eir long guns had not caused him to change his
tactics. After a while he grunted "How!" again, and, assuming an air of
great contempt for soldiers, guns, and shiny pistols, rode away and soon
disappeared over the bluff. There was only the one Indian in sight, but,
as the old sergeant said, "there might have been a dozen red devils just
over the bluff!"

One never knows when the "red devils" are near, for they hide themselves
back of a bunch of sage brush, and their ponies, whose hoofs are never
shod, can get over the ground very swiftly and steal upon you almost as
noiselessly as their owners. It is needless to say that we did not have
fresh buffalo that day! And the buffalo calf ran on to the herd wholly
unconscious of his narrow escape.

We expect to return to Camp Supply in a few days, and in many ways I
shall be sorry to leave this place. It is terrible to be so isolated,
when one thinks about it, especially if one should be ill. I shall miss
Miss Dickinson in the garrison very much, and our daily rides together.
General Dickinson and his family passed here last week on their way to
his new station.

CAMP SUPPLY, INDIAN TERRITORY, February, 1873.

UPON our return from the Cimarron we found a dear, clean house all
ready for us to move into. It was a delightful surprise, and after the
wretched huts we have been living in ever since we came to this post,
the house with its white walls and board floors seems like fairyland. It
is made of vertical logs of course, the same as the other quarters, but
these have been freshly chinked, and covered on the inside with canvas.
General Bourke ordered the quartermaster to fix the house for us, and I
am glad that Major Knox was the one to receive the order, for I have not
forgotten how disagreeable he was about the fixing up of our first house
here. One can imagine how he must have fumed over the issuing of so much
canvas, boards, and even the nails for the quarters of only a second
lieutenant!

Many changes have been made during the few weeks General Bourke has been
here, the most important having been the separating of the white troops
from the colored when on guard duty. The officers and men of the colored
cavalry have not liked this, naturally, but it was outrageous to put
white and black in the same little guard room, and colored sergeants
over white corporals and privates. It was good cause for desertion. But
all that is at an end now. General Dickinson is no longer comm