The burro draws no color line. He affiliates as readily with the Mexican and the Indian as he does with the whites. The desert tribes have little success with horses, and even the rugged bronchos cannot endure the heat and thirst incident to life in that region, but the burro is as much at home and seemingly as contented there as are his brethren who live and labor in the alfalfa meadows of the fertile belt. The burro is never vicious. Unlike his cousin, the mule, he knows no guile. As a playmate for children he has no rival. He humors them, bears with them, and lets them work their own sweet wills with him. He requires little care, asks little to eat, and seems simply to crave existence. [Illustration: TAKING ON THE CARGO From photograph by C. C. Pierce & Co.] Let the artist in search of a model for contentment go to the burro. There he will find contentment personified. He does not sigh and moan that he, alas, Is but a mongrel, neither horse nor ass. Content that being neither, he may do His work and live as nature meant him to. CHAPTER IX THE STORY OF A STREAK OF YELLOW If "the love of money is the root of evil," it is, as well, the germ of progress. It was the imaginary glitter of the yellow metal that lured De Soto across the continent to the Mississippi and beyond; it enticed De Balboa to the shores of the Pacific, led Cortez through the land of the Aztecs, and its magnetism drew Alvarado down into Central America and carried Pizarro to the conquest of Peru; it dragged Coronado across the arid plains of Mexico, New Mexico, and Arizona in search of the fabled land of Cibola, and, in fact, its gleaming has explored and exploited the Americas from Alaska to Cape Horn. It has led man to brave the perils of the desert, and as the result prosperous towns have sprung up in that dread region, and millions of dollars of wealth have been wrested from its treasure-house. Just what this continent would now be, had it not been for the glitter of the yellow dust, it is hard to estimate. It is probable that the dusky savage would still hold dominion over the land. [Illustration: THE PROSPECTOR SETS FORTH From photograph by C. C. Pierce & Co.] The prospector is the advance agent of progress, civilization, and prosperity. He has spied out the country,--with the aid of his faithful burro,--and has marked every trail, preceded every stage route and railroad, and founded the greater number of towns on the western half of this United States. He it is who has unlocked the treasure-house of the continent and poured into the coffers of this Republic the golden stream which has made her the first nation on the globe. It is for the sight of a yellow streak in his pan that he has been tempted to endure the fatigue, cold, and hunger of the mountains, and the heat, thirst, and horror of the desert.