ACROSS THE DESERT 107 



invited us to dinner, where we met Mrs. Pres- 

 ton and spent some delightful hours. During 

 our conversation I asked Mr. Preston if he did 

 not find Tuba a charming place. 



"No," said he, "it's right on the edge of 

 hell." 



"You're wrong," broke in John; "it's right 

 in the center of it." 



During the afternoon I strolled up to the 

 government buildings and fell in with a gen- 

 tleman who introduced himself as Dr. W. H. 

 Harrison, temporarily detailed here to minis- 

 ter to the health of the Indians. Dr. Harrison 

 and I became friends at once, and he and Mr. 

 George H. Kraus, financial clerk at the agency, 

 arranged for a room for John and myself in 

 one of the dormitories. 



The doctor piloted me over the Tuba gar- 

 dens and up to the springs that supply the 

 buildings and irrigate the grounds. There are 

 two of these springs, one furnishing a sufficient 

 supply of water for the buildings has an over- 

 flow requiring two three-inch pipes to carry 

 the waste water, off. The other, known as the 

 Boiling Springs, a hundred yards distant from 

 the former, is even larger. This spring throws 

 its water up in a column nearly two feet high. 

 There is a theory that the water supplying these 



