day. There was no hotel at the fort at that time and the mother was
compelled to sit in the desolate little waiting room with her baby
without a fire until ten o'clock.

General Miles called. His references to her husband were made in a
manner which brutally expressed his hatred and contempt. She had been
informed that his health was in so dangerous a condition that physicians
had despaired of his life.

Miles hastened to say:

"'Davis' is in good health--"

"I can see him at once?" she begged.

"Yes. You understand the terms of your parole that you are to take no
deadly weapons into the prison?"

Suppressing a smile at the unique use of the language which a man of the
rank of Miles could make she replied quickly:

"I understand. Please arrange that I can see him at once."

Without answering the jailer turned and left the room. In a few minutes
an officer appeared who conducted her to the room in Carroll Hall to
which Dr. Cooper had forced Miles to remove the prisoner. Dr. Cooper
proved as troublesome to the General as Dr. Craven. In fact a little
more so. He had a way of swearing when angered which made the General
nervous. American physicians don't make good politicians when the life
of a patient is involved.

They were challenged by three lines of sentries, each requiring a
password, ascended a stairway, turned to the right and entered a guard
room where three young officers were sitting. Through the bars of the
inner room the wife gazed at her husband with streaming eyes.

His body had shrunk to a skeleton, his eyes set and glassy, his cheek
bones pressing against the shining skin. He rose and tottered across the
room, his breath coming in short gasps, his voice scarcely audible.

Mrs. Davis was locked in with him. She sent the baby back to her
quarters by Frederick, another faithful negro servant who had followed
their fortunes through good report and evil.

His room had a horse bucket for water, a basin and pitcher on an old
chair whose back had been sawed off, a little iron bedstead with hard
mattress, one pillow, a wooden table, and a wooden chair with one leg
shorter than the others which might be used as an improvised rocker. His
bed was so thick with bugs the room was filled with their odor. He was
so innocent of such things he couldn't imagine what distressed him so at
night--insisting that he had contracted some sort of skin disease.

His dinner was brought slopped from one dish to another