TO PUEBLO DE LOS ANGELES. 187 



part of the time I would tramp alone, and while I would be 

 resting, perhaps a brother tramp w^ould come up and we 

 would travel together, or " in cahoot," as partnership was 

 called in the plains " argot," — for all the world like the anarch- 

 istic wayfarers on the Bristol Turnpike. Those who had 

 money preferred traveling alone; those who had none, like 

 misery, loved company for the chance it afforded for a 

 " sponge " on the commissary stores of the more fortunate. 



My route for awhile lay over the low plain in which San 

 Bernardino is built, amidst fields long since shorn of their 

 harvests, and through scattered thickets which the frost had 

 robbed of their foliage. The day was warm and my load 

 heavy, so I was forced to do as some of my predecessors were 

 doing, cast my superfluous clothing along the road, without 

 hope of it returning in days many or few. Having thus un- 

 burdened myself as much as I dared, I went on with a lighter 

 load, but not a lighter heart, for if ever I had what are known 

 as the " dumps," it was when I started on my " march to the 

 sea." I soon reached the shores of a stream which waters this 

 valley, and crossing it climbed a bluff and found myself on 

 a bleak plain. I was now on the beginning of a waterless 

 stretch of twenty miles, and as it was well on towards noon I 

 had small prospect of making the end of the journey before 

 night. In spite of the reduction I had made in my load it 

 was still heavy, and I was glad when, six miles on my way, I 

 met a horseman whom I persuaded to buy my rifle. I let 

 him have it, with the ammunition belonging, for five dollars — 

 one-fourth of what it cost. This was a godsend, for all I had 

 before was the two eagles I had saved and kept from the 

 knowledge of my companions for my passage to San Francisco. 

 The reason I did not take my comrades into my confidence 

 was that I feared some might want to " borrow " them. 



The trail soon led into a spreading chaparral, a thicket of 

 gnarled sage-brush, repulsive from a fire which had lately 



