PINON WELL TO MECCA 153 



days when it was famous, Virginia Dale). It was a 

 long, tedious march, the country becoming more 

 barren at every mile, and the ground a tiresome 

 alternation of sand with wide expanses of a sort of 

 pavement, made of small bits of stone, reddish or 

 black, polished to a slippery degree and set as if in 

 a mosaic. It was the first time I met with this pecul- 

 iar condition, though I often encountered it after- 

 wards. I am still puzzled to account for it : one would 

 almost think the fragments had been fitted together 

 by hand and rolled down by a road engine. Little 

 can grow in such a region. Even the creosote grew 

 sparse and stunted here; it is a marvel, indeed, that 

 it can exist at all. A few starved encelias showed 

 white against the dark ground, and in the sandy 

 washes spectral smoke trees quivered in the flicker- 

 ing air. Birds were entirely absent except for the 

 road-runner, who is a sort of Esau, and whose pecul- 

 iar imprint, like a St. Andrew's cross, one meets in 

 the most impossible places. 



Ahead ran the ashy Sheephole Range, to south the 

 Pintos (a word signifying spotted, though I saw no 

 reason for the name in the barrier of uniform reddish 

 rock that kept me company hour after hour). Once 

 I caught a glimpse of a high distant ridge that I 

 knew must be the Cockscombs, they fitted the name 

 so exactly. One or two tracks led off to nominal 

 mines, active only to the extent of the assessment 

 work which must be performed yearly in order to 

 keep ownership alive. This rite, as it may be called, 

 makes the excuse for the owners to set out annually 

 from city or ranch, with burro, grub, pick, shovel, 



