CHAPTER XIV 



A DESERT RIDE: LOS COYOTES TO WARNER'S 



SPRINGS 



Kaweah a tyrant — Los Coyotes — A grub-staked miner — Cre- 

 dulity of miners — Prospector and poet — A player of many parts 



— Snakes, assorted kinds — Vagaries of McSandy — A moun- 

 tain trail — Flowers and cactus — Indian relics — Stiff climbing 



— From brush to pines — An Indian patriarch — San Ygnacio — 

 Supper with Mary Jane — Snakes again — An Indian alpine 

 village — Mountain delights — The desert's spell deepest — Ka- 

 weah breaks the ice — San Ysidro — Warner's Ranch — Agua 

 Caliente Indians. 



I AWOKE to find the sun making a green-and- 

 gold sanctuary all about me, a caiion-wren show- 

 ering me with cascades of plaintive melody, doves 

 sympathizing from a dead branch overhead, and nu- 

 merous bumps on face and arms, with mosquitoes* 

 kind regards. Kaweah was watching for my first 

 movement. With little encouragement this comrade 

 of mine would become a tyrant. His annoyance when 

 I am half an hour late is not to be mistaken. 



I knew the night before that I was not far from a 

 small bay or valley, about midway of the canon, 

 known as Collins Valley, or to the Indians as Los 

 Coyotes. This was where I had hoped to camp, and 

 when, after breakfast, I went prospecting for my 

 lost trail, I soon found that another half-mile would 

 have taken us there. It had an attractive look, with 

 a little patch of grass and tules, a palm or two, and 

 many mesquits and willows, even a cottonwood. 

 There was also an old cabin, another evidence of 



