Imperial press and farmer., 1902-11-22
4 Chatty letter.


 ner. Sometimes he signs himself "Elmendorf" and sometimes simply "Doc," following is an extract from his letter dated Nov. l.:
 Day before yesterday an eight-mule team with heavily loaded wagon rolled into Imperial, manned by three sturdy brothers from the peatlands of Orange county, the Crane boys. They've come for biz, and today fitted out and moved upon the east side canal system to take a hand in the construction of the water system in that portion of the Imperial country. Yesterday in company with one of them, l took drive down, or up, to Calexico, the bor- der town which lies slap up to the Mexican vieio. A step over the ditch, and I was in Mexican territory. The contrast was noticeable. North of this imaginary line were modern struct- ures, stores, shops and the commodious offices of the Imperial Water company, with vegetation on all sides, while on the south of it the eye rested upon a few Indian brush tepees scattered among the mesquite bushes that spread over a vast desert beyond. Going and returning we passed by verdant al falfa fields, almost boundless sorghum ranches, and kaffir corn, beautiful pie ture, while milo maize, standing in some instances twenty feet high, greeted the eye for a mile away, and beautiful fields of millet waved sea of luXuriant plumes, some as large as small squirrels tail and looking much like that appendage as seen CD tho grey squirrel of the pine clad mountains. There! I call that poetic. Thereby hangs tail, despite all criti- cism and I'll pass on to relate how I was recently converted from just an ordinary useful citizen to a COW puncher" in less than five minutes. I had responded to telegram from Leroy Holt who requested his agent in Imperial to dispatch forthwith several horsemen equipped for driving cattle, and among others to "get FL mendorf with his mules and wagon to come also, for we may be obliged to pick up a weak calf now and then as we proceed" At Flowing Wells we received the cows and their babies from the cars direct from New Mexico, 600 in number. They were skinny lot. and had to be driven over thirty miles of desert, seventeen that night to first water on the SaltOn river. Could they stand it? It didn't seem so, but they did, and contributed but one calf to the bovine ambulance. The next day was repetition of the first, only that miscalculation as to of nf found us at night about tired out and the weeds several miles further on. It was resolved to let the herd browse that night on the young mesquite, and all looked out for number one. Your correspondent just unhooked the mules and spread his blankets on the ground, and was soon in slumber sweet out on the desert miles from any habitation, with his collie for com panion-cattle to the right of him. cattle to the left of him, and occa- sonally cattle about to walk into his dormitory despite the savage bark of the dog. The next morning early the ambulance yielded up it's occupant to the coyotes, and then came the task of rounding up that scattered herd It required every available man, and here it was that for the first time since lad became cowboy With out saddle, only a blanket between the terminus vertebrae and my mules median line over all, away we went, collie, mule and I, over the desert, routing from mesquite thicket every hoof and horn for several miles around. Mebbe you've been there; if
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