206 TEXAS AND ARIZONA 



there along the two watercourses, or to mining 

 camps farther off in the mountains. How a city 

 ever came to grow up in a place so isolated, so 

 seemingly destitute of anything like local advan- 

 tages, is a riddle beyond my reading ; but here 

 it is, a city in the desert. North, south, east, or 

 west, you may start where you will and go in 

 what direction you please, and in fifteen minutes 

 you will be out among the creosote bushes and 

 the cacti, with nothing but a world of creosote 

 and cactus with perhaps a windmill and a 

 roof rising above them somewhere in the distance 

 between you and the mountain range that 

 bounds the horizon. 



Well, this was exactly what I myself did one 

 fine morning a week ago. I walked up the main 

 street of the city, turned to the right, passed the 

 territorial university buildings, and, taking a 

 course northward toward the Santa Catalinas, 

 sauntered carelessly forward, field-glass in hand, 

 to see what might be stirring in the chaparral. 



There would not be much, I knew. By day- 

 light, at least, and in the winter season, the 

 desert is not a stirring place. In the tracts 

 where the creosote occupies the ground alone 

 there proved, as usual, to be nothing ; but pre- 

 sently I came to a place where two or three kinds 

 of cactus were sprinkled among the creosote 



