CHAPTER XVII 



A DESERT RIDE: "SAN FELIPE CITY" TO IMPERIAL 



VALLEY 



"Adios" to San Felipe City — A metalliferous mountain — Diffi- 

 cult country — Another man missing — Crude landscape — A 

 lame horse — The desolate to perfection — Mineral novelties — 

 Bad travelling — Consciousness of peril — The Thirst Spectre — 

 Gullies on gullies — Water at last — The divinity of color — Eve- 

 ning hues — Silence and starlight — Coyote Wells — The Mexican 

 catechism — Beauties of Coyote Wells — Declined with thanks 



— Bunkum, Boom, and Brag — The Mexican border — Dixieland 



— 122^ in the shade — The land of cotton — The miracle of 

 Imperial Valley — Slipshod farms — El Centro — Open desert 

 preferred — The morning tub — Beds al fresco — Brawley — 

 Imperial — The Bermuda-grass problem — Calexico: tokens of 

 earthquake — Mexicali, Mexico: a gambling hell — Holtville — 

 A desert storm. 



WELLSON grumbled loudly when I roused 

 him at five o'clock. We had agreed on a com- 

 promise between my four-thirty and his eight-thirty 

 for our starting time, but he pretended that six- 

 thirty was the hour for getting up instead of for 

 leaving. He was comforted, though, when told that 

 breakfast was under way, and punished the flap- 

 jacks with severity. 



There was a long day's march ahead of us, but 

 we took no water for the horses as Wellson knew of 

 a water-hole that we could take in our route by 

 going a little out of our way. Our mark was Coyote 

 Wells, on the road between San Diego and the 

 Imperial Valley, and of late also a point on the 

 partly built railway which is to connect San Diego 

 with Yuma and the East. There was no road or trail 



