174 CALIFORNIA DESERT TRAILS 



much?" "Can he buck?" and "What you do, you 

 prospect?." When my turn came there was not much 

 to be got beyond shy grins and much shuffling of 

 dusty feet : but I learned that one of the boys was Joe 

 Pete's godson, and that he lived with his godfather 

 in preference to staying at his proper home, close 

 by: which seemed to speak well for the big capitan. 



There were heavy clouds and vivid lightning that 

 evening to the north, and I guessed they were 

 catching it up at Dale and Twenty-nine Palms. 

 Once or twice in most summers an electrical storm 

 breaks over these mountains, but the rain seldom 

 reaches the open desert. It may sometimes be seen 

 falling but is likely to evaporate in mid-air and re- 

 turn unspent to the parent cloud. Joe Pete, who came 

 over while I was breakfasting to present me with a 

 melon, promised two months of what he called 

 "Little warm, like this" (it was then about 95°, 

 less than an hour after sunrise). 



In the morning I went on to the next village, 

 Martinez, a short distance down the valley. Some- 

 where hereabout there were to be seen until lately 

 examples of the wells dug by the Indians of olden 

 days. I got an intelligent young Indian to pilot me 

 to the sites of three of them, but they were now 

 shapeless pits filled with mesquit and other brush. 

 The water supply is now the commonplace one by 

 pipe and bucket, no longer per squaw, marching 

 picturesquely with olla through thickets of arrow- 

 weed and mesquit to draw from the pool at the foot 

 of the earthen stairway, returning with plentiful 

 germs of typhoid fever. I have inquired for these old 



