78 CALIFORNIA DESERT TRAILS 



stretched legs the wooden mortar in which she 

 pounds out the family flour; or creeping about 

 among the brush, beating with bat of palm-fibre the 

 chia seeds into her bowl-basket: a basket that she 

 wove, perhaps, threescore years ago, while her 

 Hiawatha was stalking antelope or wild-sheep, and 

 into which she may have woven more of legend 

 and romance than wise men of the Smithsonian 

 would easily unravel. 



The hunter's instinct is strong in the men still. 

 The other day I met old Tolomeo, patriarch of his 

 rancheria, ambling homewards on his wall-eyed 

 pony with rifle and half-a-dozen jack-rabbits at his 

 pommel. Tolomeo is old, very old, but the jack 

 that gives the slip to the old capitan must be en- 

 dowed with more than the supernatural speed of 

 most jacks, and Lugardio, just home from prosaic 

 prune-picking in the mountain orchards, finding 

 that my plans did not admit of an autumn hunting 

 trip, remarked with a sigh, "Then I guess I don't 

 get a buck this year again. Two years now I don't 

 get me a deer. 'Sta muy malo." 



The nourishing properties of chia seed should be 

 better known. It is said that a handful or two of 

 them, roasted and ground, will sustain a man 

 through a day of hard exertion, such as continuous 

 running. Mixed with flour it becomes the famous 

 pinole of the Mexicans, the staff of life of the com- 

 mon people. It is believed to have stomachic as well 

 as nutritive value. The mesquit bean is a good sec- 

 ond: analysis of the meal has shown it to contain 

 over fifty per cent of food elements, largely sugar. 



