They were divided into bands, under Chiefs Pedro, Diablo, Patone and Cibiano; they came into the post twice a week to be counted, and to receive their rations of beef, sugar, beans, and other staples, which Uncle Sam's commissary officer issued to them.
In the absence of other amusement, the officers' wives walked over to witness this rather solemn ceremony.

At least, the serious expression on the faces of the Indians, as they received their rations, gave an air of solemnity to the proceeding.
Large stakes were driven into the ground; at each stake, sat or stood the leader of a band; a sort of father to his people; then the rest of them stretched out in several long lines, young bucks and old ones, squaws and pappooses, the families together, about seventeen hundred souls in all.

I used to walk up and down between the lines, with the other women, and the squaws looked at our clothes and chuckled, and made some of their inarticulate remarks to each other.

The bucks looked admiringly at the white women, especially at the cavalry beauty, Mrs.
Montgomery, although I thought that Chief Diablo cast a special eye at our young Mrs.Bailey, of the infantry.
Diablo was a handsome fellow.

I was especially impressed by his extraordinary good looks.
This tribe was quiet at that time, only a few renegades escaping into the hills on their wild adventures: but I never felt any confidence in them and was, on the whole, rather afraid of them.