Wild Life in California 



By FRANK A. LEACH 



CHAPTER 1 



THE DESERT OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA 



Its Wonders. Its Wild Life. Its Beauties and Dangers 

 The Hermit of Palm Canyon 



One evening in the middle of March, my 

 son Ed, his wife and little daughter, Vir- 

 ginia, and self left our home in Piedmont for 

 the Sixteenth street depot, Oakland, prelimi- 

 nary to a visit to Palm Springs, Riverside 

 county, in Southern California. 



We checked our baggage to Whitewater, the 

 railroad end of the trip, and boarded the train 

 which was to take us to Los Angeles. 



After getting located in our reservations 

 and settling with the conductors for the night 

 I thought I would go into the buffet car, 

 smoke and read until bedtime. The car was 

 crowded. The only vacant seat brought me 

 next to a party of politicians who were having 

 one of those "talks" so much enjoyed and so 

 commonly indulged in when two or more kin- 

 dred souls, who think it their destiny on this 

 earth to make and unmake statesmen, meet 

 with a little time on their hands .to spare. 

 They were all men well known in the State by 

 their activities in politics, who would not feel 

 complimented to be styled politicians, for they 

 were not, in the offensive sense of the term. 

 They did not recognize the writer, for which 

 I was thankful, as I was now glad to escape 

 becoming involved in discussions of matters 

 that no longer interested me more than be- 

 comes an ordinary citizen. They talked 

 rather loudly. I could not help hearing every 

 word said. I could not move away, for there 

 was no other vacant seat in the car. I tried 

 to read. I did turn over several pages of my 

 book, every one of which I read and reread, 

 but when conversation turned upon men that 

 I knew quite well and others that were inti- 

 mate friends it was difficult to follow the 

 lines in more than a mechanical way. After 

 finishing my smoke I concluded to go to bed 

 and read where I would not be an unwilling 

 listener to the conversation of others and 

 there would be no one to disturb me. When 

 I went to my car and threw open the cur- 

 tains to my berth, to my astonishment there 

 was a big fat man apparently sound asleep 

 in the bed. I quietly closed the curtains and 

 went to the porter at the other end of the 

 car and asked for an explanation. He didn't 



know anything about it and seemed to care 

 less, but finally said he would call the con- 

 ductor. This official looked at my ticket 

 and said the berth was mine and that the 

 man had no business there. He called a 

 couple of brakemen and the three men went 

 to the berth, I supposed with the purpose of 

 ejecting the intruder. Whether the job, con- 

 sidering the size of the man, or for some 

 other reason, looked to be too great an un- 

 dertaking, I did not learn. However it was, 

 in a short time the conductor came to me 

 and asked if I would not take another lower 

 berth, which of course was all the same to 

 me, so I consented. He said some uncom- 

 plimentary things about the other fellow, but 

 did not offer any explanation of why he let 

 him remain in the berth, though he said the 

 man knew he had no right there. 



I could not help but notice the great in- 

 fluence over the manners and civility of 

 grown people wrought by the actions and 

 speeches of a bright, innocent, sweet little 

 thing like Virginia. The conductors and 

 brakemen, who are generally short, if not 

 gruff, and porters who are stolid, largely 

 made so by constant contact with unreason- 

 able and inconsiderate travelers, were all 

 smiles and ready to surrender everything 

 when in the presence of that dear little girl. 



After a stop in Los Angeles we boarded an- 

 other train which was to convey us to White- 

 water, situated about nine miies from Palm 

 Springs. This little town is located on that 

 part of desert lying between the San Bernar- 

 dino and San Jacinto ranges of mountains in 

 the extreme southerly part of California. This 

 particular part of the desert is that portion of 

 the great Colorado Desert that extends into 

 the State of California. Palm Springs is a 

 little town of about forty or fifty houses, in- 

 cluding a school, church, hotels, stores and 

 garages. 



Our train took us out through the famous 

 San Gabriel Valley, passing Pomona, Ontario, 

 Oblton, Beaumont. Banning and several other 

 towns of lesser importance. For the distance 

 of ten or fifteen miles from Los Angeles the 



