derness, Orso?"

But the desert did not appear to be deserted. From the farther clumps
came the calling of the male quail, and around sounded the different
murmurs of clucking, of twittering, of the ruffling of feathers: in a
word, the divers voices of the small inhabitants of the plains.
Sometimes there flew up a whole covey of quail; the gaudy-topped
pheasants scattered on their approach; the black squirrels dived into
their holes; the rabbits disappeared in all directions; the gophers
were sitting on their hind legs beside their holes, looking like fat
German farmers standing in their doorway.

After resting an hour the children proceeded on their journey. Jenny
soon felt thirsty. Orso, in whom had awakened his Indian inventive
faculties, began to pluck cactus fruits. They were in abundance, and
grew together with the flowers on the same leaves. In plucking them
they pricked their fingers with the sharp points, but the fruit was
luscious. Their sweet and acid flavor quenched at once their thirst
and appeased their hunger. The prairies fed the children as a mother;
thus strengthened they could proceed further. The cacti arose higher,
and you could say that they grew on the head of one another. The
ground on which they walked ascended gradually and continuously.
Looking backward once more they saw Anaheim, dissolving in the
distance and looking like a grove of trees upon the low plains. Not a
trace of the circus could be distinguished. They still pressed
steadily onward to the mountains, which now became more distinct in
the distance. The surroundings assumed another phase. Between the
cacti appeared different bushes and even trees; the wooded portion of
the foothills of Santa Ana had commenced. Orso broke one of the
saplings, and, clearing off its branches, made a cudgel of it, which,
in his hands, would prove a terrible weapon. His Indian instincts
whispered to him that in the mountains it was better to be provided,
even with a stick, than to go unarmed, especially now that the sun had
lowered itself into the west. Its great fiery shield had rolled down
far beyond Anaheim, into the blue ocean. After a while it disappeared,
and in the west there gleamed red, golden, and orange lights, similar
to ribbons and gauzy veils, stretched over the whole sky. The
mountains uplifted themselves in this glow; the cacti assumed
different fantastical shapes, resembling people and animals. Jenny
felt tired and sleepy, but they stil