98 CALIFORNIA DESERT TRAILS 



outlay for securing water. It is the tribe of Scadder 

 alone, I fear, that reahzes profit from these "desir- 

 able acreages," and his neatly baited trap is ever to 

 the fore in the advertising columns of California 

 newspapers. It would be an act of both mercy and 

 statesmanship for the Government to withdraw 

 from entry these delusive tracts, whose very poverty 

 makes their fascination for the impecunious — at 

 least until official experiment has shown whether 

 they can ever be made to repay cultivation. 



Nearing "Two-Bunch" (for brevity the third 

 syllable is dropped in common usage) I came upon 

 the tiny store that serves this ungrateful land. Here 

 a young Englishwoman was wrestling with fate, 

 struggling to make ends meet by merchandising on 

 the microscopic scale. Her clients are as varied as 

 they are few — Indians, cowboys, prospectors, 

 chance travellers like myself, and such other uncon- 

 ventional folk as are content to seek health, wealth, 

 or prosperity under circumstances that most people 

 would think intolerable. For example, this young 

 woman (far from Amazonian in physique) for lack 

 of a well fetches her water day by day per burro 

 from a mile away, herself going afoot — and it is 

 along no shady lane or boulevard either. I took a 

 new view of chickens when I heard her speak bitterly 

 of their heavy demands for liquid, and felt respectful 

 sympathy when a scatter-brained young rooster 

 upset the water-pan. 



The two "bunches" of palms that give the place 

 its name grow near together on a little bluff, where 

 the level desert breaks to the foothills of the San 



