Great Dull-Eyed Rattlesnakes - They Lay All Loathsome,
Yellow-Skinned, And Slept Coiled Tight As Pine Knots In The Sun,
With Flat Heads Through The Centre Run; Then Struck Out Sharp,
Then Rattling Crept Flat-Bellied Down The Dusty Way.
- JOAQUIN MILLER.
At the end of a week, we started forth for Ehrenberg. Our escort
was now sent back to Camp Apache, and the Baileys remained at
Fort Whipple, so our outfit consisted of one ambulance and one
army wagon. One or two soldiers went along, to help with the
teams and the camp.
We travelled two days over a semi-civilized country, and found
quite comfortable ranches where we spent the nights. The greatest
luxury was fresh milk, and we enjoyed that at these ranches in
Skull Valley. They kept American cows, and supplied Whipple
Barracks with milk and butter. We drank, and drank, and drank
again, and carried a jugful to our bedside. The third day brought
us to Cullen's ranch, at the edge of the desert. Mrs. Cullen was
a Mexican woman and had a little boy named Daniel; she cooked us
a delicious supper of stewed chicken, and fried eggs, and good
bread, and then she put our boy to bed in Daniel's crib. I felt
so grateful to her; and with a return of physical comfort, I
began to think that life, after all, might be worth the living.
Hopefully and cheerfully the next morning we entered the vast
Colorado desert. This was verily the desert, more like the desert
which our imagination pictures, than the one we had crossed in
September from Mojave.
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