adache. Very hot so laid around camp all day. Put two
blankets up on tent pols for sun break. Daddy under weather from cactus
experience. Papago Indian boy about 18 on fine bay mare driving 4 ponies
watered at our well. Moon almost full, lots of mocking birds. Pretty
songs.

May 17.

Up 7:30 Bud some better. Day promises hot, but slight breeze. White
gauzy clouds in sky. Daddy better. Monte & Pete gone all day. Hunted
twice but impossible to track them in this stony soil Bud followed
trail, found them 2 mi. east of here in flat sound asleep about 3 P.M.
At 6 went to flat 1/4 mi. N. of camp to tie Pete, leading Monte by
bell strap almost stepped on rattler 3 ft. long. 10 rattles & a button.
Killed him. To date, 1 Prairie rattler, 3 Diamond back & 8 sidewinders,
12 in all. Bud feels better.

May 18.

At 4 A. M. Bud woke up by stock passing camp. Spoke to me who half awake
hollered, "sic Daddy!" Daddy sicced 'em & they went up bank of wash to
right. Bud swore it was Monte & Pete. I went to flat & found M. & P.
safe. Water in sink all gone. Bud got stomach trouble. I threw up my
breakfast. Very hot weather. Lanced Monte's back & dressed it with
creoline. Turned them loose & away they put again.

Soon after this they arrived at the place where Thompson had located his
claim. It was desert, of course, sloping away on one side to a dreary
waste of sand and weeds with now and then a giant cactus standing
gloomily alone with malformed lingers stretched stiffly to the staring
blue sky. Behind where they pitched their final camp--Camp 48, Cash
Markham recorded it in his diary--the hills rose. But they were as stark
and barren almost as the desert below. Black rock humps here and there,
with ledges of mineral bearing rock. Bushes and weeds and dry washes for
the rest, with enough struggling grass to feed the horses and burros if
they rustled hard enough for it.

They settled down quietly to a life of grinding monotony that would have
driven some men crazy. But Bud, because it was a man's kind of monotony,
bore it cheerfully. He was out of doors, and he was hedged about by no
rules or petty restrictions. He liked Cash Markham and he liked Pete,
his saddle horse, and he was fond of Daddy who was still paying the
penalty of seeking too carelessly for shade and, according to Cash's
record, "getting it in his mouth, tongue, feet & all over body." Bud
liked it--all except the blistering heat and the "side-winders"
and other rattl