Although I had not wholly forgotten that Camp MacDowell had been
called by very bad names during our stay at Fort Whipple, at the
time that Jack decided on the Ehrenberg detail, I determined to
brave it, in all its unattractiveness, isolation and heat, for I
knew there was a garrison and a Doctor there, and a few officers'
families, I knew supplies were to be obtained and the ordinary
comforts of a far-off post. Then too, in my summer in the East I
had discovered that I was really a soldier's wife and I must go
back to it all. To the army with its glitter and its misery, to
the post with its discomforts, to the soldiers, to the drills, to
the bugle-calls, to the monotony, to the heat of Southern
Arizona, to the uniform and the stalwart Captains and gay
Lieutenants who wore it, I felt the call and I must go.
CHAPTER XXIII
BACK TO ARIZONA
The last nails were driven in the precious boxes, and I started
overland in November with my little son, now nearly two years
old.
"Overland" in those days meant nine days from New York to San
Francisco. Arriving in Chicago, I found it impossible to secure a
section on the Pullman car so was obliged to content myself with
a lower berth. I did not allow myself to be disappointed.
On entering the section, I saw an enormous pair of queer cow hide
shoes, the very queerest shoes I had ever seen, lying on the
floor, with a much used travelling bag. I speculated a good deal
on the shoes, but did not see the owner of them until several
hours later, when a short thick-set German with sandy close-cut
beard entered and saluted me politely. "You are noticing my shoes
perhaps Madame?"
"Yes" I said, involuntarily answering him in German.
His face shone with pleasure and he explained to me that they
were made in Russia and he always wore them when travelling.
"What have we," I thought, "an anarchist?"
But with the inexperience and fearlessness of youth, I entered
into a most delightful conversation in German with him. I found
him rather an extraordinarily well educated gentleman and he said
he lived in Nevada, but had been over to Vienna to place his
little boy at a military school, "as," he said, "there is nothing
like a uniform to give a boy self-respect." He said his wife had
died several months before. I congratulated myself that the
occupant of the upper berth was at least a gentleman.
The next day, as we sat opposite each other chatting, always in
German, he paused, and fixing his eyes rather steadily upon me he
remarked:
