on the Jornada—though close to our tent, the first night, were two graves, dug for their murdered comrades years ago by some of the men now in the company.

A number of wagons had been loaded with water-casks, filled before entering the Jornada, so that we did not suffer; yet we were all glad when, on the third day, Fort Seldon was reached. After a rest of two days, 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 the last company, to the farthest out-post of the department. At this place we disposed of our carriage to the post surgeon, as we were told that among the mountains in the vicinity of Pinos Altos we should have no use for it, while the officers of this garrison could make excursions to Donna Ana, Los Cruces, and even La Messilla, over the level and rather pleasant country.

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

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

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

The rock-strewn mountains of Cook's caÑon frowned darkly on us as we made our way into Fort Cummings. The sable garrison, it is said, never ventured beyond the high mud walls with less than twenty-five in the party, were it only to bring a load of wood from the nearest grove of scanty timber.

At no post, I am fain to confess, have I seen a larger number of mementos of Indian hostility than at this fort. And the negroes had all the more cause to dread attacks from the Indians, as they had been accosted the first time they went out—a fatigue-party, to cut wood—by an Indian chief, who told them that he was their brother, and that it was their duty to come and join his band against their common enemy, the white man. The black braves refused, returning to the post without their load of wood; and since that time no fatigue-party ever returned that did 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 large basin of water, Cook's Spring, there to drink, and let the animals drink, a last draught of the pure, clear flood. How many a heart had this spring gladdened, when its sight broke on the longing eyes of the emigrant, before human habitations were ever to be found here! Just at the foot of the rough, endless mountain, the men who had come under protection of our train from Fort Cummings pointed out where the two mail-riders coming from Camp Bayard—our destination—had been ambushed and killed by the Indians only the week before. I had heard of these two men while at the Fort, one of whom, a young man hardly twenty, seemed to have an unusually large number of friends among men of all classes and grades. When smoking his farewell pipe before mounting his mule for the trip to Camp Bayard, he said: "Boys, this is my last trip. Mother writes that she is getting old and feeble; she wants me to come home; so I've thrown up my contract with Uncle Sam, and I'm going back to Booneville just as straight as God will let me, when I get back from Bayard. It's hard work and small pay, anyhow—sixty dollars a month, and your scalp at the mercy of the red devils every time you come out." The letter was found 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 in one place as from the sudden striking out of horses' hoofs. One of the men confirmed the idea that it was not far from the place where the body had been found. The mule had probably taken the first fright just there, where the rider had evidently received the first arrow, aimed with such deadly 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, sterile appearance that makes New Mexico so dreaded by most people. Trees were few and far between; but later, where the Mimbres river rolls its placid waters by, there are willows, and ash even, as I have heard people affirm. But I must not forget the hot spring we camped by for an hour or two, the Aqua Caliente of the Mexicans. A square pond, to approach which you must clamber up a natural mud wall some two feet high, lay bubbling and steaming near the shade of some half dozen wide-spreading trees. That corner of the pond where the water boils out of the earth had once been tapped, apparently, and the water led to the primitive bath-tubs, made by digging down into the hard, clayey ground. A dismantled building showed that the place had at some time been permanently occupied, which was said to be the case by the Mexican family living under one of the trees, and who were sojourning here for the purpose of having life restored to the paralyzed limbs of one of the children. The people who had lived here were driven off by Indians, but I have heard since that the place had been rebuilt.

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