In Arizona 
IX — Journeying into the Mexican Desert Country 
with Sonora and the Old-Timer 
By J. W. SCHULTZ 
Aithor of "My'Life as an Indian ” "Life Among the Blackfeet." “Floating Down the Missouri," etc. 
I AM writing this in the shade of a big 
boulder on the west slope of the most 
barren mountain range I was ever in. It 
lies south of the Mexican line some thirty or 
forty miles and is perhaps as far from the Gulf 
of California. All around the low volcanic 
range we are camped in is a desert, even more 
barren than it. As far as one can see it is one 
vast bed of shifting sand, broken only by a few 
outcroppings of dingy black lava. But barren 
as is the country, tremendously hot as are the 
days, I am"glad to be here. I have seen things 
worth while on the trip and expect to see more. 
But to go back to the beginning: 
Roll Elder returned to his bee ranch from Agun 
Caliente much better of his rheumatism, but 
still needing a crutch to assist his long trembly 
legs. "It's sure dope,” he said of the treat¬ 
ment there. " They make you all get into the 
hot sulphur-like mud for about an hour every 
day an' there you just lie an’ waller like a lot 
of hogs. Time you ain’t doin' that, you re 
settin' round guzzlin’ the agua caliente* an 
you’re always full to the neck with it. I reckon 
they make you do that so you won t eat so 
much of their grub. 
"But say! there was a prospectin’ outfit 
slipped through there the other day, headin 
south, an’ who do you think was with emr 
Jim Termain—him as is always prospectin 
down there in the Gulf country, you know. 
‘What’s doin'?’ 1 asked him. ‘Well, I’ll tell 
you, Roll.’ said he, ‘but don’t you let on to any 
man here about it, will you? 
‘“No, I won't,' I told him, an’ then said he: 
‘You know I been prospectin’ a long time down 
in the Gulf country; well, I have struck it at last, 
an’ it's placer. Only two foot to bedrock an 
good, coarse gold.’ ” 
Here Elder stopped and began fondling his 
dog. Sonora watched him impatiently: "Well 
—go on! go on, an’ let's hear the rest!” he ex¬ 
claimed, “confound your old dog!” 
"Well, there isn’t much more to tell,” Elder 
drawled. “ ’cause Jim didn’t draw out worth a 
cent. About all I could get was that the find 
is in a low mountain range east of the gulf; 
that it’s dry diggin’s, coarse gold, an’ he don’t 
*Hot mineral water. 
know how much there is of it—maybe not more 
than four or five claims. There were two men 
with him that he had got to put up for the out¬ 
fit, an’ they had a new-fangled dry washer that 
Jim said was a sure gold saver.” 
"Uh, huh! that settles it!” Sonora exclaimed; 
“when Jim Termain says that he has struck it. 
you can gamble that he sure has. Me for the 
saddle; I’m going to trail him up. If anybody 
here wants to go, too, there’s no string on 
him.” 
“I’m with you, Sonora, I'll sure be right be¬ 
hind you,” Old-Timer drawled; and on the spur 
of the moment I said that I would go with 
them. 
So we started, leaving Roll Elder not at all 
lonely in the company of his dog and cats, 
squawking hens and droning bees. Starting 
from the ranch early in the morning, we rode 
south to Casa Grande station on the railway, 
where we outfitted for the trip, loading on our 
pack burro5 all that they could carry. At that 
point we turned our backs on the last vestiges 
of civilization and struck off southwest into 
the great desert. After two days’ travel - we 
reached the base of Table Mountain, a very 
high, lone flat-topped desert peak, and found 
a large camp of Papago Indians by the side 
of its only spring. Perforce, we camped among 
them. 
These Indians, a branch of the Pima tribe, 
have no reservation, nor do they want one, 
preferring to roam the desert as their fore¬ 
fathers have always done. Consequently they 
have less the appearance of pen-fed pigs than 
have the Pimas, who seldom walk out of sight 
of their adobe cabins, and gorge themselves 
with beans and various preparations of wheat 
and corn. Indeed, many of the Papagos are 
fairly slender and good looking. 1 hey have 
made a few intermarriages with the Mexicans, 
with white men none. They have no use nor 
liking for the latter. The men and women 
both wear their hair cut low across the fore¬ 
head and loosely combed down the back. Their 
dress is mostly in the cheapest American style 
—thin overalls and shirts for the men, red, 
green and black calico gowns for the women. 
A few of them wear shoes, and the many go 
barefoot or have rawhide sandals held In place 
by a loop over the big toe and a thong over 
the instep. This camp was fairly well off for 
burros and rather small horses, and some 
families owned a few head of very scrubby, 
long-horned cattle. 
As we unpacked and cooked our evening 
meal, the Indians paid no attention to us and 
went about their own duties and pleasures just 
as if we had not been there. After supper I 
strolled around among their peculiar little kis. 
or huts, which are semi-spherical in shape and 
very small. They are simply a frame of oka- 
tilla cactus, thatched with yucca leaves—save 
for a small smoke hole at the top. The door¬ 
ways are very narrow and so low that even a 
dog has to crouch when passing through them. 
The ventilation in them is bad, and when there 
is a fire the occupants lie with noses close to 
the ground, and with watering eyes, fairly gasp 
for breath. Scattered here and there were 
communal circular brush windbreaks, where the 
women cooked, washed, tended their children 
and gossiped. In all of them the inevitable 
ollas of beans and chili were on the fire. Both 
these and the Pimas have a perfect mania for 
wearing clean clothes and are forever scrubbing 
their apparel with yucca juice* and water, or 
with soap when they can get it. As I passed 
among the kis (Italian pronunciation of the i), 
the men mostly crawled into them ahead of me 
and the women turned their backs as I passed; 
only the children stared at me. I saw little that 
was interesting and soon returned to our camp. 
As we sat on our bedding smoking and 
watching the sun go down, a gray-haired old 
fellow shuffled over to us from the kis, andi 
extending his hand to our leader, greeted him 
with a “Buenas dias, Senor Sonora.” The latter 
shook the black, skinny paw, looked him over, 
carefully, and replied: "Buenas dias. Why, if it, 
ain’t old Papago Pete! I had him working for 
me on a prospect up in the Pinals years ago 
Well, how goes it, Pete?” 
To my surprise he could talk English: "Bad; 
bad,” he replied, "legs no good; ache all time. 
They talked about indifferent matters for '<■ 
time, and then the old man asked where w< 
were going: "Oh, nowhere in partic lar, { 
Sonora told him, “we are just camping around.’. 
“Jus’ campin’ ’roun’!” Pete cackled, am, 
leered knowingly. “No, Sonora, you no cam;, 
’roun’; you no manana man. This is .what yot 
look for,” and pulling a small greasy sack fron 
his pocket, he tossed it into Sonora’s lap. 
The latter “hefted” it and pronounced it 
weight to be about four ounces. Then h. 
opened the sack and we all had a look at th 
contents: fairly coarse, Roman-colored gol 
dust. “Where did you get it?” he asked; “i| 
there any left where it came from?” 
*Front the root of the yucca a fair substitute for soa 
is obtained. j 
