The Little
Dog Is Chained To A Kennel All The Time Now, And, Like His Mistress,
Is Trying To Become Dignified.
Faye was made post adjutant this morning, which we consider rather
complimentary, since the post commander is in the cavalry, and there
are a number of cavalry lieutenants here.
General Dickinson is a
polished old gentleman, and his wife a very handsome woman who looks
almost as young as her daughter. Miss Dickinson, the general's older
daughter, is very pretty and a fearless rider. In a few
How very funny that I should have forgotten to tell you that I have a
horse, at least I hope he will look like a horse when he has gained
some flesh and lost much long hair. He is an Indian pony of very good
size, and has a well-shaped head and slender little legs. He has a fox
trot, which is wonderfully easy, and which he apparently can keep up
indefinitely, and like all Indian horses can "run like a deer." So,
altogether, he will do very well for this place, where rides are
necessarily curtailed. I call him Cheyenne, because we bought him of
Little Raven, a Cheyenne chief. I shall be so glad when I can ride
again, as I have missed so much the rides and grand hunts at Fort
Lyon.
Later: The mail is just in, and letters have come from Fort Lyon
telling us of the death of Lieutenant Baldwin! It is dreadful - and
seems impossible. They write that he became more and more despondent,
until finally it was impossible to rouse him sufficiently to take an
interest in his own life. Faye and I have lost a friend - a real, true
friend. A brother could not have been kinder, more considerate than he
was to both of us always. How terribly he must have grieved over the
ruin of the horse he was so proud of, and loved so well!
CAMP SUPPLY, INDIAN TERRITORY,
September, 1872.
THE heat here is still intense, and it never rains, so everything is
parched to a crisp. The river is very low and the water so full of
alkali that we are obliged to boil every drop before it is used for
drinking or cooking, and even then it is so distasteful that we flavor
it with sugar of lemons so we can drink it at all. Fresh lemons are
unknown here, of course. The ice has given out, but we manage to cool
the water a little by keeping it in bottles and canteens down in the
dug-out cellar.
Miss Dickinson and I continue our daily rides, but go out very early
in the morning. We have an orderly now, as General Dickinson considers
it unsafe for us to go without an escort, since we were chased by an
Indian the other day. That morning the little son of General Phillips
was with us, and as it was not quite as warm as usual, we decided to
canter down the sunflower road a little way - a road that runs to the
crossing of Wolf Creek through an immense field of wild sunflowers.
These sunflowers grow to a tremendous height in this country, so tall
that sometimes you cannot see over them even when on horseback. Just
across the creek there is a village of Apache Indians, and as these
Indians are known to be hostile, this particular road is considered
rather unsafe.
But we rode on down a mile or more without seeing a thing, and had
just turned our ponies' heads homeward when little Grote, who was back
of us, called out that an Indian was coming. That was startling, but
upon looking back we saw that he was a long distance away and coming
leisurely, so we did not pay much attention to him.
But Grote was more watchful, and very soon screamed, "Mrs. Rae, Mrs.
Rae, the Indian is coming fast - he's going to catch us!" And then,
without wasting time by looking back, we started our ponies with a
bound that put them at their best pace, poor little Grote lashing his
most unmercifully, and crying every minute, "He'll catch us! He'll
catch us!"
That the Indian was on a fleet pony and was gaining upon us was very
evident, and what might have happened had we not soon reached the
sutler's store no one can tell, but we did get there just as he caught
up with us, and as we drew in our panting horses that hideous savage
rode up in front of us and circled twice around us, his pony going
like a whirlwind; and in order to keep his balance, the Indian leaned
far over on one side, his head close to the pony's neck. He said "How"
with a fiendish grin that showed how thoroughly he was enjoying our
frightened faces, and then turned his fast little beast back to the
sunflower road. Of course, as long as the road to the post was clear
we were in no very great danger, as our ponies were fast, but if that
savage could have passed us and gotten us in between him and the
Apache village, we would have lost our horses, if not our lives, for
turning off through the sunflowers would have been an impossibility.
The very next morning, I think it was, one of the government mules
wandered away, and two of the drivers went in search of it, but not
finding it in the post, one of the men suggested that they should go
to the river where the post animals are watered. It is a fork of the
Canadian River, and is just over a little sand hill, not one quarter
of a mile back of the quarters, but not in the direction of the
sunflower road. The other man, however, said he would not go - that it
was not safe - and came back to the corral, so the one who proposed
going went on alone.
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