88 CALIFORNIA DESERT TRAILS 



This settles it, my fine girl, I said at the second 

 repacking. Kaweah and I can manage without your 

 help, since this is an instance of it; and the last of 

 your disastrous tribe shall perish from the earth 

 before ever I put faith in burro again. 



To dispose of Mesquit finally from these pages I 

 may say that the next day I took her back to Palm 

 Springs (with no trouble whatever, now that sjie 

 was not outward bound). There I left her, and with 

 no such relentings as Stevenson noticed in himself 

 on parting from the classic Modestine. I sorted over 

 my baggage, cutting down to the barest needs and 

 to the point where they could be contained in two 

 pairs of saddle-bags. One of these fitted at the horn 

 and one at the cantle of my McClellan saddle, with 

 two light blankets strapped behind the rear pair. 

 The two canteens were necessities, and I carried 

 also a light hatchet, a picket-pin, and a single- 

 barrel 20-gauge shot-gun (though this, useful as it 

 was, I later discarded for saving of weight). My 

 camera, of course, was indispensable. Thus equipped 

 I made a second start. 



The circumstances of the former attempt had not 

 conduced to enjoyment of the scenery or other nat- 

 ural incidents of the way. Now, with "peace of 

 mind, dearer than all," I had leisure and mood for 

 observation. I was riding northward to the oasis of 

 Seven Palms. Almost before the last stunted pepper- 

 tree outpost of Palm Springs was passed, I was en- 

 gulfed in the gray waste, gray not alone of sand and 

 boulder, but also, in the main, of vegetable and ani- 

 mal life. Isolated bushes of creosote rose here and 



