and
went down, riddled with rifle-balls. The money was recovered.

A little farther on is Garlic Springs. It is a common camping-place and
like other camps is plentifully strewn with the evidence of the
prospector's outfit--hundreds and hundreds of empty tin cans. In time we
camp at Cave Springs in a little cove of the Avawatz Buttes. Once there
came along a man who all said was half-witted. Perhaps he was, but his
intelligence was keen enough to prompt him to claim the springs. By
selling the water for quenching thirst at the rate of "four bits" a head
for stock and "two bits" apiece for men, his spring proved the best gold
mine in the district.

There is no water ahead until we reach Saratoga Springs, a dozen miles
beyond, and it is well that we take a small supply along, as the water
there is unfit for either man or beast. There is a difference between
Saratoga Springs, New York, and the springs bearing this high-sounding
name in the Amargosa sink.

[Illustration: Twenty-mule borax team]

Boiling Springs are a night's ride--perhaps twenty miles--beyond. We
give our team three hours of rest and start therefor, stopping in the
mean time for a midnight feed, where most unexpectedly we find some
excellent grazing for our horses. By daylight we are at the Springs and
in a locality much like the Bad Lands of South Dakota. But the "boiling"
industry apparently is taking a vacation, for the water is not too warm
for one's hands and face--and certainly it is refreshing.

We are in a "sink," or the dry bed of a lake, and the cliffs of clay
have been sculptured into existence by the Amargosa River. Sometimes,
when a dissipated cloud tumbles its contents into the region, the
Amargosa is filled bank full with water; but few prospectors have seen
more than a trickling stream flowing in its bed.

We turn our way out of the wagon-trail toward Funeral Range to find the
canyon of Furnace Creek, and in time we are clambering up a narrow gulch
between the multicolored strata of clay buttes. Not a vestige of life,
not even the horned-toad or the trail of the kangaroo-rat is to be seen.
Half a dozen graves marked each by a wooden cross or a rock monument are
in sight. Who are they? Ask the simoom that sweeps like a cruel furnace
blast over this forsaken region. To be lost in this desert means
horrible suffering, phantom-seeing, and then death. The bodies of these
unfortunates were merely found and buried--lost!--dead!

We cross th