Part 2 (2/2)

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE BUSINESS SECTION OF KELSO, CALIFORNIA]

”Thursday, the twenty-sixth. Put in day here in Kelso talking to Rickett, making a few repairs to wagon, tightening screws, etc. Have no grain, but put all alfalfa we could inside the horses. Doctored Kate's shoulder, neck, and foot. Wrote a few letters and postals.

Rickett, who has prospected all over this part of the country, says the best way to get here from Daggett is _via_ the Santa Fe Railroad to Amboy and then up over the mountains between Granite and Old Dad, on horseback. A light wagon could make it. It is not so very much better than the way we came. A prospector came in with two burros from twelve miles up in the mountains for mail and supplies. Rickett says he has the only store for eighty miles west, forty miles south, thirty miles north, and twenty miles east.

”He told us he had two brothers in the war and how one of them came very near shooting the other; one was on the North and the other on the South. The one under Lee was a sharpshooter and one night killed four sentries at a single post, but got so hungry he could not wait for the fifth to show himself so called out to him for something to eat. The reply came back: 'Can of lard and some corn meal,' in a voice he recognized as his brother's. So he went back and got Lee to transfer him. (You may have heard this story before, but you appreciate the significance of it more when you hear it told by one of the brothers.)

”Got all of our meals at the restaurant here at thirty-five cents per.

Turned in early, all ready for an early start. So far, since leaving San Bernardino, we have met no one on the road. One auto pa.s.sed us going into Hesperia and we met one auto going out of Victorville. Not a snake sighted, a very few small jacks, and a few very large land tortoises. During the early spring or winter one can get through here better, although, of course, the weather is not so good. Rickett said last winter a young lad came through driving a buggy and a two-year-old colt, with only a dog for company. He a.s.sumed he got through, but he never had heard.”

This extract from my diary would seem to show that the only item of news which a newspaper correspondent could have wired his home paper as happening that day (supposing there had been any newspaper correspondent), would have been about as follows:

”Kelso, May 26. We were interrupted to-day by Bill Baxter who came down from his mine over in the Providence Mountains for mail and supplies. Bill says it is mighty dry this year in the mountains.

Providence, Bill said, didn't do as much this year as usual. 'Come again, Bill, we don't mind being interrupted.'”

Chapter V

Off Again

We leave town early with a new arrangement of horses--Dixie beside Bess, and Kate walking behind. Doctor questions how long Dixie, who is so much smaller than Bess and not of the work-horse type, will be able to pull her end, but we leave that question; in fact, we haven't decided it yet. We are off for Las Vegas, Nevada. We have a road to follow among desert hills and valleys, up and down hill, but find no water except at a railroad water car or cistern. The first day we pa.s.s Cima, where we got a bale of wheat hay and water. We make about twenty-two miles, which seems more like progress, especially after using up six days to come eighty miles. Here there are more rocks in the hills and more vegetation. Forests of Joshua Palms (giant cacti) grow on the higher slopes on the north side. We never saw them growing on land sloping to the south or at low alt.i.tude.

Our first camp was among the giant cacti, which we used as. .h.i.tching posts for the horses while feeding. That night we heard a mountain lion squall, but Tuck evidently did not think he was near enough to worry about. Tuck is getting to be an ideal camp dog. He can be trusted to stay around camp and will not leave the wagon on any excuse if we are not about, so we feel perfectly safe, no matter where we are, in the belief that our tools, harness, and odds and ends (so essential to us on this sort of a trip) will not be mislaid by visitors or stolen.

The next morning we were at Leastalk, thirteen miles, by 9 A. M., and Kate was feeling so good we let her pack the saddle and Bob rode her.

Here at Leastalk we got half a sack of grain (all they had) and started up the Ivanpah Valley to Ivanpah, seven miles. We reached there at noon. How any one can reach a place that isn't, I can't say, but as I said before, we got to the place which, on the map, said ”Ivanpah,” but which there, said nothing.

On looking at the map I saw that a railroad track ran from here by various crooks and turns to Bengal on the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad. We finally discovered the track, and also a few work cars, and met the foreman and his crew of Mexicans working on the right-of-way.

[Ill.u.s.tration: JOSHUA PALM OR GIANT CACTUS]

”What are you going to do?” said I to the foreman, thinking he might be the forerunner of a building gang who were to build a town here or extend the railroad.

”I don't know,” he said.

”Don't know? Haven't you any orders?” I asked, surprised.

”Won't get any until they pull me back to-morrow. This is the end of the road, isn't it?” he asked.

I was about to remark, ”It certainly is,” when it occurred to me that I wasn't supposed to know as much about a railroad as a real railroad man like the foreman of a gang of Mexicans, so I replied cautiously, ”Well, I don't know. I thought this might be the beginning of a railroad; if this is the end of one, what was the use of building it?”

He looked at me curiously for a minute. It certainly was hot there in the sun and he had no way of knowing we had just been to water, so he said, ”You had better take a drink. You can have what you want from my tank car; and you had better fill your barrels too; no knowing when you will get any more.”

After filling our barrels we ate lunch and tried to get a shot at a coyote that had crossed the trail just below us, but we would have been cooler if we had let him go without trying. From about noon to four o'clock it is pretty hot in the sun, but we were now where we could ride,--Doc and I and Tuck in the wagon under the canvas top, and Bob on Kate. Sometimes during the middle of the day we would all ride in the wagon, and at other times would take turns riding the saddle, so as to make it easier on the team horses.

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