One of the mules back of us has
become most friendly, and will take from my hand all sorts of things
to eat.
Poor Hal had a fit the other day, something like vertigo, after having
chased a rabbit. Doctor Gordon says that he has fatty degeneration of
the heart, caused by having so little exercise in the South, but that
he will probably get over it if allowed to run every day. But I do not
like the very idea of the dog having anything the matter with his
heart. It was so pathetic to have him stagger to the tent and drop at
my feet, dumbly confident that I could give him relief.
CAMP NEAR HELENA, MONTANA TERRITORY,
November, 1877.
THE company has been ordered to Camp Baker, a small post nearly sixty
miles farther on. We were turned off from the Helena road and the rest
of the command at the base of the mountains, and are now about ten
miles from Helena on our way to the new station, which, we are told,
is a wretched little two-company post on the other side of the Big
Belt range of mountains. I am awfully disappointed in not seeing
something of Helena, and very, very sorry that we have to go so far
from our friends and to such an isolated place, but it is the
company's turn for detached service, so here we are.
