white walls stared at me.
It did not look so much like a prison, after all, I thought. Captain
Bernard, the man whom I had pitied, stood at the doorway, to greet
us, and after we were inside the house he had some biscuits and wine
brought; and then the change of stations was talked of, and he said to
me, "Now, please make yourself at home. The house is yours; my things
are virtually packed up, and I leave in a day or two. There is a soldier
here who can stay with you; he has been able to attend to my simple
wants. I eat only twice a day; and here is Charley, my Indian, who
fetches the water from the river and does the chores. I dine generally
at sundown."

A shadow fell across the sunlight in the doorway; I looked around and
there stood "Charley," who had come in with the noiseless step of the
moccasined foot. I saw before me a handsome naked Cocopah Indian, who
wore a belt and a gee-string. He seemed to feel at home and began to
help with the bags and various paraphernalia of ambulance travellers.
He looked to be about twenty-four years old. His face was smiling and
friendly and I knew I should like him.

The house was a one-story adobe. It formed two sides of a hollow square;
the other two sides were a high wall, and the Government freight-house
respectively. The courtyard was partly shaded by a ramada and partly
open to the hot sun. There was a chicken-yard in one corner of the
inclosed square, and in the centre stood a rickety old pump, which
indicated some sort of a well. Not a green leaf or tree or blade of
grass in sight. Nothing but white sand, as far as one could see, in all
directions.

Inside the house there were bare white walls, ceilings covered with
manta, and sagging, as they always do; small windows set in deep
embrasures, and adobe floors. Small and inconvenient rooms, opening
one into another around two sides of the square. A sort of low veranda
protected by lattice screens, made from a species of slim cactus, called
ocotilla, woven together, and bound with raw-hide, ran around a part of
the house.

Our dinner was enlivened by some good Cocomonga wine. I tried to
ascertain something about the source of provisions, but evidently the
soldier had done the foraging, and Captain Bernard admitted that it was
difficult, adding always that he did not require much, "it was so warm,"
et caetera, et caetera. The next morning I took the reins, nominally,
but told the soldier to go ahead and do just as he had