Sept. 23, 1905,] 
The Colorado Desert. 
{Concluded from page 227.) 
Game animals are ffew on the desert; Rocky Moun- 
tain sheep are the most numerous, and, _ with a few 
deer around isolated water holes, comprises the list, 
with the exception of the ever-present and numerous 
jack-rabbits. Coyotes, big, rangy brutes, are plentiful; 
there are no bears nor mountain lions, save now and 
then one of the latter may be met with crossing from 
the breaks of the river to the Sierra Madres, 100 or 
more miles to the west. There are a few bobcats and 
any amount of little reddish-gray foxes, the worst little 
camp thieves on the desert. Among the smaller four- 
footed pests are the kangaroo rats and the chipmunks, 
nuisances around camp, the kangaroo rats are min- 
iature kangaroos in shape, with the exception of their 
long, rat tails and that they do‘ not pouch their young. 
They will steal and carry, or drag, away anything that 
attracts their attention whether edible or not. Knives 
and forks, buttons, spools of threat, anything; one of 
the boys lost his old silver watch one night and the 
next day, after digging out a number of nests among 
some rocks, we found the watch uninjured. Back of 
the old, tumbled down and abandoned stage station at 
Canon Springs we dug into one of their nests one day 
and the inventory of what we found there_ would fill 
nearly a column. Canon Springs was an eating station 
on the old Southern Overland route fifty years ago. 
Sometime, maybe, I will tell you more about those rats 
and their tricks. _ , 
I have seen many quail on the desert, generally with- 
in a mile or two of water, but I have found them ten 
or fifteen miles from the nearest water. They live in 
localities where the stunted trees are covered thickly 
with mistletoe and find sustenance in the berries. The 
rats and chipmunks I have seen many miles from 
water; they get their liquid nourishment from the sap 
of plants and roots. 
Rocky Mountain sheep have fled from the long-range 
repeating rifles of civilization to the fastnesses of the 
desert mountains, where they find good forage in the 
little meadows, moss, chemisal and the unnumbered thou- 
sands of acres of bunch, or giata grass. I have seen 
thirty of these timid animals in one band. In the 
winter time they will go two days without water, but 
in the summer time they will go to water at least once 
a day. They are protected b}^ statute, but the Indians 
kill them and will trade the meat for sugar, flour and 
coffee. The meat is darker than that of venison, but, 
in my opinion, the flesh of a fat, two-year-old buck is 
sweeter and better than that of ai deer. I have always 
regretted that I could not bring out the head and horns 
of a big buck that a Coahuila Indian killed not far from 
our camp. The horns were almost a complete circle 
and measured just four feet in length on the outer 
circumference; around the butt each horn measured 
24^ inches. Such a pair of horns would weigh about 
fifty pounds, and it seems strange that the animal could 
carry them and run with such incredible swiftness until 
•one sees a big buck throw back his head until the horns 
rest on his shoulders, and then the mystery is solved. 
Two Indians came to our camp at Canon Springs one 
day and tried to beg, borrow or buy some .44 caliber 
cartridges, they had only nine; but we would not let 
them have one. They left, and the second day after 
they returned with the meat of seven sheep and one 
cartridge; they had only missed one shot, and an 
Indian is not worth a bean as a shot at over 100 yards 
or a point blank range. Their rifles were old, black 
powder carbines. 
The old fable about mountain sheep jumping from 
precipices and alighting on their horns is all nonsense; 
a story good enough to entertain and interest a tender- 
foot around the camp-fire, but as a fact it may go into 
limbo along with Alex Badlam’s sidehill bear that had 
legs on the down-hill side longer than the others. Alex 
never would tell how it worked when the bear turned 
and went the other way, he always worked that bear 
around a hill in the same direction. I have experi- 
mented with mountain sheep, have chased them over 
steep places that I could not descend unless I jumped 
over, and have come upon them suddenly where their 
only escape was over a seemingly precipitous cliff. 
Their sight is remarkably keen, and they are more 
surefooted than the proverbial goat; they look where 
they are going to leap and go bounding from one point 
to another like a ball. If it is absolutely straight up 
and down and too smooth for even the slightest foot- 
hold they will not chance it, but will stampede past you 
to a safer route. Going from you they resemble no 
animal so much as an antelope, only they are, heavier. 
Sheep suggests wool, but mountain sheep have no 
wool, except in the winter time, when they take on a 
fine fuzzy coat close to the skin, but are covered with 
a coat of hair like that of a deer or antelope, and 
there is not the slightest hint of a mutton taste about 
the meat. 
The Cocopah Desert lies just south of the Mexican 
line, and is really a continuation of the Desert of the 
Colorado; the old stage route between Yuma and San 
Diego tipped the northern end of it. It lies between the 
Sierra Madre Mountains on the west and the Cocopah 
range on the east, from which it takes its name, and 
extends on down the eastern shore of the Peninsula 
of California as far as one cares to go. From a spring 
in a canon southeast of the little trading post of El 
Campo one must take water for the trip across the 
Cocopah. From that spring one may see the saddle 
in the mountains that mark the Canada de los 
Muertos, Canon of the Dead, in which is the next water. 
It is only sixty miles, and with the landmarks in plain 
view all the way some might think that if necessary 
one might make it without water. Yes? Other white 
men have thought the same, and out on that trap-door 
of hell are little mounds of stones or piles of bleaching 
bones, mute witnesses to their errors of judgment. 
The Cocopah range of mountains, bare and treeless, is 
inhabited by the Cocopah tribe of Indians, the majority 
of which still cling to their bows and arrows as weapons 
of war or the chase. This is presumably due 
to the fact that they have never had enough 
money or goods to trade for a rifle. Now and 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
then one may be seen ' with an^ antiquated ntus- 
ket or an old model magazine rifle. Do not ask 
where they got them, they would lie to you, but more 
than one man has gone Into the Cocopah range and 
never came out. My partner, Crawford, and a com- 
panion, J. C. Brown, lay behind the rocks with their 
rifles all one afternoon and shot against volleys of ar- 
rows until an aged chief, whom they had succored a 
week or so before, came on the scene and put an 
end to the fight by telling his tribesmen how the 
white men had saved his life. The Indians did not 
especially want the lives of Crawford and Brown, but 
they did want their provisions and guns — which they 
did not get. 
At the foot of the western slope of the Cocopah 
range is a long, narrow laguna salado or salt lake. It 
is thirty or more miles from the Gulf of California, and 
a range of high mountains intervenes, yet that lake is 
said to have a tidal ebb and flow at the same time with 
the tides in the gulf. This would seem, to indicate that 
there is a subterranean channel connecting the two. 
The shores of the lake are fringed with marine vegeta- 
tion, and the green-bordered, sparkling water has 
raised more than one hoarse cry of joy froin parched 
throats — but, oh, the horror of it when the thirsty ones 
tried to drink. 
Almost anything might be under the surface down 
there. On the mesa between, the eastern slope of the 
mountains -and the Gulf are the mud volcanoes, bub- 
bling up like nothing so much as great pots of mush 
with the accompanying “pooh-h” of steam and gas. 
For several miles around the surface of the earth_ is 
quivering and the footing is insecure; it is a ticklish 
place to travel, for a false step might drop one into an 
old cauldron. Never try to get your burros to go out 
to them, the long-eared, patient beasts have an in- 
stinctive horror of the place, and are gone the moment 
they get a whiff of the sulphurous gases. 
The backbone of the peninsula of Lower California, 
a high mountain range about 700 miles long, is yet a 
paradise for sportsmen. There are no bears there, not 
quite enough water for them, for they like a wallow; 
but there are deer of nearly every species, especially the 
big mule deer, and mountain lion too numerous for 
comfort. There are also mountain sheep that are not 
protected by statute, and quail — well, they are about 
the most common bird down there. I may tell you 
more about that country some time — how to get in 
there, what to take, and where to go; but mind you it 
is no holiday excursion. The mountains are not the 
barren mountains of the desert, but are a continuation 
of the Sierra Madres, and are in many places heavily 
timbered with forests which the ax of the woodsman has 
not yet devastated. But I started to write about the 
Desert of the Colorado, and here we are away down in 
the San: Pedro Martir range. 
That the sand of the Desert of the Colorado is very 
fertile has been demonstrated by the irrigation system 
down near the Mexican line, where water has been 
brought from the Colorado River by a system of canals. 
The Indians first proved the fruitfulness of the land. 
During the spring and summer rise of the Colorado the 
flood waters would break through the sandy bank south 
of Yuma, and in past ages there had been cut a tor- 
tuous channel a hundred miles or more in length to the 
Salton Basin, which it would frequently flood to a 
depth of two- or three feet. Although the basin is three 
hundred or more feet below the level of the river, yet 
the thirsty sands and the rapid evaporation drank so 
much of the escaping flood water that only a compara- 
tively small amount of it found its way to the basin. 
The long channel, wide and shallow, came to be known 
as New River, and as the flood in the main river sub- 
sided, so did the overflow in the channel. Desert In- 
dians would follow the receding waters and plant beans 
and melons and corn, and in six weeks their crops 
would mature. This first gave the white men the idea 
of irrigating the desert and the new city of Imperial 
is the result. This is south of the railroad in San 
Diego county. North of the railroad begins the desert 
mineral country, except in the extreme southeastern 
part of the county, where there are some placer and 
gravel mines. The desert parts of Riverside and San 
Bernardino counties are said to be at too great an 
elevation to irrigate from the Colorado River, and 
hence will remain as always, only a mineral country. 
Gold, silver and coper are the minerals for which 
prospectors now brave the dangers and hardships of the 
desert, principally gold and copper. As yet but little 
silver has been found except that in the gold. There 
are other valuable substances out there, of which but 
little account has yet been taken— gypsum, mica, mar- 
ble, cinnabar, lead, kaolin, iron, antimony, and, in fact, 
I do not know all of them — gold was the object of my 
search. The country is all unsurveyed Government 
land, and oh, what a relief it is to travel a country 150 
miles wide and 1,000 miles long with never a sign 
“Private grounds, keep out,” to stare one in the. face. 
No signs of any kind, in fact, and no roads for that 
matter; one makes his own roads, and there is a certain 
amount of satisfaction in feeling reasonably certain that 
one has been in certain, canons or on certain mountains 
where never a white man had been before. 
It is this that attracts some men to the desert; and, 
while its vastness and .solitude are awe-inspiring at 
first, one soon grows accustomed to it, and it becomes 
a magnet, to which he will return sooner or later, if 
only on a visit. The absolute freedom and priniitive- 
ness of it all is the lodestone; no papers, no mail, ex- 
cept for weeks; no whistles, no trains, no rush, no 
women, no worry — nothing but camp when one gets 
tired, without a permit from any man, and stay in camp 
until he gets rested. Of course, it is not a pleasure resort, 
with beautiful groves and trout streams; one must 
rough it in the literal sense of roughing it— sleep on 
the ground and live on beans and bacon as a certainty, 
but if fresh meat comes your way accept it as a special 
act of a munificent and watchful Providence, and take 
courage. 
In touring that country, if one has the money, the 
most comfortable method is to get a light, strong, 
wide-tired wagon, drawn by two stout Spanish mules 
that have been broken to pack. One may drive all 
over the mesas, tablelands and valleys, leave the wagon 
B47 
at some water hole, and pack the mules and climb the 
mountains on side trips. However, it is well to pack 
two or more burros and take them along; they will, if 
good burros, follow like a dog. A burro will pack 
125 pounds twenty or twenty-five miles in a day without 
distressing him, although we have packed 150 pounds 
on an animal and crowded them thirty miles in a day, 
but the case was one of necessity. The weight of the 
pack depends, of course, on the size of the burro; 
some of the larger ones can pack 175 to 200 pounds 
with com.parative ease. I say Spanish mules or burros 
because they are acclimated, dO' not have to be shod 
unless one wishes, and can hunt their own forage, 
though it is well to take along a sack or two of barley. 
Prospectors, as a rule, do not bother with wagons. 
Two men will pack from three to five burros with sev- 
eral months’ supply of bacon, flour, beans, coffee and 
dried fruit, and say good-by to civilization. If they 
are well outfitted they may each have a saddle burro, 
but that is considered a luxury, although $10 is an 
average price for a desert burro. 
Did you ever take into consideration that all the gold 
in the world comes out of the ground? Almost since 
time began, men^ have been trying to make the metal, 
but have failed; its manufacture is God’s secret. That 
thing that moves all the wheels in the world and gives 
all nations the sinews of war, is searched out by a 
comparatively small number of men, who cut loose from 
civilization and comfort, and drift out into nature’s 
wilderness, where they face danger and hardship in 
every form in order that the wheels of the world may 
moye. Some time I may tell you how they do it, for I 
know. E. E. Bowles. 
Recollections Aroused by Wood 
Smoke. 
Convalescing from a three months’ siege . of illness 
(right through the trout and bass season and into the 
days that are open for prairie chickens and ducks), some 
smoke from a bonfire of birch flooring cuttings, refuse 
from a new house under construction across the street, 
floated into my bedroom window. That smell of birch 
■w'ood smoke at once aroused dormant memories of over 
thirty years ago. All the incidents connected with my 
first trout fishing experience crowded in upon me. I 
went through once more the important and absorbing 
ordeal_ of the selection and purchase of my outfit. I made 
no mistakes in my selection of rod and other impedi- 
menta, for at my side, one who knew advised and 
counselled. And everything being ready, we made 
tracks for the good old State of Maine, and in the 
afternoon of the following day, when the Boston and 
Maine dropped us at a spur, we waited but a few 
moments before a busy little engine with a single car 
backed _up to the platform. The engine engrossed our 
attentio'n, because of the cavernous smoke pipe that 
belched out sparks and volumes 'of smoke. How fresh 
and savory that wood smoke smelt in the cool Sep- 
tember air! And as the train jogged along to its des- 
tination, we smelled the hard-wood smoke and accepted 
it as a not unpleasant concomitant of our journey. 
And the next day, when we trudged into> camp at 
the Carey Ponds about noon, the breeze blowing our 
way, once more the odor of hard-wood smoke was 
wafted toward us, but this time it was not the plain, 
simple smoky article, but with it came blended the odor 
of frying trout and baking beans, for it was dinner hour 
in camp. 
The beans, trout, biscuit and coffee disposed of, we 
joint and string up our rods and cross over to the trail 
that leads us to the second pond. How clearly every- 
thing comes back to me! We enter the boat moored 
to the shore and row within .casting distance of a great 
bed of lilypads. The way the trout assailed our flies 
led us to- believe that there must be millions of them 
sheltered under those green shadowing leaves. We 
saw at once that only those trout badly hooked should 
be kept and began to throw the others back. A trout 
on each one of the three flies seemed to be the rule. 
A little of this fishing went a ,long ways, and we floated 
along the surface of the lake) trying a sheltering rock 
or sunken log, and here and there picking up a stray 
trout. 
For me it was my first trout, and to be introduced to 
the spotted individuals under such pleasant circum- 
stances was something tp' be remembered. 
And all this because a puff of hard-wood smoke 
floated into my bedroom window. 
Charles Cristadoro. 
More Camp Remedies. 
I WANT to “butt in” with my remedy for cuts, bruises, 
scratches and other injuries incident to boating, hunt- 
ing, camping,, and other outdoor doings. It is a small 
box of boric acid, a roll of absorbent cotton, and an- 
other of antiseptic bandage. Then I don’t need to wait 
to tear up a shirt, handkerchief, or anything else when 
I get hurt. These I always take with me, even when 
on a railway journey. With the numerous railway ac- 
cidents so frequently occurring, a fellow never knows 
when he may get hurt. 
Boric acid is a powder, a cleaner, germ killer, and 
cooling to a wound. When I get cut, I immediately 
fill the wound with the powder, bind it with the band- 
age, and leave it without further attention. If the cut 
was deep, I would cram it full of the powder, but not 
sew it up. I want a deep cut left open to heal from 
the bottom outward. Should there be any pus form 
down there, I would want to cleanse it. For this 
purpose I carry alsO’ a small bottle of dioxogen, and 
a small glass dropper. A drop of the liquid will de- 
stroy the pus, or any infections. _ But for surface cuts, 
one application of the boric acid, properly bandaged, 
is enough. 
I cut myself with a sharp knife across a knuckle 
joint on my left hand, where there is a vein. It bled 
like a stuck pig. I put a thick gob of the powder on 
it, a piece, of absorbent cotton: over it, and wrapped 
with bandage. In four days the skin had healed with- 
out a scar. If I should run a rusty nail into my flesh. 
