I saw uneasiness in the faces of the other women, and by
mutual consent we got up and slowly took our departure. I barely
had strength to climb up the steep side of the hollow. I was
thankful to escape from its horrors.
Scarce three months after that some of the same band of Indians
fired into the garrison and fled to the mountains. I remarked to
Jack, that I thought we were very imprudent to go to see that
dance, and he said he supposed we were. But I had never regarded
life in such a light way as he seemed to.
Women usually like to talk over their trials and their wonderful
adventures, and that is why I am writing this, I suppose. Men
simply will not talk about such things.
The cavalry beauty seemed to look at this frontier life
philosophically - what she really thought about it, I never knew.
Mrs. Bailey was so much occupied by the care of her young child
and various out-door amusements, that she did not, apparently,
think much about things that happened around us. At all events,
she never seemed inclined to talk about them. There was no one
else to talk to; the soil was strange, and the atmosphere a
foreign one to me; life did not seem to be taken seriously out
there, as it was back in New England, where they always loved to
sit down and talk things over.
