The Old Yuma Trail 



131 



of both Santo Domingo and 

 Sonoyta, besides a quarter-load 

 of hay and grain, set out on 

 the Old Yuma Trail under an 

 arrangement with Don Bartolo 

 to deliver water and feed in 

 Tule Pass (sixty-odd miles 

 away) by the third evening ; 

 next day the four-mule light 

 wagon and the four saddle ani- 

 mals of the expedition were on 

 the road betimes. Crossing 

 the sandwash of Rio Sonoyta 

 — a channel broad enough for 

 the Ohio, deep enough for the 

 Schuylkill, but dust-dry from 

 bank to bank — the way mean- 

 dered over a cactus-dotted plain 

 simulating a vast alluvial de- 

 posit but revealing its origin 

 by sheetflood carving in oc- 

 casional projecting bosses of 

 granite ; passing monument 

 172, it swung a few yards north 

 of the boundary to touch at 

 Quitobaquito — the Papago vil- 

 lage with five centuries behind 

 it, and two adobe houses besides 

 a half-dozen native huts within 

 it. Here the entire white pop- 

 ulation (Mr. M. G. Levy, mer- 

 chant, mine-owner, justice of 

 the peace, and deputy sheriff) was 

 avidly hospitable, the native residents 

 attentive, as became the unusualness of 

 the event ; and the side-barrels and 

 half-dozen canteens of the outfit were 

 soon filled with the slightly alkaline yet 

 palatable and wholesome water from 

 the spring. Quitobaquito lies amid the 

 southeasternmost foothills of a sierra 

 bearing the name of spring and village ; 

 a dozen miles away the range divides, 

 a spur setting off southward to form 

 Cerro Salado (or Sierra de la Salada), 

 and the trail veers partly to avoid this 

 spur, partl}^ to touch the " last water " 

 near its tip. 



Beyond Quitobaquito the ancient trail 

 ^rows impressive. True, the narrow 



'A cactus-dotted plain . . . revealing its origin 

 occasional projecting bosses of granite." 



in 



stock-path followed by the wagons is in 

 large part new ; but, as well seen from 

 the crest of Cerro Huerfano, the new 

 track diverges from the old only be- 

 cause the old was so deep that it has 

 become a storm-cut arroya — indeed for 

 miles Rio Sonoyta abandons the ancient 

 sandwash during its brief spurts of 

 activity to convert the wheel-worn way 

 into a flood-channel. Prehistoric sites 

 and relics of the early stone age are 

 sparsely scattered over the plain ; the 

 ruins of a Mexican rancho, with well 

 and corral and acequias, lie three miles 

 west of Quitobaquito ; and there is an 

 abandoned ganadero (stock ranch) at the 

 "last water" five miles beyond, known 

 commonly as "Agua Dulce " from the 



