The enormous waste attending a move, and the heavy outlay incurred in travelling and getting settled anew, kept us always poor; these considerations increased our chagrin over this unexpected change of station. There was nothing to be done, however. Orders are relentless, even if they seem senseless, which this one did, to the women, at least, of the Eighth Infantry.
CHAPTER XXX. FORT NIOBRARA
The journey itself, however, was not to be dreaded, although it was so undesired. It was entirely by rail across New Mexico and Kansas, to St. Joseph, then up the Missouri River and then across the state to the westward. Finally, after four or five days, we reached the small frontier town of Valentine, in the very northwest corner of the bleak and desolate state of Nebraska. The post of Niobrara was four miles away, on the Niobrara (swift water) River.
Some officers of the Ninth Cavalry met us at the station with the post ambulances. There were six companies of our regiment, with headquarters and band.
It was November, and the drive across the rolling prairie-land gave us a fair glimpse of the country around. We crossed the old bridge over the Niobrara River, and entered the post. The snow lay already on the brown and barren hills, and the place struck a chill to my heart.
The Ninth Cavalry took care of all the officers' families until we could get established. Lieutenant Bingham, a handsome and distinguished-looking young bachelor, took us with our two children to his quarters, and made us delightfully at home. His quarters were luxuriously furnished, and he was altogether adorable. This, to be sure, helped to soften my first harsh impressions of the place.
Quarters were not very plentiful, and we were compelled to take a house occupied by a young officer of the Ninth. What base ingratitude it seemed, after the kindness we had accepted from his regiment! But there was no help for it. We secured a colored cook, who proved a very treasure, and on inquiring how she came to be in those wilds, I learned that she had accompanied a young heiress who eloped with a cavalry lieutenant, from her home in New York some years before.
What a contrast was here, and what a cruel contrast! With blood thinned down by the enervating summer at Tucson, here we were, thrust into the polar regions! Ice and snow and blizzards, blizzards and snow and ice! The mercury disappeared at the bottom of the thermometer, and we had nothing to mark any degrees lower than 40 below zero. Human calculations had evidently stopped there. Enormous box stoves were in every room and in the halls; the old-fashioned sort that we used to see in school-rooms and meeting-houses in New England. Into these, the soldiers stuffed great logs of mountain mahogany, and the fires were kept roaring day and night.
A board walk ran in front of the officers' quarters, and, desperate for fresh air and exercise, some of the ladies would bundle up and go to walk. But frozen chins, ears and elbows soon made this undesirable, and we gave up trying the fresh air, unless the mercury rose to 18 below, when a few of us would take our daily promenade.