LITMIR.BIZ

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somewhat interested in the little Indians. Children intuitively recognize their friends and these Indian children were no exception to the rule. Their eyes would follow me curiously and earnestly as I strolled about the garrison. I was sitting near my window one day, occupied with some work, when a dark cloud seemed to obscure my vision. Looking up I found the window space covered by little brown faces, to which I gave a smile of recognition, and with a friendly word, which, of course, they could not understand, though my manner was easily inter- preted, I beckoned them to the door and dispensed with generous hand some ginger-snaps obtained from the sutler's store.

      Indian children, like other children, have ways of conveying information readily, and very soon both windows would be crowded. This continued for several days, and my first experiment was in danger of getting beyond control, so that I had to change my "Infantry Tactics" and bribe them with other ginger-snaps to cease their visitations. My experience must have been like that of Mark Twain in the Swiss mountain "yodling." The novel sound so pleased him at first that he paid the boys gener- ously to keep it up for his entertainment. Thus encouraged, their number was so augmented that the sound became monotonous, and, in fact, such a bore that in self-defence he bribed them to desist.

      One day during the first week of my sojourn I went with my husband and several of the other

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      officers on a hunting excursion and as it was the only time I left the fort it was quite a diversion. We did not go sufficiently far, however, to require us to be mounted. Hunting and shooting were no novelty to me, except that the conditions were quite different. Hitherto I had accompanied my husband several times on horseback and he had taught me to lay my small gun between the animal's ears and fire without fear, so gentle was the little mare he had given me, but I think without ever having brought down any game for my venture. On this occasion Indian boys, who formed a part of the company, were very agile in finding any game that dropped in obscure places and quite adept, true to their natural instinct, in such exercise. These little boys had adopted the American boy's dress, with some differ- ence of adjustment, minus the seats of their trousers.

       On our return I visited the small Indian ceme- tery. A burying-ground, in the ordinary sense, would literally mean nothing to one of these Indians. I came upon what had been the burial place of a chief's daughter. The receptacle for the body was a platform erected on four poles and the tails of her favorite ponies that had been slain were tacked to the posts. This was all that remained to tell the story. Their idea is that ponies would be ridden after reaching the Happy Hunting Grounds. Articles used by the dead during life, or furnished by the generosity of friends, are considered neces- sary to the comfort or appearance of the dweller in the future life. It is said that Indians near some of the agencies frequently used the boxes in which

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      Government or other stores came to them, so that inscriptions which at a distance look like an elab- orate epitaph on a closer inspection may be found to read "Best Soap," or "Star Crackers," and otherwise.

      And so the days at Laramie passed by, always with strange apprehensions not suggested by the immediate environment of the Post. With the courage of youth, and an abiding sense of the pres- ence of Him who leads by cloud or fiery pillar, I felt sustained through dark hours, but there are times when human nature is self assertive. The prospect of a long tedious journey to Fort Phil. Kearney, in another ambulance, and the possibili- ties of disaster to myself over the rough way through a hostile Indian country, would almost paralyze me with fear and foreboding. My mind would be filled with such desperation that at times I would close my doors and windows and pace the floor from agony at the situation. The officers at the Fort would not admit that there was any danger for even a small party following the established trail, but the appre- hension, long maturing, and from signs and por- tents that only can be appreciated on the frontier, never left me.

      And yet after a storm the calm and the still small voice of comfort and consolation were so real to my soul that I could write cheering letters to my far away home while under the grateful spell, and live to-day to chronicle my safe deliverance then, and through subsequent times of peril and disaster.

      CHAPTER VIII.

      LEAVING LARAMIE—ALARMS OF WAR

      DISCREDITED.

      How did the authorities at Washington, or Omaha, from whence orders emanated, know what the execution of these orders involved or would entail upon individual officers here and there dis- tributed over the country but imperatively needed with their regiments on the frontier, where, without reason, all conditions were assumed to be those of absolute peace? Certainly any provision for women to accompany their husbands westward was farthest from thought. Officers' wives thus travelling, risk- ing all trials and exposures for that purpose, have certain advantages thereby, rather than to follow after by themselves, and all these trials and ex- posures have been set forth by abler pens than mine. My own experience was at least unique, and not realized fully at the time, for we only lived day by day—"Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." It certainly was enough for us, when we had the day to live in, and the thought of remaining behind never had consideration. Even General Sherman himself, in 1866, when he left his headquarters at St. Louis to assist in the organization of the Mon- tana expedition of that year, urged all army officers' wives to accompany their husbands and to take with them all needed comforts for a pleasant garrison life in the newly opened country, where all would

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      be healthful, with pleasant service and absolute peace.

      The day of packing once more rolled around, and with mixed mental activities, which I cannot even at this late day exactly crystallize into a fully recog- nized expression. Which is the more agreeable task —packing or unpacking? So the converse springs to mind ; which is the more disagreeable—unpacking or packing? It may seem a trivial question. Much depends upon the object in view from either stand- point. Thus far physical activities involved both, and life seemed narrowed to just this kind of exer- cise. We surrendered our "dobey" house, our hos- pital cots, our sombre blankets, even our tin mirror, unmolested, and with packed mess-chest boarded the everlasting ambulance. Two young "contract sur- geons," Mr. Van Volzah, one of Colonel Carring- ton's most trusty mail carriers, and an escort of only six men, and our baggage-wagon, are all in readiness for the last good-by to the pleasant group of officers and friends who bade us God speed on our journey, and we take up our march northward, one of the little party never to return again. . . .

      We kept steadily along our trail to Nine Mile Ranch for several miles with nothing to relieve the dull monotony of the journey. There was no tempta- tion to diversion, as it began to dawn upon us in some degree that we were advancing directly in the face of hostilities, while their full import could not be felt then as later on. Some of the officers who had previously traversed the same route, as we learned later, had fired pistols in the canon, then

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      named after our Regimental Adjutant, "Phisterer Canon, " to awaken the echoes which were startling and many times repeated, and upon subsequently reaching our destination and meeting the famous guide of the expedition, the noted James Bridger, we could appreciate the warning he gave to that party, when, checking their careless amusement, he quaintly told them, "Better not go fur, there's Injuns enough lying under wolf skins, or skulking in them cliffs. I warrant ye, they's seen ye every day, and when ye don't see eny of 'em about is just the time they'se thickest, and just the time to look for their devilment." We saw no Indians that day, but I had an experience with cactus that, in the expressive term of a later day was "the limit."

      I had occasion to leave the ambulance at one stage of the journey, and my driver, with no special instructions to wait for my reappearance, drove slowly along in the track of the other team, while our escort and other drivers, having no occasion of their own for halting, moved tranquilly along ob- livious of transactions in their rear.

      When

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