TO WARNER'S SPRINGS 229 



sity of color. Even more charming were a few wild 

 roses. Meeting them here, their frank, innocent look 

 seemed almost touching by contrast with the un- 

 gentle desert forms just left behind. 



The trail was far too steep and rough for riding. 

 I was close behind McSandy, leading Kaweah, 

 when I saw my supposedly experienced friend stop 

 and draw his hand across a lobe of the common 

 Opuntia basilaris cactus, remarking that Burbank 

 was a fraud, for here was spineless cactus growing 

 wild. Mr. Burbank was promptly avenged: it took 

 half an hour to free McSandy's hand of the worst of 

 the hairlike prickles, and when we came to the next 

 water and stopped for lunch he spent an industrious 

 hour in finishing the job. 



Though this trail is little known and not given on 

 any map, it is plain, from the depth to which it is 

 worn, that it has long been used by the Indians in 

 passing between their desert and mountain villages. 

 The rock that gave us shade was blackened with 

 the smoke of ancient fires, and in the earth I found 

 beads, scraps of pottery, and yellowed bones some 

 of which had a strong look of homo sapiens. Near by 

 were deep holes in the solid rock where generations 

 of squaws had ground their flour. 



The trail now became yet steeper, one of the steep- 

 est, indeed, that I ever tackled. Kaweah was a good 

 deal worried, and often inquired with earnest gaze 

 if I knew where I was going? We made progress by 

 scrambles of forty or fifty yards at a time, some- 

 times in the bouldery creek-bed, sometimes on slip- 

 pery mountain-side. 



