132 CALIFORNIA DESERT TRAILS 



There was not much opportunity for conversation. 

 To ride alongside the wagon was to be enfolded in 

 the dust from sixteen scuffling hoofs, for at our slow 

 gait it was much as if we stood still while the horses 

 milled up dust for our benefit. Moreover, these 

 teamsters of the desert roads are of a silent breed, 

 and Emmons was true to type. Yet I knew he was 

 glad of my company, and I have often proved that 

 a heart kindly to man and beast may beat beneath a 

 taciturn waistcoat. Occasionally he would call to a 

 shirking horse — always a single word and with an 

 odd way of dropping the leading consonant: thus 

 "Ete," "111," "Aise," and "Ooze" stood for Pete, 

 Bill, Daisy, and Suse — and the slack trace-chain 

 never failed to straighten when these monosyllabic 

 shots went ofif. 



The creeping pace and the unknown, spacious 

 desolation into which we were imperceptibly moving 

 gave me the feeling of starting on some lifelong enter- 

 prise. A faint breeze came now and then from the 

 west, but it was dry and parching, and brought no 

 refreshment. The sky was overcast with a haze 

 which diffused the sunlight to a blinding whiteness 

 that was more trying than the direct rays, and that 

 seemed to intensify the heat by giving it power to 

 attack equally on all sides at once. There was some- 

 thing of the same deadly quality in the air that I felt 

 at Two-Bunch Palms, though not to the same degree. 

 We resorted often to our canteens, while the horses 

 were treated to frequent rests, though short ones. 

 On this kind of day one realizes easily enough how 

 imperative Is the need for water to the desert travel- 



