pool, and shuddered. "Do you use
it?" said she.

"Occasionally," I equivocated.

"Does it hurt the complexion?" she ventured.

"Jack thinks it excellent for that," I replied.

And then I left them, directing Charley to wait, and prepare the bath
for the second victim.

By and by the beauty came out. "Where is your mirror?" cried she (for
our appointments were primitive, and mirrors did not grow on bushes at
Ehrenberg); "I fancy I look queer," she added, and, in truth, she did;
for our water of the Styx did not seem to affiliate with the chemical
properties of the numerous cosmetics used by her, more or less, all her
life, but especially on the voyage, and her face had taken on a queer
color, with peculiar spots here and there.

Fortunately my mirrors were neither large nor true, and she never really
saw how she looked, but when she came back into the living-room, she
laughed and said to Jack: "What kind of water did you say that was? I
never saw any just like it."

"Oh! you have probably never been much to the sulphur springs," said he,
with his most superior and crushing manner.

"Perhaps not," she replied, "but I thought I knew something about it;
why, my entire body turned such a queer color."

"Oh! it always does that," said this optimistic soldier man, "and that
shows it is doing good."

The Paymaster's wife joined us later. I think she had profited by the
beauty's experience, for she said but little.

The Quartermaster was happy; and what if his wife did not believe
in that uncanny stream which flowed somewhere from out the infernal
regions, underlying that wretched hamlet, he had succeeded in being a
benefactor to two travellers at least!

We had a merry supper: cold ham, chicken, and fresh biscuit, a plenty of
good Cocomonga wine, sweet milk, which to be sure turned to curds as it
stood on the table, some sort of preserves from a tin, and good coffee.
I gave them the best to be had in the desert--and at all events it was a
change from the Chinaman's salt beef and peach pies, and they saw fresh
table linen and shining silver, and accepted our simple hospitality in
the spirit in which we gave it.

Alice Martin was much amused over Charley; and Charley could do nothing
but gaze on her lovely features. "Why on earth don't you put some
clothes on him?" laughed she, in her delightful way.

I explained to her that the Indian's fashion of wearing white men's
clothes was not pleasing to the eye, and to