We Get a Taste of the Desert
Tuesday, May seventeenth, our first morning in a real camp “away from
anywhere,” as the Doctor said, was started in true camping style. We
were up at four-thirty, each busy at his particular work, Bob getting
breakfast, the Doctor packing the wagon, preparatory to starting, and
greasing the axles (this was done regularly every other day), and I
had the horses to look after. Then came breakfast, and after that,
while the dishes were being washed and odds and ends put into the
wagon, I harnessed the horses, hitched them to the wagon, put the lead
harness on Dixie, and we were ready to start.
We had been traveling east, but here we were to turn north across the
mountains, through Hesperia and Victor to Daggett. As yet we had not
had the harness on Dixie, although we had been assured that she was
broken to drive, but whether she would work in the lead and pull was a
question which was soon to be answered. Climbing into my seat and
picking up the lines, I let off a whoop and the brake at the same
time, while the Doctor let fly a handful of pebbles, and we were off.
We got into the road safely and by the time we had made a few miles up
the mountain trail we concluded our lead horse would do.
The road followed a mountain stream, winding ever upward, sometimes on
a level with the stream, but usually cut out of the side of the
mountain. Behind us we caught glimpses of mountains and valleys, and
realized we were climbing up rapidly, but finally we got so far into
the mountains that we could see very little, and our attention was
given up entirely to the road and the horses. Bob and the Doctor
walked ahead to lighten the load and signal back if any teams were
coming down, so that we could pick out a safe place to pass. Noon
brought us to a sandy place beside the stream, here only a rivulet,
where we stopped for lunch.
While smoking our pipes in the shade, an automobile went by, going up.
The ladies waved their handkerchiefs at us and, as they disappeared
around a bend in the road, some one remarked, “That looks easy; I
guess the road ahead must be good.” We promptly forgot the incident
until the Doctor said, “I can still hear that machine. I wonder why
they are not farther away by this time.” After listening a few minutes
we decided something was wrong with the machine, so we all went up the
road and soon found the party in the sand, where the auto had stuck in
crossing the stream, and they were unable to get it up the bank. As we
came up we found all four of the ladies pushing and the man working
with the engine, while a baby was peacefully asleep in the tonneau. We
went promptly to the rescue and after a few minutes had them out on
solid ground again. The man then asked us how much he owed us. The
Doctor told him in his dry way, “About a thousand dollars, but if you
do not happen to have anything as small as that about you, you can
settle the next time you see us.” The expression on the young man’s
face for a minute was quite laughable, but he seemed to sense the
situation finally, for a smile broke over his face, and with many
thanks and “Good luck!” from everybody they were off.
We went back to the wagon, and, the horses having had sufficient rest,
started on with all three of them in harness, and reached the summit
at 3:30 P. M. Here we had a magnificent view of the mountains, some of
which were snow-capped, and after a few minutes we started on again,
driving down to Hesperia, through a miniature forest composed of giant
cacti and juniper. On the way down we saw several pair of valley
quail, some doves, and a few rabbits, which was all the game we had
seen.
At Hesperia, which is on the railroad, we filled our water barrels and
camped alongside of the trail, about a mile from the station and eight
miles from Victor. As near as we could figure we had driven
twenty-five miles, which we considered a very good day’s work in view
of the long climb we had made.
[Illustration: CACTI FOREST]
The next morning we were up at four-thirty and off at six-forty-five,
arriving at Victorville at eight-thirty. The first person I saw as we
drove into the little railroad town was the young man who had driven
the auto we had helped out of the sand the day before. He hailed us
gayly and insisted on our climbing down and “going inside,” which we
promptly did. Later we repaired to the general store, where we
purchased a canteen, having accidentally run the wagon over ours the
evening before, and also some baled hay and grain. Then we mailed our
letters and half filled our water barrels before starting on to
Daggett, forty miles away over the desert.
As we understood there was a good water hole and camp site about half
way, we thought it unnecessary to take any more water. We reached the
water without difficulty by 6 P. M., although we met no one on the
trail and were in doubt once or twice as to which fork to take. We
found it a good place to camp on account of the water, but that was
all. There was just a small covered tank over a spring in a bare
little desert valley, without even a tree or a bush in sight. It had
one advantage over previous camps, however. Doves by the hundred came
here to drink and in a short time we shot all we wanted for breakfast.
The next morning we had a comparatively easy road down grade into
Daggett, twenty-two miles, where we arrived at 11:30 A. M.
There was nothing especially interesting about these towns through
which we had passed; Hesperia was merely a handful of people;
Victorville had a few more and seemed quite prosperous. It is on the
banks of the Mojave River, which at this point is fully a hundred
yards wide, but shallow and muddy, with a considerable fringe of trees
in places along the banks. At Daggett, however, the river had about
disappeared, and a few miles farther east was entirely lost in the
sand.
Here at Daggett we decided to rest our horses and take stock, so to
speak. We found among our luggage a tent and two cots which we
apparently would have no need of until we reached Grand Junction,
Colorado, where we expected to have an addition of four to our party,
so we decided to send them on to this point by freight and thus
lighten our load by seventy-five pounds.
Having put our horses and wagon in a corral, we began to make
inquiries regarding the road to Las Vegas, Nevada, but could get no
definite information. We were told we could not cross the desert
directly, but would have to go around the south end. This meant going
in a circle and, as the line we had drawn on the map went straight, we
declined to go around, and were conferring with some old prospectors
on the feasibility of crossing the desert when we heard of a man who
had just come in from Las Vegas. We did not bother to make any more
inquiries then and decided to interview the man from Las Vegas the
first thing in the morning. I slept in the wagon at night, but being
in town the Doctor and Bob thought it would be a good idea to try
beds, to see if they were softer than the sand, but the next morning
they pronounced them not much of an improvement.
We found the man we were looking for shortly after breakfast at the
corral, where we had left our horses. He told us his name was Knowles.
He certainly looked as if he had been through something strenuous. His
eyes were bloodshot and he was a nervous wreck. He said he had come
from Las Vegas and had driven across _en route_ to Los Angeles. He had
a good team, a light farm wagon, but nothing in it save a water
barrel, some bedding, and a dog. He seemed so mixed in his dates that
it was hard to get any reliable information from him. He said it was
just an accident he had got through. He had been lost and stuck in the
sand and forced to abandon his load, when by good luck he came to the
Salt Lake Railroad. Here the sand was so deep that his horses could
not pull the empty wagon, so he drove up to the railroad track, and,
as there were no trains running (the road having been washed out for
eighty miles above Las Vegas early in the Spring), he drove on the
track until he reached Daggett, a distance of about sixty miles. He
did not dare to leave the railroad for fear that he would get lost,
and he found water at the little deserted section houses he passed
every twenty or thirty miles. He said that with a big wagon and load
we could not get through, and advised us not to try.
We concluded that if he had got through alone we could go through,
even with a heavier load, and in return for the questionable
information he had given us we told him how to get to Los Angeles, and
assured him that his troubles were over. He gave as much heed to our
directions as we gave to his, as we afterwards found out, but we
parted without disclosing our incredulity to each other.
The Doctor and I rode a freight train down to Barstow to get our mail
and a few provisions that we could not get at Daggett, and while there
who should we see driving up the main street but Knowles, our desert
traveller! We hailed him and asked him why he had come to Barstow. He
seemed quite ashamed at being discovered, but reluctantly admitted
that he had intended heeding our instructions and had followed the
road along the railroad track as directed, until he came to the
left-hand fork which went south over the desert hills to Victor. He
could not, however, trust himself to leave the railroad track for fear
of getting lost again and perhaps running out of water. He said that
he knew the railroad went to Victor and he had decided finally to
follow it even if it was a longer route. We saw our word wouldn’t go
so we called some natives into the conference, and they assured him we
were right. They told him he could not follow the railroad as there
was no wagon bridge across the river except at Victor, and that even
if he could get across here at Barstow he would have a long weary
route ahead of him, and would not reach Victor for at least two days.
So he reluctantly turned about and went back to the south fork in the
road, and we presume he went that way as we never saw him again, but
it must have taken a great deal of fortitude on his part. Lose a man
in the desert and, I imagine, he won’t want to try another stretch of
desert in the same week, especially alone; so we did not blame him
very much for insisting on following the railroad track.
We got back to Daggett shortly after noon on a passenger train and
hunted up the old prospectors again. They were the sort who had always
been in the desert and knew all about it, to hear them tell it, but
for the past twenty years had probably sat around the corner store and
saloon and told stories to tenderfeet about its mysteries. When we
told them of Knowles’ experience and asked their advice they looked
very solemn, and each in turn took refuge behind the other by asking
him which of the many routes we ought to take, until they had gone the
rounds and got back to the first old party again, who in desperation
referred us to some one else who wasn’t there.
This was so amusing that we forgot we were wasting time and went
prospecting around town for the man who knew, and finally located him
and told our story. He assured us Knowles had taken the wrong road; he
should have stayed away from the railroad because it went through the
worst sand and had no feed anywhere along the line. He then drew a
diagram showing how we should go east through the Mojave Canyon, then
northeast and skirt the foot of the Soda Mountains to a spring on Soda
Lake, and then follow the old prospectors’ trail east to Good Springs,
from where we could follow the railroad to Las Vegas, Nevada. He said
we could not lose the trail and that it had several springs and water
holes, so that we could get through safely. He wound up, however, by
saying that he had not been over this trail for ten or fifteen years,
but that it was a good trail the last time he went over it.
This information, while not especially reassuring, we thought
sufficient to at least make a start, as we would no doubt find some
one on the trail who could put us right if we went wrong, so at 3:30
P. M. we hitched up and started on a leg of our journey that came near
being our Waterloo.