TO IMPERIAL VALLEY 283 



charm in the place. As a stopping-place on the old 

 highway to San Diego it has long had a fame, not 

 savory, of its own. To-day indignation was high 

 among the Coyoteros over the arrest, the previous 

 evening, of the local "blind pigger." It was felt that 

 by this hard stroke all that made life worth living 

 at Coyote Wells had been done away. I only partly 

 shared this view, failing to see how even unlimited 

 bad whiskey could make the place less of a purga- 

 tory. 



I left my companion fitting the wincing Pile- 

 driver with a second-hand shoe. He was westward- 

 bound for the mountains, after a day or two's rest, 

 while my route led east. He urged me to join him, 

 holding out the possibility of my becoming a pro- 

 spector myself. But I doubted my qualifications. I 

 always feared I was bom under "a vile sixpenny 

 planet," and with that belief how could one be a 

 prospector? 



I had now reached the southern limit of my jour- 

 ney, for in the conditions then ruling, Mexico was a 

 country to be shunned. Coyote Wells lies at the 

 extreme southwest comer of the Colorado Desert 

 in the United States. My way now lay easterly, 

 through that part of the Imperial Valley which 

 borders on Mexico. 



I must say I dislike these big-sounding names, 

 which real-estate speculators think so irresistible. 

 To me they savor of Martin Chuzzlewit's Eden, and 

 give ever fresh point to the celebrated 7not of the 

 late Mr. Bamum. Of a piece with the brass band and 

 the barbecue, these grandiloquent titles stamp the 



