The sequel to this story was interesting to me for it caused me a trip to Fort Arbuckle and back. The guardhouse at Fort Arbuckle was not considered safe and it was thought best to send the thieves to the new guardhouse at Fort Sill until the law could take its course. They were sent under a guard of colored troops commanded by a sergeant with instructions to kill them if they tried to escape. The guard claimed that one man made a break for the brush, but the prisoners claimed that he did nothing of the kind, anyway one of them was badly wounded and was taken back to Fort Arbuckle, and as Doctor Brewer, the post surgeon was sick at that time a request for a medical officer come to Fort Arbuckle and cut a man's leg off was received at Fort Sill and I was ordered on that duty. Before I arrived at Fort Arbuckle, Doctor Brewer considered it too urgent a case to be delayed any longer, and although hardly able to handle the knife, he had amputated the leg before I got there. I remained a few days until the doctor was sufficiently recovered to attend to the medical duties of the post, and then returned to Fort Sill. I now come to the last record I shall make of service at this post and have hesitated about mentioning it at all, and do so now in as few words as possible, not only because "there are sorrows too sacred to be babbled to the world" but also because they pull so hard on the heart strings. Our little boy was scalded to death at this camp. The negro servant had set a large kettle of boiling water off the stove, and some way in his play he fell into it. We laid him away in the cemetery on the hillside and had a stone covering placed over his grave, to mark the place where his little scalded body lay. CHAPTER VIII. This experience with the little prospect of promotion in the service decided us on our desire to return to private life, and I wrote to the medical director of the department expressing my wishes in the matter, and my reasons for quitting the service, and received orders to report at the headquarters of the department, Leavenworth, Kansas. It may be well here to relate an experience of army life that occurred at Fort Sill after we had left the post. The feeling of apprehension regarding the Indians had subsided to such an extent that the officers' wives would take outings in the ambulance, and it became in time considered safe to go to the Washita agency and make purchases and return the same day. Two of the officers' wives had made the trip and were nearing the head of Cache creek on their return, when they saw the Indians coming. The negro driver urged the mules with such good effect that they reached the timber and the driver escaped but the women were carried away to the mountains, and for two weeks were subjected to all the brutal horrors to be expected of savages and then were ransomed. We were well acquainted with one of these women but the other had only been at the post a short time before we left.