As for MacDowell, it's a hell of a place, down
there in the South; and you never will be able to go back East
with the baby, if we once get settled down there. Why, it's a
good fifteen days from the river."
And so he piled up the arguments in favor of Ehrenberg, saying
finally, "You need not stop a day there. If the boat happens to
be up, you can jump right aboard and start at once down river."
All the discomforts of the voyage on the "Newbern," and the
memory of those long days spent on the river steamer in August
had paled before my recent experiences. I flew, in imagination,
to the deck of the "Gila," and to good Captain Mellon, who would
take me and my child out of that wretched Territory.
"Yes, yes, let us go then," I cried; for here came in my
inexperience. I thought I was choosing the lesser evil, and I
knew that Jack believed it to be so, and also that he had set his
heart upon Ehrenberg, for reasons known only to the understanding
of a military man.
So it was decided to take the Ehrenberg detail.
CHAPTER XVII
THE COLORADO DESERT
Some serpents slid from out the grass That grew in tufts by
shattered stone, Then hid below some broken mass Of ruins older
than the East, That Time had eaten, as a bone Is eaten by some
savage beast.
