PINON WELL TO MECCA i6i 



look from the plain. I saw yuccas of three species, 

 the lycium with its ruby-Hke berries, the simmond- 

 sia, which bears a nut of good flavor, the curious sal- 

 azaria, covered with quaint little bladders, even the 

 wild buckwheat common on the coast, to say noth- 

 ing of the eternal cat-claw and the common desert 

 growths. There appeared also a plant or two of the 

 rare Nolina parryi, their tall flowering-stalks bearing 

 masses of yellow seed-vessels that reminded me of 

 hydrangea bloom. 



Soon after crossing the divide I noticed a rude 

 cross close beside the road. Later I learned that it 

 marked the grave of a man named Riley who died 

 here of thirst a few years ago. He had left the Dale 

 mines intending to walk to the railway at Mecca. 

 The footprints showed that he reached a point 

 almost within sight of Cottonwood Springs: it may 

 have been dark or dusk, so that he failed to see the 

 spot of green a mile farther on that marks the water. 

 He turned back towards Dale, but soon turned again, 

 staggered as far as this, and here died. A brother of 

 his is said to have lost his life in the same way soon 

 aftenv^ard on the road from Dale to Amboy. Similar 

 tragedies occur every year in these deserts, and it 

 would seem that the county authorities, or the 

 State, or the nation, might afford out of our millions 

 of taxation the small sum that would suffice to set 

 up guide-posts on these roads, indicating where 

 water is to be found, the distance to it, and if neces- 

 sary the marks by which the exact place is to be 

 known. It is now quite possible for some wretch to 

 perish in the tortures of thirst within so short a dis- 



