I went to their camp, and found it located in a grove of cottonwoods a short distance out, on the Arizona trail.  Mr. Arnold, the head of the family, never ceased his occupation while I was talking to him.  He was constructing a camp-table and benches of some packing-boxes he had procured from the post trader.  He was a tall, well-proportioned man, of dark complexion and regular features, with black, unkempt hair and restless brown eyes.  He was clothed in a faded and stained butternut suit of flannel, consisting of a loose frock and baggy trousers, the legs of the trousers being tucked into the tops of road-worn boots.  His hat was a battered and frayed broad-brimmed felt.  Mrs. Arnold sat on a stool superintending the work, bowed forward, her elbows on her knees, holding a long-stemmed cob-pipe to her lips with her left hand, removing it at the end of each inspiration to emit the smoke, which curled slowly above her thin upper lip and thin, aquiline nose.  She was a tall, angular, high-shouldered, and flat-chested woman, dark from exposure to wind, sun, and rain, her hair brown in the neck, but many shades lighter on the crown of her head.  Her eyes were of an expressionless gray.  A brown calico of scant pattern clung in lank folds to her thin and bony figure.

The three daughters were younger and less faded types of their mother.  Each was clad in a narrow-skirted calico dress, and each was stockingless and shoeless.  Mother and daughters were dull, slow of speech, and ignorant.

After staying long enough to give the necessary instructions and exchange civilities with each member of the family in sight, I was riding slowly back to the roadway, intending to take a brisk canter to the fort, when Corporal Henry’s voice called from a clump of cedars at the back of the Arnold family’s wagons.

“Oh, Mr. Duncan, may I speak to you a moment?”

Turning my horse in the direction of the voice, I saw my young friend approaching, switching a handsome riding-whip in his hand.

“You haven’t seen all the family, sir,” he said.

“I have seen Mr. and Mrs. Arnold and those the mother said were all their children—­the three barefooted girls.”

“But there is one more girl, sir, a very pretty one, too—­a niece.  She’s back of the wagons making friends with Vic and Chiquita.  You must not go without seeing her.”

I went back with Henry and saw a girl of about fourteen standing by Chiquita, holding her by the bridle-rein and smoothing her neck, while Vic nestled at her feet.  She seemed very attractive at my first casual glance, impressing me favorably.  A blonde, possessed of abundant flaxen tresses held in a band of blue ribbon, having a complexion which her recent journey had tanned and sprinkled with abundant freckles, but giving promise of rare beauty with added years and less exposure to sun and wind.  Her clothing was fashionably made and well fitted, and her delicate feet were encased in neat boots and stockings.