CHAPTER VI 



A DESERT RIDE: PALM SPRINGS TO SEVEN PALMS 



A circuit of the desert begun — My burro Mesquit — And horse 

 Kaweah — Nonchalant orioles — Rebellion of Mesquit — Hot en- 

 gagements, a parting, and a new start — Engulfed in gray — Last 

 flowers — Enchanted sand-dunes — San Gorgonio Pass: a blow- 

 pipe and sand-blast — Wind-trained shrubs — The sand-chisel 

 — Lilac the desert's color — Railroad flotsam — Nature's hy- 

 draulics — Seven Palms oasis — A desert homestead — Effects 

 of alkaline water — An inhuman wind — Coyotes oblige. 



AFTER some months spent about the north- 

 western part of the desert, with headquarters 

 at the village of Palm Springs, I made ready to 

 launch out on a complete circuit, with variations, of 

 the Colorado Desert, It was within a few days of 

 the end of May, a much later date than I should 

 have wished for the start, for the sun had settled 

 down to his summer's work, and came up each 

 morning at full blaze in a merciless sky, with that 

 baleful mien which always throws me into anticipa- 

 tory perspiration, and which still brings to mind 

 the morning burst of my old dominie into the class- 

 room, menacing, bloodshot of eye, and gnawing on 

 his fingers like a famishing ogre. 



Delay had been caused partly by a long course of 

 unsettled weather, partly by fly-sores on the neatly 

 striped legs of my burro, Mesquit. I had purchased 

 her at Banning, the desert-portal town lying in the 

 neck of the San Gorgonio Pass, where the railroad 

 had dropped me in January. We had had bickerings, 

 such as are bound to occur when similar constitu- 



