Many months after, on my way back from Tucson, we came quite unexpectedly, between the latter place and Sacaton, on a new shanty. It was built of unhewn logs of cottonwood and mesquite trees, the branches, with their withered foliage, furnishing the roof. A certain cheerful, home-like air about the place made me surmise the presence of a woman.
I was not mistaken; for though the only door of the hut was closed, and I could see no window, a loud but pleasant treble voice rang out directly: "Dad! Bud! come right h'yere to me. I know that's her comin' thar—I jist know it is," and a little lithe body rushed out of the door and up to the ambulance, as though she meant to take wagon, mules, and all by storm. A rough-looking man came slowly from behind the house, and Bud, with a selection of dogs at his heels, clambered over a piece of fence—merely for the sake of climbing, as there was plenty of open space to cross.
The delegation insisted on my alighting, which I did in consideration of Dora's mother being at the head of it. The family had moved back here from Oatman's Flat, where they had given Sam his Indian scare on our way out. Once in the house I no longer wondered how she had discovered the ambulance, with the door closed and no windows in the house. The walls had not been "chinked," so that between the logs was admitted as much light and air as the most fastidious could desire. All around were the signs of busy preparation. It was near Christmas, and they were expecting company for the holidays—a family moving from Texas to California had sent word by some vehicle swifter than their ox-teams that they would be with them by Christmas-day.
Though the house contained but this one airy room, it was neat and well kept. Just outside the door there were two Dutch ovens, and this was the kitchen. Beyond the half-fenced clearing the willows and cottonwoods grew close by the river, and the mild December sun of Arizona lying on the rude homestead seemed to give promise of future peace and well-doing to these who had planted their roof-tree on the banks of the Gila.
The mother sent her love and a fresh-baked cake by us to her daughter. A loaf of the same cake was given to me, and I can say that it tasted better than what I have often eaten at well-set tables, though there was no cow to furnish milk or butter, and only a few chickens to lay eggs. At Gila Bend, you remember, they had chickens, too; and when I got out of the ambulance there some days later, I stopped to admire a brood of little chicks just out of the shell.
"How pretty they are," said I, looking up into George W.'s honest face.
"Ah!" he exclaimed, his eyes lighting up, "but go inside, to Dora."
He led the way to the room, and there, in a little cradle, lay a sweet, pretty girl-baby—the first white child, so far as history records, that was ever born at Gila Bend.