In December, 1878, the Twenty-third Regiment received orders for service in the Indian Territory, and a few weeks afterward entered upon its line of march. In the mean time, the lieutenant made himself useful in performing the duties of an engineer for the sanitary benefit of the Leavenworth garrison. After some appropriate studying, he soon got the knack of running the levels and measuring angles with the theodolite. He found these new duties interesting, preferring the field-work to the making of the necessary profiles and other drawings, involving measurements to the ¹/₁₀₀₀ of an inch—rather a confining employment. V. ARMY-LIFE IN INDIAN TERRITORY AND COLORADO. From the spring of 1879 until the winter of 1881, Lieutenant Lockwood spent a part of his time in the Indian Territory, but chiefly in the State of Colorado. The first duty of his company was to establish a cantonment on the Canadian River. On their way thither, they made a halt at Fort Supply, where the country was sparsely settled, and where the rolling prairies seemed desolate and interminable. Those of his regiment who had been ordered to Supply, he found in miserable quarters—log-huts covered inside with canvas—old, cold, and forlorn in appearance inside and out, and yet the canvas walls thus used and useless were furnished at a cost of hundreds of dollars. After leaving that place for the Canadian River, he was made the engineer officer, and, with a view of making a map of the route and surrounding country, devoted his time to the science of topography, being rewarded by the hearty approbation of the officer in command. He had counted upon having some good hunting on this route for turkeys and other game, but was disappointed, owing to the fact, as was supposed, that several hundred Indians had passed through the country some weeks before and had gobbled up everything, including a host of _gobblers_. On reaching their destination, the company went into camp under a bluff on the Canadian River, where they were to remain until buildings could be erected in the immediate vicinity. At the conclusion of his first letter written home from this camp, he says, “I am lying at full length on a buffalo-robe with my paper on ‘Daniel Deronda,’ and the position is not comfortable.”