Beds, clothing, hair, mouths, noses, were full of the fine gray
powder. What if our dinner was spoiled? 'Twas but the fortune of war.
The blow was soon over, and we managed to dine off the scraps, so as
not to go quite hungry to bed. The rain 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.
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