_En route_ we stopped to examine an ancient fort of eight rooms with embrasures on all sides for defense probably for bows and arrows. The walls were twelve feet high, but the roof had been destroyed. Inside one of the rooms was a scrubby cedar tree, perhaps a hundred years old. While walking around on these walls, which were made of thin broad granite rocks, evidently once held in place by mortar, I displaced a stone which rolled down the mound, frightening a large deer, which I killed with my pistol. Tied to my horse's tail after the fashion of the Indians, I dragged it to the train. It is this deer of which Nannie writes. At Cave Creek, where there were many cougars (Mexican lions), I found in a cave near the spring, which was some distance from our camp, the remains of many deer which had been caught by these lions, dragged into the cave and devoured, some of them being only partly eaten. McDowell was the most unhappy post at which we ever served. Its commander was of an overbearing, tyrannical disposition, and much addicted to drink. The post traders abetted him and brought about many quarrels between the commander and the officers so that, in the garrison of five companies, there were few friendships. At this unhappy station Nannie lost about twenty and I thirty pounds in weight. One day she said to me, "Anson, I am going to Europe some day." "Whom are you going with?" I asked. It was a joy for me to see her so much more cheerful than I. "You," she replied. I never had any such hope, but, as will be seen later, she actually accomplished it. (Text, 178.) Nannie was for about a year the only lady in the post. On December 1, 1871, to our great relief, we received orders to exchange posts with the 2d Cavalry, at Fort McPherson, Nebraska, the regiments exchanging horses to save transportation. WESTERN EXPERIENCES Just as we left Arizona a new second lieutenant, Schwatka, joined me. He served with me for eight years, one of the most interesting officers Nannie and I ever met. He afterwards gained a national reputation in his search for the remains of the Franklin Expedition. Three companies and the band went by wagon train to Fort Yuma, where we sold our ambulance to Captain Taylor, 2d Cavalry. Here we embarked on a river vessel for Puerto Isabel at the mouth of the Colorado, where we took the government steamer Newbern for San Francisco. So disgusted with our Arizona experience were all the officers that when the boat pulled out from Yuma, we took off our shoes and beat the dust of Arizona over the rail, at the same time cursing the land.