FOREST AND STREAM. 
409 
March 18, iyn.] 
English. Had we been about to hunt in any 
other country, 1 would have tried it alone, but 
when I thought of the chances of rattlesnake 
bite without help at hand—and considered also 
that if one got lost he would probably die from 
lack of water, I was thankful for Eleno. Be¬ 
sides that, in sheep hunting there is always a 
chance for a nasty fall and a broken bone, so 
that a companion may be more than welcome. 
From Little's Ranch we traveled for three 
miles along a large irrigating ditch, and then, 
after watering all our horses, struck straight 
across the absolutely bare desert toward a pass 
in the mountains, twelve miles away. We ex¬ 
pected to reach the foot of the pass that night, 
and there to make a dry camp. We had about 
a dozen canteens filled with water, so that there 
was plenty for the party, while the horses and 
burros were obliged to get along without drink- 
supper in the dark, and on this first night he 
objected violently, though without effect, as 
there was no other alternative. 
The night was warm and clear, we were up at 
the first signs of light in the morning, and by 
seven o’clock had breakfast, packed the animals 
and started over the pass. After an hour's 
travel, we came to the southern slope and could 
look off over the valley where we were to 
journey for the next few' days. In front of us 
was a lake extending southeast for sixty-five 
miles, connecting with the Gulf of California. 
It is five to ten miles wdde and is known as the 
Laguna Salada. Strange to say, this great body 
of water has not been marked on any map of 
Lower California that I have seen. 
We were on the north side of the lake, just 
crossing through a pass in the Cocopah Moun¬ 
tains. Captain Funcke pointed out our route to 
Their system seemed to be to run till they got 
behind a bush and then drop and run again. 
At last, after considerable labor, J. G. M. and 
I each killed two birds running, and I finally 
had the luck to start one and kill him on the 
wing. 
On the way back I jumped and shot a cotton¬ 
tail rabbit. I had not expected to get a cotton¬ 
tail in this country, but my performance w r as 
eclipsed almost immediately by J. G. M., who 
shot at a flock of ducks that w'ere swinging 
over the Laguna, at what I firmly believe to be 
one hundred yards away. I thought that he was 
mad to shoot at them at all with No. 8 quail 
shot and was very much surprised to see the 
leader of the flock crumple up and fall stone 
dead on the beach. When we picked it up, we 
found that a single shot had gone through the 
back of the head. We then returned to the 
CAMP AT LAS PALMITAS. 
ing till morning. The Captain told us that be¬ 
yond the pass was a lagoon of brackish water, 
which would do for the horses, though it was 
not suitable for us. 
By the time we had crossed the elesert and 
arrived at the foot of the mountain, darkness 
had settled down, and we made our first camp 
in Lower California. There was none of the 
formality which marks a camp in the North. 
We simply took the packs off the animals, set 
up some folding cots, put the blankets on them 
and started fire for supper. At first I had 
looked rather scornfully at the cots, but when 
I saw that we had camped in an arroyo full of 
sharp broken stones, without a clear space on 
which a person might make a bed, I was very 
thankful to be able to set up a cot, which would 
keep me off the ground. 
Louis Jackson, the negro cook, was a new ac¬ 
quisition to Captain Funcke’s outfit. The cook 
that he usually employed was already in the 
mountains with two hunters, who w'ere just 
starting in, and had picked up Louis to take 
care of us until we should meet the other out¬ 
fit. He proved to be an excellent cook, but 
bitterly opposed to making camp and getting 
us. We were to go around the northern end of the 
lake and then travel 65 miles along the further 
side. Across the end of the Laguna between 
the lake and the mountains, we could see a bare 
strip of desert along which our trail lay, and 
at the further end of the lake, a blue haze 
marked the Sierra de Tanaka, where we ex¬ 
pected to camp and hunt. The view was an 
exceedingly beautiful one, and in the cool of the 
morning it looked like an ideal journey. 
We at once pushed down the pass to the end 
of the Laguna, where the horses drank greedily, 
as they had not tasted water since the previous 
afternoon. We tried the water of the Laguna 
at this point, and it was slightly brackish, 
though not so salt that it would have been im¬ 
possible to drink it. 
In the desert of Lower California, all life 
of every kind seems to gather near the water. 
We had hardly watered the animals when we 
discovered a flock of quail. I got out my gun 
and started after them, with the intention of 
doing some wing shooting. Fifteen minutes’ 
trial gave me enough of that. The way those 
quail ran was a revelation. I never succeeded 
in getting, them up where I could see them. 
AN OCAT1LLA. 
pack train with our mixed bag. and I saw a 
large hawk sitting on a dead bush a couple of 
hundred yards out in the Laguna. Taking my 
heavy rifle, I went out to the edge of the water, 
and sitting down, took a very careful aim and 
shot at the hawk. He rose at the report, while 
one of his large wing feathers floated off in the 
air. While I wns watching him to see whether 
he would settle again, I heard a great commo¬ 
tion among the horses behind me, and turn¬ 
ing, saw the horses shying and plunging at 
something in the sand and Eleno gesticulating 
to J. G. M. and pointing. I felt sure that it 
must be a snake but could not see why J. G. 
M. did not get off his horse and shoot it. How¬ 
ever, as nobody else seemed to take any interest 
in the subject, I began running towa.'d the 
horses, and when I got closer, saw an enormous 
rattlesnake crawling across the sand toward a 
thicket of brush. I fired both barrels at him 
just as he went into the bush, but it was im¬ 
possible to say what happened in the thicket 
and nobody cared to go in and investigate. 
J. G. M. had not seen the snake, he having been 
misled by Eleno’s over-eloquent Spanish and ges¬ 
tures into looking everywhere but the right place. 
