Whatever his meditations might have been, as his eyes wandered over the interminable sand-waste before him, they were interrupted by the spectacle of a cloud of dust arising in the distance. Quickly returning to his brother officers, he called their attention to this phenomenon. "If it is not a smoke that the Indians are raising for a signal, it must be the major with his party," was Captain Manson's opinion. To Mr. Grumpet's infinite disgust he could not find time to argue this question with his superior officer, for the arbitrary tones of the bugle called him to the parade-ground, and when he next found time to contemplate the landscape, the major's outfit was already in sight and slowly nearing the camp. There is nothing martial in the appearance and progress of a military "outfit," unless accompanied by a command: the rough, gaunt mules drawing the dust-covered ambulance or carriage, followed, as the case may be, by one, two, or three heavy army-wagons; the jaded, worn horses of the escort, and the tired-looking, travel-stained men forming the escort, make a decidedly demoralized and demoralizing impression toward the close of a long journey. The two occupants of the elegant travelling-carriage accompanying this train were in a state of involuntary _déshabillé_, owing to the sand-storm through which they had passed early that morning, during which the major's hat and a number of Mrs. Stanford's veils and wraps had taken to flight. Marcelita alone, seated beside the driver in the front of the carriage, had sustained no losses; as her _rebozo_, the only outside garment she possessed, had been so tightly wrapped around her that the storm had vented its fury in vain on her belongings. Marcelita was one of those moon-faced, good-natured Mexican women we meet with in New Mexico and Arizona. She had probably decided in her own mind--though it was not very deep--that it was just as easy to smoke her _cigarritos_ lounging on the floor of the _adobe_ quarters of Camp Andrew Jackson, earning thereby _dos reales_ per day, and a never-failing supply of _frijoles con carne_, as it was to perform the same amount of labor in Tucson, where nothing could be earned by it, and the supplies of the dainties just mentioned were by no means certain or unfailing. So Marcelita became Mrs. Stanford's maid. "Tiring-maid," I should have said; only I am very certain Marcelita would have drawn Mrs. Stanford's stockings on her arms, and one of the richly embroidered petticoats _over_ the plainer-made dresses, had the attiring been left to the taste and judgment of this dusky child of the soil.