152 CALIFORNIA DESERT TRAILS 



that it lasted I held my breath. The mountains 

 burned as if they were incandescent: Bullion? no, 

 the lava of rubies. Then in a moment it had paled 

 and like an expiration was gone. 



As I walked back to camp I noticed a small enclo- 

 sure, almost hidden among arroww^eed. It marked 

 the grave of a young girl, most likely one who had 

 been brought here in hope of a cure for consumption. 

 There is something inhuman in choosing such a 

 place of burial for a girl. Nature sets a difference 

 even in death, and it seemed a brutal thing to leave 

 a girl's young body here. 



Some tokens of old inhabitation at Twenty-nine 

 Palms may be seen in remains of shacks and dug- 

 outs. One of these had been the den — it is the only 

 word — of one Wilson, the former habitue of the 

 place, who held on here in more than pagan squalor 

 until he was lately forcibly removed by the county 

 authorities. The hut of old Jim Pine, the last of the 

 Twenty-nine Palms Indians, stands open to sky and 

 gaze, and shows a litter of "rock" specimens (for 

 Jim was something of a miner in his day). But min- 

 ing camps are in their nature evanescent : why build 

 a house, when to-morrow the rush will move on to 

 a newer "strike"? But Twenty-nine Palms is still 

 a base for prospectors in the desert ranges, on 

 account of its water, which is plentiful and good, 

 and by reason of being on one of the roads to the 

 still important mining settlement of Dale. 



Thanks to the remains of Jim Pine's alfalfa patch, 

 Kaweah was in good form when we struck eastward 

 next morning toward Dale (or, as it was called in 



