I was told of the outlaws along the border, of the firearms
and opium smugglers, who shot first and questioned afterward, and of
the insurrectos of Lower California. The river had no real outlet to
the ocean, they said, since the break into Salton Sea, but spread over
a cane-brake, thirty miles or more in width. Many people had gone into
these swamps and never returned, whether lost in the jungles or killed
by the Cocopah Indians, no one knew. They simply disappeared. It was
all very alluring.
My preparations, the next day, were few. I had included a sleeping bag
with my baggage. It would come in equally handy whether I went down on
the Colorado or up into the Coast Range. A frying-pan, a coffee-pot a
few metal dishes and provisions for a week were all I needed. Some one
suggested some bent poles, and a cover, such as are used on wagons to
keep off the sun. This seemed like a good idea; and I hunted up a
carpenter who did odd jobs. He did not have such a one, but he did
have an old wagon-seat cover, which could be raised or dropped at
will. This was even better, for sometimes hard winds sweep up the
river. The cover was fastened to the sides of the boat. The boat,
meanwhile, had been thoroughly scrubbed. It looked clean before, but I
was not going to take any chances at carrying Indian live-stock along
with his boat. My surplus baggage was sent on to Los Angeles, and
twenty-four hours after I had landed in Needles, I was ready to
embark.
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