TO SAN FELIPE CITY 255 



east of Agua Callente; but Wellson believed he could 

 find a direct route through the bad-lands that would 

 save us that detour. We struck directly northeast, 

 over a rising plain dotted with dwarfed agaves and 

 ocotillos. Ahead was a high divide formed by the 

 meeting of the flanks of Vallecitos and Fish Creek 

 Mountains. It is between these two mountains that 

 Split Mountain Canon runs, a mere rift in width, 

 but deep and clear-cut. To the south there gradu- 

 ally opened a view of Coyote Mountain (not the 

 peak of that name that I had passed on leaving 

 Borego Springs), a handsomely shaped block of 

 dull reddish brown, standing a few miles to the 

 north of the Mexican border. 



Of my companion's two horses, one was generally 

 used as pack-horse, the other for riding. Now, how- 

 ever, loaded as all the animals were with bags and 

 canteens of water, we were both afoot. On a gravelly 

 bench we found galleta grass growing in tussocks 

 any one of which would have made a meal for a 

 truck-horse. It was hard to pass it by, but fortu- 

 nately Wellson had brought along half a sack of bar- 

 ley, from which I would draw rations for Kaweah. 



It was here that I first identified an insect of bad 

 reputation, the campomoche. It belongs to the same 

 family as that ferocious hypocrite, the praying man- 

 tis, and is a gray, stick-like creature, not easily seen 

 amid the dry stems of the galleta where it is apt to 

 be found. Taken into the stomach of horses or cat- 

 tle, its effect is said to be that of a corrosive poison, 

 sometimes strong enough to cause death. I am a lit- 

 tle doubtful regarding this fatal quality of the cam- 



