There was a good ranch
there, kept by Hunt and Dudley, Englishmen, I believe. I did not
see them, but I wondered who they were and why they staid in such
a place. They were absent at the time; perhaps they had mines or
something of the sort to look after. One is always imagining
things about people who live in such extraordinary places. At all
events, whatever Messrs. Hunt and Dudley were doing down there,
their ranch was clean and attractive, which was more than could
be said of the place where we stopped the next night, a place
called Tyson's Wells. We slept in our tent that night, for of all
places on the earth a poorly kept ranch in Arizona is the most
melancholy and uninviting. It reeks of everything unclean,
morally and physically. Owen Wister has described such a place in
his delightful story, where the young tenderfoot dances for the
amusement of the old habitues.
One more day's travel across the desert brought us to our El
Dorado.
CHAPTER XVIII
EHRENBERG ON THE COLORADO
Under the burning mid-day sun of Arizona, on May 16th, our six
good mules, with the long whip cracking about their ears, and the
ambulance rattling merrily along, brought us into the village of
Ehrenberg. There was one street, so called, which ran along on
the river bank, and then a few cross streets straggling back into
the desert, with here and there a low adobe casa. The Government
house stood not far from the river, and as we drove up to the
entrance the same blank white walls stared at me. It did not look
so much like a prison, after all, I thought. Captain Bernard, the
man whom I had pitied, stood at the doorway, to greet us, and
after we were inside the house he had some biscuits and wine
brought; and then the change of stations was talked of, and he
said to me, "Now, please make yourself at home. The house is
yours; my things are virtually packed up, and I leave in a day or
two. There is a soldier here who can stay with you; he has been
able to attend to my simple wants. I eat only twice a day; and
here is Charley, my Indian, who fetches the water from the river
and does the chores. I dine generally at sundown."
A shadow fell across the sunlight in the doorway; I looked
around and there stood "Charley," who had come in with the
noiseless step of the moccasined foot. I saw before me a handsome
naked Cocopah Indian, who wore a belt and a gee-string. He seemed
to feel at home and began to help with the bags and various
paraphernalia of ambulance travellers. He looked to be about
twenty-four years old. His face was smiling and friendly and I
knew I should like him.
The house was a one-story adobe. It formed two sides of a hollow
square; the other two sides were a high wall, and the Government
freight-house respectively. The courtyard was partly shaded by a
ramada and partly open to the hot sun. There was a chicken-yard
in one corner of the inclosed square, and in the centre stood a
rickety old pump, which indicated some sort of a well. Not a
green leaf or tree or blade of grass in sight. Nothing but white
sand, as far as one could see, in all directions.
Inside the house there were bare white walls, ceilings covered
with manta, and sagging, as they always do; small windows set in
deep embrasures, and adobe floors. Small and inconvenient rooms,
opening one into another around two sides of the square. A sort
of low veranda protected by lattice screens, made from a species
of slim cactus, called ocotilla, woven together, and bound with
raw-hide, ran around a part of the house.
Our dinner was enlivened by some good Cocomonga wine. I tried to
ascertain something about the source of provisions, but
evidently the soldier had done the foraging, and Captain Bernard
admitted that it was difficult, adding always that he did not
require much, "it was so warm," et caetera, et caetera. The next
morning I took the reins, nominally, but told the soldier to go
ahead and do just as he had always done. I selected a small room
for the baby's bath, the all important function of the day. The
Indian brought me a large tub (the same sort of a half of a
vinegar barrel we had used at Apache for ourselves), set it down
in the middle of the floor, and brought water from a barrel which
stood in the corral. A low box was placed for me to sit on. This
was a bachelor establishment, and there was no place but the
floor to lay things on; but what with the splashing and the
leaking and the dripping, the floor turned to mud and the white
clothes and towels were covered with it, and I myself was a
sight to behold. The Indian stood smiling at my plight. He spoke
only a pigeon English, but said, "too much-ee wet."
I was in despair; things began to look hopeless again to me. I
thought "surely these Mexicans must know how to manage with these
floors." Fisher, the steamboat agent, came in, and I asked him
if he could not find me a nurse. He said he would try, and went
out to see what could be done.
He finally brought in a rather forlorn looking Mexican woman
leading a little child (whose father was not known), and she said
she would come to us for quinze pesos a month. I consulted with
Fisher, and he said she was a pretty good sort, and that we could
not afford to be too particular down in that country.
