"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 told her that she must cultivate her aesthetic sense, and in a short time she would be able to admire these copper-colored creatures of Nature as much as I did.
But I fear that a life spent mostly in a large city had cast fetters around her imagination, and that the life at Fort Whipple afterwards savored too much of civilization to loosen the bonds of her soul. I saw her many times again, but she never recovered from her amazement at Charley's lack of apparel, and she never forgot the sulphur bath.