Our first camp was among the giant cacti, which we used as hitching posts for the horses while feeding. That night we heard a mountain lion squall, but Tuck evidently did not think he was near enough to worry about. Tuck is getting to be an ideal camp dog. He can be trusted to stay around camp and will not leave the wagon on any excuse if we are not about, so we feel perfectly safe, no matter where we are, in the belief that our tools, harness, and odds and ends (so essential to us on this sort of a trip) will not be mislaid by visitors or stolen.
The next morning we were at Leastalk, thirteen miles, by 9 A. M., and Kate was feeling so good we let her pack the saddle and Bob rode her. Here at Leastalk we got half a sack of grain (all they had) and started up the Ivanpah Valley to Ivanpah, seven miles. We reached there at noon. How any one can reach a place that isn’t, I can’t say, but as I said before, we got to the place which, on the map, said “Ivanpah,” but which there, said nothing.
On looking at the map I saw that a railroad track ran from here by various crooks and turns to Bengal on the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad. We finally discovered the track, and also a few work cars, and met the foreman and his crew of Mexicans working on the right-of-way.
[Illustration: JOSHUA PALM OR GIANT CACTUS]
“What are you going to do?” said I to the foreman, thinking he might be the forerunner of a building gang who were to build a town here or extend the railroad.
“Don’t know? Haven’t you any orders?” I asked, surprised.
“Won’t get any until they pull me back to-morrow. This is the end of the road, isn’t it?” he asked.
I was about to remark, “It certainly is,” when it occurred to me that I wasn’t supposed to know as much about a railroad as a real railroad man like the foreman of a gang of Mexicans, so I replied cautiously, “Well, I don’t know. I thought this might be the beginning of a railroad; if this is the end of one, what was the use of building it?”
He looked at me curiously for a minute. It certainly was hot there in the sun and he had no way of knowing we had just been to water, so he said, “You had better take a drink. You can have what you want from my tank car; and you had better fill your barrels too; no knowing when you will get any more.”