Even the country looked attractive, smiling under the December
sun. I wondered if I had really grown to love the desert. I had
read somewhere that people did. But I was not paying much
attention in those days to the analysis of my feelings. I did not
stop to question the subtle fascination which I felt steal over
me as we rolled along the smooth hard roads that followed the
windings of the Gila River. I was back again in the army; I had
cast my lot with a soldier, and where he was, was home to me.
In Nantucket, no one thought much about the army. The uniform of
the regulars was never seen there. The profession of arms was
scarcely known or heard of. Few people manifested any interest in
the life of the Far West. I had, while there, felt out of touch
with my oldest friends. Only my darling old uncle, a brave old
whaling captain, had said: "Mattie, I am much interested in all
you have written us about Arizona; come right down below and show
me on the dining-room map just where you went."
Gladly I followed him down the stairs, and he took his pencil out
and began to trace. After he had crossed the Mississippi, there
did not seem to be anything but blank country, and I could not
find Arizona, and it was written in large letters across the
entire half of this antique map, "Unexplored."
"True enough," he laughed. "I must buy me a new map."
But he drew his pencil around Cape Horn and up the Pacific coast,
and I described to him the voyages I had made on the old
"Newbern," and his face was aglow with memories.
"Yes," he said, "in 1826, we put into San Francisco harbor and
sent our boats up to San Jose for water and we took goats from
some of those islands,too. Oh! I know the coast well enough. We
were on our way to the Ar'tic Ocean then, after right whales."
But, as a rule, people there seemed to have little interest in
the army and it had made me feel as one apart.
Gila City was our first camp; not exactly a city, to be sure, at
that time, whatever it may be now. We were greeted by the sight
of a few old adobe houses, and the usual saloon. I had ceased,
however, to dwell upon such trifles as names. Even "Filibuster,"
the name of our next camp, elicited no remark from me.
The weather was fine beyond description. Each day, at noon, we
got out of the ambulance, and sat down on the warm white sand,
by a little clump of mesquite, and ate our luncheon. Coveys of
quail flew up and we shot them, thereby insuring a good supper.
