Mr. Harshaw had got possession of the canteen, and so was able to serve the maiden, both when she drank and when she held out her rosy fingers to be sprinkled, he tilting a little water on them slowly--with such provoking slowness that she chid him; then he let it come in gulps, and she chid him more, for spattering her shoes. She could play my Lady Disdain very prettily, only she is something too much in earnest at present for the game to be a pretty one to watch. I feel like calling her down from her pedestal of virgin wrath, if only for the sake of us peaceful old folk, who don't care to be made the stamping-ground for their little differences. The horses were longer at their lunch than we, and Miss Kitty requested her traveling-bag. "And now," she said, "I will get rid of this fiend of a hat," whereas she had steadily protested for miles that she didn't mind it in the least. She took out of her bag a steamer-cap, and when she had put it on I could see that poor Harshaw dared not trust himself to look at her, her fair face exposed, and so very fair, in its tender, soft coloring, against that grim, wind-beaten waste of dust and sage. I shall skip the scenery on the road to Walter's Ferry, partly because we couldn't see it for the dust; and if we had seen it, I would not waste it upon you, an army woman. But Walter's Ferry was a hard-looking place when we crawled in last night out of the howling, dirt-throwing wind. The little hand-raised poplars about the ferry-house were shivering and tugging and straining their thin necks in the gale, the windows so loaded with dust that we could barely see if there were lights inside. We hooted and we howled,--the men did,--and the ferry-keeper came out and stared at us in blank amazement that we should be wanting supper and beds. As if we could have wanted anything else at that place except to cross the river, which we don't do. We go up on this side. We came down the hill merely to sleep at the ferry-house, the night being too bad for a road camp. The one guest-room at the Ferry that could be called private was given to Kitty and me; but we used it as a sitting-room till bedtime, there being nowhere else to go but into the common room where the teamsters congregate. We stood and looked at each other, in our common disguise of dust, and tried to find our feet and other members that came awake gradually after the long stupor of the ride. There was a heap of sage-brush on the hearth laid ready for lighting. I touched a match to it, and Kitty dropped on her knees in front of its riotous warmth and glow. Suddenly she sprang up and stared about her, sniffing and catching her breath. I had noticed it too; it fairly took one by the throat, the gruesome odor. "What is this beastly smell?" She spoke right out, as our beloved English do. Tom came in at that moment, and she turned upon him as though he were the author of our misery.