| Introduction : teetering on the edge | p. 1 |
| For my own people | p. 11 |
| Stories and legends of the Palm Springs Indians | |
| Life from the rocks | p. 19 |
| The forgotten artist : Indians of Anza-Borrego, and their rock art | |
| The Spanish Lewis and Clark : into the swallowing wilderness | p. 24 |
| Anza's California expeditions | |
| We took our bullets in our mouths | p. 29 |
| The personal narrative of James O. Pattie, of Kentucky | |
| Stuck in the Yuma Dunes : a sandstorm envelops a stagecoach | p. 33 |
| Six horses | |
| Seeing with new eyes : William P. Blake, geologist | p. 37 |
| Report of a geological reconnaissance in California | |
| Steamboating across the Colorado | p. 43 |
| Report upon the Colorado River of the west | |
| "Thou brown, bare-breasted, voiceless mystery" : the desert as urban melodrama | p. 47 |
| "To the Colorado desert" | |
| Seeing with new eyes : John C. Van Dyke, aesthetician | p. 49 |
| The desert : further studies in natural appearances | |
| More on Van Dyke : the nasty young man on the imagined trapeze | p. 56 |
| The desert : further studies in natural appearances | |
| John Muir on the Colorado desert : in a flowered bathrobe | p. 60 |
| "I remember John Muir's visit" | |
| The runaway river | p. 68 |
| The water seekers | |
| The wonderland : ghosts at the well | p. 72 |
| The wonders of the Colorado desert | |
| Love along the irrigation ditches | p. 76 |
| The winning of Barbara Worth | |
| A treacherous camel at the train station | p. 82 |
| Palm Springs : the landscape, the history, the lore | |
| Out of revolutionary Mexico : the three wealthy white sisters | p. 84 |
| Palm Springs : the landscape, the history, the lore | |
| Barbara Worth on the rampage | p. 89 |
| "Imperial earthquake, million damage done" | |
| A desert village | p. 94 |
| Our Araby : Palm Springs and the garden of the sun | |
| A desert saint - with cracks : Carl Eytel | p. 98 |
| "Of such as these is the spirit of the desert" by Elwood Lloyd; and letters to Edmund C. Jaeger | |
| Just what was needed : Edmund C. Jaeger | p. 106 |
| The North American deserts | |
| Two wealthy feminists from Cleveland : a great hole full of blue mist | p. 122 |
| The white heart of Mojave : an adventure with the outdoors of the desert | |
| A tiny figure wavering in the blue mists | p. 127 |
| California desert trails | |
| The Ansel Adams of the desert : Stephen H. Willard | p. 137 |
| "Stephen H. Willard : photography collection and archive" | |
| The excitements of celluloid : the camel's nose | p. 141 |
| Hollywood saga | |
| The excitements of celluloid : the camel victorious | p. 146 |
| California : a guide to the golden state | |
| After God ... Gen. George S. Patton! | p. 149 |
| Patton's desert training center | |
| Desert magazine and Marshal South : living like Indians | p. 155 |
| "Desert refuge" | |
| Pegleg Smith : a legend found - then lost again | p. 160 |
| "Black nuggets in the valley of phantom buttes" | |
| Sands that blossom into viking ships | p. 167 |
| "Ships that pass in desert sands" | |
| The death of Chuckawalla Bill | p. 173 |
| The man from the cave | |
| Murder in fru-fru land | p. 180 |
| Poodle springs | |
| Consequences : the sea of poisons | p. 183 |
| Salt dreams : land and water in low-down California | |
| The preserved lands : ecstasy and agony | p. 191 |
| All the wild and lonely places : journeys in a desert landscape | |
| Bighorn sheep | p. 198 |
| All the wild and lonely places : journeys in a desert landscape | |
| In the vineyards : "Tio, I need some work" | p. 204 |
| Highwire moon : a novel | |
| Any August day a hundred years ago : in the cool pines | p. 212 |
| Palm Springs : the landscape, the history, the lore | |
| Palm Desert, Rancho Mirage, La Quinta, Las Mentiras | p. 216 |
| Palm springs : first hundred years | |
| Epilogue : a beam of dawn light | p. 221 |
| "A landmark fades" and "the no-girls club " | |
| Table of Contents provided by Blackwell. All Rights Reserved. |
