and a pair of shoes much too large for him; this latter item indicating
a desire to get the most for his money, after the invariable custom of
a primitive people. He carried a peeled catclaw gad in his right hand,
and with this gad he continually urged to a shuffling half-trot some
one of the four burros. This man was a Cahuilla Indian.

His two companions were white men. The younger of the pair was a man
under thirty years of age, with kind bright eyes and the drawn but
ruddy face of one whose strength seems to have been acquired more from
athletic sports than by hard work. He was tall, broad-shouldered, slim-
waisted, big-hipped and handsome; he stepped along through the clinging
sand with the lithe careless grace of a mountain lion. An old greasy
wide-brimmed gray felt hat, pinched to a "Montana peak," was shoved
back on his curly black head; his shirt, of light gray wool, had the
sleeves rolled to the elbow, revealing powerful forearms tanned to the
complexion of those of the Indian. He seemed to revel in the airy
freedom of a pair of dirty old white canvas trousers, and despite the
presence of a long-barreled blue gun swinging at his hip he would have
impressed an observer as the embodiment of kindly good nature and
careless indifference to convention, provided his own personal comfort
was assured.

The other white man was plainly an alien in the desert. He was slight,
blonde, pale--a city man--with hard blue eyes set so close together
that one understood instantly something of the nature of the man as
well as the urgent necessity for his thick-lensed, gold-rimmed
spectacles. He wore a new Panama hat, corded riding breeches and
leggings. He was clean-shaven and sinfully neat. He wore no side-arms
and appeared as much out of harmony with his surroundings as might a
South American patriot at a Peace Conference.