240 CALIFORNIA DESERT TRAILS 



year or two before, and to note the air, mingling the 

 old and the new, with which my friend ruled what 

 he termed his "outfit." The baby was addressed in 

 a dialect quite unlike the orthodox — more in the 

 Roaring Camp or Circle Bar vein. A special event 

 was the young lady's first appearance on horseback. 

 This, at the age of twelve weeks, I think beats any- 

 thing offered in circuses. 



The cowboy's liking for unlimited range was illus- 

 trated by my friend's complaint that new-comers 

 were crowding him out. A neighbor a mile away in 

 one direction and another four miles off in the other 

 were the grounds of objection; and the road was 

 "getting to be a dum boulevard: there were two 

 fellows went by yesterday." As this is the main 

 route from Warner's to Borego Springs I hoped the 

 swelling tide of travel might brighten the lot of 

 that little Devonshire woman down in the lonesome 

 valley. 



A road runs southeasterly from Warner's along 

 the flank of the Volcan Mountain, and by it I took 

 my way next day toward the desert. It is the old 

 Warner's Pass route between desert and coast. By 

 this trail came General Kearny and his dragoons 

 with Kit Carson in company, on his long march in 

 1846 for the conquest of California; and it was from 

 Warner's Ranch that he advanced to the battle, 

 not much more than a skirmish, of San Pasqual, 

 thirty miles to the west, where he met defeat at the 

 hands of the despised Californians under Andreas 

 Pico. Later, in the early years of American rule, this 

 was the route of the Butterfield Overland Stages, 



