348 CALIFORNIA DESERT TRAILS 



plants. Unlovely as these mainly are, one finds them 

 interesting in proportion to their rarity, and stops 

 to enjoy a twelve-foot smoke-tree or some weak out- 

 break of originality in an ocotillo as if they were the 

 gnarly heroes of a forest. 



The presence of the house was explained by my 

 coming upon an abandoned mine. The place has 

 evidently long been the haunt of prospectors. On the 

 door was roughly painted the invitation : ' ' Come in 

 and Camp: Wood and Water Free": and above the 

 fireplace was a square of pasteboard with "Hotel de 

 Com Springs" set out in an attempt at the sign- 

 painter's art, with further flights of fancy scrawled 

 by departed guests. One wall did duty as a register, 

 showing the names of visitors for several years past. 

 It appeared that the patronage of this select hos- 

 telry runs to a score or two per annum, though this 

 is only through the frequent recurrence of one or 

 two regulars on whose prospecting beat it lies. 



I was in no hurry to start next morning, as I in- 

 tended to make only a dozen miles or so, to the Red 

 Cloud Mine, at the other base of the mountains. We 

 left about eight o'clock, finding a doubtful looking 

 track leading west. A mile brought us to the divide, 

 and to the end of anything that could be called a 

 trail. Looking across to the south I could see what 

 seemed to be a well-marked road climbing the moun- 

 tain-side. Here was another of those conundrums 

 that plague the traveller in unmapped and little- 

 known country. Was it a new route to Dos Palmas, 

 the point I was making for, or did it merely lead to 

 some mine of which I had not heard? I had been 



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