61 



the blind route traversing the basin, '' a distance of about 30 

 miles across a desert plain, baking in the vertical raj^s of a 

 tropical sun," sometimes covered in parts ^' to a depth of a few 

 inches or a few feet " by the hot, salty sheet of the flood that 

 fills the Laguna Salada, has been crossed even in midsummer 

 by Indians or prospectors, both afoot and on horseback. 



The Tres Pozos oasis was our objective for the noon camp. 

 It turned out to be a copse precisely like a thousand others 

 which dotted the plain in all directions. The water-hole was 

 such as African mammals dig in the sand. It was about ten 

 feet across by seven deep, with a slope on one side, and at the 

 bottom stood three feet of seepage water — yellow, opaque, 

 and slimy. Its surface was sprinkled with dead caterpillars, 

 and the edge of the incline was lined with the footprints of 

 coyotes. Our horses and burros guzzled their fill, after which 

 I made an effort and swallowed a mouthful. It tasted like 

 laundry suds, and put me in mind of the water which thirsting 

 Arabs take from a slaughtered camel's stomach. If the 

 coyotes drink this fluid, one might consider shooting them as 

 merely putting them out of their misery. The desert ante- 

 lopes, and mule-deer, have no such trial, for they drink not 

 at all, unless it be during early summer when the Laguna 

 Salada is highest and freshest. 



From the Tres Pozos, our distant hunting ground, which 

 extended into the arroj^os of the Tinajas, looked like a green, 

 grassy slope; in reality it was covered with ironwood trees 

 (Olneya tesota), mesquite, palo verde (Cercidium torreyanum), 

 creosote, smoke-bush {Parosela spinosa), huge ocotillas, and 

 many cacti. 



After a long rest by the well, we proceeded up the slope to 

 the heart of the antelope country, and made our permanent 

 camp seven miles from water. A quail in a near-by ironwood 

 called its mournfulest all night long; at breakfast time it still 

 sat and yelped in plain view, with its pretty black tassel tipped 

 forward over its bill. 



A great portion of the western slopes of Pattie Basin (see 

 map), where we now prepared for a ten-day sojourn, might 

 well be described by the term " arboreal desert " because of the 



