198 THE STORY OF A BIRD LOVER 



was audible. The call of the little whippoorwill 

 that we had seen was composed of two notes, and 

 was much more deliberate than the song associ- 

 ated with the whippoorwill of the East. Uttered 

 some five or six times in succession, it sounded 

 like " poor will, poor will, poor will, poor will, poor 

 will." At about eleven o'clock we arrived at our 

 destination, Riverside ; as far as I could see in 

 the moonlight, this city consisted of a single 

 house, and morning confirmed this conclusion. 

 Daylight disclosed a narrow and winding val- 

 ley, through which flowed the Gila, a rushing 

 mountain torrent about one hundred and fifty 

 feet wide, and fordable only at a few points. At 

 ordinary times the water is clear and limpid, 

 though slightly alkaline in quality, but in flood 

 the stream is turbid, and the strength of the 

 current with the additional depth of water makes 

 fording impossible. The valley is so narrow that 

 the bottom land in this neighborhood is scarcely 

 sufficient for cultivation. On the northern side 

 of the stream rise abruptly the foot-hills of the 

 Final Mountains, a rugged range whose highest 

 peaks attain an approximate altitude of ten 

 thousand feet. On the south side of the river 

 the bottom land extends back for perhaps a 

 quarter of a mile, and then a series of plateaus, 

 the ascents to which are steep, shut in this side 

 of the valley. These plateaus or mesas are char- 



