6 



THE DESERT 



Mountain 

 walls. 



The ascent. 



Deer trail*. 



just so with the mountains toward which I am 

 riding. After several hours they seem to rise 

 up suddenly in front of me and I am at their 

 base. They are not high perhaps fifteen 

 hundred feet. The side near me is precipitous 

 rock, weather-stained to a reddish-black. A 

 ride around the bases discloses an almost com- 

 plete perpendicular wall, slanting off half way 

 down the sides into sloping beds of bowlders 

 that have been shaken loose from the upper 

 strata. A huge cleft in the western side half 

 barranca half canyon seems to suggest a way 

 to the summit. 



The walking up the mountain is not the best 

 in the world. It is over splintered rock, step- 

 ping from stone to stone, creeping along the 

 backbone of bowlders, and worrying over rows 

 of granite blocks. Presently the course seems 

 to slip into a diagonal a winding up and 

 around the mountain and ahead of me the 

 stones begin to look peculiar, almost familiar. 

 There seems to be a trail over the ledges and 

 through the broken blocks ; but what should 

 make a trail up that deserted mountain ? 

 Mule-deer travelling toward the summit to lie 

 down in the heat of the day ? It is possible. 

 The track of a band of deer soon becomes a 



