discomforts, and I experienced no terrors in this part of Arizona.

Each morning, when the tent was struck, and I sat on the camp-stool by
the little heap of ashes, which was all that remained of what had been
so pleasant a home for an afternoon and a night, a little lonesome
feeling crept over me, at the thought of leaving the place. So strong is
the instinct and love of home in some people, that the little tendrils
shoot out in a day and weave themselves around a spot which has given
them shelter. Such as those are not born to be nomads.

Camps were made at Stanwix, Oatman's Flat, and Gila Bend. There we left
the river, which makes a mighty loop at this point, and struck across
the plains to Maricopa Wells. The last day's march took us across the
Gila River, over the Maricopa desert, and brought us to the Salt River.
We forded it at sundown, rested our animals a half hour or so, and drove
through the MacDowell canon in the dark of the evening, nine miles more
to the post. A day's march of forty-five miles. (A relay of mules had
been sent to meet us at the Salt River, but by some oversight, we had
missed it.)

Jack had told me of the curious cholla cactus, which is said to nod at
the approach of human beings, and to deposit its barbed needles at their
feet. Also I had heard stories of this deep, dark canon and things that
had happened there.

Fort MacDowell was in Maricopa County, Arizona, on the Verde River,
seventy miles or so south of Camp Verde; the roving bands of Indians,
escaping from Camp Apache and the San Carlos reservation, which lay
far to the east and southeast, often found secure hiding places in the
fastnesses of the Superstition Mountains and other ranges, which lay
between old Camp MacDowell and these reservations.

Hence, a company of cavalry and one of infantry were stationed at Camp
MacDowell, and the officers and men of this small command were kept
busy, scouting, and driving the renegades from out of this part of the
country back to their reservations. It was by no means an idle post, as
I found after I got there; the life at Camp MacDowell meant hard work,
exposure and fatigue for this small body of men.

As we wound our way through this deep, dark canon, after crossing the
Salt River, I remembered the things I had heard, of ambush and murder.
Our animals were too tired to go out of a walk, the night fell in black
shadows down between those high mountain walls, the chollas, which are a
pa