28o CALIFORNIA DESERT TRAILS 



taneously. Then we threw off packs and saddles and 

 fed them the last of the barley. They ate a little, 

 but were too dispirited to finish, and stood with 

 drooping heads, a picture of equine collapse. Poor 

 old Piledriver after a few minutes lay down and 

 groaned. Every step of those long, rough miles must 

 have been torture to her. 



As for us, we lay in the shade for an hour before 

 gaining energy to get the meal we badly needed, and 

 waited for sunset before tackling the last ten miles 

 of the day's march. There was no forage here and 

 our barley was gone, so to camp for the night was 

 impossible. A Government survey party, with base 

 at Coyote Wells, had been working hereabout not 

 long before, and had made a sort of road that 

 we could follow, and luckily it was now all down 

 grade. 



With all my weariness, I do not think I have ever 

 been so charmed as that evening by the sunset color- 

 ing. It brought real physical refreshment: one could 

 not feel tired and stupid with that magic before 

 one's eyes. It passed into the blood, and not only 

 soothed the mind, but energized the body like an 

 elixir. Before me stretched a golden plain: behind 

 and on either hand, hills of gold and rose: far to the 

 south, translucent in distance, the mountains of 

 Mexico : yonder, like a billow of amethyst breaking 

 on amber reefs, the Superstitions: overhead three 

 cranes flew silently across a sky of violet on their 

 way to the Salton. It was more than Nature, infi- 

 nitely more than ^Esthetics. Some words of the 

 Psalter came to my mind — "Who deckest Thyself 



