Lucas, and were steaming up the Gulf of California,
towards the mouth of the Great Colorado, whose red and turbulent waters
empty themselves into this gulf, at its head.

I now had time to become acquainted with the officers of the regiment,
whom I had not before met; they had come in from other posts and joined
the command at San Francisco.

The daughter of the lieutenant-colonel was on board, the beautiful and
graceful Caroline Wilkins, the belle of the regiment; and Major Worth,
to whose company my husband belonged. I took a special interest in the
latter, as I knew we must face life together in the wilds of Arizona. I
had time to learn something about the regiment and its history; and that
Major Worth's father, whose monument I had so often seen in New York,
was the first colonel of the Eighth Infantry, when it was organized in
the State of New York in 1838.

The party on board was merry enough, and even gay. There was Captain
Ogilby, a great, genial Scotchman, and Captain Porter, a graduate of
Dublin, and so charmingly witty. He seemed very devoted to Miss Wilkins,
but Miss Wilkins was accustomed to the devotion of all the officers of
the Eighth Infantry. In fact, it was said that every young lieutenant
who joined the regiment had proposed to her. She was most attractive,
and as she had too kind a heart to be a coquette, she was a universal
favorite with the women as well as with the men.

There was Ella Bailey, too, Miss Wilkins' sister, with her young and
handsome husband and their young baby.

Then, dear Mrs. Wilkins, who had been so many years in the army that she
remembered crossing the plains in a real ox-team. She represented the
best type of the older army woman--and it was so lovely to see her
with her two daughters, all in the same regiment. A mother of grown-up
daughters was not often met with in the army.

And Lieutenant-Colonel Wilkins, a gentleman in the truest sense of
the word--a man of rather quiet tastes, never happier than when he
had leisure for indulging his musical taste in strumming all sorts of
Spanish fandangos on the guitar, or his somewhat marked talent with the
pencil and brush.

The heat of the staterooms compelled us all to sleep on deck, so our
mattresses were brought up by the soldiers at night, and spread about.
The situation, however, was so novel and altogether ludicrous, and our
fear of rats which ran about on deck so great, that sleep was well-nigh
out of the question.