entire way, and that I was not able to endure hardship at that
time. For usually, be it remembered, at that period of a child's
life, both mother and infant are not out of the hands of the
doctor and trained nurse, to say nothing of the assistance so
gladly rendered by those near and dear,

The morning of the 28th of April dawned shortly after midnight,
as mornings in Arizona generally do at that season, and after a
hasty camp breakfast, and a good deal of reconnoitering on the
part of the officers, who did not seem to be exactly satisfied
about the Mexican's knowledge of the ford, they told him to push
his pony in, and cross if he could.

He managed to pick his way across and back, after a good deal of
floundering, and we decided to try the ford. First they hitched
up ten mules to one of the heavily loaded baggage-wagons, the
teamster cracked his whip, and in they went. But the quicksand
frightened the leaders, and they lost their courage. Now when a
mule loses courage, in the water, he puts his head down and is
done for. The leaders disappeared entirely, then the next two and
finally the whole ten of them were gone, irrevocably, as I
thought. But like a flash, the officers shouted: "Cut away those
mules! Jump in there!" and amid other expletives the men plunged
in, and feeling around under the water cut the poor animals loose
and they began to crawl out on the other bank. I drew a long
breath, for I thought the ten mules were drowned.

The guide picked his way over again to the other side and caught
them up, and then I began to wonder how on earth we should ever
get across.