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.
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