I said to him. "The whole Gila
Valley has been taking me for you."

"Oh--ah!" said Pidcock, vaguely, and pulling at some fat papers in his
coat; "indeed. I understand that is a very ignorant population. Colonel
Vincent, a word with you. The Department Commander requests me--" And
here he went off into some official talk with the Colonel.

I turned among the other officers, who were standing by an open locker
having whiskey, and Major Evlie put his hand on my shoulder. "He doesn't
mean anything," he whispered, while the rest looked knowingly at me.
Presently the Colonel explained to Pidcock that he would have me to keep
him company to Carlos.

"Oh--ah, Colonel. Of course we don't take civilians not employed by the
government, as a rule. But exceptions--ah--can be made," he said to me.
"I will ask you to be ready immediately after breakfast to-morrow." And
with that he bowed to us all and sailed forth across the parade-ground.

The Colonel's face was red, and he swore in his quiet voice; but the
lips of the lieutenants by the open locker quivered fitfully in the
silence.

"Don't mind Pidcock," Evlie remarked. "He's a paymaster." And at this
the line officers became disorderly, and two lieutenants danced
together; so that, without catching Evlie's evidently military joke, I
felt pacified.

"And I've got to have him to dinner," sighed the Colonel, and wandered
away.

"You'll get on with him, man--you'll get on with him in the ambulance,"
said my friend Paisley. "Flatter him, man. Just ask him about his great
strategic stroke at Cayuse Station that got him his promotion to the pay
department."

Well, we made our start after breakfast, Major Pidcock and I, and
another passenger too, who sat with the driver--a black cook going to
the commanding officer's at Thomas. She was an old plantation mammy,
with a kind but bewildered face, and I am sorry that the noise of our
driving lost me much of her conversation; for whenever we slowed, and
once when I walked up a hill, I found her remarks to be steeped in a
flighty charm.

"Fo' Lawd's sake!" said she. "W'at's dat?" And when the driver told her
that it was a jack-rabbit, "You go 'long!" she cried, outraged. "I'se
seed rabbits earlier 'n de mawnin' dan yo'self." She watched the animal
with all her might, muttering, "Law, see him squot," and "Hole on, hole
on!" and "Yasser, he done gone fo' sho. My grashus, you lemme have a
scatter shoot-gun an' a spike-tail smell dog, an