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.