SUNSET ON THE MOJAVE DESERT
By
Albert W. Harris
With Illustrations from Photographs
Privately Printed
By
Albert W. Harris
Arranged and Printed by
Charles Daniel Frey
Chicago
Dr. H. W. Lancaster
PREFACE
Years ago, no matter how many, my head was filled with queer notions.Probably there are still a few queer thoughts and notions left there.I refer to them as queer from the point of view from which the readerwill look at them. Personally, I have considered them very sane andserious, and quite worth working out.
To begin with, when a boy, I had a great yearning for a pony. I hadall sorts of notions about ponies, but when I didn’t get one as a boy,I planned to have more ponies when I grew up, and better ones, thanany one ever had before. In fact, I built a “pony” castle in the air.
I had another notion that I wanted to be a farmer, and have a bigranch with horses and cattle, but when I could not, as a boy, see anychance to work this out at once, I proceeded in my mind to make itcome true, and pictured and planned it all out, and built such a finecastle of a farm that I could see it almost as plainly in my mind’seye as though it were a reality.
The nearest I ever got to my castle for many years was when ridingover the plains on a cow pony, the cattle and the pony belonging tosome one else; the fun, however, was all mine. I still worked on mycastles and added another. I pictured myself some time riding ordriving overland to California, crossing the plains and mountains witha party of congenial spirits, and following the old Santa Fe trail tothe Pacific Ocean.
When I talked seriously of these things to ordinary mortals, theysmiled, and said, “You think you will do these things some day, butyou never will; they are all air castles.” Similar expressions greetedany reference to ponies, farms, or overland trips, as the years wentby, till they began to take some such place in my own mind, and Ifound myself saying, “Air Castles, nothing but Air Castles.” Still, asthese castles began to crumble and grow mossy with years, I resolvedto repair them, and in so doing awoke to the fact that two of mycastles had materialized. They had come to earth, so to speak, and Ifound myself actually possessed of the farm and the ponies; theidentical ponies, it seemed to me, I had seen in my mind’s eye when aboy. It took me some time to actually realize that the farm and theponies were really mine, but, when I finally came to accept them asrealities, I knew my other castle could not be far off, and I beganagain planning to take the overland trip.
I had planned this trip in my mind so many times and in so many waysthat the only new sensation was that now it would surely come true,but I kept on planning it annually for five years before I actuallystarted on the trip itself, and then I started from the Pacific Oceanand drove east.
The following account of this trip may be of sufficient interest tomake it worth reading, at least, and if any one who reads it feelsmore hopeful of finishing the building of the castles he is nowengaged upon, it will