I went into Mrs. Bailey's tent. She was calm and altogether lovely, and said: "Charley can't get lost, and unless something has happened to him, he will come in."
Ella Bailey was a brave young army woman; she was an inspiration to the entire camp.
Finally, after hours of the keenest anxiety, a noise of gladsome shouts rang through the trees, and in came a party of men with the young officer on their shoulders. His friend Craig had been untiring in the search, and at last had heard a faint "halloo" in the distance, and one shot (the only cartridge poor Bailey had left).
After going over almost impassable places, they finally found him, lying at the bottom of a ravine. In the black darkness of the evening, he had walked directly over the edge of the chasm and fallen to the bottom, dislocating his ankle.
He was some miles from camp, and had used up all his ammunition except the one cartridge. He had tried in vain to walk or even crawl out of the ravine, but had finally been overcome by exhaustion and lay there helpless, in the wild vastnesses of the mountains.
A desperate situation, indeed! Some time afterwards, he told me how he felt, when he realized how poor his chances were, when he saw he had only one cartridge left and found that he had scarce strength to answer a "halloo," should he hear one. But soldiers never like to talk much about such things.
CHAPTER XI. CAMP APACHE
By the fourth of October we had crossed the range, and began to see something which looked like roads. Our animals were fagged to a state of exhaustion, but the travelling was now much easier and there was good grazing, and after three more long day's marches, we arrived at Camp Apache. We were now at our journey's end, after two months' continuous travelling, and I felt reasonably sure of shelter and a fireside for the winter at least. I knew that my husband's promotion was expected, but the immediate present was filled with an interest so absorbing, that a consideration of the future was out of the question.
At that time (it was the year of 1874) the officers' quarters at Camp Apache were log cabins, built near the edge of the deep canon through which the White Mountain River flows, before its junction with Black River.