Page:Thirty-One Years on the Plains and in the Mountains.djvu/254

188 Notwithstanding I had a good home with Col. Elliott and his wife as long as I wished to remain, it seemed to me that this was the longest and lonesomest week I had ever experienced. Everything being so different from my customary way of living, I could not content myself.

The day before I was to start back home it was arranged that I should return to Jim Beckwith's ranche and keep the Colonel posted by letter in regard to the snow in the mountains, and when he would be able to cross. Then I was to join him at Beckwith's.

The following evening Mrs. Elliott gave a party, which was attended by all the ladies and gentlemen of the garrison. There was to be a general good time, perhaps the last party of the season, as it was approaching the time for preparations for the next campaign against the Indians.

When all the guests had arrived and the spacious house was a blaze of light and happiness--fair women smiling and their musical voices fairly making a delightful hub-bub of light conversation, and the gentlemen, superb in their gold-trimmed uniforms, or impressive in full evening dress--the manager of the dance sang out for all to take partners for some sort of a bowing and scraping drill that is a mystery to me to this day. I had seen the fandango in Taos, and elsewhere in the Mexican parts of the southwest, but this was the first time I had seen Americans dance, and it was all appallingly new to me.

I sat in a corner like a homely girl at a kissing-bee, and had nothing to say.

After the crowd had danced about two hours, the