it disappeared in the
forest. Captain Spencer was on horseback, and happening to look to the
left saw a man skulking to the woods with a rifle in his hand. The poor
deer would undoubtedly have been shot if we had been a minute or two
later.

For two nights our camp was in the pine forest back of "Old Faithful,"
and that gave us one whole day and afternoon with the geysers. Our
colored cook was simply wild over them, and would spend hours looking
down in the craters of those that were not playing. Those seemed to
fascinate her above all things there, and at times she looked like a
wild African when she returned to camp from one of them. Not far from
the tents of the enlisted men was a small hot spring that boiled lazily
in a shallow basin. It occurred to one of the men that it would make a
fine laundry, so he tied a few articles of clothing securely to a stick
and swished them up and down in the hot sulphur water and then hung
them up to dry. Another soldier, taking notice of the success of that
washing, decided to do even better, so he gathered all the underwear,
he had with him, except those he had on, and dropped them down in the
basin. He used the stick, but only to push them about with, and alas!
did not fasten them to it. They swirled about for a time, and then
all at once every article disappeared, leaving the poor man in dumb
amazement. He sat on the edge of the spring until dark, watching and
waiting for his clothes to return to him; but come back they did not.
Some of the men watched with him, but most of them teased him cruelly.
Such a loss on a trip like this was great.

When we got to Obsidian Mountain, Miss Hayes and I decided that we would
like to go up a little distance and get a few specimens to carry home
with us. Our camp for the night was supposed to be only one mile farther
on, and the enlisted men and two wagons were back of us, so we thought
we could safely stay there by ourselves. The so-called mountain is
really only a foothill to a large mountain, but is most interesting from
the fact that it is covered with pieces of obsidian, mostly smoke-color,
and that long ago Indians came there for arrowheads.

A very narrow road has been cut out of the rocks at the base of the
mountain, and about four feet above a small stream. It has two very
sharp turns, and all around, as far as we could see, it would be
exceedingly dangerous, if not impossible, for large wagons to pass. Miss
Hayes and I went on up