We thought the worst was over and, before retiring to our tents for the night, we walked over to the edge of the high mesa and, in the gathering shadows of twilight, looked down into the depths of that beautiful lake, knowing that probably we should never see it again.
And indeed, in all the years I spent in Arizona afterward, I never even heard of the lake again.
I wonder now, did it really exist or was it an illusion, a dream, or the mirage which appears to the desert traveller, to satisfy him and lure him on, to quiet his imagination, and to save his senses from utter extinction?
In the morning the camp was all astir for an early move. We had no time to look back: we were starting for a long day's march, across the "divide," and into Camp Verde.
But we soon found that the road (if road it could be called) was worse than any we had encountered. The ambulance was pitched and jerked from rock to rock and we were thumped against the iron framework in a most dangerous manner. So we got out and picked our way over the great sharp boulders.
The Alsatian soldier carried the baby, who lay securely in the pappoose cradle.
One of the cavalry escort suggested my taking his horse, but I did not feel strong enough to think of mounting a horse, so great was my discouragement and so exhausted was my vitality. Oh! if girls only knew about these things I thought! For just a little knowledge of the care of an infant and its needs, its nourishment and its habits, might have saved both mother and child from such utter collapse.
Little by little we gave up hope of reaching Verde that day. At four o'clock we crossed the "divide," and clattered down a road so near the edge of a precipice that I was frightened beyond everything: my senses nearly left me. Down and around, this way and that, near the edge, then back again, swaying, swerving, pitching, the gravel clattering over the precipice, the six mules trotting their fastest, we reached the bottom and the driver pulled up his team. "Beaver Springs!" said he, impressively, loosening up the brakes.
As Jack lifted me out of the ambulance, I said: "Why didn't you tell me?" pointing back to the steep road. "Oh," said he, "I thought it was better for you not to know; people get scared about such things, when they know about them before hand."
"But," I remarked, "such a break-neck pace!" Then, to the driver, "Smith, how could you drive down that place at such a rate and frighten me so?"