302 CALIFORNIA DESERT TRAILS 



The stream here takes a deep bend and the bank 

 where I stood commanded a good view. It was not a 

 specially imposing sight, I had to confess — a wide, 

 shallow flood of chocolate-hued water, bordered by 

 stretches of brilliant green, these rising to low red 

 banks over which one looked in vain for any break 

 in the monotony of the level. For seventy miles from 

 this point southward to the head of the Gulf of Cali- 

 fornia I doubt if there is anywhere an elevation of 

 forty feet above the plain. Near by were the remains 

 of an adobe building which was once a stamp-mill 

 for grinding ore. A heron fished in the shallows with 

 that air of magnificent calm which is so soothing to 

 see, and a quarter of a mile away a torpid Indian 

 moved about, doing something mysterious to the 

 few stalks of com in his little clearing. 



But after all it was the Colorado River, and Ka- 

 weah, perhaps, caught a reflection of my own inter- 

 est, for he stood long in meditative pose. I wondered 

 if he felt stirrings of the subconscious in gazing at 

 this stream, on whose headwaters his forebears may 

 have roamed and practised those little arts which 

 make the Western bronco so interesting and in- 

 comprehensible. 



At this point the road from Lower California 

 came in. I followed this for a couple of hours beside 

 a levee, through thickets of willow and arrowweed, 

 and by late afternoon came in sight of Yuma. The 

 first feature to appear was the Indian school on the 

 hill where the historic Fort Yuma once stood. Then 

 the court-house came in view, attractive in its set- 

 ting of green, the rest of the town, which lies lower, 



