The Eighth Foot and the Ninth Horse at Niobrara gave the new Captain and Quartermaster a rousing farewell, for now my husband was leaving his old regiment forever; and, while he appreciated fully the honor of his new staff position, he felt a sadness at breaking off the associations of so many years--a sadness which can scarcely be understood by the young officers of the present day, who are promoted from one regiment to another, and rarely remain long enough with one organization to know even the men of their own Company. There were many champagne suppers, dinners and card-parties given for him, to make the good-bye something to be remembered, and at the end of a week's festivities, he departed by a night train from Valentine, thus eluding the hospitality of those generous but wild frontiersmen, who were waiting to give him what they call out there a "send-off." For Valentine was like all frontier towns; a row of stores and saloons. The men who kept them were generous, if somewhat rough. One of the officers of the post, having occasion to go to the railroad station one day at Valentine, saw the body of a man hanging to a telegraph pole a short distance up the track. He said to the station man: "What does that mean?" (nodding his head in the direction of the telegraph pole). "Why, it means just this," said the station man, "the people who hung that man last night had the nerve to put him right in front of this place, by G--. What would the passengers think of this town, sir, as they went by? Why, the reputation of Valentine would be ruined! Yes, sir, we cut him down and moved him up a pole or two. He was a hard case, though," he added. CHAPTER XXXI. SANTA FE I made haste to present Captain Summerhayes with the shoulder-straps of his new rank, when he joined me in New York. ***** The orders for Santa Fe reached us in mid-summer at Nantucket. I knew about as much of Santa Fe as the average American knows, and that was nothing; but I did know that the Staff appointment solved the problem of education for us (for Staff officers are usually stationed in cities), and I knew that our frontier life was over. I welcomed the change, for our children were getting older, and we were ourselves approaching the age when comfort means more to one than it heretofore has. Jack obeyed his sudden orders, and I followed him as soon as possible. Arriving at Santa Fe in the mellow sunlight of an October day, we were met by my husband and an officer of the Tenth Infantry, and as we drove into the town, its appearance of placid content, its ancient buildings, its great trees, its clear air, its friendly, indolent-looking inhabitants, gave me a delightful feeling of home. A mysterious charm seemed to possess me. It was the spell which that old town loves to throw over the strangers who venture off the beaten track to come within her walls.