To the Gulf of Cortez 



camp. Here, amid the countless pits of the 

 miners, the piflons begin, and then, after a 

 short distance, the pine barrens stretch for 

 forty miles. Beyond again you pass into hills 

 of low brush, and plains covered with sage and 

 buckweed, until finally you cross a divide into 

 the broad basin of the Trinidad Valley. This 

 is a depression some twenty miles long and 

 perhaps five miles wide on the average, with a 

 hot spring and a house at the southwestern 

 end, walled on the southeast by the grim 

 frowning rampart of the San Pedro Martir 

 range, and on the other sides by mountains of 

 lesser height, but equal desolation. 



We had intended at first to strike for the 

 Cocopah range, near the mouth of the Colo- 

 rado River, and there do our hunting. Several 

 reasons induced us to change our plan and 

 make for the Hansen ranch, where deer were 

 said to be plenty and sheep not distant; so we 

 turned from Tecate southward, made one dry 

 camp and one camp near Juarez, and on the 

 fifth day of our journeying reached a long 

 meadow, called the Bajio Largo, on the Han- 

 sen ranch. We turned from the road and fol- 

 lowed the narrow park-like opening for four 

 miles, camping in high pines, with water near, 



59 



