Two miles or so farther brought me to the end of all tokens of travel.
The track had dwindled to less and less, and now had dropped to the
bouldery bed of a canon stream, from which no woodcraft of mine, nor of
my good trail-wise horse, could perceive that it made an exit. If the
trail continued, it must follow the bed of the stream. At any rate, here
was water, the first requisite for a camp; I decided to go on for a
while, but to stick to the creek, for safety. Dismounting, I led Pancho
forward by the bridle among the slippery boulders. The sun was well out
of sight, and the chirping of crickets among the herbage announced that
soon the evening shades would prevail. Evidently, camping was to be my
portion, so I kept my eyes open for a good spot for the purpose. The
canon appeared to widen out a little way ahead: there I should probably
find good grazing for the horse (though not, I ruefully reflected, for
myself). Arriving at the opening, I found, as I expected, grassy slopes
rising from the creek, and resolved to make here my bivouac.

Taking off saddle and bridle I turned Pancho loose to graze, while I
gathered wood for afire. The dusk was soon enlivened by a crackling
blaze, beside which I sat to eat a sandwich and a scrap of chocolate,
reserving an equivalent banquet for the morning. Pancho munched away
cheerfully, the stream tinkled and purred; the first star telegraphed
its friendly signal down through the ether: to be lost in the Simi was
not half bad.

My supper (since it must be so called) over, and Pancho picketed for the
night, I walked a short way up the canon in the gloaming. Some two
hundred yards from camp, at a point where the stream made a turn, I
stopped in sudden surprise at the sight of a light shining among a clump
of small live-oaks near by to my right. "Well," I said to myself, "so I
am on a trail, after all. Can there be a house here, too?" A few steps,