"Aye, I mind the time when there was over 40,000 people in Peach Springs. They'd all come in a heluva sweat lookin' for gold, and what's more, they found it. Then the gold begun to give out until in the end there warn't none at all, an' when the gold went the people went with it. I'm the only one as didn't go and I guess I'm not much concerned about it neither. Provisions and gas and oil are better'n grubbin' after gold all yer life."
"Provisions?" I queried. "Got any pineapple chunks?"
"Sure thing. Got everything."
Overcome with emotion, I filled my pockets with tinned fruit and biscuits.
That night my camp fire burned in a glorious spot sheltered by high cliffs. Fuel was scarce, there were just a few dried-up bushes to burn, but it was splendid, camping there with the beautiful clear sky above, the stars shining as I had never known them shine before.
On again we went at dawn. This time it was to leave behind the cedar forests and the towering canyons. We were getting near the fringe of the great arid desert that stretches for nearly 300 miles to the heart of California. Gradually the ground became flat, almost as flat as the proverbial pancake. On it grew no vegetation at all, save the scanty sage-brush that can flourish where all other things die. Miles away, but clear enough to be only a few hundred yards, rose ranges of saw-toothed, evil-looking mountains, as barren as barrenness could be. Ahead lies the trail stretching beyond the traveller's vision to the horizon. On the left runs a fence. Beyond the fence is the Santa Fé Railway. The telegraph poles and the distant mountains are the only objects that break the interminable flatness. The sky is cloudless and the heat of the sun intense. At every five or ten miles a stop is made to drink water from the bag on the handlebar. One has a glorious thirst in these parts.
Mile after mile goes by, and hour after hour. The sun grows higher in the heavens, its rays pour down upon my back with unrelenting fury. When shall we get to anywhere? The inner man grows weary of fasting in this infernal heat. A massive rock, lying all alone in the vast plain on the right, asks: "Why will ye not repent?" Oh, the irony of it! The man who painted that rock was a fanatic, but he knew what he was about.
Kingman at last! Kingman meant breakfast. Breakfast meant water melons and coffee and pies and other good—nay, beautiful—things. Kingman meant drinks and ices and sundries to one's heart's content, and one's pocket's contents.
On again I pursue my way, feeling like a new man. Next stop Yucca, thirty miles. Gee! the sun is hot. Nearly eleven. My stars, what will it be like at one? Everything is sand now—underneath, around, everywhere. The wheels tear it up in clouds as they skim through. Sometimes they slip sideways in it and flounder about, trying to grip on to something firm. Sometimes we slither over altogether but the sand is soft and spills do not disturb one much. But the sun—I wish it would stop working a bit!
Vegetation appears once again, but of a very strange kind. It is a vegetation that is different from any we know in Europe. It is at the same time grotesque, mysterious, ridiculous, wonderful and luxurious. It is desert vegetation. You have always thought of deserts as devoid of every sign of vegetation? It is not so in the great deserts of America. Life abounds but, as if in recompense for the privilege of living, it has to take strange forms. Yet, if they are strange, it is only in comparison with the vegetation to which in temperate climes we are accustomed. The unnumbered varieties of cactus plants and trees are in reality beautiful and strange beyond description. They are always green, always fresh and always beautiful. It is a kind of "Futurist" beauty that adorns them. The cactus trees, for instance, have their leafless branches projecting almost at right angles to the trunk, and they in turn branch out in a similar manner, presenting a grotesque appearance. The tall and beautiful Ocatilla—one can almost refer to it as a desert "shrub"—springs directly from the ground like several long waving feelers bunched together below and spread apart above. The prickly-pear, with its needle-covered fleshy leaves, each one joined on to another without stem or stalk, presents a most weird aspect. Even the modest and unassuming sage-brush, the poor down-trodden "John Citizen" of every desert, seems to have been arranged on the barren plain in regular rectangles and rows, spaced at mathematical distances apart.