Let me help you: give me a cushion
to kneel upon - now bring everything that is to be packed, and I
can soon show you how to do it." With her kind assistance the
chests were packed, and I found that we had a great deal of
surplus stuff which had to be put into rough cases, or rolled
into packages and covered with burlap. Jack fumed when he saw it,
and declared we could not take it all, as it exceeded our
allowance of weight. I declared we must take it, or we could not
exist.
With some concessions on both sides we were finally packed up,
and left Fort Russell about the middle of June, with the first
detachment, consisting of head-quarters and band, for San
Francisco, over the Union Pacific Railroad.
For it must be remembered, that in 1874 there were no railroads
in Arizona, and all troops which were sent to that distant
territory either marched over-land through New Mexico, or were
transported by steamer from San Francisco down the coast, and up
the Gulf of California to Fort Yuma, from which point they
marched up the valley of the Gila to the southern posts, or
continued up the Colorado River by steamer, to other points of
disembarkation, whence they marched to the posts in the interior,
or the northern part of the territory.
Much to my delight, we were allowed to remain over in San
Francisco, and go down with the second detachment. We made the
most of the time, which was about a fortnight, and on the sixth
of August we embarked with six companies of soldiers, Lieutenant
Colonel Wilkins in command, on the old steamship "Newbern,"
Captain Metzger, for Arizona.
CHAPTER IV
DOWN THE PACIFIC COAST
Now the "Newbern" was famous for being a good roller, and she
lived up to her reputation. For seven days I saw only the inside
of our stateroom. At the end of that time we arrived off Cape St.
Lucas (the extreme southern point of Lower California), and I
went on deck.
We anchored and took cattle aboard. I watched the natives tow
them off, the cattle swimming behind their small boats, and then
saw the poor beasts hoisted up by their horns to the deck of our
ship.
I thought it most dreadfully cruel, but was informed that it had
been done from time immemorial, so I ceased to talk about it,
knowing that I could not reform those aged countries, and
realizing, faintly perhaps (for I had never seen much of the
rough side of life), that just as cruel things were done to the
cattle we consume in the North.
Now that Mr. Sinclair, in his great book "The Jungle," has
brought the multiplied horrors of the great packing-houses before
our very eyes, we might witness the hoisting of the cattle over
the ship's side without feeling such intense pity, admitting that
everything is relative, even cruelty.
It was now the middle of August, and the weather had become
insufferably hot, but we were out of the long swell of the
Pacific Ocean; we had rounded Cape St. Lucas, and were steaming
up the Gulf of California, towards the mouth of the Great
Colorado, whose red and turbulent waters empty themselves into
this gulf, at its head.
I now had time to become acquainted with the officers of the
regiment, whom I had not before met; they had come in from other
posts and joined the command at San Francisco.
The daughter of the lieutenant-colonel was on board, the
beautiful and graceful Caroline Wilkins, the belle of the
regiment; and Major Worth, to whose company my husband belonged.
I took a special interest in the latter, as I knew we must face
life together in the wilds of Arizona. I had time to learn
something about the regiment and its history; and that Major
Worth's father, whose monument I had so often seen in New York,
was the first colonel of the Eighth Infantry, when it was
organized in the State of New York in 1838.
The party on board was merry enough, and even gay. There was
Captain Ogilby, a great, genial Scotchman, and Captain Porter, a
graduate of Dublin, and so charmingly witty. He seemed very
devoted to Miss Wilkins, but Miss Wilkins was accustomed to the
devotion of all the officers of the Eighth Infantry. In fact, it
was said that every young lieutenant who joined the regiment had
proposed to her. She was most attractive, and as she had too kind
a heart to be a coquette, she was a universal favorite with the
women as well as with the men.
There was Ella Bailey, too, Miss Wilkins' sister, with her young
and handsome husband and their young baby.
Then, dear Mrs. Wilkins, who had been so many years in the army
that she remembered crossing the plains in a real ox-team. She
represented the best type of the older army woman - and it was so
lovely to see her with her two daughters, all in the same
regiment. A mother of grown-up daughters was not often met with
in the army.
And Lieutenant-Colonel Wilkins, a gentleman in the truest sense
of the word - a man of rather quiet tastes, never happier than
when he had leisure for indulging his musical taste in strumming
all sorts of Spanish fandangos on the guitar, or his somewhat
marked talent with the pencil and brush.
The heat of the staterooms compelled us all to sleep on deck, so
our mattresses were brought up by the soldiers at night, and
spread about. The situation, however, was so novel and altogether
ludicrous, and our fear of rats which ran about on deck so great,
that sleep was well-nigh out of the question.
