PINON WELL TO MECCA 167 



when we took the road for the last stage of this part 

 of our travels. The gorge became narrower, the walls 

 higher and in places vertical. I have changed my 

 mind so often with regard to the possibilities of tem- 

 perature, whether greater in caiions or in the open, 

 that I hesitate to say that the heat that July after- 

 noon marked a new record in my experience. The 

 winding of the canon shut off all chance of a breeze; 

 the white walls and the white sand of the bottom 

 reflected the sun's rays mercilessly; the caiion 

 seemed to reverberate with heat and light. Once or 

 twice it grew almost insupportable and I fancied I 

 felt warnings of vertigo. I have no doubt that the 

 thermometer, if a shade reading could have been 

 taken, would have shown 125° or over. Kaweah, 

 like a true Indian, pushed doggedly on through the 

 yielding sand. Bronco he may be, but I have found 

 every ounce of him good staunch horse. 



The caiion widened, and at a turn — behold ! the 

 Salton Sea lay across the opening, faintly blue, mys- 

 terious, romantic, pictorial. At the same moment a 

 breeze met us; not cool, oh no, but bringing at least 

 a touch of life into the stagnation, even a momen- 

 tary tang of good salty ocean. Beyond the line of 

 blue rose the opaline barrier of Santa Rosa, and far 

 to southward, Superstition Mountain, hardly more 

 than a shadow on the sky. 



Passing into the open I looked westward up the 

 valley. Dark clumps of cottonwoods marked the 

 sites of the nearest ranches, five miles away: a trail 

 of smoke, like that from a steamer far out at sea, 

 showed where a train was running down from the 



