elements. That was the
secret of the eternal fascination the desert exerted upon all men. It
carried them back. It inhibited thought. It brought up the age-old
sensations, so that I could feel, though I did not know it then, once
again the all-satisfying state of the savage in nature.

When I returned to camp night had fallen. The evening star stood high in
the pale sky, all alone and difficult to see, yet the more beautiful for
that. The night appeared to be warmer or perhaps it was because no wind
blew. Nielsen got supper, and ate most of it, for I was not hungry. As I
sat by the camp-fire a flock of little bats, the smallest I had ever
seen, darted from the wood-pile nearby and flew right in my face. They
had no fear of man or fire. Their wings made a soft swishing sound.
Later I heard the trill of frogs, which was the last sound I might have
expected to hear in Death Valley. A sweet high-pitched melodious trill
it reminded me of the music made by frogs in the Tamaulipas Jungle of
Mexico. Every time I awakened that night, and it was often, I heard this
trill. Once, too, sometime late, my listening ear caught faint mournful
notes of a killdeer. How strange, and still sweeter than the trill! What
a touch to the infinite silence and loneliness! A killdeer--bird of the
swamps and marshes--what could he be doing in arid and barren Death
Valley? Nature is mysterious and inscrutable.

Next morning the marvel of nature was exemplified even more strikingly.
Out on the hard gravel-strewn slope I found some more tiny flowers of a
day. One was a white daisy, very frail and delicate on long thin stem
with scarcely any leaves. Another was a yellow flower, with four petals,
a pale miniature California poppy. Still another was a purple-red
flower, almost as large as a buttercup, with dark green leaves. Last and
tiniest of all were infinitely fragile pink and white blossoms, on very
flat plants, smiling wanly up from the desolate earth.

Nielsen and I made known to Denton our purpose to walk across the
valley. He advised against it. Not that the heat was intense at this
season, he explained, but there were other dangers, particularly the
brittle salty crust of the sink-hole. Nevertheless we were not deterred
from our purpose.

So with plenty of water in canteens and a few biscuits in our pockets
we set out. I saw the heat veils rising from the valley floor, at that
point one hundred and seventy-eight feet below sea level. The heat