106 
POftEST AND STREAM. 
|Aug. s, 1905. 
On the Desert.— IL 
After the Professor’s wrestle with death for water 
at Coyote Holes, it was a week before^ Ke - got about 
much. You remember he had stripped himself in his 
aberration and the sun had blistered his .tender skin 
so badly that he could wear no clothing', so he loafed 
about camp with a piece of old tent canvas draped about 
him poncho-fashion, a hole cut in the middle for' his 
head, so that the canvas fell about him from- his neck. 
However, by the aid of herb lotions we brewed he 
peeled off beautifully and was soon all right. 
We had several pets about camp, including Pete’s 
Chuckawalla lizard “Billy” and a big gopher snake, 
both harmless. The lizard we kept for his looks and 
the snake because he kept the camp clear of rats and 
chipmunks. Billy was about the ugliest thing in the 
reptile line that I ever saw next to a Gila monster. 
He was about eighteen inches long, the color of dirty 
mud and his shape was fierce — head and feet something 
like an alligator’s and a thick, clubby tail about eight 
inches long- He belonged to Pete by right of capture. 
Pete was sinking a prospect hole on one of our loca- 
tions and was about ten feet down when Billy dis- 
covered him. With the curiosity peculiar to that par- 
ticular class of reptile, the lizard would persist in crawl- 
ing to the edge of the hole and looking down; every 
time he did, he rolled bits of gravel and dirt down on 
Pete’s head, and neck. Pete shooed him away any 
number of times, but he would always return. Life is 
scarce enough on the desert, and no true prospector 
ever kills anything for the mere sport of killing unless 
it is harmful or poisonous. At the top there was a 
little nick broken in the granite, like a trough. To 
this the lizard always returned, so Pete made a slip- 
noose in a piece of stout twine and laid it in the nick 
with the other end of the string dangling in the hole. 
In a few minutes, more dirt and gravel came rattling 
down, and without looking up, Pete gave the string a 
yank and down came the big lizard with the noose 
taut behind his forelegs. Then Pete was up against his 
old trouble of never seeing but one thing at a time. 
His idea was to catch the lizard, but he had not for- 
seen the excitement of pulling him down into the hole. 
The lizard dropped “plump” on Pete’s back, dropped 
an.d hung. Pete yelled and shucked out of his jumpers, 
then made a wild leap for the niches cut in the rock 
that he used as steps. He knew the Chuckawalla was 
perfectly harmless, but it was not pleasant to have an 
ugly 18-inch lizard galloping over him in a 5x6 hole. 
The lizard made a rush up Pete’s leg, over his back 
to the rock and out, Pete catching the end of the string 
as it was disappearing. When he came to camp that 
night he had Billy in a gunny sack that he used for 
carrying giant powder. 
We tied the lizard to a stake for a few weeks until 
he became accustomed to us, feeding him on bread, 
tender shoots and flies. We spread some wild honey 
on a piece of tin can, and Billy would lie alongside of 
it like a stick. If ever a fly lit within three inches of 
him it was curtains for the fly; that long tongue would 
snap out and Billy would swallow, wink and wait for 
the next. We never knew him to make but one mistake, 
and that was when he hit a blue waspish thing that 
looked like a hornet but wasn’t, for there are no 
hornets on the desert. Whatever it was, it hurt and 
Billy didn’t even swallow nor wink, but scuttled for. his 
den of rocks we had made and didn’t come out for two 
days. After he became “hanted” to the place, we cut 
him loose and he stayed about. We had a rough rock 
cabin of two rooms thatched with giata grass, and 
Billy made his home in the thatch. 
The gopher snake, about nve feet long, was in the 
cabin when we came, and it stayed. We named it “Ana- 
conda,” which was afterward shortened to “Anna,” 
probably unjustly so, to the snake, but we did not know. 
Billy and Anna would fight something awful, and had 
many a scrap on the dirt floor of the cabin. Anna liked 
condensed milk, Billy didn’t and seemed to be mad 
because Anna did. Billy would run over the pan and 
upset it, and when Anna tried to gather him in her (or 
his) embrace, Billy would fetch a whack with that club 
tail that would send Anna to the mat almost for the 
count; then, before Anna was up Billy would be in the 
thatch and hissing down awful things. But there — I 
had almost forgotten the Professor. 
It was his second day in camp, and he had seen 
neither Billy nor Anna. We were at supper when we 
heard a hiss, a whack, then a second or two afterward, 
a rustle in the thatch and “plump” Billy dropped on 
the center of the table. The Professor, who was sitting 
on a candle box, went over backward and began to 
crawl. 
“It’s all right. Professor; it’s only Billy. He often 
does that, misses his hold and falls,” said Pete. 
“A member of the family to whom I have not been 
introduced, eh?” said the Professor, as he pulled him- 
self up alongside the -wall. “Well, will you explain to 
him that I am very hard to get acquainted with, and 
that one must know me a long while before he can 
be familiar?” The Professor stuck to it, and would 
never call Billy by his first name but always “Mr. 
Chuckawalla.” 
The Professor saw Anna after supper. Paystreak 
and Sam were washing dishes, T wa,s out getting wood 
for breakfast; Pete was puffing at his pipe While sitting 
on a folded blanket on a box, his back against the wall 
and his hands clasped about his crossed knees. By 
holding the ace, deuce, jack and ten of trumps he had 
won immunity for the night from household cares. 
Anna had “its” head in an old tin plate licking at the 
particles of butter fat — the remains of condensed milk; 
all was a picture of domestic contentment. The Pro- 
. fessor was in the bunk room spreading his blankets, 
and after he finished, came and stood in the door. 
Ihen he saw Anna. Pete was watching him and saw 
him go white under the red and his eyes grow big and 
round. He passed his hand over his head and walked 
like a blind man to the outside door; there he turned 
and looked again; Anna was still snapping up crumbs. 
Pete put on his poker face and watched him; their 
eyes met, and the Professor beckoned with his head 
for Pete to come out. Pete sauntered to the door and 
into the night, and the Professor’s voice was hoarse 
as he whispered: “Look in there — by the edge of the 
table — and tell me if you see a snake.” Pete said the 
temptation was great, but he resisted it and said: 
“Why yes, that’s Anna, another one you have not 
met.” Then the Professor laughed just as we used 
to do when we came to the surface after the first fel- 
low in had lo-ld us that the -water was not cold. - 
I have no desire to tire you with a relation of all 
the trouble to which that Professor put us for the six 
weeks he was our guest, but we pitied his ignorance 
and bore with him. He had learned one lesson well, 
however, and that was to not go far without a supply 
of water; learned it so thoroughly that he would not go 
a mile from camp without a six-quart zinc canteen of 
water hanging to him, and he would not go over a mile 
without one of us was with him. He could not cook, 
and about the only thing he could do well was to carry 
wood and water. He did not care to be left alone in 
camp with Billy and Anna, so we used to lead him to 
the big face of granite about two miles up the canon 
and there leave him to study the Indian picture writing. 
He made copies of every mark on the granite, in- 
cluding the seams in the rock, but knew no more about 
it than he did before he saw it. He had a little book 
filled with other Indian picture writings that had been 
translated and tried to make a comparison, but it 
ended in a try, for the pictures did not agree. He 
eventually accepted old Chemihueva Joe’s translation 
that the single sawbuck. njarks meant so many pack- 
horses, or mules, and that the double sawbucks with 
long sticks meant so many mounted men with spears. 
As for the pictures, they resembled nothing ever seen 
on, under or above the earth unless it was the antedi- 
luvian monsters, the kind we used to draw on our 
slates and label: “This is a .” 
But we treated the Professor kindly, even when we 
found him with the shotgun trying to bunch some of 
our quail. There was a big covey living on the mistle- 
toe in the ironwood and palo verde on the mesa and in 
the canon, and the birds became so tame that they 
would come within a few feet of the cabin and pick 
up the rolled oats and crumbs that we scattered for 
them. Of course we were fond of quail, but when we 
first pitched camp we became interested in their fuzzy 
little children, and they came and went unharmed. We 
even had names for some of the older ones, names 
suggested by some peculiarity in appearance or action. 
We would sit at the cabin in the evening and watch 
them running here iind there and note the early or 
late arrival or absence of the “Topknot,” “Cocky” or 
“Prudy” families. And that Professor was trying to 
get a shot at a bunch of them. But he was a gentle- 
man, apologized when the situation was explained, put 
away the gun and became interested with us in watch- 
ing them. But the fact that he “intended” to shoot 
them hurt a little. 
I may, however, refer to his first experience with 
coyotes. He had some hesitancy about going to sleep 
in the bunk room; he was in doubt about the actions of 
Billy and Anna during the night. The thought that an 
18-inch lizard might drop on his bunk or that a 5-foot 
snake might coil up with him in his blankets seemed 
to disturb him, and a slight rustling in the grass thatch 
would keep him awake for hours. He had a hammock 
in his pack, and concluding that he preferred to sleep 
in the open, stretched the hammock about twenty yards 
from camp between two mesquites. That day we had 
bought a mountain sheep from an Indian. The sheep 
are protected by statute in California, and white men 
are not allowed to kill them, except in self-defense. We 
had been in bed but a short time when there came a 
chorus of coyote howls and yelps a short distance from 
the camp. Now, one coyote can howl and yelp in one 
breath and in several different places at the same time. 
He will yelp here, and before the sound dies away he 
is howling over there, so that two or three coyotes 
will sound like a pack of a dozen or more. If you get 
tired of t'neir noise all you have to do is to rise up and 
yell and they are gone like gray shadows. But the 
Professor did not know this and the opening chorus 
had not reached the first bar until we heard the patter 
of feet scratching gravel, and the Professor entered the 
cabin as if he was blown in, and asked excitedly : “What 
is that?” 
“Wolves,” said Paystreak, gruffly, in order to hide 
the laugh in his voice. The Profes.sor did not try to 
sleep in- tjie open again, an'd Pete had to go out and 
fetch in his blankets, 
We were beginning to wish for an opportunity to bid 
the Professor Godspeed and a safe journey home when 
came the incident of the mountain lion that hastened his 
departure. As a rule there are no mountain lions on the 
desert; prey is too scarce for them in that arid region, 
and tliey are never seen there unless in crossing from 
the Colorado River to the mountains on the coast. 
The bottoms of the Colorado River are wide and 
covered with jungle, trees and brush. There are a few 
ranches along the river from which cattle stray away 
and once in that jungle they are practically lost to the 
o'vners. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of wild 
cattle now roaming up and down the river bottom and 
occasionally, after the winter and summer rains, some 
of them will range out on the desert for thirty, forty 
or fifty miles grazing on the fresh herbage; it fails in 
a few weeks under the hot sun-, and they range back to 
the river by way of Black Tanks, Horse Tanks or 
Chuckawalla. These cattle bear no man’s brand, :ind 
are therefore legitimate prey to a prospector’s rifle if 
he feels in the need of fresh meat or desires to re- 
plenish his supply of jerky. Occasionally some of the 
lions that are along the bottoms, will follow the cattle 
to the desert and return with them. Among pros- 
pectors a young, unbranded steer is known as a Chuck- 
awalla elk. 
The August rains were over, and it was about the 
first week in September. The Professor had been put- 
ting in the day at the cliff dreaming over the Indian 
picture writing and was returning to camp. He was 
within about a mile of the cabin when he saw a huge, 
long, yellow body gliding through the bushes on his 
left. It was a mountain lion following him. I know 
just how he felt when he saw it, for I have had them 
follow me, and I know how I felt but I can’t describe 
it. You want to run, but you know that the lion could 
overtake you in a half a dozen bounds. I cannot ac- 
count for this peculiarity of the animal unless it is 
curiosity or a desire for companionship. Passing along 
a deserted street late at night, did you ever notice that 
you were being followed by a house cat, slinking along 
in the shadow, darting across a ray of fight, stopping 
when you stop and going on as you do? I have been 
followed exactly the same way by a mountain lion for 
• two miles, when my only weapon was a prospector’s 
small pole pick. In the evening shadows of the canon 
it is not conducive to hilarity for an unarmed man to 
see the big, sinewy beast slipping through the bushes 
first on one side and then on the other, sometimes 
ahead but generally a little distance behind, but as- 
suredly keeping him company. He does not want to 
whistle nor sing nor make any show of bravado, he 
wants to attract as little attention as possible. That 
was the Professor’s state of mind when Paystreak and 
Sam saw him about half a mile from camp. They were 
coming down a side caiion from a prospect hole up near 
the head, and saw the Professor coming down the 
main canon; his actions were such that they stopped and 
watched him. He was stepping quick, high and softly, 
looking back and acting as though he wanted to run 
but was afraid to; in fact, as Sam said, “Like he was 
plumb skeered.” 
The Professor went on for fifty yards' as though he 
was treading on eggs, then he turned a bend from 
where he could see, a half a mile ahead, the smoke 
curling from the cabin chimney as Pete and I sat about 
getting supper. At that welcome sight the Professor 
threw his discretion, canteen and other deadweight to 
the winds and started down the canon hotfoot. He- had 
told us of his sprinting days at college — tales we had 
accepted with reservations; but as Paystreak and Sam 
watched him hiking down the bed of the canon they de- 
cided that he had been telling the truth and that he had 
not forgotten his stride. 
“Do you leckon he has discovered the translation 
of that picture writing and scared himself?” asked P.iy- 
streak. Before Sam could hazard a reply a big moun- 
tain lion trotted cut of the bushes into the canon, and 
wiih a plain lock of surprise and astonishment squatted 
on his haunches and gazed after the rapidly dis-tppear- 
ing Professor. It was a fair mark broadside on at not 
over 100 yards, and at the crack of Sam’s rifle the lion 
went into the air and forward and falling on the sanci, 
gave a few convulsive kicks and was still. He would 
not have hurt the Professor; a mountain lion is almost 
as cowardly as a coyote and will fight only when 
cornered, rayenously hungry or in defense of cubs. 
This was explained to the Professor, who replied that 
he did not have time to ask the lion its intentions. We 
skinned the. brute and salted the pelt for the Professor 
to take in with him for a rug, and that pelt was the 
cause of his cutting short his stay by several days. 
His burros were turned loose with ours and ranged 
down on a mesa that was covered with young ironwood 
and giata grass, the best of forage for jacks. The band 
would come to the spring for water and if the burros 
saw us around camp they would return to the range 
without coming to the cabin. If no one was around 
they would loaf about the cabin until some one ap- 
peared to show that we were still there. We were all 
out in the hills one day, and the Professor was the first 
one in, returning about 5 o’clock. The burros were 
browsing about camp and the Professor thought he 
would have some fun, so he draped the green pelt of 
the lion, about hiin, gqt down on all, fdurs and -with 
a roar went scuttling toward the b’urVo's. Nbw if tKbfe 
