PINON WELL TO MECCA 147 



possibly three times as long, since the last person 

 had passed or until the next one would appear. 



I resolved to trust the dubious sign and take the 

 eastward track. There was difficulty in following it, 

 for it was often so faint as to be mere guesswork. It 

 is this sort of thing that takes the pleasure out of 

 desert travel. The county of Riverside, in which I 

 now was, has lately done useful work in the placing 

 of metal guide-posts at the main desert road cross- 

 ings, but a good deal more needs to be done, while 

 other counties quite ignore this need of their desert 

 populations. Unfortunately, the maps of the Geo- 

 logical Survey do not cover the greater part of this 

 troublesome region: and such as are to be had, cheap 

 "county" or "miners' " maps, are little better than 

 none at all. 



Persistently eastward ran my elusive trail. It was 

 nearing a mountain range, the Pintos, and must 

 soon turn either north or south, so I kept on, though 

 in considerable doubt. At last, when close to the 

 hills, it ran into a better travelled track, and with 

 relief I found a sign-post with Twenty-nine Palms 

 on its northern arm and Cottonwood Springs thirty 

 miles to the southeast. 



At this junction, as marked on my map, there are 

 supposed to be, near together, two more water- 

 holes. Stirrup Tanks and White Tanks. I searched 

 for signs of them (the usual signs being the trails 

 made by animals going to drink) but failed to dis- 

 cover either. I learned afterwards that one of them 

 is half-a-mile away in the Cottonwood Springs direc- 

 tion; of the other, nobody that I have met has any 



