Next morning I paid my last visit to the old Sultani, rewarding him as I had promised and solemnly agreeing to come back and live with him in his country. The porters were joyful, as is always the case when they are headed for Mombasa. Each thought of the joyous time he would have spending his earnings, and they sang in unison as they swung along the trail—careless, happy children. I, too, was in the best of spirits, for my quest had been successful, and I was not returning empty-handed.
III
The Sheep of the Desert
III
THE SHEEP OF THE DESERT
I wished to hunt the mountain-sheep of the Mexican desert, hoping to be able to get a series needed by the National Museum.
At Yuma, on the Colorado River, in the extreme southwestern corner of Arizona, I gathered my outfit. Doctor Carl Lumholtz, the explorer, had recently been travelling and hunting in that part of Mexico. In addition to much valuable help as to outfitting, he told me how to get hold of a Mexican who had been with him and whom he had found trustworthy. The postmaster, Mr. Chandler, and Mr. Verdugo, a prominent business man, had both been more than kind in helping in every possible way. Mr. Charles Utting, clerk of the District Court, sometime Rough Rider, and inveterate prospector, was to start off with me for a short holiday from judicial duties. To him the desert was an open book, and from long experience he understood all the methods and needs of desert travel. Mr. Win Proebstel, ranchman and prospector, was also to start with us. He had shot mountain-sheep all the way from Alaska to Mexico, and was a mine of first-hand information as to their habits and seasons. I had engaged two Mexicans, Cipriano Dominguez and Eustacio Casares.
On the afternoon of the 10th of August we reached Wellton, a little station on the Southern Pacific, some forty miles east of Yuma. Win and his brother, Ike Proebstel, were ready with a wagon, which the latter was to drive to a water-hole some sixteen miles south, near some mining claims of Win’s. August is the hottest month in the year in that country, a time when on the desert plains of Sonora the thermometer marks 140 degrees; so we decided to take advantage of a glorious full moon and make our first march by night. We loaded as much as we could of our outfit into the wagon, so as to save our riding and pack animals. We started at nine in the evening. The moon rode high. At first the desert stretched in unbroken monotony on all sides, to the dim and far-off mountains. In a couple of hours we came to the country of the saguaro, the giant cactus. All around us, their shafts forty or fifty feet high, with occasional branches set at grotesque angles to the trunk, they rose from the level floor of the desert, ghostly in the moonlight. The air seemed cool in comparison with the heat of the day, though the ground was still warm to the touch.