le sage-green color in the day-time, took on a ghastly hue. They were
dotted here and there along the road, and on the steep mountainsides.
They grew nearly as tall as a man, and on each branch were great
excrescences which looked like people's heads, in the vague light which
fell upon them.

They nodded to us, and it made me shudder; they seemed to be something
human.

The soldiers were not partial to MacDowell canon; they knew too much
about the place; and we all breathed a sigh of relief when we emerged
from this dark uncanny road and saw the lights of the post, lying low,
long, flat, around a square.

CHAPTER XXV. OLD CAMP MACDOWELL

We were expected, evidently, for as we drove along the road in front of
the officers' quarters they all came out to meet us, and we received a
great welcome.

Captain Corliss of C company welcomed us to the post and to his company,
and said he hoped I should like MacDowell better than I did Ehrenberg.
Now Ehrenberg seemed years agone, and I could laugh at the mention of
it.

Supper was awaiting us at Captain Corliss's, and Mrs. Kendall, wife
of Lieutenant Kendall, Sixth Cavalry, had, in Jack's absence, put the
finishing touches to our quarters. So I went at once to a comfortable
home, and life in the army began again for me.

How good everything seemed! There was Doctor Clark, whom I had met first
at Ehrenberg, and who wanted to throw Patrocina and Jesusita into the
Colorado. I was so glad to find him there; he was such a good doctor,
and we never had a moment's anxiety, as long as he staid at Camp
MacDowell. Our confidence in him was unbounded.

It was easy enough to obtain a man from the company. There were then
no hateful laws forbidding soldiers to work in officers' families; no
dreaded inspectors, who put the flat question, "Do you employ a soldier
for menial labor?"

Captain Corliss gave me an old man by the name of Smith, and he was glad
to come and stay with us and do what simple cooking we required. One of
the laundresses let me have her daughter for nurserymaid, and our small
establishment at Camp MacDowell moved on smoothly, if not with elegance.

The officers' quarters were a long, low line of adobe buildings with no
space between them; the houses were separated only by thick walls. In
front, the windows looked out over the parade ground. In the rear, they
opened out on a road which ran along the whole length, and on the other
side of which lay another row