The daily morning journal and courier., 1904-05-14
LIFE ON THE DESERT.
NO OTHER LIFE IS LIKE
 IT.
To Get Any Distance From Water Means Almost Certain Death-Ad- ventures of Two Prospectors.

what desert life means. There is no life anywhere else like it. There are no dangers of a similar character to be ex- lperienced elsewhere. The prospector, the man who sees most of it, can de- scribe it to you. He can tell you of it's heat, it's binding glare and the awful feeling of being without water to mois- ten the parehed lips, but with all that he can say nothing which inspires the awe that comes upon man who is 1 there alone. There is companionship in the very rocks and trees of the noun tains. The noise of the birds singing and the running water, but on the des- ert there are none of those things. A man off the trail, lost there, is indeed helpless, and well may one say God help him
 ] Every year the desert claims it's quota of victims, just as the ocean must be fed it's list of wrecks. Beyond its con- fines they are little heard of. Within them they sometimes happen, and are not known of for years. Occasionally a prospector-he, too, may be off the trail -stumbled across the bleached bones of another pioneer breed who had perished years before. A piece of paper, an old envelope or a pocket book may give the data to identify the remains by, but of ten there is nothing, and they are put beneath the ground to mingle with the dust, unmarked by any needless formal ity. Awe-illspiring it is indeed to come
 upon the skeleton of some lost prospec- tor. Think of a man, himself wander ling, uncertain whether he is travelling parallel with the trail or is to the north or south of it thus attracted. For a few minutes he forgets his own predic- lament. He stands over it and ponders. Who was he? When did he die? He tries, if he is an old desert prospector, to call to mind those whom he has missed and may have come that way, or perhaps he is a new conner, and it is the skeleton of man who prospected there before his time Be that as it may, to man lost on the desert the sight is awe-inspiring beyond the abili- ty of mere words to describe. An illus tration of this may be gleaned from the experience of two American prospectors who had been exploring the country be- l tween SOIlOfd anu AflzOild. A Gold veins, some carrying good val Iues, are plentiful in the little ranges which appear here and there on the des- ert of that region. The white popula- ton in a tract of country embracing sixteen thousand square miles numbers less than twenty-five souls. There may be as many Mexicans and there is a floating population of Indians. These latter in small bands dig considerable basins in the ground to hold the rain- water which falls twice year. Twice a year sometimes, it should be said, but more often only once, and sometimes there are the seasons of drouth when the rain does not fall at all for several years. These little accumuations of wa ter do not last long, and when they have dried up the Indians leave. Here and there is an oasis where white man lives, always in the foothills. He is there to mine, and has, maybe, q little store and few head of horses and cat
 tle His water, perhaps, comes from a well several hundred feet deep, and is Just sufficient for his own purposes. The Indians can get a supply in passing and little to support life until the next water is reached, maybe forty miles away but they cannot remain and con- lsume the little there is. And so it hap pens that there are times when the des- Iert is almost denuded of it's inhabitants. It was on one of these occasions the two American prospectors were crossing from the Sonora side of the boundary fntO ,,s1 ( water. Twice they had been disap- pointed On each occasion the Indian supply they had counted on was dried
 up. The bottom of the chaca, as it is Icalled, was as hard as brick They had been nearly day and half with out water, and the animals at the last disappointment lay down and could not get up again.
 What an outlook? Surely enough to Istagger the bravest. The prospectors, old hands at the game, realized the pre-
 dicament. No timee for delay. One of them knew of tinaja, or tank of water lin range of hills about seven miles distant, at the south end of the Gun Isight range. After taking the packs from the hurros, which they fully req Ilized had made their last prospectinb trip, they set out for this, their last hope Hours later, for the sun was high and the heat intense, they reached the foothills. A climb of seven hundred feet was in front of them, and silently they made it. Words take strength,
 and in emergencies Of this kind none Is
 wasted. Soon they were at their goal, and, heaven be thanked, there was wa ter there. Not much, indeed, the ver- Hest trife, but it was water, just enough to save their, lives. In the solid rock beneath their feet, under an overhang- ling bluff, was slight accumulation made by gentle inflow through crew. ice in the blue porphyry. This was the ltenaja. It was known to only a few lprospectors and the scarce wild animals
 which made the range their home or were rdriven to it when all other
 sources failed. Even as they stopped to I dip it up a mountain lion was noticed lsneaking roung a huge powder. They
 had disturbed him evidently, just in time to prevent his tapping up the few lpints which had trickled' there after many hours. He evidently came there
 often, for his tracks were in every patch of sand around it. Men of that kind paid little attention to such signs. They
 would drink, even, if they had to do it lrevovler in hand. Nor is the class of men prospectors are drawn from sub Iject to prayer. But these men prayed.