TO AGUA CALIENTE 251 



his fiercest stroke. Over the mountains to the south 

 hung the brown haze of a forest fire which had 

 burned intermittently for a week. The thought of 

 those smoking hillsides going up with crackle and 

 roar in league-long sheets of flame gave the final 

 touch to the torture of the heat. I felt as if the skin 

 of my face would crack and shrivel off, and wondered 

 if any mortal man could possibly be fighting that 

 fire that day at close range. 



At length I saw against the gray hills a tiny spot 

 of green that I hailed as my landmark. Arrived there 

 I found my man with his two horses already in 

 camp. He seemed surprised to see me, and remarked 

 that he had not expected me to show up: had 

 thought that I should back out and go by the near- 

 est way to Imperial Valley, seeing I was so near. 

 Split Mountain, he considered, was a crazy place 

 for any one to go without better reason than I had 

 named. 



The spot was pleasant, for a desert camp. Three 

 springs of good though warm water broke out on 

 the hillside and fed a strip of green grass, dotted 

 with mesquits, palms, and tufts of arrowweed. Some 

 mineral contained in the water has built up mounds 

 of a whitish deposit, giving the appearance of gey- 

 sers, or miniature volcanoes. As the next day would 

 be Sunday, and the forage would carry us over, we 

 agreed to postpone our start till Monday. In the 

 evening we had a small camp-fire — not for warmth 

 but for the look of it — and Wellson entertained 

 me with episodes in the lives of sundry Coyote 

 Charlies, Shoot-'em-up Smiths, and other local 



