For the rest of the day the boys showed little disposition to wander
about; they spent most of their time lounging on their beds with a
book, or asleep.
XV
THE PONIES ARE FOUND
The following day the boy sergeants rose from their beds fully
refreshed, and after breakfast began to explore the town. They made
some purchases in the stores, and found much amusement in watching a
bevy of Mojave Indian girls buying pigments to be used in adorning
their necks, arms, and faces. Following the bronze maidens to the
shore of a lagoon that backed up to the town from the river, they
seated themselves beneath a cottonwood and witnessed the designing of
tracings in many colors, made with endless and musical chatterings,
accompanied by an evident consciousness that they were objects of
interest to two pale-face boys.
After completing the tinting the girls would walk about for a while
and display their work to admiring friends, and then plunge into and
swim about the lagoon with the ease and grace of a lot of mermaids;
emerging with no trace left of their recent ornamentation, they would
proceed to renew it in different designs, and take another swim.
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