246 CALIFORNIA DESERT TRAILS 



found he was away. Unluckily, too, his well was out 

 of order, so we had to go on to the next settler's for 

 water. A rainfall averaging two to five inches would 

 not seem to offer much inducement to the farmer; 

 yet here, as at Borego, three or four men have taken 

 up homesteads, and are holding on in hope that 

 some day matters will improve, through the striking 

 of abundant water by deeper borings. Meanwhile 

 it is mainly the jackrabbits that profit by the crops 

 planted by the pioneers of Mason Valley, and, in- 

 deed, the jacks of this region are giants of their 

 kind. As they bounded away with that inimitable 

 grace and ease, I was almost tricked into thinking 

 they were antelope. 



This valley is a natural plantation of agave, and 

 I saw many traces of the pits in which generations 

 of Indians have baked a-moosh'. These Indians, like 

 those of Santa Rosa, were happily placed as regards 

 climate. Within the distance of two or three hours' 

 travel they had the perfect winter temperature of 

 the desert or ideal summer surroundings among the 

 timber and running streams of the Laguna Moun- 

 tains. With a surplus of game, and a wide choice of 

 vegetable food, their life, on the physical side, was 

 far from being one of hardship. The canned beef 

 and phonographs, "wrappers" and trousers, we 

 have conferred, have not made them sincerely hap- 

 pier, and the rattle-trap houses we persuade them 

 to live in are but a means to consumption and pneu- 

 monia. It is seldom a kindness to give anything the 

 need of which has not come to be felt. 



From Mason Valley the road passed over a divide 



