n poured down for five minutes,
and laid the dust when too late, the sky cleared, and a wonderful
rainbow, three deep, appeared in the east. The sunset was one not to
be forgotten. The deep blue-black of Rawhide Peak, cut sharp by the
clear gleaming apricot sky, and above the flying clouds, wavered and
pulsed with color and flame. We watched them by the camp-fire till
twilight faded and moon and stars shone with desert brilliancy.
Shaking the dust from our beds as a testimony against the spiteful
spirits of Rawhide Peak, we slept with our usual profundity. Always,
however, before bedtime we had to go through the little ceremony of
removing the burs from our clothing, for every plant in this country
seems to have a bur or a tick-seed, and we found a new one in every
camp. Sometimes they were arrows or needles an inch long, sometimes
triangles with sharp corners, sometimes little spiked balls, sometimes
long bags with prongs. There was no end to their number and variety,
and they grew to be one of our studies.

After the first wrench of waking, the morning, from dawn to sunrise,
was always beautiful. It amused us while dressing to watch the ears of
the mules moving against the pale yellow sky, and the men, like black
ghosts, stealing about. We crossed a wide, noble mesa clothed with
buffalo-grass: there was no heat, no dust, and the long caravan before
us made, as usual, a moving picture. The desert looked more like
Palestine than ever, with the low buttes and sandhills yellow in the
distance. "Towered cities called us then," yet when we reached them we
found but desolation, "and the fox looked out of the window." The
queer little horned frogs, lizards, rattlesnakes and coyotes were the
sole inhabitants. "Them sandhills," we were told, "tracks across the
country for a thousand mile."

Our next halt was at Niobrara Creek, called also L'eau qui court and
Running Water, These three names (all with the same meaning) are far
prettier than the place. Not a stick of timber, not a shrub, can be
seen upon its banks. There was a flowing stream, a wide meadow, full
of what looked like pink clover, but was only a bitter weed, and
behind and before us the desert, in which our lively little camp was
the only life to be seen. We soon found that we were not beyond the
power of the spirits of Rawhide Peak. "O'er the far blue mountain"
came the whirlwind punctually at dinner-time, but, fortunately, we had
been somewhat beforehand with it