238 MULE-HUNTING EXPEDITION. 
burnt-up rocks. But all honour to her skill as a 
cook,—she did her fixings admirably ! 
During dinner I had ample time to take stock 
of Doctor Ephraim Meadows. His face would 
have been a fortune as a study to a painter; his 
forehead high but narrow, his eyebrows thick, 
bushy, and overhanging; his hair would have 
joined his eyebrows, had not a narrow line of 
yellow skin formed a kind of boundary between 
them. Peering out from beneath his shagg 
hair were two little twinkling, restless grey eyes, 
more roguish than good-natured. His nose, 
crooked and sharp, was like the beak of a buz- 
zard; with thin dry lips that shut in a straight 
line, which told in pretty plain language he could 
be resolute and rusty if need be. ‘The tip of his 
chin, bent up in an easy curve, was covered with 
a yellowish beard, that had been guiltless of comb 
or shears for many a day. His nether limbs were 
clad in leather never-mention-ums, kept up by 
a wide belt, from which dangled a six-shooter. 
A red shirt, with an immense collar that reached 
the point of the shoulders, and a dirty jean 
jacket completed his costume. 
Our meal over, we started out to see the 
wonders of the doctor’s establishment. The 
house or hospital, as he designated it, was a 
