264 CALIFORNIA DESERT TRAILS 



also to mineral possibilities. The talk centred on 

 mines and prospects, claims and " jumpings," water- 

 holes and deaths for lack of them; and thousands, 

 hundreds of thousands, or millions of dollars were 

 freely tossed about. Easy Street is the only thorough- 

 fare in the city of the prospector's dreams. 



The day was hot, though not specially so: 115° 

 was the highest point touched by the municipal 

 thermometer. The look of our hosts made a com- 

 mentary on the general temperature. Both were 

 naturally fair-complexioned, but had taken a pleas- 

 ing tint of caje au lait wherever the skin showed (and 

 their dress of tattered duck trousers with armless 

 and barely coherent shirt did not leave much in 

 doubt). The Irishman mentioned that, a few days 

 before, the iron head of a drum of water he was 

 hauling was blown off by the steam generated within. 

 He reported also that in his capacity of cook he 

 often found eggs which had lain outdoors partly 

 cooked by the sun, so that they did not fall from the 

 shell when broken for the frying-pan. Readers who 

 have had experience of the summer climate of these 

 regions will not be unduly critical of these stories. 



One of Wellson's horses — a raw-boned animal 

 with a kind of pile-driver action due to a case of 

 spring-halt — having become tender-footed, we gave 

 her a day's rest at the ranch while we paid a visit to 

 Superstition Mountain. This low range hardly de- 

 serves the name of mountain, for it does not rise to 



were found. Good land would be brought sooner into use, while set- 

 tlers would be saved the spending of years upon tracts intrinsically 

 worthless. 



