308 CALIFORNIA DESERT TRAILS 



tesquely ugly that he looked as if he were walking 

 about doing it for fun. I had that kind of feeling 

 about my Yuma judge. 



One who thinks life dry without frequent thrills 

 might find a summer evening in Yuma tedious: yet I 

 look back on certain after-dinner hours there as 

 among the most profitable of my trip. After leaning 

 for an hour over the rail of the bridge, hoping that I 

 was getting cool, I found it was a mistake and took 

 my way up the street to share the general fate and 

 lounge among the loungers. Mesmerized by the 

 rhythmic thump of a mechanical piano I took a post 

 opposite the Motion-Picture Theatre. The main 

 street of Yuma makes something of a motion picture 

 itself. Three Indians with headdresses of purple, 

 green, and pink, sat inert on the curb in front of me, 

 smoking countless cigarettes while they made hilari- 

 ous comments on passers-by. Men on quick-pacing 

 Indian ponies swung along, one now and then jerk- 

 ing up at the sidewalk to exchange a remark or bor- 

 row "the makings." Hard-featured men, and girls 

 bearing the terrible stamp, passed and repassed: 

 also Yuma's full complement of sales-ladies es- 

 corted by their fellows. A "For Rent" automobile 

 drawn up close by showed several pairs of lightly 

 clad legs and arms dangling over doors and seat- 

 backs, apparently disconnected from invisible own- 

 ers. A heavy-looking buck and his heavier-looking 

 middle-aged squaw stopped to admire the colored 

 posters of the play. In twos and threes the citizens 

 slouched in to the show, clerks in the latest shirt- 

 styles, with their girls, entering at the exclusive 



