326 CALIFORNIA DESERT TRAILS 



On the Arizona side of the river about opposite to 

 where I now was, a few settlers have taken up land. 

 The locality is known as the Cibola Valley, taking 

 the name from those Seven Cities that excited the 

 old Spaniards so needlessly. 



I recognized a relic of the mining era in the form 

 of some cement vats on the bench above the river. 

 No shaft or tunnel could be seen, so probably the 

 pay-dirt was brought from a distance, this being the 

 nearest water available for washing. In the bottom 

 of one of the vats was a good-sized rattlesnake. I 

 descended and did battle, Kaweah looking down 

 like an old Roman watching a combat in the arena. 

 He shares my dislike for these creatures, and gets as 

 excited as I at the familiar rattle. As an instance of 

 protective coloring, this specimen had taken on a 

 dark red color that closely matched the ground.^ 



After a dozen miles or so we came to a clearing 

 where Mexicans had cultivated their little patches 

 of maize, milpitas, as they call them. The white set- 

 tler who had lately ousted them was living in the 

 stick-in-the-mud house. As it was noon I inquired of 

 the wife whether I might purchase a meal and take 

 it with them, which after some demur was granted. 

 The man did not leave his reclining posture, on a 

 dirty quilt in the shade of a ramada, during the hour 

 and a half I stayed, except for a hurried visit to the 

 table to gulp down his beans and coffee. With apolo- 

 gies to the kindly woman, I could not help wishing 

 that the "damned greasers," as he termed the late 



* I once, in grass country, killed a rattlesnake that was quite green 

 in hue. Both the green and the red were regulation "diamond-backs." 



