This did not seem to greatly enthuse Merriman, who stated that he did not know how to cook or make a bed. He was from Nova Scotia and he thought that if he could go back there he would never return. He worked for five nights and one morning he was missing and nothing was ever heard of him afterwards. An old Indian called "Big Thunder," but better known as "Medicine John," was a frequent visitor to this lonely depot and he suggested that the "Evil Spirits" in the lake might have kidnapped the night operator and thrown him into the lake, and inasmuch as no claim was ever made for the five days' work performed by Merriman, a matter so very unusual to the telegraph company, one is lead to believe that the old Indian was correct. Big Thunder had purchased from Merriman a big brass watch and chain, which he carried on the outside of his coat. The Indian had also fallen heir to Merriman's plug hat which is still historical in Spirit Lake. When Big Thunder was asked the time, he would gravely open the watch, gaze for a minute at the hands and give out the information "Just half an hour." Were he asked a hundred times a day, he would never deviate from his reply, "Just half an hour." Spirit Lake is now a great summer resort. The O'Shaughnessy hovel has made way for a very pretentious hotel, "Big Thunder" no longer gives out the correct time to enquirers and the spirit of progress is marching on. THE INDIANS WERE TOO LOYAL. There are but few oases in the great Arizona desert, and that part of our glorious country offers few allurements to the American youth. Hence it was a surprise to the friends of young Clarence Vincent when he took his departure from the fleshpots of San Francisco to take up his line of march to Maricopa Wells, where he accepted the position as manager for the telegraph company at that point. Besides the white inhabitants of Maricopa, which numbered twelve men and one woman, there were a goodly number of Indians who, following a migratory inclination, made the Wells a starting, as well as a finishing point, in their junketings on box cars and flat cars throughout the territory of Arizona. These native sons and daughters were ardent admirers of the telegraph and sometimes of the operator of the telegraph, and male and female would cluster around the tiny office, watching young Clarence as he sat at work at his key. Many of these aboriginies were interesting characters, and as the weeks glided by, Vincent acquired enough of the Indian tongue to make himself intelligible to the pretty maidens of the cactus territory. These shy maidens were not unlike their white sisters, and a little flattery was gratifying to their vanity, and when Vincent in his Indian monosyllabic dialect told Miss Mahala that her new pink blanket was very becoming, and when he assured Mahala's cousin, Cahecha, that the blue ribbons in her hair made her look like a queen, he entirely won their hearts.