57 



befriended them by stipulating that no lease of public lands 

 might invahdate their right to keep their dwellings and to 

 earn their sustenance by hunting and agriculture. 



For twenty-five cents Mr. Rockwell purchased a formidable- 

 looking bow and several arrows from a middle-aged Cocopah 

 whose skill with the weapons was vouched for by the blood 

 and feathers of a flycatcher (Myiarchus) that still clung to 

 one of the arrows. Strangely enough, these Indians would 

 not sell even a small piece of bead work for five American 

 dollars. The only other valuable handicraft that we saw 

 within their shacks were several very large pottery jars, the 

 hke of which, according to Captain Funcke, had not been 

 made among them for more than a generation. Laguna pro- 

 duced sixteen egret plumes, which he tried to sell to us, and, 

 judging by the price he asked, he was thoroughly familiar 

 with the demand for these feathers in certain quarters. 



After bidding farewell to the Indians, we entered a forest 

 of heavy mesquites, which at this point stretched from the 

 river bank to the base of the mountain range. Presently 

 I saw the leading animal, the mule, step over a large rattle- 

 snake, probably Crotalus atrox. The Captain's white mare 

 also passed over without seeing the serpent, which lay silently 

 in coils. My horse was the third in line, but while I was 

 drawing my shotgun from its scabbard, the snake unwound, 

 and darted under the mesquites. 



Our burros made no end of trouble by lying down con- 

 tinually, and by running off the trail. We had to keep 

 driving them back, a task, however, to which the horses were 

 thoroughly trained. One of the characteristics of a desert 

 burro is a stolid aversion to wetting its dainty hoofs. It 

 prefers making a detour of half a mile with a heavy pack on 

 its back, rather than to cross an eighteen-inch strip of water 

 jutting across the path. One of our burros was lost altogether, 

 but after an exasperating delay we found it lying comfortably 

 against a rocky wall of the mountain side.^ 



1 A surprising number of burros, and even horses, escape from the 

 night camps of travellers, or from Imperial Valley ranches, into this 

 southern Colorado Desert, where they lead feral lives indefinitely, unless 



