I noticed again Chief Diablo's great good looks.
Conversation was carried on principally by signs and nods, and
through the interpreter (a white man named Cooley). Besides, the
officers had picked up many short phrases of the harsh and
gutteral Apache tongue.
Diablo was charmed with the young, handsome wife of one of the
officers, and asked her husband how many ponies he would take for
her, and Pedro asked Major Worth, if all those white squaws
belonged to him.
The party passed off pleasantly enough, and was not especially
subversive to discipline, although I believe it was not repeated.
Afterwards, long afterwards, when we were stationed at David's
Island, New York Harbor, and Major Worth was no longer a
bachelor, but a dignified married man and had gained his star in
the Spanish War, we used to meet occasionally down by the barge
office or taking a Fenster-promenade on Broadway, and we would
always stand awhile and chat over the old days at Camp Apache in
'74. Never mind how pressing our mutual engagements were, we
could never forego the pleasure of talking over those wild days
and contrasting them with our then present surroundings. "Shall
you ever forget my party ?" he said, the last time we met.
CHAPTER XIII
A NEW RECRUIT
In January our little boy arrived, to share our fate and to
gladden our hearts. As he was the first child born to an
officer's family in Camp Apache, there was the greatest
excitement. All the sheep-ranchers and cattlemen for miles around
came into the post. The beneficent canteen, with its soldiers'
and officers' clubrooms did not exist then. So they all gathered
at the cutler's store, to celebrate events with a round of
drinks. They wanted to shake hands with and congratulate the new
father, after their fashion, upon the advent of the blond-haired
baby. Their great hearts went out to him, and they vied with each
other in doing the handsome thing by him, in a manner according
to their lights, and their ideas of wishing well to a man; a
manner, sometimes, alas! disastrous in its results to the man!
However, by this time, I was getting used to all sides of
frontier life.
I had no time to be lonely now, for I had no nurse, and the only
person who was able to render me service was a laundress of the
Fifth Cavalry, who came for about two hours each day, to give the
baby his bath and to arrange things about the bed. I begged her
to stay with me, but, of course, I knew it was impossible.
So here I was, inexperienced and helpless, alone in bed, with an
infant a few days old. Dr. Loring, our excellent Post Surgeon,
was both kind and skillful, but he was in poor health and
expecting each day to be ordered to another station.
