We had heard of
large sail-boats being hauled from Yuma and launched by the ranch.
This would seem to indicate that it was somewhere on the Gulf. We had
provisions sufficient for one day, one canteen of fresh water, and
another so mixed with the salt water that we would not use it except
as a last resort.
A little after 3.30 P.M. the tide changed; we launched our boat and
went out with the flood. As we neared the mouth of the stream we found
that the inrush and outrush of water had torn the banks. Here the
river spread in a circular pool several miles across. It seemed almost
as if the waters ran clear to the line of yellow cliffs and to the
hazy mountain range. Then the shores closed in again just before the
current divided quite evenly on either side of a section of the barren
plain named Montague Island. We took the channel to the east.
Our last hope of finding the ranch was in a dried-out river channel,
overgrown with trees. But although we looked carefully as we passed,
there was no sign of a trail or of human life. Some egrets preened
their silken feathers on the bank; sand-hill cranes and two coyotes,
fat as hogs and dragging tails weighted with mud, feasted on the
lively hermit-crabs, which they extracted from their holes--and that
was all.
The sun, just above the lilac-tinted mountains, hung like a great
suspended ball of fire. The cloudless sky glared like a furnace. Deep
purple shadows crept into the canyons slashing the mountain range.
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