i84 CALIFORNIA DESERT TRAILS 



her in sending copies of the picture, she sedately 

 gave her name as Mrs. So-and-so, Post-Office box 

 so-and-so, at Mecca; thoroughly up in the ways of 

 the world. No doubt her children will be little Bills 

 and Bobs, Sadies and "Soosies," with chewing-gum 

 and all modern improvements. 



An hour's easy ride brought me to my camping 

 place for the night at Figtree John Springs, no longer 

 obliterated by the flood. The water is good though 

 tepid, and a few small palms and a cotton wood or 

 two make the spot attractive. The margin of the 

 lake is now half a mile away. I walked over to it, 

 and found an uninviting beach of slimy mud, the 

 surface baked by the sun into large curving flakes 

 like potsherds. A few dead trees were all that broke 

 the melancholy expanse, if I except the decaying 

 bodies of fish that added no charm to the landscape 

 or the breeze. From the many coyote tracks it 

 seemed that this sort of diet is much to the taste of 

 that broad-minded animal. Far out, pelicans in 

 groups of three or four were fishing for supper, one 

 of them now and then launching itself with mighty 

 splash upon a school of prey. 



The sunset color was unusually fine, though of 

 extreme delicacy. One might suppose that desert 

 conditions would work for crudity and staring dis- 

 tinctness in form and color. The reverse is the fact. 

 The most ethereal tones in Nature are those of 

 desert landscapes. The mirage itself is hardly more 

 elusive than the reality of these plains and moun- 

 tains, faint, vague, mystical. And when the light 

 comes level, as at evening or early morning, there is 



