TO PINON WELL 131 



tlon of sun and cloud may any day give you a topo- 

 graphical surprise, even after years of acquaintance, 

 as if, some breakfast-time, you should learn from 

 your paper that the agreeable elderly gentleman next 

 door was an experienced cracksman long wanted by 

 Inspector Bucket. 



My friend's caravan, signalled by distant clouds 

 of dust, at length came creeping along — a huge 

 wagon with seven-inch tires, loaded with a ton or 

 two of mixed merchandise, ranging from soda-pop 

 to Bob Milligan's new suit and a case or two of 

 dynamite. In the jockey-box was the week's mail 

 for the score or so of men at the mine, and, what 

 was of most concern to Kaweah, on the tail-board 

 were piled sacks of barley and bales of hay. 



Crossing the railway we turned northward toward 

 an opening in the so-called "mud hills" which make 

 a feature equally fascinating and repellent in this 

 part of the desert geography. In dreariness they sur- 

 pass even the great sand-dunes which now lay far to 

 the westward. Their ashy gray is the most hopeless 

 of hues, and their few scraps of brush are almost 

 ghastly. The fascination lies in the strangeness of 

 the shapes into which the material has been wrought. 

 The cutting and carving, scoring and scraping, twist- 

 ing and twirling, gouging and grinding that has gone 

 on here for ages has given an almost unreal look to 

 the region. A romancer of the type of Jules Verne, 

 wishing to depict conditions on the moon, or on this 

 planet when its turn comes, can here find material 

 to his purpose, "local color" bleached to the appro- 

 priate monochrome. 



