Chapter XI: Part 11

After awhile she told him that she was on her way to visit an uncle and aunt, who had taken up their residence at Pescadero, and that she meant to make them many a visit, as she was fond of them, and they petted her to her heart's content. And she liked the country, too. Then he told her of the pebbles to be found on the beach near Pescadero, and of the attractions of the sea-moss, at a point more distant; and he hoped that he might always have the pleasure of carrying her through the country, whenever she came this way.

"Uncle shall surely let you know when I am coming back, so that I may come with you," she said; "but what is your name?--so that he can find you out."

"Jim!" he replied, grimly, pulling his hat far down over his eyes, apparently indifferent as to the impression his abbreviated appellation might make on her. Then, with a touch of sarcasm in his voice, he asked, "And yours?"

"Stella," she answered simply; and they both laughed, and she fastened the roses in her hair before they came to the end of their journey, which had on the whole passed off so pleasantly.

So pleasantly that Stella reverted to it when in Aunt Sarah's comfortable sitting-room, where Uncle Herbert was allowed to smoke his after-dinner cigar.

"I should like to go back with the same driver; his name is Jim. Do you know him, uncle?" she continued, with the most innocent face, in which a sharper eye than Uncle Herbert's would nevertheless have detected a somewhat heightened color.

"They have nicknamed him 'The Duke,'" he replied, knocking the ashes off his cigar with a thoughtful look, "and they say he is quite a character. Proud and unapproachable, but the best driver on the road, and, so long as no one interferes or asks questions about himself, perfectly obliging, and courteous in his manners."

After the usual round of dissipations, consisting of a sea-bath for the more venturesome, a visit to the pebble-beach, a more extended tour to gather sea-moss, Stella was ready to return to San Francisco. To both aunt and uncle she imparted her design of soon revisiting Pescadero, for the purpose of exploring the distant hills, with their dark forests, where the redwood was said to reach a circumference of sixteen feet, which the wise little lady would not believe till her own eyes had proved it. The old couple were without children, and nothing could be more welcome than the niece's prospective visits.

Stella thought she could see a sudden light flash over the gloomy face with the sunburnt moustache when she came out of the waiting-room to mount the stage, for she naturally wished to view in the light of the morning sun the scenery on which the evening shadows had lain when she came. Not that she saw much of it, after all; the fog prevented her from seeing what her veil did not shut out. But the sun breaking through the fog suddenly and driving it back, the sky became clear, her companion said, "heaven smiled once more;" and while he spoke he was careful to manipulate the veil she had dropped, in such a manner that it found its way into his coat-pocket, from where, he was determined, it was not to be unearthed till the steeples of San Mateo should come into sight.

He listened with such an air of interest to Stella's recital of all she had seen, that it did not strike her till after a long while that she had really sustained conversation altogether on her side; and when she grew quite still after this, he made no effort to draw her on or speak himself. But when they approached the long, steep bridge across the Toanitas, and rolled along close by the sea, where the waves dashed against the crags with angry roar, through which there wept and moaned a bitter grief and sighed a forlorn hope of peace to come, he pushed his hat back with an impatient motion, and, gazing moodily into the waters, he muttered:

"Bleib Du in Deinen Meerestiefen Wahnsinniger Traum."

"Do you really read Heine in the original?" she asked, quickly.

"And only a stage-driver," he returned, with the old sarcasm, seeing that she hesitated. "Yes; I read Heine in German--or did. I read nothing now. I drive stage."

There was painful silence; an apology would have made matters worse; but seeing the grieved expression on her face, he continued, in his gentlest voice, "You say you are coming this way again in the course of the season--coming with me--in my stage? You wonder how I came to be stage-driver; when we are better acquainted, and you think it worth while to remind me of my promise, I will tell you my story."

"And forgive me now?" she asked, extending her hand. The glove came off his right hand, and the fingers that clasped hers were not less white and soft, but strong they looked--strong as iron. "Thanks," she said; and he felt, somehow, that she wanted her veil just then, and he pretended to discover it, by chance, on the seat.

In the course of the season she came again--more than once--coming always when she knew she would meet his stage at the San Mateo depot.

One bright day in October, when, after the drought of the long summer, the earth had been refreshed by generous autumn showers, Stella again sat beside him, high up, on the driver's seat. The same azure was in the sky, the same deep blue on the waters; it was all as it had been the day she first saw the tangled wildwood by the brook, the spreading live-oak by the roadside--only, the foliage on the brush had changed its colors to deep-red and yellow.

"You once said," began Stella, timidly--for she had learned that his temper was very uneven--"that if I reminded you of your promise when we were better acquainted, you would tell me your story."

He turned and looked steadily into her faltering eyes a moment, then drew his hat down over his brows, and commenced, without further preliminaries:

"Her name was Sylvia--and her eyes were as deep as a well; so deep that I don't think I ever quite fathomed them. When my mother died, she said we were both young, and we must not be married until at least a year had passed over my mother's grave. I was touched with the sympathy she displayed on this sorrowful occasion; so was my father. I was his only son, and would undoubtedly fall heir to his wealth--great wealth--after his death. I had grown up as rich men's only sons generally grow up; had visited schools, colleges, universities; was called good-looking, a clever fellow generally, the best driver of a four-in-hand, the best shot--in short, a great catch for any girl to make. Sylvia told me so herself often. But, after all, I was only the son, you see, and my father might live for twenty years longer, and if Sylvia married me, she married only a prospect--whereas, if she married my father, she was the wife of a wealthy man at once. I had not been brought up to business habits, as Sylvia pointed out, and if my father ever became displeased with me--of which he showed strong symptoms about this time--I should be thrown on the world with a wife as helpless as myself, and as poor. For Sylvia, though brought up among aristocratic relatives, was as poor as a church mouse. What need to make many words? She married my father before the year was out, and I left home secretly on the morning of their wedding-day, with never a cent of the riches which had bought my best-beloved to be my father's bride--never a dollar of all the wealth I had been taught to look upon as my own.

"For years I read in every Eastern paper that happened to fall into my hands the promises of reward to any who might bring tidings of me--dead or alive--to my father; but I never could tell: Was it his own heart that urged him to this long continued search, or was it she that felt some slight compunction at having driven the son from the father's house? There are officious people everywhere--greedy people--who will do anything for money. One of these soul-sellers, worming himself into my confidence when sick and broken from unaccustomed labor, strung together what might have passed with others for the ravings of a delirious patient, and wrote my father of my whereabouts and occupation. Before I had recovered, my father was with me, urging me with much kindness, I must say, to go with him, if not to his home, at least to the city, where he proposed to set me up in business for myself, in case I was too independent to live under his roof.

"His wife's health, delicate since her marriage, had been so much benefited by the climate of California that she advocated their remaining here, and he intended to settle in San Francisco. I thanked him for all his kindness--I did, indeed; he is a weak old man, but he had been an over-indulgent father to me in my boyhood, and why should I harbor an unkind feeling against him? But I would not go with him. He said I was taking a cruel revenge on him. That is not so, however--or do you too blame me for being a stage-driver?" He bent down toward her quickly and raised her face with his hand. There were tears in her eyes, and his arm stole around her as gently as though he had forgotten about the six horses he was guiding with his other hand.

Don't be shocked, reader; there was no one on the outside of the stage but these two. And supposing even that he had pressed her head to his breast and kissed her forehead; no one saw it, or made remarks about it, except the sea waves, and they seemed rippling all over with good nature and laughter, and rejoicings at the new light in the man's eyes, and the tears and the smiles in the woman's.

For a long while neither spoke; but when the stage halted he lifted her down so tenderly, and she looked up into his face so confidingly, that words seemed unnecessary between them. Then he went his way, and Stella knew that she must not expect to see him again till she should be ready to return to the city; for neither Uncle Herbert nor any one else in the place had ever succeeded in enticing him to visit their homes.

But when he assisted Stella into her usual place on the morning of her departure for San Francisco, his eyes told her that his thoughts had been with her all the days since relating to her "his story." He had not encouraged any one else to ride on the outside; and once clear of the town, he touched Stella's hand with his lips, drew it through his arm and pressed it, very much, I am afraid, as any ordinary lover might have done. But when the fog rolled away, he sent out his clear baritone to greet the sun-kissed ocean, and the burden of his song was once more:

"Das Meer erglänzte weit hinaus!"

And the hat was not drawn down over his face when she turned to him, and his eyes were like the ocean, dark-blue, and a sunny light laughing in them.

"It is my farewell to the sea," he said, gayly. "I am never coming back again. I am going to San Francisco, turn 'gentleman,' put on 'store clothes,' and enter the ranks of respectable business men."

She laughed as he straightened himself and put on a severely sober face, and he relaxed and urged his horses on with a smart cut of the whip, as though he could not enter the state of a "respectable business man" soon enough. When they came to Crystal Springs he brought a bunch of red roses once more, and held them up to her with a roguish smile on his no longer gloomy face. She took them with a little blush at the remembrance of his first attempt at gallantry; and when he sat beside her again, he fastened them with his own hands in her shining braids. They were as merry as children out for a holiday; and only when they drove up to the depot at San Mateo did the old gloom come back into his face as he lifted her from her elevated position.

"After three days, if in the land of the living, I will come to claim you for my bride"--what more he said was lost in the din and racket of the approaching train.

She saw nothing of him after she had watched the supple figure at the last moment springing lightly on the platform of the last car. But she knew he was near and was happy.

Early the next forenoon, in the counting-room of a mercantile firm on Front street, sat one of the principals, enjoying his Havana, when the door was darkened by the shadow of a tall figure standing in it.

"Jim--old fellow!" he cried, seizing the newcomer by both hands. "Welcome--thrice welcome! Have you come to stay, vagabond and rover? Say at once--I read something in your face that tells me you are unbending at last. Are you in love, my dear boy?--or what hath wrought this change?"

"How you do run on, Luke. You have not changed, at least. Yes, I am the prodigal son, returning to his father to be--set up in business. And--no--I'm not in love; I have simply learned to worship the dearest, noblest girl, and will make her mine--or die," he added, in a lower tone.

"Why not accept my offer, Jim? The desk at my elbow is always kept vacant for you. Your father, poor man, is not the only friend you have, remember." He laid his hand impressively on his friend's arm, and looked with frank affection into his face.

Their interview was a lengthy one: friend Luke seemed averse to parting with his old chum, and the son seemed in no great haste to greet his father. But as we need not intrude on their first meeting, we can rejoin father and son as they ascend the broad stairs in front of the family residence, whither the father has taken his son in the first flush of happiness.

"You will love little Willie, I know; he is a brave boy, with long flaxen ringlets just like my--like his mother." For the first time something like hesitation came into his speech, and even the son's heart beat faster for an instant as the door swung open in answer to the old man's ring. He preceded him through the corridor, threw open a door and called out, "Jim has come home, my dear; we are going into the library, and will be ready for lunch after a while."

She had known of their coming just a moment before they entered; he felt it, for she had snatched up the boy, and half hid her face in his dress. Very faded she looked; her cheeks, softly rounded once, were thin, and the pink and white of her complexion had grown sallow. The "long fair ringlets," too, were but limp, stringy curls, that hung without grace or fulness down her back. The eyes, pale blue, though radiant once with health and happiness, were weak and expressionless--save that a dumb terror was written in them now.

A smile, half contemptuous, half pitying, flitted over the young man's face as he passed through the room, with only a silent bow to the woman.

When they had vanished she stood like a statue, till the prattling of the boy on her arm recalled her to herself.

"He spoke not one word to me," she said, as she put the boy down, "not one word. Oh, to hear the tone of his voice once more--only once more." The door was open through which they had passed, and her burning eyes seemed to pursue the form last vanished through it. She silently rose, like one in a dream, and walked slowly, slowly along the corridor that led to the library.

Little Willie pulled over mamma's willow work-stand first, and then found harmless amusement in winding a spool of crimson embroidering-silk around and around the legs of a convenient table.

What was it that turned his little beating heart and his puny white face to stone all at once? Was this really a Medusa on which he looked? The long ringlets seemed serpents, indeed; every one of them instinct with the wild despair the bitter hatred pictured on the face that looked so meek and inoffensive but a while ago. "His bride!"--the serpents hissed it into her ears--"His bride! Never--never. She shall die--and he? I will murder him with these hands, first. His bride--and I am to be a friend to her--ha! ha! ha! The dotard." Every one of the serpents echoed the mad laugh, as the woman threw back her head and clinched her hands in wild defiance. The child broke out into shrill complaining cries, and she sprang toward him, seized him and shook him by the shoulders till his breath failed. But in the midst of her mad fury the door opened, after a soft knock, and a female servant entered the room.

"Is Master Willie troublesome?" she asked. "Dear heart; let me take him, mum."

"Leave the room instantly, nurse; Master Willie is naughty and will remain with me."

Two little arms were stretched out imploringly; but nurse had to withdraw--with her own opinion of Master Willie's naughtiness, and "Missus' temper."

But the furies were banished, and when father and son entered the room some time after to say that they would take lunch down town, "Sylvia," as the old man addressed her, came forward quietly, leading the child by the hand, and spoke words of welcome to him, in his little brother's name. And she gave him her hand as she said "good-by," to the old man's unspeakable joy.

Poor old man! He fondly dreamed the gods were propitiated, the furies appeased; that the son whom he really loved had been restored to his rightful place, and would be guardian at some future day to the child of his old age--the son his idolized young wife had given him.

Yet he had not strength to battle against the storm that the idolized young wife called up--the storm that was to sweep from him again the long-lost, bitterly mourned son. Ah! well; it is not hard to fancy how she strained every nerve to wrest from another the happiness once within her own reach. Had she not bartered away her peace when she ruthlessly deserted the man she loved? And should some other woman be happier than she? No! Let them all be wrecked together. What cared she? Her husband; bah! Her child, yes; she strained him to her breast, and bemoaned him, and caressed him, and said that he was to be robbed by that wicked, wicked man, who had come to disturb their quiet happiness. That his unnatural father was about to squander on his undutiful older son, who had deserted him and disgraced him for years, the fortune she had been so sparing of--knowing that she would be left alone in the world some day, with no one to provide for herself and her child. And she would take her child now--a fresh burst of hysterical grief--right now, and start out into the cold world to earn her daily bread, or beg, for her child--for it would come to that, now that this cruel, hard-hearted man had undertaken to provide for his profligate, vagabond son.

And the child, little knowing how useful a tool he was in his mother's hands, wept with her, and would not be comforted by the distracted father, but clung to his mother's neck, crying, when she made a feint of leaving the house at the dead of night. Then the old man in his anguish promised to abandon his "vagabond" son, and was but too happy to have peace restored to his troubled home at this price. After all, the boy had lived away from him so many years; had never troubled himself about him; then why should his father heap all this trouble on his own head for what might be only a passing whim of the boy's?

The third day had dawned since the long-lost son's return. Friend Luke again sat in his counting-room, in company with his early Havana, his meditations were disturbed by a boy, who was shown in by one of the clerks. "A note for you, sir," and he had vanished.

But the young merchant seized his hat when he had glanced at the contents, and repaired, breathlessly, to his friend's hotel. Cold sweat stood on his forehead when he knocked at the door, and it was opened by a stranger. One glance at the bed and at those standing around it was sufficient.

"I was his friend," he said, and they respectfully made room for him.

He touched the cold hand, and gently lifted the cloth that hid the rigid face. His friend had always been a good shot, and Luke groaned as he replaced the cloth.

"Poor girl, poor girl--and I am to break the news to her!"

The doctor who had been called in, a shock-headed, spectacled German, looked at him, first from under his glasses, then over them, and at last through them. "Aha!" he said, with evident satisfaction, catching at Luke's words, "now we have it. It vas a voman who made dis misfortune, after all."

"A woman"--Luke repeated, softly; "yes, but her name was Sylvia."

_CROSSING THE ARIZONA DESERTS._

HEAD-QUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF CALIFORNIA, }
SAN FRANCISCO, CAL., March 11, 1868.}

MY DEAR MADAM:--The next steamer for Wilmington is advertised to sail on the 14th, but as she is not yet in, her departure may be delayed a day or two.

I enclose letters to the commanding officers of Drum Barracks and Fort Yuma, and am,

My dear Madam,

Truly yours,

E. N. PLATT.

It was my intention to visit quite a remote part of Arizona; and, although an officer's wife, having no personal acquaintance with any of the officers stationed in the Territory, the letters the colonel gave me to the commanding officers of both these posts, through which I should have to pass, were very acceptable. As I was quite alone, the commanding officer of Drum Barracks was particular to give me reliable people for my long journey. Phil, the driver, was a model, and in many respects a genius, while the two soldiers--who had been in the hospital when their comrades had started for Arizona, two months before, and who were sent by the post commander to protect "Government property" (the ambulance)--were attentive and good-natured, as soldiers always are.

With so small an escort, it was possible--nay, expedient--to make the journey very rapidly. We were unincumbered by tents or baggage--my only trunk and what provisions we carried were all in the ambulance, which was drawn by four large mules. I had decided, being alone, to stop at the forage-stations, whenever we could reach them, expecting to take my meals there and to find quarters for the night. Luckily, the quartermaster and Phil had made arrangement and provision to have my meals cooked by one of the soldiers, in case the "station-fare" should not agree with me; and my ambulance was of such ample dimensions that it was easily turned into a sleeping apartment for the night: so that Phil, who had all the merits and demerits of such places by heart, had only to give an additional nod of the head to induce me to say to the station-keeper, who would always invite me to enter his "house" when Phil drove up to the _corral_, "No, thank you: I can rest very well in the ambulance." Then there were days' marches to be made when no station could be reached, so that we were compelled to camp out; and on such occasions Phil would appear in the full glory of his well-earned reputation. He boasted that he had brought fully one-half the number of officers' wives who ever visited Arizona to the Territory himself, and that he had always made them comfortable. Knowing, of course, before, whenever we should camp out, he would go to work systematically. His carbine was always by his side, and early in the morning he would commence his raid on the game and birds abounding, more or less, throughout the Territory. Slaying sometimes five or six of the beautifully crested quails at one shot without moving from his seat, he would send one of the soldiers to gather up the spoils, and then set the men, placed one on each side of him, to pick the birds. That this was thoroughly done he was very sure of, for he watched the operation with a stern eye. Not the smallest splinter of wood, or anything combustible, was left ungleaned on the field over which he passed on such a day; fifty, ay, a hundred times, he would turn to his right-hand man, or to his left, with the admonition:

"Miller, we've six birds to cook, and bread to bake, to-night: pick up that stick."

Down would jump Miller, trusting to his agility, and the gymnastics he might have practised in younger days, for safety in vaulting over the wheels; for never a moment would Phil allow the ambulance to halt while this wayside gathering was going on.

I always preferred camping out to "bed and board" at the roadside hotels of Arizona, for Phil, with all his sagacity, would sometimes go astray in regard to the eligibility and comfort of the quarters furnished. As, for instance, at Antelope Peak, where my mentor assured me I should find a bedstead to place my bedding on, and a room all to myself. I _did_ find a bedstead; but after the family (consisting of an American husband, a Spanish wife, sister-in-law, brother-in-law, and three children) had removed their bed-clothes from it, to make place for mine, it looked so uninviting that I requested Phil to spread my bed on the floor. I had a room all to myself, too; but, on retiring to rest, I found that the whole family--again consisting of husband, wife, sister-in-law, brother-in-law, and three children--had spread their bed on the floor of the adjoining room, which, being separated from my apartment only by an old blanket, coming short of the ground over a foot, and hung up where the door ought to be, enabled, or rather compelled me to look straight into the faces of the different members of this interesting family. As it grew darker, and the danger of being stared out of countenance passed over, another serious disturbance presented itself to my senses. All my friends can bear witness to the fact that I consider Mr. Charles Bergh the greatest public benefactor of the present age (the woman who founded the hospital for aged and infirm cats not excepted), and that, with me, it calls forth all the combative qualities lately discovered to lie dormant in woman's nature, to see any harmless, helpless animal cruelly treated; but if I could have caught only half a dozen of the five hundred mice that nibbled at my nose, my ears, and my feet that night, I should exultingly have dipped them in camphene, applied a match, and sent them, as warning examples, back to their tribe.

Only once after this, toward the close of the journey, did Phil entice me to sleep under a roof. It was at Blue-water Station; and the man who kept it turned himself out into the _corral_, and made my bed on the floor of the only room the house contained. There was no bedstead there, but the man gave his word that neither were there any mice; so I went to sleep in perfect faith and security. When I woke up at midnight, I thought the Indians must have surprised us, scalped me, and left me for dead. Such a burning, gnawing sensation I experienced on the top of my head that almost unconsciously I put up my hand to see if they had taken _all_ my hair. But I brought it down rapidly, for all the horrid, pinching, stinging bugs and ants that had ensconced themselves in my hair, during my sleep, suddenly fastened to the intruding fingers, and clung to them with a tenacity worthy of a better cause.

But these experiences were not made until I had crossed the greater part of the Arizona deserts; and I considered them rather as pleasantly varying the solemn, still monotony of the days passed, one after one, in a solitude broken only, at long intervals, by those forlorn government forage-stations.

The first desert we crossed was still in California--though why California should feel any desire to claim the wilderness of sand and rattlesnakes lying between Vallecito Mountain and Fort Yuma, I cannot see. We had passed over the thriving country around San Bernardino, and through the verdant valley of San Felipe; and striking the desert just beyond Vallecito, it seemed like entering Arizona at once.

Could anything be more hopelessly endless--more discouragingly boundless--than the sand-waste that lay before us the morning we left the forage-station of Vallecito! For days before, Phil had been entertaining me with stories and accounts of travellers who had been lost in sand-storms on the deserts. Not a breath of air stirred--not a cloud was to be seen in the sky on this particular morning; nevertheless, I watched for the signs that precede the springing up of the wind with a keen eye, as the ambulance rolled slowly and noiselessly through the deep sand, and I listened attentively to Phil's stories. The road we followed was but a wagon-track, at best, and I could well believe that, in ten minutes from the time a storm sprang up, there would be no trace of the road left. Then commence the blind wanderings, the frenzied attempts to regain the friendly shelter of the station, on the part of the inexperienced traveller--ending, but too often, in a miserable death by famine and starvation. The sand, flying in clouds, conceals the distant mountains, by which alone he could be piloted; and, straying off, he finds himself bewildered among piles of sand and tattered sage-brush, when the storm has blown over. The remains of human beings found by parties going into the mountains have proved that such poor wretches must have wandered for days without food, without water, till they found their death, at last, on the wide, inhospitable plain. Their death--but not their grave; for the _coyote_, with his jackal instinct, surely finds the body of the lost one, under the sand-mound mercifully covering it, and, feasting on the flesh, he leaves the bones white and bleaching in the pitiless rays of the sun.

"Phil," said I, interrupting him, "you told me the mules would not get a drop of water to-day: what is that lake before us, then?"

He looked up to where I pointed.

"It is _mirage_, madame. _You_ cannot be deceived by it; I am sure you must have seen it on the plains, before this."

"Yes," I said, stoutly, "I have seen _mirage_; but this is water--not _mirage_."

"We shall see," said Phil, equally determined to hold his ground.

But I was sure it could not be _mirage_--it must be water--for did I not see each of the few scattering bushes of _verde_ and sage that grew on the border, and farther out, all through the water, reflected in the clear, slightly undulating flood? The bushes seemed larger here than any of the stinted vegetation I had yet seen on the desert, and every bush was clearly reflected in the water; but it was strange that as we approached the water receded; and if I noted any particular bunch of sage or weeds, I found that, as we neared, it grew smaller, and I could no longer see its image in the water.

Phil was right--it was the _mirage_; and this _Fata Morgana_ of the plains and deserts of our own country became a most curious and interesting study to me. I could write a volume on the "dissolving views" I have seen. Leaving camp one morning, I saw, on turning, that a narrow strip of short, coarse grass had been suddenly transformed into a tall, magnificent hedge; and a single, meagre stem of _verde_ would as suddenly grow into a large, spreading tree. Out of the clouds, on the horizon, would sometimes loom up, majestically, a tall spire, a heavy dome, or a vessel under full sail; and changing into one fantastic shape after another, the picture would slowly fade into vapor at last. Whole cities have sprung up before my eyes: I could have pointed out which one of the different cupolas I supposed to be the City Hall, and which steeple, according to my estimation, belonged to the First Presbyterian Church; and could have shown the exact locality of the harbor, from the number of masts I saw across the roofs of the houses yonder. Even Phil was deceived one morning. I asked him why he stopped the ambulance, and allowed the mules to rest at so unusual an hour in the day? He pointed to a mountain I had not noticed before, which stood almost in front of us, and was steep and bare, of a light clay-color.

"There ain't a man driving government mules knows this road better'n I do; but I'll be derned if ever I saw that mountain before."

He asked the men if they thought it could be _mirage_, but they hooted at the idea--it was too substantial for that, altogether; it was a mountain--nothing else. But while we were, all four, so intently gazing at it, the scene was shifted; the mountain parted, leaving two steep banks--the space between apparently spanned by a light bridge.

For days we continued our journey through the desert, making camp generally near one of the numerous wells indiscriminately scattered between Vallecito and Fort Yuma. There are Indian Wells, Sacket's Wells, Seven Wells, Cook's Wells, which, on close inspection, prove to belong to the dissolving views, of which Arizona possesses such a variety; an old well-curb or muddy water-hole generally constituting all the claim these places have to the distinction of being called wells. But no; at Cook's Wells, we _did_ find a good, clear well of water; nor is this the only object of interest connected in my mind with the place. The station-keeper told me that a tribe of friendly Indians, not far from here, the Deguines, were to celebrate the funeral rites of a departed warrior the following day. The spirit of the "brave" was to find its way up to the Happy Hunting Grounds from the funeral-pyre on which the body was to pass through the process of incremation--this being their mode of disposing of the remains of deceased friends. A novel spectacle it would be, no doubt; but I decided not to witness it. I could already see Castle Dome looming in the distance, and I knew that I should be able to reach Fort Yuma in the course of the following day. So we left Cook's Wells early in the morning, and reached the crossing of the Colorado some time in the forenoon.

The Colorado river was "up," Phil said; and I was prepared to agree with him when I saw an expanse of muddy water covering the flat, on the other side, to a considerable distance. The old scow, or flat-boat, manned by two dirty-looking Mexicans, had no difficulty in coming up close to us, where we were waiting on the shore: the difficulty lay in our getting on the crazy thing without breaking through the rotten planks. Perhaps the two Mexicans looked so dirty because all their "clean clothes" were hanging out to dry, on two lines of cowhide, stretched on either side of the flat-boat, which the wind kept blowing into the mules' faces, causing them to "back out" twice, after our _entrée_ to the ferry had been almost effected. There was no railing around the boat (the four posts from which the clothes-line was stretched having evidently been erected at the four corners for that purpose), and, as it was only just large enough to afford standing room for the ambulance and the men, it was anything but soothing to a woman's nerves to see the mules rear and plunge every time the wind flapped one of the articles on the line into the animals' faces. I had remained in the ambulance, and in my usual corner, but as the shore receded, and an ocean seemed to stretch out on every side of me, I found it hard to stay there. I had suggested to Phil, in the first place, to cut down those miserable clothes-lines, if the Mexicans refused to gather in their week's washing, but he had quieted me by saying that our men would hold the mules. However, when the current grew swifter, and the Mexicans found some difficulty in managing their craft, the men were directed to take the long poles, of which there was an abundant supply, and help to steer clear of the logs floating down the river.

Now came the difficulty; for the refractory mules would not listen to the "Ho, there, Kate; be still--will you?" with which Phil admonished the nigh leader, but persisted in rearing every time a piece of "linen" struck them, till the old scow shook with their furious stamping, and I grew desperate in my lone corner. "Phil," I cried at last, with the energy of despair, brandishing an enormous knife I had drawn from the mess-chest, "unless you come and quiet the mules immediately, I shall get down, cut the harness, and let them jump into the river!"

An hour's drive brought us to Fort Yuma, where we rested a day or two, before resuming our journey. The country here has been described again and again; its dry, sterile plains and black, burnt-looking hills have been sufficiently execrated--relieving me of the necessity of adding my quota. Fort Yuma--grand in its desolateness, white and parched in the midst of its two embracing rivers--needs but the Dantean inscription on its gateway to make it resemble the entrance to the regions of the eternally damned.

It was by no means my first glimpse of the "noble savage" that I got on the banks of the Colorado, or I might have been appalled at the sight of a dozen or two of barely-clothed, filthy-looking Indians, squatted in rows wherever the sun could burn hottest on their clay-covered heads. The specimens here seen were different from those that had come under my observation on the Plains. That Indians can be civilized William Lloyd Garrison would not doubt, could he but see with what native grace these dusky belles wear their crinoline. Nor can they be accused of the extravagance of their white sisters in matters pertaining to toilet and dress: the crinoline (worn _over_ the short petticoat, constituting their full and entire wardrobe, aside from it) apparently being the only article of luxury they indulge in, except paint--and whiskey, when they can get it. But grandest of all were the men--the warrior-like Yumas--arrayed in the traditional strip of red flannel, an occasional cast-off military garment, and the cap of hard-baked mud above alluded to. I had never seen these before, and thought them very singular as ornaments; but Phil soon explained their utility in destroying a certain parasite by which the noble red man is afflicted. During the summer months he seeks relief in an application of wet mud to the part besieged--his head. The mud is allowed to bake hard, in the course of weeks, under the broiling sun; and when quite certain that his enemy has been slaughtered, he removes the clay until another application becomes necessary.

Following the course of the Gila river for some time, we struck the desert again, beyond Gila Bend. What struck me as very surprising was, that the desert here did not look like a desert at all: the scattering _verde_-bushes and growth of cactus hiding the sand from one's eyes, always just a little distance ahead--the cacti growing so thickly in some places that, when they are in blossom, their flowers form a mosaic of brilliant hues. Some of them are very curious--particularly the "monument cactus," a tall shaft, growing to a height of over thirty feet, sometimes with arms branching out on either side, more generally a simple obelisk, covered with thorns from three to four inches long.

We were now nearing Maricopa Wells and the Pimo villages. Phil was the pearl of all drivers; and he recounted traditions and legends belonging to the past of this country that even Prescott might have wished to hear. Phil had studied the history of the country in his own way, and had evidently not kept his eyes closed while travelling back and forth through Arizona. Halting the ambulance one day, he assisted me to alight near a pile of rocks the most wonderful it was ever my fortune to behold. He called them Painted Rocks, or Sounding Rocks; and his theory in regard to them was, that this had been a place where the Indians had long ago met to perform their religious rites and ceremonies. Rocks of different sizes--from those not above a foot high, to others that reached almost to my shoulders--all rounded in shape, were here, in the midst of the plain, gathered together within a space of twenty or thirty feet. They were black--whether from the action of the weather merely, or from some chemical process--and covered on all sides with representations from the animal world of Arizona and Mexico. The pictures had been engraved, in a rude manner, on the black ground, and embraced, in their variety, snakes, lizards, toads; also, four-footed animals, which I could conscientiously recognize neither as horses nor antelopes. Were they horses, it would go to prove that these pictures had been made by roving bands of Indians, any time after the conquest, as it is held that horses were first brought to this country by Cortez. Did the pictures represent antelopes, it would almost tempt me to believe that it was a specimen of the picture-writing of the Aztecs. The sun was also represented, with its circle of rays, which, in Phil's estimation, was proof conclusive that the heathens had come here only to worship, particularly as there was no water in the neighborhood, and they could not have lived here for any length of time. What the character of the rocks may be, I am not geologist enough to know; but when struck they emit a peculiarly clear and ringing sound, like that produced by striking against a bell or a glass. None of the tribes now to be found in that part of the country appear to claim any knowledge of the origin of these rocks.

If either the Pimos, Maricopas, or Yumas are descendants of the Aztecs, they have most wofully degenerated. On one point their traditions all agree: namely, that the three tribes were not always at peace with each other, as they are now. Long, long ago, when the Pimos were sorely pressed by the more powerful Yumas, they allied themselves with the Maricopas; and when they still found themselves in the minority against the common enemy, and had been almost exterminated, they flew to the white man for assistance, and never broke the treaty made with him.

But the shimmer of romance and poetry one would willingly throw around them, is so rudely dispelled by the sight of these lank, dirty, half-nude creatures, with faces exhibiting no more intelligence than (perhaps not so much as) the faces of their lean dogs, or shaggy horses. Yet, again, I must confess that even these Indians are susceptible of a high degree of refinement and cultivation. Two of them, mounted on a horse whose diminutive size allowed their four feet to touch the ground at every stride, dressed, or rather undressed, in a manner to strike terror into the soul of any well brought-up female, rode close up to the ambulance one day, as it passed through the Indian villages, one of them shouting, "Bully for you!" at the top of his voice, while the other whipped up the horse at the same time, as though anxious to retreat the moment their stock of polite learning had been exhausted.

Meeting at Maricopa Wells with the captain of the infantry stationed at La Paz, we visited the interior of the Pimo and Maricopa villages together, on horseback. We rode through the field the Indians cultivate, and irrigate from the Gila river, by means of _acequias_ dug through their lands in all directions. Some of their huts on the roadside were deserted by their owners, who had removed to very airy residences, constructed of the branches of cotton-wood and willows, growing on the banks of the Gila, located where they could overlook their possessions on all sides. As these residences consisted simply of a roof, or shed, it was no such very hard matter to keep a lookout on every side. That they do not trust a great deal in each other's honesty, was evident from the way in which they had fastened the doors of their city residences when exchanging them for their country-seats: they had firmly walled up the entrance with _adobe_ mud. However, they are quiet and peaceable, I am told, unless, by any chance or mischance, they get whiskey--of which they are as fond as all other Indians.

In the mountain around which we had passed on the last day's journey from Gila Bend, is to be seen, plainly and distinctly, the face of a man, reclining, with his eyes closed as though in sleep. Among the most beautiful of all the legends told here, is that concerning this face. It is Montezuma's face, so the Indians believe (even those in Mexico, who have never seen the image), and he will awaken from his long sleep some day, will gather all the brave and the faithful around him, raise and uplift his down-trodden people, and restore to his kingdom the old power and the old glory--as it was, before the Hidalgos invaded it. So strong is this belief in some parts of Mexico, that people who passed through that country years ago, tell me of some localities where fires were kept constantly burning, in anticipation of Montezuma's early coming. It looks as though the stern face up there was just a little softened in its expression, by the deep slumber that holds the eyelids over the commanding eye; and all nature seems hushed into death-like stillness. Day after day, year after year, century after century, slumbers the man up there on the height, and life and vegetation sleep on the arid plains below--a slumber never disturbed--a sleep never broken; for the battle-cry of Yuma, Pimo, and Maricopa that once rang at the foot of the mountain, did not reach Montezuma's ear; and the dying shrieks of the children of those who came far over the seas to rob him of his sceptre and crown, fall unheeded on the rocks and the deserts that guard his sleep.

Two days more, and Phil pointed out to me, at a distance of some two miles away, the ruins of the Casas-Grandes, sole remnant of the Seven Cities the adventurous _Padre_ had so enticingly described to the Spaniards. I could not induce Phil to allow me a nearer view, as we were in the Apache country, and had no escort save the two soldiers in the ambulance with us. From this distance the houses looked to me like any other good-sized, one-story, _adobe_ buildings; but the material must have been better prepared, or differently chosen, from that which is now used in erecting Mexican houses, or it could not have resisted the ravages of Time so far.

On we journeyed, not without some dread on my part, and a great many assurances on the part of Phil that I was a very courageous woman. But nearing Tucson, where the danger was greatest, we were not always alone. Mexican trains bound for, or coming from Sonora, sometimes fell in with us, and I did not despise their company, for I knew that only "in strength lay safety" for us. Some of these trains consisted of pack-donkeys only, bearing on their bruised backs the linen and cambrics which are so beautifully manufactured in Sonora and other Mexican provinces; others consisted of wagons heavily laden, their drivers armed to the teeth, and well prepared to defend them against attacks the Apaches were sure to make on them, sometime and somewhere between Sonora and Tucson.

One of these trains belonged to Leopoldo Carillo, a Mexican merchant of Tucson, who paid his men one hundred and fifty dollars for every Indian scalp they delivered to him. Phil asked one of the Mexicans, driving a wagon drawn along by some twelve or sixteen horses, if he had taken any scalps on the trip. The Mexican nodded his head in silence, and turned away. The teamster belonging to the next wagon--an American--told us how the Indians had "jumped them," just after crossing the border, and how two of them had held the Mexican, just spoken to, at bay, while two others killed and scalped his younger brother. They all together, some seven or eight of them, had taken three scalps from the Indians on this trip; but he was willing to lose his share of the prize-money, the man said, if the "pesky devils hadn't taken the boy's scalp;" for the brother, he averred, cried and "took on about it" _just like a white man_.

_DOWN AMONG THE DEAD LETTERS._

Strangers visiting Washington, and admiring the style and architecture of the General Post-Office building, would never know that there are numbers of ladies seated behind the plate-glass of the second-story windows. Indeed, few people residing in the capital are really aware in what part of the building those female clerks are stowed away. I had passed on every side of the building--morning, noon, and night--but never had seen anybody that looked like a "female clerk," till I found myself of their number, one morning; and then I discovered the right entrance to the Dead Letter Office. It is on F street, so close to the Ladies' Delivery that any person entering here would be supposed to be inquiring for a letter at that delivery. There is another entrance on E street, but it is not much patronized by the ladies until after fifteen minutes past nine o'clock; for punctually at that time, the door-keeper is instructed to lock the ladies' door on F street, and those who are tardy are compelled to go up the gentlemen's staircase, or pass in at the large public entrance on E street. Crowds of visitors walk through the building, day after day, but not one of all the ladies employed here do they see, unless they request to be shown the rooms of the female _employés_.

In this department, working hours are from nine o'clock in the morning till three o'clock in the afternoon. Ladies are not allowed to leave the office for lunch, nor do they waste much time in discussing the lunch they may have brought, as it is only in consideration of their industry and close application that they are allowed to leave the office at three o'clock, instead of four.

This Dead Letter Office is one of the most complicated pieces of machinery in the "ship of state." I will try to explain and elucidate as much of it as came under my observation. Letters left "uncalled for" at the different post-offices throughout the country are sent to the Dead Letter Office, after a certain length of time. Letters not prepaid, or short-paid, through neglect or ignorance of the writer, also find their way here; and so do foreign letters, from all parts of Europe, which have been prepaid only in part, and therefore come here, instead of reaching their destination. Sometimes mails are robbed, and the mail-bags hidden or thrown away, but are afterwards searched for, and their remaining contents brought to this office. Then again, a vessel at sea, homeward-bound, brings letters from ships meeting it, of sailors and passengers, who send their letters in firm faith that they will reach their anxious friends at home; but if our Government happens to have no treaty or contract with that particular government to which the writer belongs, of course, the letters cannot be forwarded, but are laid at rest here. These letters are carefully preserved for a number of years. They are sometimes called for, and found, a long, long time after they were written; in fact, only "dead" letters are destroyed.