The young lieutenants sometimes tried to make up to the prettiest ones, and offered them trinkets, pretty boxes of soap, beads, and small mirrors (so dear to the heart of the Indian girl), but the young maids were coy enough; it seemed to me they cared more for men of their own race.
Once or twice, I saw older squaws with horribly disfigured faces. I supposed it was the result of some ravaging disease, but I learned that it was the custom of this tribe, to cut off the noses of those women who were unfaithful to their lords. Poor creatures, they had my pity, for they were only children of Nature, after all, living close to the earth, close to the pulse of their mother. But this sort of punishment seemed to be the expression of the cruel and revengeful nature of the Apache.
CHAPTER XII. LIFE AMONGST THE APACHES
Bowen proved to be a fairly good cook, and I ventured to ask people to dinner in our little hall dining-room, a veritable box of a place. One day, feeling particularly ambitious to have my dinner a success, I made a bold attempt at oyster patties. With the confidence of youth and inexperience, I made the pastry, and it was a success; I took a can of Baltimore oysters, and did them up in a fashion that astonished myself, and when, after the soup, each guest was served with a hot oyster patty, one of the cavalry officers fairly gasped. "Oyster patty, if I'm alive! Where on earth—Bless my stars! And this at Camp Apache!"
"And by Holy Jerusalem! they are good, too," claimed Captain Reilly, and turning to Bowen, he said: "Bowen, did you make these?"
Bowen straightened himself up to his six foot two, clapped his heels together, and came to "attention," looked straight to the front, and replied: "Yes, sir."
I thought I heard Captain Reilly say in an undertone to his neighbor, "The hell he did," but I was not sure.
At that season, we got excellent wild turkeys there, and good Southdown mutton, and one could not complain of such living.
But I could never get accustomed to the wretched small space of one room and a hall; for the kitchen, being detached, could scarcely be counted in. I had been born and brought up in a spacious house, with plenty of bedrooms, closets, and an immense old-time garret. The forlorn makeshifts for closets, and the absence of all conveniences, annoyed me and added much to the difficulties of my situation. Added to this, I soon discovered that my husband had a penchant for buying and collecting things which seemed utterly worthless to me, and only added to the number of articles to be handled and packed away. I begged him to refrain, and to remember that he was married, and that we had not the money to spend in such ways. He really did try to improve, and denied himself the taking of many an alluring share in raffles for old saddles, pistols, guns, and cow-boy's stuff, which were always being held at the sutler's store.