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 berth¹. 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 saluted² 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 anarchist³?"
 
But with the inexperience and fearlessness of youth, I entered into a most delightful⁴ conversation in German with him. I found him rather an extraordinarily⁵ 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 steadily⁶ upon me he remarked: "Do you think I put on mourning when my wife died? no indeed, I put on white kid gloves and had a fiddler and danced at the grave. All this mourning that people have is utter nonsense."
 
I was amazed at the turn his conversation had taken and sat quite still, not knowing just what to say or to do.
 
After awhile, he looked at me steadily, and said, very deferentially⁷, "Madame, the spirit of my dead wife is looking at me from out your eyes."
 
By this time I realized that the man was a maniac⁸, and I had always heard that one must agree with crazy people, so I nodded, and that seemed to satisfy him, and bye and bye after some minutes which seemed like hours to me, he went off to the smoking room.
 
The tension was broken and I appealed to a very nice looking woman who happened to be going to some place in Nevada near which this Doctor lived, and she said, when I told her his name, "Why, yes, I heard of him before I left home, he lives in Silver City, and at the death of his wife, he went hopelessly insane, but," she added, "he is harmless, I believe."
 
This was a nice fix, to be sure, and I staid over in her section all day, and late that night the Doctor arrived at the junction⁹ where he was to take another train. So I slept in peace, after a considerable agitation¹⁰.
 
There is nothing like experience to teach a young woman how to travel alone.
 
In San Francisco I learned that I could now go as far as Los Angeles by rail, thence by steamer to San Diego, and so on by stage to Fort Yuma, where my husband was to meet me with an ambulance and a wagon¹¹.
 
I was enchanted¹² with the idea of avoiding the long sea-trip down the Pacific coast, but sent my boxes down by the Steamer "Montana," sister ship of the old "Newbern," and after a few days' rest in San Francisco, set forth¹³ by rail for Los Angeles. At San Pedro, the port of Los Angeles, we embarked¹⁴ for San Diego. It was a heavenly night. I sat on deck enjoying the calm sea, and listening to the romantic story of Lieutenant¹⁵ Philip Reade, then stationed at San Diego. He was telling the story himself, and I had never read or heard of anything so mysterious or so tragic¹⁶.
 
Then, too, aside from the story, Mr. Reade was a very good-looking and chivalrous¹⁷ young army officer. He was returning to his station in San Diego, and we had this pleasant opportunity to renew what had been a very slight acquaintance.
 
The calm waters of the Pacific, with their long and gentle swell¹⁸, the pale light of the full moon, our steamer gliding¹⁹ so quietly along, the soft air of the California coast, the absence of noisy travellers, these made a fit setting for the story of his early love and marriage, and the tragic mystery which surrounded the death of his young bride.
 
All the romance which lived and will ever live in me was awake to the story, and the hours passed all too quickly.
 
But a cry from my little boy in the near-by deck stateroom recalled me to the realities of life and I said good-night, having spent one of the most delightful evenings I ever remember.
 
Mr. Reade wears now a star on his shoulder, and well earned it is, too. I wonder if he has forgotten how he helped to bind²⁰ up my little boy's finger which had been broken in an accident on the train from San Francisco to Los Angeles? or how he procured²¹ a surgeon for me on our arrival there, and got a comfortable room for us at the hotel? or how he took us to drive (with an older lady for a chaperon), or how he kindly²² cared for us until we were safely on the boat that evening? If I had ever thought chivalry²³ dead, I learned then that I had been mistaken............