I Used To Walk Up And Down
Between The Lines, With The Other Women, And The Squaws Looked At
Our Clothes And Chuckled, And Made Some Of Their Inarticulate
Remarks To Each Other.
The bucks looked admiringly at the white
women, especially at the cavalry beauty, Mrs. Montgomery,
although I thought that Chief Diablo cast a special eye at our
young Mrs. Bailey, of the infantry.
Diablo was a handsome fellow. I was especially impressed by his
extraordinary good looks.
This tribe was quiet at that time, only a few renegades escaping
into the hills on their wild adventures: but I never felt any
confidence in them and was, on the whole, rather afraid of them.
The squaws were shy, and seldom came near the officers'
quarters. Some of the younger girls were extremely pretty; they
had delicate hands, and small feet encased in well-shaped
moccasins. They wore short skirts made of stripped bark, which
hung gracefully about their bare knees and supple limbs, and
usually a sort of low-necked camisa, made neatly of coarse,
unbleached muslin, with a band around the neck and arms, and, in
cold weather a pretty blanket was wrapped around their shoulders
and fastened at the breast in front. In summer the blanket was
replaced by a square of bright calico. Their coarse, black hair
hung in long braids in front over each shoulder, and nearly all
of them wore an even bang or fringe over the forehead. Of course
hats were unheard of.
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