ie; it's a soldier's life, and when a
man enlists he must take his chances."

"Yes, but," I said, "somewhere there must be a mother or sister, or some
one who cares for these poor men, and it's all so sad to think of."

"Well, I know it is sad," he replied, soothingly, "but listen! It is all
over, and the burial party is returning."

I listened and heard the gay strains of "The girl I left behind me,"
which the trumpeters were playing with all their might. "You see," said
Jack, "it would not do for the soldiers to be sad when one of them
dies. Why, it would demoralize the whole command. So they play these gay
things to cheer them up."

And I began to feel that tears must be out of place at a soldier's
funeral. I attended many a one after that, but I had too much
imagination, and in spite of all my brave efforts, visions of the poor
boy's mother on some little farm in Missouri or Kansas perhaps, or in
some New England town, or possibly in the old country, would come before
me, and my heart was filled with sadness.

The Post Hospital seemed to me a lonesome place to die in, although the
surgeon and soldier attendants were kind to the sick men. There were no
women nurses in the army in those days.

The next day, the "Cocopah" started again and towed a barge out to the
ship. But the hot wind sprang up and blew fiercely, and we lay off and
on all day, until it was calm enough to tow her back to the slue. By
that time I had about given up all hope of getting any farther, and if
the weather had only been cooler I could have endured with equanimity
the idle life and knocking about from the ship to the slue, and from
the slue to the ship. But the heat was unbearable. We had to unpack our
trunks again and get out heavy-soled shoes, for the zinc which covered
the decks of these river-steamers burned through the thin slippers we
had worn on the ship.

That day we had a little diversion, for we saw the "Gila" come down the
river and up the slue, and tie up directly alongside of us. She had on
board and in barges four companies of the Twenty-third Infantry, who
were going into the States. We exchanged greetings and visits, and from
the great joy manifested by them all, I drew my conclusions as to what
lay before us, in the dry and desolate country we were about to enter.

The women's clothes looked ridiculously old-fashioned, and I wondered if
I should look that way when my time came to leave Arizona.

Little cared they, th