d the States, and
all about the fashions, and they, in their turn, asked me all sorts of
questions about Ehrenberg and how I managed to endure the life. They
were always astonished when the Cocopah Indian waited on them at table,
for he wore nothing but his gee-string, and although it was an every-day
matter to us, it rather took their breath away.

But "Charley" appealed to my aesthetic sense in every way. Tall, and
well-made, with clean-cut limbs and features, fine smooth copper-colored
skin, handsome face, heavy black hair done up in pompadour fashion and
plastered with Colorado mud, which was baked white by the sun, a small
feather at the crown of his head, wide turquoise bead bracelets upon his
upper arm, and a knife at his waist--this was my Charley, my half-tame
Cocopah, my man about the place, my butler in fact, for Charley
understood how to open a bottle of Cocomonga gracefully, and to keep the
glasses filled.

Charley also wheeled the baby out along the river banks, for we had
had a fine "perambulator" sent down from San Francisco. It was an
incongruous sight, to be sure, and one must laugh to think of it. The
Ehrenberg babies did not have carriages, and the village flocked to see
it. There sat the fair-haired, six-months-old boy, with but one linen
garment on, no cap, no stockings--and this wild man of the desert, his
knife gleaming at his waist, and his gee-string floating out behind,
wheeling and pushing the carriage along the sandy roads.

But this came to an end; for one day Fisher rushed in, breathless, and
said: "Well! here is your baby! I was just in time, for that Injun of
yours left the carriage in the middle of the street, to look in at the
store window, and a herd of wild cattle came tearing down! I grabbed the
carriage to the sidewalk, cussed the Injun out, and here's the child!
It's no use," he added, "you can't trust those Injuns out of sight."

The heat was terrific. Our cots were placed in the open part of the
corral (as our courtyard was always called). It was a desolate-looking
place; on one side, the high adobe wall; on another, the freight-house;
and on the other two, our apartments. Our kitchen and the two other
rooms were now completed. The kitchen had no windows, only open spaces
to admit the air and light, and we were often startled in the night by
the noise of thieves in the house, rummaging for food.

At such times, our soldier-cook would rush into the corral with his
rifle, the