number of fires underneath and soon had our belongings in a steam.
Things were beginning to look cheerful again. The rain stopped, too,
for a time at least.

A little later Jimmy ran into camp with a fish which he had caught
with his hands. It was of the kind commonly called the bony-tail or
humpback or buffalo-fish, a peculiar species found in many of the
rivers of the Southwest. It is distinguished by a small flat head with
a hump directly behind it; the end of the body being round, very
slender, and equipped with large tail-fins. This specimen was about
sixteen inches long, the usual length for a full-grown fish of this
species.

Now for a fish story! On going down to the river we found a great many
fish swimming in a small whirlpool, evidently trying to escape from
the thick, slimy mud which was carried in the water. In a half-hour we
secured fourteen fish, killing most of them with our oars. There were
suckers and one catfish in the lot. You can judge for yourself how
thick the water was, that such mudfishes as these should have been
choked to helplessness. Our captured fish were given a bath in a
bucket of rain-water, and we had a fish dinner.

In the afternoon we made a test of the water from the river, and found
that it contained 20 per cent of an alkaline silt. When we had to use
this water, we bruised the leaf of a prickly pear cactus, and placed
it in a bucket of water. This method, repeated two or three times,
usually clears the muddiest water. We also dug holes in the sand at
the side of the river. The water, filtering through the sand, was
often clear enough to develop the tests we made with our films.