"Dunno," replied Sucatash. "Him bein' a prospector, that a way, most likely he ain't got the necessary sense to camp where a white man naturally would bog down." "But any one would know enough to camp near water," said Solange, surprised. "Yes'm," agreed Sucatash, solemnly. "Any one would! But them prospectors ain't human, that a way. They lives in the deserts so much they gets kind of wild and flighty, ma'am. Water is so scarce that they gets to regardin' it as somethin' onnatural and dangerous. More'n enough of it to give 'em a drink or two and water the Jennies acts on 'em all same like it does on a hydrophoby skunk. They foams at the mouth and goes mad." "With hydrophobia?" exclaimed the unsophisticated Solange. "Yes'm," said Sucatash. "Especially if it's deep enough to cover their feet. Yuh see, ma'am, they gets in mortal terror that, if they nears enough water to wet 'em all over, some one will rack in and just forcibly afflict 'em with a bath--which 'ud sure drive one of 'em plumb loco." "I knows one o' them desert rats," said Dave, reminiscently, "what boasts a plenty about the health he enjoys. Which he sure allows he's lived to a ripe old age--and he _was_ ripe, all right. This here venerableness, he declares a whole lot, is solely and absolutely due to the ondisputable fact that he ain't never bathed in forty-two years. And we proves him right, at that." "What!" cried the horrified Solange. "That his health was due to his uncleanliness? But that is absurd!" "Which it would seem so, ma'am, but there ain't no gettin' round the proof. We all doubts it, just like you do. So we ups and hog ties the old natural, picks him up with a pair of tongs and dips him in the crick. Which he simply lets out one bloodcurdlin' yell of despair and passes out immediate." "_Mon Dieu!_" said Solange, fervently. "_Quels farceurs!_" "Yes'm," they agreed, politely. Then Solange laughed and they broke into sympathetic grins, even the solemn Sucatash showing his teeth in enjoyment as he heard her tinkling mirth with its bell-like note. Then they forgot the squatting figure by its camp fire and drove on to the ranch. This turned out to be a straggling adobe house, shaded by cottonwoods and built around three sides of a square. It was roomy, cool, and comfortable, with a picturesqueness all its own. To Solange, it was inviting and homelike, much more so than the rather cold luxury of hotels and Pullman staterooms. And this feeling of homeliness was enhanced when she was smilingly and cordially welcomed by a big, gray-bearded, bronzed man and a white-haired, motherly woman, the parents of young Sucatash. The self-contained, self-reliant young woman almost broke down when Mrs. Wallace took her in charge and hurried her to her room. They seemed to know all about her and to take her arrival as an ordinary occurrence and a very welcome one. Sucatash, of course, was responsible for their knowledge, having telephoned them before they had started.