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 sutler'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 advent¹ 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, alas²! disastrous³ 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 Cavalry⁴, 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. My husband was obliged to be at the Commissary Office all day, issuing rations⁵ to troops and scouts⁶, and attending to the duties of his position.
 
But, realizing in a measure the utter helplessness of my situation, he sent a soldier up to lead a wire cord through the thick wall at the head of my bed and out through the small yard into the kitchen. To this they attached a big cow-bell, so, by making some considerable effort to reach up and pull this wire, I could summon Bowen, that is, if Bowen happened to be there. But Bowen seemed always to be out at drill or over at the company quarters, and frequently my bell brought no response. When he did come, however, he was just as kind and just as awkward as it was possible for a great big six-foot farmer-soldier to be.
 
But I grew weaker and weaker with trying to be strong, and one day when Jack⁷ came in and found both the baby and myself crying, he said, man-like, "What's the matter?" I said, "I must have some one to take care of me, or we shall both die."
 
He seemed to realize that the situation was desperate, and mounted men were sent out immediately in all directions to find a woman.
 
At last, a Mexican girl was found in a wood-chopper's camp, and was brought to me. She was quite young and very ignorant and stupid, and spoke⁸ nothing but a sort of Mexican "lingo," and did not understand a word of English. But I felt that my life was saved; and Bowen fixed⁹ up a place on the couch for her to sleep, and Jack went over to the unoccupied room on the other side of the cabin and took possession of the absent doctor's bed.
 
I begged Jack to hunt up a Spanish dictionary, and fortunately one was found at the sutler's store, which, doubtless the sutler or his predecessor¹⁰ had brought into the country years before.
 
The girl did not know anything. I do not think she had ever been inside a casa before. She had washed herself in mountain streams, and did not know what basins and sponges were for. So it was of no use to point to the objects I wanted.
 
I propped¹¹ myself up in bed and studied the dictionary, and, having some idea of the pronunciation of Latin languages, I essayed to call for warm water and various other necessary articles needed around a sick bed. Sometimes I succeeded in getting an idea through her impervious¹² brain, but more often she would stand dazed and immovable and I would let the dictionary drop from my tired hands and fall back upon the pillow in a sweat of exhaustion¹³. Then Bowen would be called in, and with the help of some perfunctory language and gestures on his part, this silent creature of the mountains would seem to wake up and try to understand.
 
And so I worried through those dreadful days—and the nights! Ah! we had better not describe them. The poor wild thing slept the sleep of death and could not hear my loudest calls nor desperate shouts.
 
So Jack attached a cord to her pillow, and I would tug¹⁴ and tug at that and pull the pillow from under her head. It was of no avail. She slept peacefully on, and it seemed to me, as I lay there staring at her, that not even Gabriel's trump¹⁶ would ever arouse her.
 
In desperation I would creep out of bed and wait upon myself and then confess to Jack and the Doctor next day.
 
Well, we had to let the creature go, for she was of no use, and the Spanish dictionary was laid aside.
 
I struggled along, fighting against odds¹⁷; how I ever got well at all is a wonder, when I think of all the sanitary¹⁸ precautions taken now-a-days with young mothers and babies. The Doctor was ordered away and another one came. I had no advice or help from any one. Calomel or quinine are the only medicines I remember taking myself or giving to my child.
 
But to go back a little. The seventh day after the birth of the baby, a delegation¹⁹ of several squaws, wives of chiefs, came to pay me a formal visit. They brought me some finely woven baskets, and a beautiful pappoose-basket or cradle, such as they carry their own babies in. This was made of the lightest wood, and covered with the finest skin of fawn²⁰, tanned with birch bark by their own hands, and

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