12 CALIFORNIA DESERT TRAILS 



make these notes I have often looked for hours while 

 the struggle remained in deadlock. Over the pass 

 between San Jacinto and Santa Rosa battalions of 

 cloud come rolling, stream out far to the east, and 

 threaten the kingdom of the sun. But that old 

 tyrant seldom sleeps, or, after the manner of tyrants, 

 sleeps with an eye open, and it is hard to catch him 

 unaware. His intrenchments are all but impregnable. 

 Leagues of radiant air form invisible ramparts from 

 which the invaders are continually thrown back, and 

 ever from the heated desert new ranks of warriors 

 come rushing up to maintain the fight. Now one 

 side gains, now the other. Some hero of the gray 

 leads a charge, and a tongue of vapor leaps out far 

 in the advance, may even fling down a slant of rain 

 or snow on the anxious pines of Santa Rosa. But 

 before the Grays can establish themselves the Blues 

 are at them and press them back. "A Pluvius! A 

 Pluvius!" "Phoebus! Phoebus to the rescue!" And 

 so it wages, to and fro, strangely and ominously like 

 the battles of men; ominously, lest it prove that 

 these are no farther from coming to a final end. 



With all the glory of desert evening skies, I miss 

 one accustomed element of sunset: I mean that 

 spiritual touch, impossible to put into words, but 

 which we know so well. Perhaps the word "wistful- 

 ness" states it best, and the desert (so you might 

 think until you know it) is not wistful. But yet it is: 

 to be old, weary, and wise is wistful, as much as are 

 the young, asking eyes of a child. But wistfulness is 

 hard to define. Why in music, for instance, should 

 a chord, a turn of rhythm, even an interval, start 



