[Vanished Arizona by Martha Summerhayes]@TWC D-Link bookVanished Arizona CHAPTER XVI 13/15
I knew it was somewhere in the southern part of the Territory, and isolated.
The present was enough.
I was meeting my old Fort Russell friends, and under Doctor Lippincott's good care I was getting back a measure of strength. Camp MacDowell was not yet a reality to me. We met again Colonel Wilkins and Mrs.Wilkins and Carrie, and Mrs. Wilkins thanked me for bringing her daughter alive out of those wilds. Poor girl; 'twas but a few months when we heard of her death, at the birth of her second child.
I have always thought her death was caused by the long hard journey from Apache to Whipple, for Nature never intended women to go through what we went through, on that memorable journey by Stoneman's Lake. There I met again Captain Porter, and I asked him if he had progressed any in his courtship, and he, being very much embarrassed, said he did not know, but if patient waiting was of any avail, he believed he might win his bride. After we had been at Whipple a few days, Jack came in and remarked casually to Lieutenant Aldrich, "Well, I heard Bernard has asked to be relieved from Ehrenberg. "What!" I said, "the lonely man down there on the river--the prisoner of Chillon--the silent one? Well, they are going to relieve him, of course ?" "Why, yes," said Jack, falteringly, "if they can get anyone to take his place." "Can't they order some one ?" I inquired. "Of course they can," he replied, and then, turning towards the window, he ventured: "The fact is Martha, I've been offered it, and am thinking it over." (The real truth was, that he had applied for it, thinking it possessed great advantages over Camp MacDowell.
) "What! do I hear aright? Have your senses left you? Are you crazy? Are you going to take me to that awful place? Why, Jack, I should die there!" "Now, Martha, be reasonable; listen to me, and if you really decide against it, I'll throw up the detail.
<<Back Index Next>> D-Link book Top TWC mobile books
|