195511 desert magazine 1955 november

8/14/2019 195511 Desert Magazine 1955 November

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PRAYER FOR NIGHT-FOLKOF THE DESERT

By ELS:E MCKINMON STRACHANSanta Ana, CaliforniaKindler of twilight, weaver of shadow,Guard while these small folk pattern inbraille.Stories of night life, unknown to day crea-

tures,Recording on sand in minutest detail.Let safety be with them, the chipmunk andrabbit,Badger and beetle and vinegaroon;That I may decipher, before wind erases.Notes they have left beneath the pale moon.Give them the time for love and home-building,For racing and rollicking in the sand;Maker of all that is tiny and helpless.Hold back the dawn until they disband.And let them not loiter in finding their dayhomes.Spare them to hurry. Watch over each waif.Keep the slow ones from sudden disaster.Oh, please be with them, let each one besafe!

C A G E D C O Y O T EBy E T H E L E. M A N NSt. Ignace, Michigan

You scan the passers by with cold distrustAs you patrol on ceaseless, padded feet;You tolerate man's gaze because you mustThough schooled in cunning you may notcompeteWith captors, who contrived through cleversnareIn one unguarded moment, your completeBetrayal; for the instant, unawareYour sleepless eyes scorn man's unsavorydoleWhile hated man scent dominates the airFar better, sleep out on your wind-sweptknollWith hunger pangs, at end of fruitless quest;A lithe, gaunt body, housing your free soul.

tt andBy TANYA SOITH

How then has good Fate passed you by.When il is pain and grief that makeTha soul for greater wisdom cry.A nd unto greater lJght awake?For pain and grief are but the toolsThat scour and polish and bisect,Until we learn to follow Rules.And Light alone reflect.

F A N T A S YBy GRACE STAPLES

I stood in a desert beside a palm.I'd lost my hold on the ways of men.My soul was sick for the peace and strengthOf primitive things again.I touched the tree. My arms went 'round.1 cried for help to this ancient kin.With face close pressed my fingers clutched

Its bark. I passed within.My body slipped to the curving roots.My life flowed on in the life of the treeBut I sensed that fainting helpless thingThe thing that had been me.To a free, rich life I turned again.All human grief and longing gone.This surging joy that now was mineI'd known before in a far aeon.My being reached in the deep cool earth.It flowed to the sky and prayed to the sun.I knew the peace of forest life.The tree and I were one.

GIANT JOSHUA TREEBy CONSTANCE WALKERLos Angeles, CaliforniaYou stand as JoshuaVicariously givingHis creed for victoryIn strong, courageous living.

Collared lizard. Photograph by Joe Orr, Los Angeles, California.

DO WE UNDERSTAND LIFE(Acrostic)By DARRELL TOTTENHenderson. NevadaDeep down wilhin the complex brain of manOne cell alone determines that brain's plan.Which one of us can dare to think that heExemplifies that which all men should be?Utopia has ever been our dream:Now and then a wishnow and then ascheme.Do we believe the words our lips repeat?Each war we wage leads only to defeat.Reason, it seems, deserts us in the end;Somehow we shape the truth and lie toblend!Today we stand again, where we once stoodAges ago, and speak of Brotherhood.Nature, we say, makes us behave as foolsDoes Nature write our books, and buildou r schools?Look at the star-filled desert sky and askIf peace of mind is worth the pleasant task.Flying endlessly on through space we go.Each fearing only what we do not know.

D E S E R T M O N A R C HBy VIRGINIA L. BRUCEHemet, CaliforniaUndaunted by the scars of time.It's stood from day to dayThis rough and rugged Joshua treeIn lonely majesty.

For untold years it's kept its watchAbove the shifting sandsSo restless in their wanderingsAcross the desert lands.Its arms reach out towards the sky.And when the sun hangs lowThey weave a spell of silent songAgainst the golden glowEnchanting all the quiet milesUntil the stars of nightLike tiny windows in the skyShine bright with heaven's light.And when the dawn folds up the darkWith faith renewing hands.My Joshua tree still keeps its watchA monarch of the sands.

FREE GOLDBy GEORGIA JORDANSan Diego, CaliforniaThe desert sun is lasting gold,A healing gift for brighter days.Reflected by the sands that holdA treasure chest of violet rays.

By VADA F. CARLSONWinslow, ArizonaO, l izard, beware!You're as quick as a winkBu t not as immune from attackAs you think.Don't lie in the sun.Puffed up in your pride.Till a chaparral cockNeatly punctures your hide.Your body, my friend.He will coldly impaleWith a jab of his beakAnd a flit of his tail.If you have a fearYou're wise not to lull it.Lest you disappearDown a roadrunner's gullet.

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D E S E R T C A L E N D A RNov. 2-5World Symposium on Ap-plied Solar Energy, Phoenix, Ari-zona.Nov. 4-13Arizona State Fair, Phoe-nix, Arizona.N ov. 5-6 Ryder Cup Matches,

Thunderbird Country Club, PalmSprings, California.Nov. 5-6Sierra Club hike to con-cretion forest near Truckhaven, 30miles south of Indio, California,on Highway 99.Nov. 5-6 Cotton Carnival, CasaGrande, Arizona.Nov. 7-8New Mexico Cattlemen'sAssociation Fall Show and Sale,Raton, New Mexico.Nov. 10-13 Annual Death ValleyEncampment, sponsored by DeathValley '49ers, Death Valley, Cali-fornia.Nov. 11Good Neighbor Day festiv-ities, Bisbee, Arizona.Nov. 11-16 Annual Golden SpikeNational Livestock Show, Ogden,Utah.Nov. 12St. James Day Corn Har-vest Dance, Tesuquc, New Mexico(photography permitted by approvaland fee payment) .Nov. 12 San Diego's Day CornHarvest Dance, Jemez Pueblo, NewMexico (photography prohibited).Nov. 12-13 Annual Weed Showsponsored by the Woman's Club,Twentynine Palms, California.Nov. 18-27Arizona State BowlingAssociation Tournament, Yuma,Arizona.Nov. 19-20 Annual Elks Rodeo,Victorville, California.Nov. 24Desert Sun Ranchers Ro-deo, Wickenburg, Arizona.Nov. 24-27Sierra Club Kofa Rangehike, campsite at Palm Canyon,17 miles south of Quartzsite, Ari-zona.Nov. 25-27 New Mexico and ElPaso Stamp Clubs Convention,Hotel Paso del Korte , El Paso,Texas.Nov. 26-27Junior Parade and Ro-deo, Florence, Arizona.Nov. 26-27Sierra Club TelescopePeak hike, meet at cafe near WildRose Station, 40 miles north ofTrona, California, for tour ofAguereberry Point and Skidoo.November and DecemberPeruvianWeaving Exhibit, Museum ofNorthern Arizona, Flagstaff, Ari-zona.Late November or early DecemberZuni Pueblo House Dedicationceremonies, Santa Fe, New Mex-ico (photography prohibited).After First Frost Navajo FireDance, Navajo Reservation.

About theCover . . .The outstretched arm of this GiantSaguaro Cactus has lost its halo ofwaxy white flowers and in its placehas grown a ring of brilliant scarletfruit the delight of desert dwellersand desert birds alike. Indian s skill-fully reach 30 often 40 feet intothe hot summer sky with their longkuihits to knock the dark red pulpycenters to the ground, leaving thegreen and unopened fruit untouchedto ripen in its own time.

Fv i v V ^ - 'THE

V o l u m e 18 N O V E M B E R . 1955 N u m b e r 11C O V E RPOETRYCALENDARPERSONALITYLOST MINEHISTORYG A R D E N I N GI N D I A N SFIELD TRIPEXPERIENCEC O N T E S TCLOSE-UPSP H O T O G R A P H YNATURELETTERSTRUE OR FALSEN E W SFICTIONU R A N I U MMININGLAPIDARYH O B B YC O M M E N TB O O K S

Saguaro Cactus fruit (see story on page 14)Photo by Charles W. HerbertLizard, Beware! and other poems 2November events on the desert 3Kelly of Capitol Reef

By RANDALL HENDERSON 4A Skeleton Guards the Lost Gold of JarbidgeBy NELL MURBARGER 7Hassayampa Dam Disaster1890

By I. H. PARKMAN 11Tamarisk in the Back Yard

By RUTH REYNOLDS 13Saguaro Harvest in the Land of Papagos

By CHARLES W. HERBERT 14Rock Trails in Chemehuevi-Land

By HAROLD O. WEIGHT 18Rare Bird of the Santa Ritas

By DOROTHY W. ALLEN 23Picture of the Month Contest announcement . . 24About those who write for Desert 24Pictures of the Month 25Desert HunterShy and Deadly

By EDMUND C. JAEGER 26Comment from Desert's readers 28A test of your desert knowledge 29From here and there on the Desert 30Hard Rock Shorty of Death Valley 31Progress of the mining boom 35Current news of desert mines 39Amateur Gem Cutter, by LELANDE QUICK . . 40Gems and Minerals 41Just Between You and Me, by the Editor . . . 46Reviews of Southwestern Literature 47

The Desert Magazine is published monthly by the Desert Press. Inc., Palm Desert ,California. Re-entered as second class matter July 17, 1948, at the postoffice at Palm Desert,California, tmder the Act of March 3, 1870. Title registered No. 358865 in U. S. Patent Office,and contents copyrighted 1955 by the Desert Press, Inc. Permission to reproduce contentsmust be secured from the editor in writing.RANDALL HENDERSON, EditorBESS STACY, Business Manager EUGENE L. CONROTTO, Associate EditorEVONNE RIDDELL, Circulation ManagerUnsolicited manus cripts and photographs submitted cannot be returned or acknowledgedunless full return postage is enclosed. Desert Magazine assumes no responsibility fordamage or loss of manuscripts or photographs although due care will be exercised. Sub-

scribers should send notice of change of address by the first of the month preceding issue.SUBSCRIPTION RATESOne Year S3.50 TwoYears $8.00Canadian Subscriptions 25c Extra, Foreign 50c E xtraSubscriptions to Army Personnel Outside U. S. A. Must Be Mailed in Conformity WithP . O. D. Order No. 19687Yddress Correspondence to Desert Magazine, Palm Pesert, CaliforniaN O V E M B E R , 1 9 5 5


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SS L R E E FM O N U M E N TN A T IO N A L P A R K S E R V I C E

H i W T f f tl r t fi

Charles Kelly, printer, musician, explorer, writer an


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Kelly was born in Cedar Springs,ichigan, in 1889 . H is father was a

His mother, a cultured woman, gaveIt was not until

In the meantime he had been learn-

At 25, with his classroom work and

room there. Th en he moved tontana , where he spent

When World War I was declared he

His parents had encouraged him to

He went to Salt Lake City becauseity. But full time emplo yme nt for

H e and H arriett were mar-Under the circumstances it was easyo turn back to the printing business,here employment was dependableand wages good. H e took a job asLinotype operator, and a year laterbecame a partner in a commercialprinting business in Salt Lake City.He remained in this business 19 years.In the meantime he had taken uphobbies which were taking more andmore of his time and interest. H isbrother, also working in Salt Lake City,had ficcuiired a Model T Ford, and he

asked Kelly to suggest some weekendtrips they could take together in thenew car.Charles had always been curiousabout the great blank space on theUtah map marked "Great Salt Desert"and they scheduled that for their first

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Capitol Gorge in the Capitol R eef National Monument.trip. A t the edge of the desert wherethey stopped for information a garageman told about the Donnor party whichhad crossed that way in 1846.Kelly was intrigued by the meagerinformation given by the garage man,and when he returned to Salt Lake Cityhe went to the library to read what hecould find about the Donnor party.In his quest for information about

the tragic Donnor episode he foundrecurring references to other men andincidents in the historical backgroundof Utah and the Southwest. He be-came an eager student of western his-tory, especially that of the great La-hontan Basin and the plateau that ex-tends from the Rockies westwardacross Utah and Nevada.Before long, all his spare time was

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devoted to historical research, and theweekend and vacation trips of explora-tion along historic trails where bits ofevidenceold wagon ruts, inscriptionson rocks and campsites marked by dis-cards from thewagon trains a hundredyears agowere to be found.It was inevitable that Kelly shouldmake the acquaintance of Frank Beck-with, editor of the weekly Chronicleat Delta, Utah, who for many yearshad been engaged in similar pursuits.In association with Beckwith, Kelly'sinterests were expanded to includearcheological research. Together theysought prehistoric campsites, artifactsand petroglyphs which might throwlight on the character andhabits of theprehistoric people who had dwelt inthis desert region.Then Kelly began to write. There

was only a limited market for shortarticles in the fields in which he wasinterested, and since he had his ownfacilities for the printing of books, hebegan to compile book-length manu-scripts. D uring the 10years from 1930to 1940 he completed the followingvolumes:Salt Lake Trails.Holy Murder, a Biography of PorterRockwell.Old Greenwood, thestory of a trap-per.Miles Goodyear, the biography ofth e man who founded Ogden, Utah,before the Mormons came.Outlaw Trails, the story of ButchCassidy andother outlaws.Journals of John D. Lee.A ll of these books, printed in limitededition, are now out of print and someof them are collector's items of rarevalue.Kelly found thedemands of a highlycompetitive business enterprise inter-fering more and more with the things

he wanted to dostudy and write. Itwas not easy after a long and hecticday attending the infinite details of theprinting businessselling letterheads,keeping the presses rolling, meetingpayrolls andcollecting billsto devotea relaxed evening in the library or atthe typewriter.O ne of the places Kelly had visitedin his exploration of Utah was theWayne Wonderland, a vast scenic re-gion in Wayne County. He had gonethere first to see the Pectol collectionof Indian artifacts, one of the finest

private collections in the state.O ne of his friends in Salt Lake Citywas Dr. A. L. Inglesby, a dentist whohad taken up rock collecting and lapi-dary as a hobby. Dr. Inglesby had re-

tired andmoved to Fruita in theWayneWonderland to devote all his time tohis hobby. He suggested that thepeaceful valley at the base of the color-ful Capitol Reef would be an idealplace for a writer to live and work.The urge was strong, and in 1940Kelly sold his interest in the Salt Lakeprinting business and moved to Fruita.H e was not ready to retire, and hislimited book editions had never beenhighly profitable. He would buy afruit ranch, and divide histime betweenthe orchard and his study.

But something was taking place inEurope which interfered with hisplans.The inflation of the economy whichfollowed Hitler's invasion of Franceand Uncle Sam's feverish effort to re-arm, had created a ready market athigh prices for food, including fruit.Orchard lands were in demand andfruit acreage had advanced sharply inselling price. Kelly decided to marktime until conditions were back tonormal again. He is still waiting tobuy a fruit ranch at a price he canafford to pay.

By presidential proclamation ofFranklin D. Roosevelt in 1937, 33,-068.74 acres of the Wayne Wonder-land hadbeen setaside as Capitol ReefNational Monument. When Kellymoved to Fruita three years later noresident custodian had yet been namedfor the Monument . However , in orderto obtain water rights, thePark Servicehad invested in a house and a smalltract in theorchard area along SulphurCreek.The Monument wasunder the juris-diction of Paul Franke, superintendentof Zion Canyon and Bryce NationalParks . On one of his visits to CapitolReef Franke metKelly, and suggestedthat he assume sort of a dollar-a-yearcustodianship of the M o n u m e n t , hiscompensation to be the rental value ofthe dilapidated old house which the

Park Service had acquired.For Kelly, this proposal solved theproblem of housing pending the pur-chase of a fruit ranch and he acceptedit, although much time and some invest-ment was required to make the houselivable.Although no budget had been setup in Washington for the administra-tion of Capitol Reef Monument,Franke at various times was able tospare limited sums from his own bud-get for preliminary surveys and roadwork, and for some part time workfor Kelly. A small headquarters build-ing had been erected as a WPA project .It was not until 1950that the ParkService authorized the employment ofa superintendent for the Monument ,

and Kelly was given full-time pay fora job to which he had been devotingmuch of his t ime for many years .Kelly had found everything hewanted at Capitol Reef a land offantastic beauty with unlimited oppor-tunity to explore, and to study thesubjects in which he was most inter-ested history, geology, archeology,botany and zoology. And now he wascustodian of this 33,000-acre domainfor Uncle Sam.

The Park budget for Capitol Reefwas very limited, but that did not dimKelly's enthusiasm. M uch of the timehe was without a ranger assistantwhich meant that the office would beclosed on his weekly day off. Buttourists never take a recess, and whenKelly was not at park headquartersthey sought him at his home. Virtually,it has been a seven-days-a-week job.But Kelly does not complain aboutthat. As far as he is concerned, Capi-tol Reef is not merely the end of therainbow, it is the whole rainbow. Itha s the gorgeous coloring of DeathValley Monument plus the fantasticformations of Bryceand Kelly wantsto share thebeauty of this land with allwho come to his door.Capitol Reef is uranium country. Oneof the first discoveries of this ore wasmade here many years ago, before theM o n u m e n t was established. Until lastM ay the Atomic Energy Commission,

under the authority of an emergencyprovision, was issuing permits to pros-pect for uranium within theM o n u m e n t .However , the area has nowbeen thor-oughly prospected, and no new per-mits are to be issued. While the out-standing permits are good for a year,an d for continuing operation on thefew claims where pay ore had beenfound, the mass invasion of the Geigercounter clan is about overand Kellylooks forward to the opportunity torestore and maintain his nationalmon-ument for thepurposes forwhich parksand monuments were createdto servethe cultural and recreational, ratherthan the commercial, purposes ofAmerican citizens.There has been little time for writ-ing since Kelly assumed the superin-tendent's position at Capitol Reef. Des-ert Magazine's staff would welcomemore of his stories. But he is still astudentand in his present position isaccumulating a vast store of new ma-terial for the daywhen he and Harriettcan resume the way of life theydreamed about when they moved tothe lovely valley of orchards at thebase of the great stone cliffa quietstudy where the walls are lined withbooks, and apples and pears andpeaches growing in their own littleorchard outside.

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A SkeletonGuards theLost Goldof JarbidgeTwo men found a gold-studded ledge farup near the headwaters of one of the creekstributary to Jarbidge River in northeasternNevadabut both of them carried the secretof its location to their grav es. Old-timers be-lieve the gold is still thereawaiting the daywhen another prospector with the hardihoodto enter that high rugged country will re-discover it.

By NELL MURBARGERPhotographs by the authorMap by Norton Al lenTHE OLD stage stat ionof North Fork on the headwatersof the Humboldt, a graded roadleads northeasterly into that perpen-dicular land where Nevada rubs shoul-ders with Ida ho . It is a lonely roadthat serves no towns and only a fewcabins . Sage hens patter along itsdusty ruts or whirr away heavily onstiff wings while jackrabbits and half-wild range cattle turn to stare curi-ously at the human intruder.

Crossing the West Fork of the Bru-neau the road leads on through the lit-tle ghost town of Charleston and upinto Humboldt National Forest wherethe scraggly brush of the desert givesway to tangled thickets of small quak-ing aspen and mountain mahogany.These in turn, give way to dark aislesof alpine fir and limber pine and high,wide, barren expanses where it seemspossible to look past the edge of theworld halfway into Eternity.After looping over the tumbledranges for 50 miles, the road nosessharply down the south wall of JarbidgeCanyon dropping more than 2000feet in five miles of corkscrew turns and deep in the basement of thatshadowy gorge it deposits itself in theold mining camp of Jarbidgepopu-lation 23.

Jarbidge Canyo n. In the high country abo ve where the sheep-herder found the gold vein summer comes for only one monthout of the year.Should the spirit of adventure everlead you to Jarbidge 1 hope you findit much as I did last summera pleas-ant little ghost town living in the shadeof mine dumps and memories, its singlestreet flanked by two rows of faded logcabins built during the gold miningboom days of 40 years ago. I hopeyour visit falls in July or August whenevery old porch is latticed with morn-ing-glory and hop vines, and the oldpicket-fenced yards are buried in holly-

hocks, and the canyon air is sweetwith wild roses, chokecherry blossomsand creek dogwood, and the brush isfilled with quail talk.I hope, especially, that you findCharlie Hawkinson at home, for Char-lie has lived at Jarbidge for over halfof his 80-odd years and he knows thisregion like the inside of his pocket.He will show you the ruins of the greatPavlak mill and tunnel, the Bluster andSuccess mines, the Flaxie and Starlight.He will take you to the spot on theroad where a stage driver was mur-dered in Nevada's last stagecoach hold-up and he will show you a willow-grown length of canyon where nearly$4000 of the stolen money was saidto have been buried.

And then, when evening has settledover the little camp and the world hasgrown dark and very still, an old timeror two may shuffle down the dustystreet to C harlie's cabin. M aybe they'llsit on Charlie's doorstep and smoketheir pipes and visit. T heir talk willdrift to the day when Jarbidge wasyoung and no man knew how great abonanza might lie but a shovel's lengthaway.Listen well. then, stranger for atsuch times old men of the Jarbidgecountry speak of the Lost Sheepherdermine and the skeleton left to guard it.While the gold strike that sired thetown of Jarbidge did not take placeuntil 1908, that rough land at thedovetailing headwaters of the Jarbidge,Bruneau and Humboldt rivers hadbeen producing gold for nearly 40years.First of the yellow metal known tohave come from this district made itsappearance in the late 1870s, soonafter the Bruneau basin and its tribu-taries were explored by a party ofMormons seeking potential farmland.In the course of that party's explora-tions, two of its members found goldin the beds of several small creeks, but

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because their church leaders lookedupon gold mining as an unsuitable oc-cupation, they made no mention of thediscovery. Fulfilling their mission theyreturned to the Jarbidge country, tracedthe placer to its source, built a smallarrastre and began mining and millinggold which they sold in small lots atElko and Tuscarora.These Mormon partners probablyexercised reasonable care to keep se-cret the location of their mine. It isunlikely that other prospectors madegreat efforts to learn its site, however.There was much mineral wealth to behad in Nevada without having to probethat high, remote region nearly 100miles from the nearest source of sup-

ply where snowdrifts lay piled in thedeeper canyons for 11 months out ofevery 12.So the two Mormons went on oper-ating their little arrastre and sellingtheir gold and living their quiet way.A time finally came, however, whenthe merchants in Elko and Tuscarorabegan to realize that "the Mormonboys" had not been around for a longwhile. Maybe they had worked theirmine out and then left the country;maybe they had been buried by asnowslide. No one knew and no one

bothered to investigate and so the firstknown Jarbidge area gold productioncame to an unrecorded end.Years later in 1885 a stage driverpassing through the region picked up

a piece of ore and took it to his em-ployers, Scott and Hanks and askedif they would have it assayed for him.It was some while before the stagebosses got around to having the assaymade but when they did they learnedthat the ore was fabulously rich ingold!By that time, however, the driverhad left the company and was no-where to be found. Rumor said he hadgone back into the wild Jarbidge coun-try to look for more gold. He neverwas heard from again.Coupled with the activities of thetwo mining Mormons, the stage driv-er's discovery whetted the interest ofmining men and soon a few prospec-

tors ventured into the regioneach towork through the area's woefully briefsummer and then to wander on toother diggings blessed with more com-patible winter climates.Among the fair-weather miners whostrayed into the region about 1890was a man whose name is rememberedonly as Ross. In the course of hissummer's work, Ross came upon somefloat fantastically rich in gold. He wastracing it to its source when darkclouds began gathering around thesummits of the loftier peaks and the

ominous hush of approaching winterclosed in upon the canyons.Leaving his pick and shovel stuckin the rocky ground to mark the high-est point to which he had followed the

float, Ross packed his camp gear andretreated from the high country. Afew hours later he reached a sheepcamp on the summer range of JohnPence situated on the east bank of theJarbidge River. The camptender, aman named Ishman, invited him toremain overnight.Possibly Ross had a premonitionthat he would never return to hispromising prospect; or, more thanlikely, his weeks alone on the moun-tain had left him so hungered for hu-man companionship he could not re-sist the impulse to confide in anotherthe news of his good fortune. He toldIshman, the sheepherder, of the richfloat he had found and fully described

the canyon where he had located it.He even went far enough beyond thecall of duty to relate how he had spenthalf the summer tracing the float andhow he had left the place marked withhis pick and shovel.And, according to the story told ayear later by the camptender, Rosstold him that if he failed to return tothe prospect in the spring, Ishmanshould consider it his property and goahead with its development.Ishman returned to the home ranchbut said nothing regarding his encoun-

ter with Ross, or what Ross had assert-edly told him.When spring came and dark patchesappeared on the hills and bluebellsand johnny-jump-ups began to bloom

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in the greening meadows around thestock dams John Pence's sheep andtheir herder again moved up the slopestoward that aspen-ringed meadow.As soon as it became possible forhim to do so, Ishman made his way upthe mountain to Ross ' claim. Whetherhe honestly wondered if he would findRoss there or whether he knew for acertainty that Ross would never re-turn to that prospect is something noman can say. In either case, Ishmanfound the pick and shovel as Ross haddescribed itbut lying beside the toolswas another marker of quite a differ-ent characterthe whitening skeletonof a man!Although the bones had beenstripped clean and disarranged by ani-mals, the skeleton appeared to be com-plete. According to Ishman's later re-port to John Pence he was unable todetermine if the skeleton was that ofRoss or of some other man. N or, ao-parently, could he ascertain how theunfortunate victim came to his end.Undaunted by this gruesome dis-covery, Ishman devoted all h ;s sparetime that summer to tracing the float.To an experienced miner that tracingmight have presented few difficultiesbut Ishman was not an experiencedminer he was a sheeph erder. Fordays at a time he would think he hadlost the lead. Th en he would find an-other small piece of ore heavily im-pregnated with gold and h>s search

would be launched anew. Th us heworked his way up the mountain slope,day by day and foot by foot.Finally those long weeks of seekingled him to a small cropping of rockthickly seamed with yellow.He had found the source of all thoserich pieces of float but summer wasalready so far spent that snow-ladenclouds had come to hover around thesummits and the lonely wind that lickedat the yellowing aspens was gusty andchill. Collecting several pounds of oreIshman carefully covered the outcrop-ping with dead brush, hid all evidenceof his work, and removed Ross' pickand shovel lest those markers guidesomeone else to the discovery. T hen,detaching the skull from the skeletonas a macabre memento, the sheep-herder rounded up his flock, brokecamp, and started back down the trail.At the home ranch Ishman exhibitedthe skull and ore samples to his em-ployer, John Pence, and for the firsttime related the weird story of hismeeting with Ross a year before andof the developments that followed.

One glance at the samples wasenough to tell Pence that here was oreof a richness hitherto unknown in thatsection of the country an opinionlater substantiated by a reputable as-sayer who found that the poorest of

Charlie Hawkinson came to Jarbidge in 1912.Ishman's ore samples ran more than$4000 to the ton.While Pence and Ishman agreed totell no one of the startling discoverythey talked of little else between them-selves that winter. Yet Ishma n neverrevealed to Pence the exact locationof the mine. Whenever his employersteered the conversation around in thatdirection, the canny sheepherder wouldtell him that he would take him to theplace as soon as the mountain snowsand weather permitted.

At last the meadowlarks of anotherspring were singing and bare patchesof ground again appeared on the wind-swept shoulders of the hills. Lo ng be-fore it was possible to take the sheepover the trail to their summer pastureIshman and Pence headed into themountains.As the men pushed higher into therugged ranges Ishman's excitementgrew until it bordered on madness.Faster and faster he climbed into thecold, thin air of the high country, his

fierce pace governed only by the lim-its of his endurance.In the face of this powerful driveand vitality the tragic event soon tofollow must have been doubly shock-ing to John Pence.

Toiling up the mountain a few yardsbehind Ishman. Pence saw the camp-tender suddenly throw his hand to hishead and reel drunkenly.And then, as Pence stared aghast,that powerful form began crumplingto earth, inert, flaccid, lifeless.Despite heroic efforts by the rancherin getting his stricken companion downoff the mountain and to the nearestdoctor at Mountain Citya 100 miletrip by horse and wagon Ishman

died a few days later, a victim of acerebral hem orrha ge. H e had not re-gained consciousness.Death silenced the only man whoknew the mine's location and Pencewas left with no clues save a few vaguedetails Ishman had dropped concern-ing the general terrain near the bo-nan za. W ith only these thin leads thesheepman spent thousands of dollarsgrubstaking prospectors summer aftersummer, always sending them into thesame wild region where he believedthe mine to be hidden. N umerous

other prospectors tried to locate themine on their own account. Of thesesome never returned, and it was pre-sumed they had starved to death orhad remained too late in the year andwere trapped by winter. O ther thou-N O V E M B E R , 1 9 5 5


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Log b uildings along Jarbidge's single street date back to the 1909-1910gold boom. Electric power was brought in from a distance of 80 miles.sands of dollars were spent with spirit-ualists in an effort to make contactwith either Ross or Ishman in thespirit worldbut all these efforts wereequally in vain.

In time the Ross discovery becameknown as "The Lost SheepherderM ine " and when men of the northernborder country sat before their pine-wood fires on the long winter eveningsthey talked of it, conjectured over itspossible location and dreamed of some-day finding it.In November of 1908 Mr. and Mrs.D . A. Bourne were returning to theirhome at Boise, Idaho, after a coldhorse-and-wagon trip to southern Ne-vada. Bou rne, who had formerly livedat the little settlement of Steptoe inWhite Pine County, Nevada, had beenaround mines and mining men all hislife and for much of his life he hadheard tales of the Lost Sheepherder.Whenever he passed the general localeof the Sheepherder he kept his eyesopen and on this occasioncold as itwashe was watching for color andformation.

Reaching the banks of the JarbidgeRiver, Bourne and his wife and theirweary team turned down the streamand followed it to a point nine milesfrom the Idaho line, where they weresuddenly confronted by what was laterdescribed as "a bluff of great heightwith gold in every line."Due to the extreme isolation of theJarbidge River country even Bourne'smiraculous strike did not have the ef-fect of starting an immediate stampede.

As late as the fall of 1909 only six orseven men were prospecting in thedistrict, but during the early monthsof 1910 the full thrust of excitementhit the newspapers of Elko and TwinFalls.10

Some of Bourne's assays, it was re-ported, were running to the fabulousfigure of $73,000 in gold to the tonof ore!"Before I had dug a hole 10 feetdeep in the property . . . I had beenoffered $2,000,000!" said Bourne in

There are many versions ofthe Lost Sheepherder Minestory, some radically differentfrom others. The version re-lated by Miss Murbarger is theone told by Mrs. John Pence in1910. Because Mrs. Pence wasthe wife of the man who thesheepherder told his story to,many believe her version to bethe most authentic.

an exclusive interview published by aLos Angeles newspaper. "Then I wasgiven a chance to sell 100,000 sharesfor $1 ,000,0 0. But as there is orevalued at $27,000,000 in sight, I amnot selling!" This statement appearedin the Elko Free Press of January 211910.

With this excitement, the old storyof the Lost Sheepherder mine was re-vived and while it had been Bourne'soriginal thought that his discovery andthat made by Ross were one and thesame, when he and others had timeto analyze the two strikes they realizedthat Bourne's mine could not possiblybe the Sheepherderthat the Sheep-herder must have been five or moremiles distant and much higher on therange.With the Bourne strike transcend-ing anything men had hoped from theSheepherder. the story of the old minegradually slipped into the limbo ofancient history.

Jarbidge developed rapidly as atown. Febru ary, 1910, found 500person s in cam p. Sup plies of all kindswere scarce and exhorbitant in cost.Most of the buildings in camp hadbeen constructed of pine logs but sevenof the business houses were built ofdressed lumber brought in by burro.As time slipped by new mines werediscovered and existing mines devel-oped . But still the matter of inacces -sibility rem ained . A s late as 1917,with most hamlets in the United Stateslinked by fast rail communication andall-weather highways, Jarbidge was stillclinging to its precarious perch in N e-vada's snow-bound attic. Nearest railconnection was at Rogerson, Idaho,and throughout the winter months cit-izens of Jarbidge having business atElko, their county seat, necessarilymade the trip by way of Pocatello,

Idaho, and Ogden, Utah.Among the men and women stillliving at Jarbidge are several who stillrecall those early days of isolation andhardsh ip. O ne who remembe rs isCharlie Hawkinson who came to Jar-bidge with a pair of pack burros in1912 and has continued to live therethrough 43 years of tjood times andbad.Charlie saw electric power broughtto Jarbidge from a distance of 80 milesand a wagon road onened through toD eeth, on the Southern Pacific. H e

saw the Guggenheim interests movein; saw a newspaper established anda chamber of commerce organized;saw the town grow to 3000 inhabitantsand spiral into fame as the greatestgold producing camp of that day inthe State of Nevada.And Charlie stayed on to see thebig mines close down in 1942 by WarProduction Board order after the camphad assertedly produced between $50 -000.000 and $60.000000 in gold.With the major mines inoperative thepopulation trickled away, stores and

hotels and business houses closed, tun-nels and mills collapsed and Jarbidgebecame another Nevada chost townwith a population of 23 old timers.The Lost Sheepherder mine is stilllost and somewhere on the mountainbelow it lies the headless skeleton thatoriginally belonged to the skull thatJohn Pence keot for so many years onthe mantel in his ranch home.But who had been the fiesh-and-blood proprietor of that skeleton? Hadit been some unmentioned partner ofRoss' whom he hnd killed before leav-ing the scene? H -d it been Ross him-self? O r was it someo ne else?These are secrets known only toRss and, possibly, to Ishman. thesheepherdersecrets they carried totheir graves.



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H a s s a y a m p a D a m D i s a s t e r - 1 8 9 0A 100-foot wall of water cameroaring down the narrow canyon

in the early hours of February 22,1 8 9 0 . The dam had burst! Beforethe Hassayampa was back in i tschannel, 83 persons were knownto have been kil led and scores ofothers wer e missing. It stands asArizona's worst disaster.By I . H. PARKMANPhotographs f rom theSharlot Hal l Museum, Prescot t

1888 A DAM was completedacross the Hassayampa River 60miles upstream from Wickenburgat a place called Walnu t Grov e. Tw oyears later this dam, constructed andowned by the Walnut Grove WaterStorage Company, H. S. VanBuren ofNew York, president, was to play theleading role in the greatest disaster inArizona's history.

The need for water to mine hy-draulically the placer mines in the Wal-nut Grove area prompted the construc-tion of the dam. D am water was alsoused to irrigate approximately 500acres of land below the dam. Woodenflumes were built to carry the waterstored by the dam downstream to theplacers. Because the country had con-siderable fall, water pressure developedquickly in the flumes.The Walnut Grove Water StorageCompany's dam was built between twosloping gran ite cliffs. It was 110 feethigh, 400 feet across on top and 130feet across at its solid rock bed base.It was constructed of loose rock anddirt encased with rock laid in mortar.At high water it backed up the Hassay-ampa to form a two-mile lake. T o

handle overflow conditions a spillway15 feet wide and eight feet deep wasconstructed near the top of the dam.Normally the Hassayampa in that vi-cinity is just a small babbling brook,but at other times, as is the case withall Arizona dry streams, it becomes anangry, roaring, rushing torrent, and asmall 15 by eight foot spillway couldnot even handle a fourth of the waterthat comes down it.

Twenty miles below the big dam asmaller one was built to capture therunoff that was diverted and used fromthe Walnut Grove dam.In the winter of 1889-90 an unusu-ally heavy amount of snow fell in theBradshaw mountains on the head-waters of the H assayam pa. Th is wasfollowed by a warm rain in the latterpart of February, 1890. Almost im-mediately the winter's accumulation ofsnow was turning into living water andevery arroyo, swale and canyon be-came a mad, rushing stream. Withthese streams dumping their accumula-tion of water into the Hassayampa, itwas only a short time before the biglake back of the dam was at capacity.It soon became apparent that thespillway was far too small to handleth e runoff. To make matters worse,it became clogged with trees and otherdebris despite tremendous efforts tokeep it clear. In a ma tter of hou rswater began running over the top ofthe dam.At 2 a.m. Saturday morning, Febru-ary 22, 1890, the dam gave way witha mighty roar and a 100-foot-high wallof water went roaring down the can-yon.

It took only half an hour for thewater to reach the smaller dam 20miles downstream.

This dam did not last any longerthan it took the flood to hit it and themad water went rushing on down thecanyon, leaving destruction and deathin its wake . T he channel was sweptclean to the mouth of the Hassayampawhere it empties into the Gila. A t 9 :3 0that morning the water reached theBuckeye Canal and spread out overthe valley, flooding the old Evans homea half mile east of the channel withfour feet of water. Th e new 3 0-acrealfalfa field on their farm was coveredwith sand and drift.

The river in the vicinity where High-way 80 now crosses it was more thana mile wide. It continued to spreadout and when it emptied into the Gilait was two miles wide.

At that time the G. A. Roberts fam-ily lived in a house on their homesteadjust east of the Hassayampa-Gila junc-tion. Hearing the distant roar, theRoberts boys, John and Oscar, startedto the field to catch the horses, but thethunder of the flood frightened thebeasts away. T he family reached highground north of their home just min-utes before the flood crest hit. T hepeak of the flood passed in a fewminutes, pouring its rushing watersinto the already swollen Gila which wasitself in flood at the time. A few ho urslater the Hassayampa was back in itschannel.Members of the Dr. J. P. Evansfamily were at home on their farm onthe north side of what is now Highway8 0 , about a half mile east of the Has-sayampa channel. They were not asfortunate as the Roberts family andthe flood caught them before they couldreach high ground. Th e men had tocarry the women to high groundthrough waist deep water for almost

Rare 65-year-old photograph shows the HassayampaDam as it appeared d uring its brief life. View is d own-stream.This companion photograph was taken shortly after thedam wa s washed out by the swollen stream. View isupstream.

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;

Survivors of the Walnut Grove disaster. Photo taken a few clays after thedam broke.a quarter of a mile. Many other Buck-eye residents were caught withoutwarning for there were no telephonelines or radios to warn them of theapproaching water. The consequenceswere tragic, for 83 bodies were re-covered along the river's path. M anyothers were lost. The exact numberkilled in the flood has never been as-certained.

T he one man who could havewarned the residents downstream gotonly as far as Boulder Pat 's Saloon,halfway between the twodams. Whenit became apparent that the dammightgive way, this manwhose name is notof record wasdispatched on horsebackto warn the people. He started threedays before the dam broke. At Boul-der Pat 's he stopped for a drink andtold the patrons there his news. Theylaughed at his information so, accord-ing to reports, he stayed on and gotdrunk.The next morning he was seen rid-ing into the swollen river and disap-peared. According to reports he wasnever heard from again.

The greatest known loss to one fam-ily was suffered by the L. D. Hainesfamily. The parents and four of theirsix children were killed. The twoothermembers of the family were workingin Phoenix at the time and it was fromon e of these survivors that I have sup-plemented my information on this dis-aster.F or two weeks after the dam brokethe Arizona papers were full of theaccounts of suffering and death.T he old Phoenix Daily Herald toldthe following stories:" E . G. Wheeler, who at one timewas connected with the Post OfficeBook store in this city was at lowerdam on the Hassayampa and has noteven been heard of. The merchant at

the Camp, Bob Browl, lost $4000worth of stock."Deputy city treasurer Fleshman re-turned from the Hassayampa Riverdisaster about ten o'clock last night( F e b . 27). Everyone in the party washaggard, stiff and exhausted from thejourne y. They witnessed many pitifulsights. Tuesday morning theparty hadreached Smith Mills where they foundEd. Scarborough and team safe andsound. Proceeding to Seymore, oldmoiher Conger was found, naked andstarving. Her store and every earthlypossession has been swept away, in-cluding $1500 in gold coin that washid between the cloth ceiling and theshingles. They say the Hassayampa isswept clean from the upper dam to itsmouth. Its canyon walls are groundsmooth. Debris of all kinds, animals,provisions, buildings and trees arescattered everywhere. For the firsttwo miles the water wall must havebeen 100 feet high. Th irty bodies wereseen by the party including sevenChinamen and "Chinese Mary," a wellknown denizen of the Capital. OurPhoenix delegation met parties fromPrescott, Congress and other localities,all united in the sad work of identify-ing the dead. In one grave six milesfrom Wickenburg, 18 victims sleeppeacefully awaiting God's JudgmentD a y . "

For many years after the flood bonesof lost victims were found in the sandalong the Hassayampa. As late as 25years after the disaster a skeleton wasfound that was believed to have beenthat of John Silsbee, pioneer musician.The property destruction was notgreat outside of the dam itself andthe construction camps, for the rivertraverses desert country all the waydown to its mouth. A heavy looserwas Bob Browl, a merchant in thecanyon a short distance from the dam.

A safe belonging to him and containing$5000 was swept down the river andburied under the sand. As far as it isknown the safe is still out there some-where.Someday the dam will probably berebuilt in order to conserve the waterfor irrigationbut it will be built ofsolid concrete with gates and spillwayslarge enough to take care of any pos-sible overflow. H istory has given alesson too costly to ignore.

S O U T H W E S T C O N C E R N E D O V E RNAVAJO DRINK ING P RO BLEM

The Navajo Indian drinking problemhas been receiving increased publicattention since the Indians were givenfree access to liquor. M any peoplesupport the Gallup, New Mexico, Po-lice Department's contention that theend of Indian prohibition is turningout ignobly. O thers feel that there isless drinking nowthan during prohibi-tion, but that the drinking is now outin the open.Most all observers agree, however,that the situation will straighten itselfou t in a few yearsthat the presentrash of public drunkenness is merelythe logical outcome of the sudden lift-ing of the drinking ban.Hundreds of Navajos crowded Gal-lup bars during the recent Indian

Tribal Ceremonials. Two police wag-ons were kept on the run all duringthe festival, carrying away inebriatedIndians. One police officer declaredthat more drunks were arrested in onenight in Gallup than in the city ofChicago.N o one, it appears, has a completepicture of what is taking place as anation of some 75,000 people findsitself suddenly able to buy beer, wineand whisky like anyone else. TheN a v-ajos themselves still prohibit the bring-ing of alcohol onto their reservation,however.U . S. Commissioner Glenn L. Em-mons declared that "the Indians arestill learning how to handle alcohol.Sometimes, in cases such as this, thesituation gets worse before it gets bet-ter."The Navajo language newspaperAdahooniligii reports that the NavajoAgency and the Navajo Tribal Coun-cil have protested a proposed moveof a Gallup bar closer to the reserva-tion. The bar has obtained permissionfor the move from the McKinleyCounty board of commissioners pend-ing its legality. Navaio leaders fearthat there are not enough law enforce-ment officers on the reservation tohandle disturbances that might occurat the bar.

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H O M E O N T H E D E S E R T

theBy RUTH REYNOLDSY H O M E on the desert neverlooked better to me than atthe moment I took off byplane for a day-long flight eastwarda few weeks ago. Ex cept to my innere y e , of course, my house was not visi-

ble from the Tucson Municipal Air-port, nor even from the sky above it.I could see the mountains though, en-compassing the valley, and on the norththe familiar Santa Catalinas. But asthe airliner rose into the sky theselandmarks drew away and changedshape so strangely that I hardly recog-nized them as my mountains that werealways there, towering on my horizonand visible from several windows ofmy house which, as I now perceivedit, appeared to be one of the world'sfinestwith 19 windo ws, including alarge picture window in the livingroom.As a matter of fact, it is a fairly, orif I must admit ita very ordinaryhouse, with about 10 too many win-dows to wash.S o , detached as I seemed to be fromtime and space, I continued to lookhomeward, seeing things in a timeless,spaceless perspective.I saw, among other things, a tama-risk tree that was no longer there. We'dgotten rid of it. T o part with it wasnot easy, but how easily we had

planted itjust by putting a stick intothe ground and watering it.Were we foolish to plant it when wedid? I wonder. We didn't think so atthe time. A treeany treewas price-less when the open desert stretchedaway for blocks on either side of usas it did then.This tree was a priceless little thingthe day we first discovered buds break-ing through the bark of our "stick inthe groun d." H ow excited the childrenwere! "It 's going to grow!" Theyshouted and clapped their hands. Theyinspected it each day that summerchecked the growth of foliage as it ap-peared in feathery green tufts.Almost before we knew it our tam-arisk stick became a tree not toostrong a tree at first, and the wind,

whipping its fragile branches almostto the breaking point, gave us somebad moments.Once after a particularly strong windleft it leaning to one side we workedfor hours anchoring it with a guy wire.My husband drove a strong metal pipedeep into the ground and I ran aclothesline wire through a short lengthof old garden hose and we fastenedthe tree to the stake, with the hoseprotecting the tree trunk from injuryby the wire.I have since learned that one shouldkeep young trees straight by using twoor three guy wires, or by binding themto a stake with this garden hose devicein two or three places. But with ourtree already decidedly leaning, the onewire was enough to pull it back so thatits trunk grew straight, and in time,tall. Its branc hes, pruned back in win-ter, were dense in summer and itsfoliage thick and we had a shadetree.

W hat a joy it was in its day! Butits day passed. Th e neighborhoodeventually built up with houses on lotsadjoining ours. Our neighbors plantedtrees and shrubs near by. We planteda loquat tree a short distance from it,bricked a raised terrace around thetamarisk and planted flower beds ontwo sides of the terrace20 feet awayfrom the tamarisk . But soon its roots ,tunnelling toward the flower beds,raised the bricks until the terrace hada hills-and-hollows contour.

With its branches too high and itstop too heavy, our tree had to gobefore the wind blew it over on ourneighbor's hourse or ours, taking, per-haps, electric and telephone wires withit. A similar fate befell a cactus weplanted a long time ago. It was adomesticated Burbank spineless "pan-cake" type. O ne leaf, set out practi-cally on top of the ground, produced,within a few years, a plant of enor-mous size, mowing 15 feet high andabout as wide.How many Eastern relatives of oursposed beside that cactus for snapshotsto imD ress the folks back home!Each spring it was covered with

A recent plane f l ight to the Eastserved two purposes for EuthReynolds. Once of f the groundshs was able to reflect back on hergarden in an object ive mannerand her t ravels brcuoht her toNew York and Brooklyn where ag r a e n h o u s e a g a v e m a d e t h e h e a d -l ines.beautiful lemon-yellow blossoms, andeach summer its fruit would have filleda bushel basket. The y were a lusciousorange-red and almost as large as hens'eggs. Once I tried making jam of afew of them, proceeding as with otherfruits or berries. !t had an ambros ialflavor but a slightly scratchy, cactusfeel to the tongue . N owa days 1 oftensee cactus jam on the grocer's shelves.It looks much like mine and is prob-ably made from the fruit of the samekind of cactus.

Our plant gradually reverted to itsancsstral naturebecame spinedaswe discovered when its growth broughtit to the edge of the badminton courtand a guest player fell against it.N ow it is gone, and I miss it. Itwas so typically desert, and there is solittle left on the premises that is nativedesert growth.Speaking of desert growth, my recenttravels led me eventually to New YorkCity where I spent an afternoon in asort of busman's holiday, trampingover a few of the Brooklyn BotanicGarden's 50 acres and ending up inthe cactus greenhouse.There James J. Franklin, assistantdirector of the Garden, pointed outsome of their more unusual specimens,among which was a saguaroalmost9 feet tallwhich had come to themby way of the New York World's Fairw h e e it had been exhibited in 1939.The most sensational plant evergrown in the greenhouse, accordingto Mr. Franklin, was a Mexican agave lately deceased which , after themanner of century plants, suddenly inits 30vh year grew a 15-foot stalk,bloomed and died.Jn the desert this would scarcely besensational, but in New York it createdquite a stir. A t the Ga rden its rapidgrowing was regarded with amazementand when it reached the roof of theg-eenhouse, a pane of glass was re-moved and the agave hurried throughthe opening to bloom in the July sun.Accounts of the event and picturesof the protruding blooms appeared inthe New York newspapers. It seemsthat when "a cactus blooms in Brook-lyn" it's newseven if the cactus is anagavemember of the Amaryllis fam-ily and not a true cactus at all.

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Genera l view of the Papag o family's cam p near the giant saguaro forest. MotherVentura, in foreground, tends to the jam making while her daughter R osaria,kneeling, separates the seed from the saguaro fruit pulp. Another daughter, Vir-ginia, walks into camp with her basket full of fruit and the long kuibit used forknocking the fruit to the ground. The men spend their time hunting game andgathering wood.

Saguaro Harvest inthe Land of PapagosWhen June comes, the Papago Indians of southern Arizona moveto ca m ps in the sag ua ro forest for their ann ua l harv est. For the fruit

of the giant cactus is one of their main sources of food and drink. Ityields syrup, jam, dried fruit, ceremonial wineand any residue goesto the chickens . The harvest is a traditional occup ation that almostamo unts to a ritual.By CHARLES W. HERBERTPhotographs by the author

14

S I F F L A U N T I N G t h e m i d -summer heat of the SouthernArizona desert, the largest ofall cacti, the giant saguaro, brings itsrich red fruit to maturity while thesun blazes above.And at the time of year when mostof us, in spite of our loyalty to thedesert, wish we could take off for themountains and a cool fishing stream,the Papago Indians prepare to go fur-ther into the desert. The ir New Yea r

begins with the first ripening of thesaguaro cactus fruit in June; their mostsacred ritual, the rain-making cere-mony, takes place after the harvestin late summer.All adult members of the family goto the cactus forests where they gather



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the ripe fruit and convert it into theiryear's supply of syrup, jam and cere-monial wine for the rain-making ritual.I had heard of this age-old custommany times, but during my first 10years on the desert I always put offvisiting a saguaro harvesting. I knewit would be tough, going into 110 de-gree heat without protection.Finally 1 gave in. I ha d to see formyself. 1 got in touch with the au thori-ties at the Papago Indian reservationat Sells, 60 miles west of Tucson, andwas invited to visit the Indians attheir summer fruit-harvesting camps.The Papago Indian reservation of2,500,000 acres is typical Arizonadesert, covered with cactus, mesquite,i ronwood and palo verde. Th e wordPapago is derived from papah, or bean,and the Papagos are known as the"bean people." They are traditionallyagricultural and closely related to thePirna Indians.

The Apaches, Yaquis and the whitesforced them from the more fertilevalleys into the deser t. T hey haveadapted themselves to its meager pro-

ductivity and are a cheerful, contentedpeople, living under extremely primi-tive conditions.On the way to Sells I passed severaltypical Pap ago hamlets. E ach is lo-cated where a certain amount of irri-gation is possible, and their inhabi-tants raise a few livestock and somegarden prod uce. A typical dwelling isa one-room hut of saguaro or ocotilloribs plastered with mud . Ro ughly 16-feet wide and 20 feet long, the hutsare windowless.

Each house had a ramada made offour upright posts roofed with brushand earth. Under this shelter are foundthe fireplace, grinding stones, ollas andbaskets that make up the Papago'shousekeeping equipment. They areexpert basketmakers, weaving willowbaskets that are tight and waterproof.Their traditional basket pattern is alarge tray or bowl, creamy white incolor with a woven black design. Th eblack dye is one of the few true blacksfound in Nature and is made fromdevil 's claw pod s. Pa pago bask ets ofvarious kinds are made to serve just

about every purpose of housekeepingfrom containers to strainers.At Sells, the superintendent of thereservation had arranged with TommySegundo to accompany me as guideand interpreter. To mm y is a leadingPapago and speaks excellent English.We started at daybreak for the tripinto the desert where the saguaro fruitcamps were located.Our dest inat ion was Santa Rosa,northwest from Sells. This tiny com-munity is the largest summer rancheriaof the Papago and lies at the base ofthe Santa Rosa Mountains, about 40miles from Sells. We knew we wereseeing our last store, so we stocked upon watermelons, soft drinks and plentyof water.An hour and a half of slowgoing over rough country brought usto a dense saguar o forest. Soon afterentering the forest we saw two womengathering saguaro fruit.They knew Tommy. He introducedme and explained th at 1 wanted totake pictures and not to interfere withtheir wo rk. A fter a fairly com plicateddiscussion, they agreed.

Rosaria knocks down the fruit with her kuibit while Virginia gathers it from theground, brushing off the sand and removing hulls.

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Papago wom en deftly knock the ripe fruit to the ground w ith their kuibitswithout harm ing green fruit w hich is left on plant to ripen.The older of the two women wasVirginia Hillman. H er husband, John,is a Santa Rosa councilman, and theylive in Santa Rosa village. With herwas her sister, Rosaria Ventura, alsofrom Santa Rosa. Like most Papagowomen they were reserved but friendly.They rarely smiled and were intent ongetting their job done.They made a good team. Rosariapulled or knocked the fruit down andVirginia collected it in a basket.Rosaria's tool was a long stick witha cross-piece. She told me it wascalled a kuibit, and that she made itfrom splicing together saguaro skele-ton ribs using two or three as neededfor the proper length. The kuibitsvary from 15 to 30 feet in length d e-pending on the height of the cactusthey are used on. Th e crosspiece, shesaid, is called a matsuguen. It is se-curely fastened to the end of the kuibitand is used as a hook to pry the fruitloose.At the tips of the trunk and armsof the saguaro the waxy white saguaroblossom appears each spring like ahalo. A s the bloom disappears theoval-shaped fruit developsRosaria was only knocking off thor-oughly ripe fruit, and patiently sheavoided damaging green fruit that

would ripen later. Sometimes shepushed the ripe fruit, using whatevermethod was best to dislodge it with-out harming it green neighbors.She told me she tried to find onlypods that had already burst open, al-though this was not always possible.If the fruit was ripe but the pod hadnot opened, she removed the wholepod. The ripe fruit is a beautifulscarlet color. Inside it there is a pulpymass of heavy, dark brownish red, inwhich seeds are so thickly embeddedthat removing them becomes a chorefor only the pulp is useful for makingjam.As the fruit was dislodged Virginiacarefully picked it up. If only the richsoft center had fallen she shook it tofree it from sand. If the hard ou terhull remained she split the hull length-wise and then scraped the pulp intoher basket.Virginia and Rosaria each had abasket. When both baskets were full which took about two hours, foreach basket held about 15 to 20pounds of ripe fruitthey were readyto return to camp.Tommy invited them to ride tocamp with us, but they declined,and then gave us careful directions forreaching it. Every detail of the sa-

guaro harvest is governed by long-established tradition. It is almost aritual. I suspect that the two womendeclined the offer of a ride back tocamp because it was not in accordancewith their tradition. Each picked upa basket of fruit, balanced it on herhead, and carrying her kuibit in theother hand, walked toward the camp.The camp was on a little ridge andthere were several mesquite and paloverde trees nearby. A rama da of sa-guaro skeleton ribs provided the onlyshade, except for a piece of canvasdraped over the household equipmentpiled together under one of the trees.Under the ramada were their sougans,or bedrolls, and other personal be-longings of the family.A horse and wagon were in campas were the men. Tommy introducedus . They were polite but even morereserved than the wom en. They spendvery little time in camp while thewomen harvest the fruit, coming inonly for meals and to sleep. Theyspend their days hunting and for thiscamp-out they are responsible for pro-viding mesquite and palo verde woodfor the fires.Keeping a supply of wood for thecooking and jam-making is a real chorebecause the fires are kept up frombreakfast to nightfall. When wereached camp, Amelia Ventura, motherof Virginia and Rosaria, had everythingin readiness. The outdoor kitchenwhere the jam was made was set up.Virginia and Rosaria arrived soonafter we did. Since this was their thirdtrip of the day and it was now almostnoon, it was time for lunch whichwould be followed by a long siesta.They courteously invited Tommy andme to share their potful of typicalPapago rabbit stew and their strongblack coffee. They refused to shareour sandwiches, but were pleased whenwe offered them watermelon.After lunch the fruit gathered dur-ing the morning was checked carefullyto see that all the dust was shaken offand all stray spines removed. O cca-sionally one of the women would pickout a choice bit of fruit and eat it. Thefresh fruit is delicious, and so sweetthat no sugar is needed to make jam.When w ater is added to the fresh fruitthe result is a sweet drink with a tasteso distinctive that I cannot think ofanything to compare it to.Mrs. Ventura, as the matriarch ofthe family, was in charge of the jammaking. To start it she mixed threeparts of fruit to two parts water in theolla over the fire. She boiled this 15to 20 minutes and then started dippingit out and pouring it into a looselywoven basket over another olla. Th ebasket served as a strainer permittingonly the juice to get through. This

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Utensils used in processing the fruit all earthen potsand baskets made by the Indian w omen. Mothe r Ventura fills the earthen ollas with saguarojuice to be u sed later as cerem onial wine.juice was put back into the boilingolla and cooked slowly for four or fivehours. It gradually thickens and makesa delicious syrup. M rs. Ventura wasable to make about one gallon of syrupa day.While the syrup was bubbling, Mrs.Ventura arranged the pulp separatedfrom the juice, on clean pieces of can-vas spread out on the ground. Thepulp and seed mixture dries for a dayand then is carefully worked by handto remove most of the seed. A ll thewomen work at this job. They haveno benches and tables, but kneel onthe ground and with great patienceand care rub the dried p ulp, finallyworking most of the seeds out. Th eseed is then roasted and ground upinto a powder. M ixed with sugar itis a favorite P apago sweet. Seeds arealso used as chickenfeed, M rs. Ven-tura told me.Mrs. Ventura was a strong-facedwoman, severely featured and reserved.She volunteered no conversation, nordid her daughters, as they workedsteadily at the hard, tedious job ofmaking jam. But each of them readilyanswered my questions put to them inPapago by Tommy.The pulp, after most of the seedsare removed, is allowed to dry for an-other day. It can then be stored as

dried fruit, made into jam or ceremon-ial wine.To make jam Mrs. Ventura mixedthe dried pulp with a little water andcooked it for about 30 minutes, stirringit constantly to make sure the pulpsoftened. The pulp swells and formsa soft gelatin-like mass which is dippedout and placed in another pot whereit is vigorously beaten with a stick forover half an ho ur. It is then ready forfinal cooking.Virginia, meantime, cleaned out theboiling olla, removing the sand andgravel that had settled at the bottomduring the first cooking. H er motherpoured some of the morning's syrupinto the pot with some of the pulp. Asthe few remaining seed rose to thetop they were dipped off. Every dro pof juice from the sweet pulp is saved.Even the rinse water from the olla inwhich the pulp is beaten is used forthinning down the mixture as it boils.After a long, slow boiling, the mixturereaches a thick jam consistency.Mrs. Ventura explained that if afamily has two women to gather fruitand another to keep the fires andjam-making going, the family can,during a week in camp, produce eightgallons of syrup, two gallons of jam,and a potato sack full of dried fruitand roasted seed. This will last thefamily for several months. The rich

sweets are an important part of thefamily's diet, especially during thebleak winter months when there islittle else except the results of themen's hunting.Some of the syrup is used to makethe ceremonial wine for the rain mak-ing ritual after the cactus fruit harvest.In spite of the heat, I was so fascinatedby the jam-making and fruit harvest-ing that I was reluctant to leave. ButTommy and I loaded everything intothe car and were ready to start backto Sells and Tucson when the motordecided not to run. I tried everything,but it would not start.Without being asked, Mrs. Ventura,her two daughters, her husband andher son-in-law walked over and puttheir shoulders to the car. With a

heave they got us started.As they pushed us all of them werelaughing loudly and it seemed to methey enjoyed giving us a shove morethan they had enjoyed anything allday. A s we slowly drove off theywaved.Mr. Ventura yelled something aswe disappeared."What did he say?" I asked Tommy.Tommy, too, was laughing."He said," Tommy managed to tellme, "that you should be a Papago.Then you'd have enough sense to owna horse."N O V E M B E R , 1 9 5 5 17


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Rock Trails inC hem ehuevi Land/ ^ O R M A L L Y G E O R G E is anfg , even tempered man, but he lit-erally sputtered when he visitedus after a rock hunt recently.

"Why, we've collected there for 10years!" he said. "Rockhounds havedug and made roads enough to patenta dozen claims. Th is time we find thewhole country plastered with new lo-cation notices and Private Property

signs! But I couldn't find where thesesparkle and click boys had done thediscovery work to validate a singleclaim even if there was uraniumthere. And I'll bet the only clickingthose characters heard was in their ownskulls!"Lucile and I sympathized. Uraniu mfever, an epidemic in the Southwest,is a fine, healthy outdoor hobby and

Viola Weigh t made the biggest discovery of the trip an entire cliff ofcutting grade rock.

18

What better way to celebrate abirthday in a family of rockhoundsthan a trip to the interesting Che-mehuevi Wash area? That's ex-actly what the Weight family didand they were well rewarded.They mixed the rocks they foundwith a bit of history, some beauti-ful desert scenery, pleasurablebotanical observations and thento top it all off enjoyed a snack onthe shores of a man-made lake.By HAR OL D O. W E I G HTPhotographs by the authorM ap by Nor ton Al len

it quite possibly will result in somevaluable discoveries . Bu t it has at-tracted some "prospectors" who arelooking for easy money rather thanuranium, and they seem determined tostake out all of the once wide openspaces the Armed Services haven'tgrabbed. They move in wherever apossible uranium strike is publicizedand locate the surrounding desert fora hundred square miles, with or with-out radioactive indications. I some-times suspect they work in teams, withthe head man carrying a piece of radio-active ore, the next one keeping closeenough to get readings from it, andthe others setting out stakes.

Some hunters seem not to havelearned even the rudiments of the pros-pecting trade. Near Ogilby, California,Lucile and I found a small range ofhills taken over by the simple processof posting dozens of Private Propertysigns, with no evidence of discoverywork in sight. A t Tw entynine Palm s,California, only with the family shot-gun could a woman persuade uraniumhunters to cease digging up and takingover land which she owned and onwhich she was living. Tn the sou thernChocolate Mountains rival locatorswho should have determined the statusof the land in the first placeresortedto firearms and lawyers before theydiscovered their conflicting claims wereon school land, not subject to location.All mining booms have seen the get-rich-quickers. Old time mining mencalled them "paperhangers" from theirhabit of hanging location notices oneverything in sight. Th e bitter amuse-ment with which they were residedis shown by the location notice d-'tingback to Nevada boom days which Ray(Gum shoe K id) Thaler" told me offinding in the Rawhide district. Ttrea d: "I claim 10 feet east and 10feet west. Diamondfield Jack claimsall the rest."T he present "paperhanging" spreeis the wildest in history because UncleSam will pay extravagantly for orewhich normally could not be mined



19/48

OPALITEJASP-AGA'

WH1PPLE

SMALL 6E0DES(SOUTH OF HILLS)

: :

The low, colorful volcanic hills in the Chemehuevi basin, once buried under theclays and marls of an ancient lake, are now a collecting field for rockhounds.commercially; because lucky uraniumfinders have been given enormous pub-licity; because jeeps and radiation de-tectors have permitted thousands ofinexperienced persons to become week-end prospectors; and because even ex-perts sometimes misread their countersand scintillators.

But we rockhounds can take com-fort in the fact that in the other excite-ments when huge areas were "located"with equal disregard of mining lawsor realities, time has separated worth-while claims from the worthless. Thou-sands of acres frantically filed on,either through ignorance or hope ofspeculative gain, have slipped quietlyback into the public domain.I saw ghostly reminders of such aforgotten excitement while rock hunt-ing in the low volcanic hills in Cheme-huevi Wash south of the paved High-way 95-Lake Havasu road, in the east-ern Mojave Dese rt. These hills arespotted with monuments, some newbut most dating back to World War Idays. Nitrate was a magic mineral forthe get-rich-quickers then. N itrateswere essential for explosives and fer-tilizers and we obtained our supplyfrom Chile, a long haul in ships neededfor other purpose s. So the GeologicalSurvey urged nitrate prospecting.

Nitrate was known to occur in Che-mehuevi Wash, in and near the vol-canic hills. It had been investigatedand declared of no commercial value

by H . W. Turner in 1904. But withour entry in the war, and a rush ofnew prospectors to the desert, theUSGS received reports of vast and richdeposits there. Twenty thousand acresrunning as high as 15 percent sodiumnitrateone solid bed of hundreds ofacres with nearly five percent averagecalcium nitrate!L. F. Noble, today noted for hisstudies of Death Valley geology, in-vestigated the reports for the GelogicalSurvey in a one week survey in August,1918. He made more than 100 pre-liminary tests. Pits were dug for addi-tional tests on 37 of these sites. H efound only about 1300 acres in all thatgave any promise of nitrates, and nosample from them gave more thanthree percent. Since the governmentwas not giving total subsidies then, thenitrate boom in Chemehuevi Wash wasover.But Noble's geological findings areof interest to present rockhounds. Th ehills, he wrote, cover about threesquare miles and rise several hundredfeet above the general level of thealluvial deposits of the Chemehuevib;>sin. They are composed mostly ofvolcanic rocks of Tertiary agerhyo-lite, breccia and tuffthough there issome quartzite and gneiss, much olderthan the Tertiary. A t some placesalong the base of the hills, strata ofthe lake-bed serieswhite chalky andgreenish shale crop out. T he vol-

canic rocks form bold ledges and cliffsof a pockety nature. A nd a commonfeature of them is "a considerableamount of opalescent silica, or chal-cedony."Lucile and I hadn't read Noble'smention of chalcedony when we firstpassed those hills on the way to theHavasu boat landing, but we had astrong feeling there should be rock-hound rocks among them. Sometimessuch a hunch pays off and sometimesit doesn't, but we had no time to in-vestigate on that trip.In fact, our exploration of the hillsin Chemehuevi Wash took place only

last year. We remembered them whenseeking a one-day excursion fromNeedles where my mother and mysister. Viola, live. T he hills are only35 miles south of Needles and all butthe last mile of the road is paved.Paving of the lake branch was com-pleted in 1952, due in no small partto vigorous efforts of the late SylvanE. Williams, editor of the NeedlesDesert Star, who insisted the lakeshould be made more pccessible tothe many fishermen who visit it, andto vacationists.A striking feature of the upper Che-mehuevi basin, where the Havasu roadbranches from Highway 95, 7.\Vi milessouth of Needles, is a beautiful andhealthy stand of ocotillo. David G.Thompson in The Mohave Desert Re-gion, published by the U. S. Geological

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Survey in 1929, reported this as theonly locality in the Mojave Desertwhere ocotillo had been observed. Ibelieve there are a few plants farthernorth, but no such extensive group asthis. Ocotillo is more at home in theColorado and southern Arizona des-erts. But, as Thompson also notes,Chemehuevi Wash and Valley markthe northern limits in California forthe palo verde, another southerner.A nd Ed Rochester once told us he hadseen ironwoodsthose lovers of frostfree climates of the lower desertsthere.

At 10.1 miles from Highway 95, theHavasu road passes under a big power-line, and we could see that the line'smaintenance road apparently headedright into the low volcanic hills to thesoutheast. O ther prospecting androckhound-type auto trails branchedsouth from the lake road, and we tookone at 12.4 miles which showed evi-dence of having once been bladed.So far as I have been able to dis-

cover, these colorful volcanic hills wewere approaching do not have a mapname, nor have I heard of one forthem. I am going to suggest that theybe called Weaver Hills. Few peopleseem to know of Paulineor PowellWeaver's intimate acquaintance withChemehuevi Valley. Too few people,in fact, know anything about Weaveralthough as guide to the Morm on Bat-talion and other early government ex-peditions, trapper, friend of the Indians,mediator between them and thewhites,and first American resident of SanGorgonio Pass, heplayed an importantpart in Southern California history.

Weaver spent what were probablythe happiest days of his life living withthe Indians in Chemehuevi Valley. Hemarried a Chemehuevi womanthedaughter of a chief according to hisbiographer, Sharlot Hall. His onlyson, Ben, was born of that marriage.Pauline moved on, in time, to his placein history, and Ben was killed by In-dians in Arizona while still a young

To SEARCHLIGHT ToKINGMAN

Yucca

^ N e e d l e s

Lake'Havasu ,;f,&?^

To DESERT CE

To U.S. 60 6 70

man. But it seems to me some recog-nition of their connection with Cheme-huevi Valley would not be amiss.Our road leddown a flat dark tongueof land and we came to the edge of alittle wash less than a mile from theHavasu paving. I hiked across andon a slope of the hills beyond almostimmediately found scattered pieces ofa sort of jasp-agate and of jasper. Somewas banded, some patterned and somewith moss. Most of it was red to brownin color, but there was some blackand white and a few green specimens.

A day of hiking over the ruggedbuttes and mountains and through thesandy washes, lined with palo verdesan d a scattering of mesquites andsmoke trees, uncovered quite a varietyof cutting rocksand a number of de-lightful campsites. The rocks werewidely scattered. The biggest discov-ery was made by Viola who found awhole cliff of translucent reddish andwhite patterned rock, possibly a brec-cia, thewhole of it of polishing qualitywhich would make colorful bookendsor other large pieces. Our principaltrouble came in breaking large piecesoff. In an area of volcanic ash at thesouthern edge of onecanyon we founda quantity of plates and nodules ofbanded and patterned opalite in whitesand browns and pinks and yellows,some of good cutting grade.Our collecting sacks were full whenwe headed back for Needles, but weenjoyed ourselves so much that wemade a return trip early this year tocelebrate M other's 76th birthday. Arockhunt seemed ideal for the occa-sion, since M other was a rockhoundeven before I was, and still has thefever.This time we followed the powerlinesouth to the edge of the main Cheme-huevi Wash where a sign warned: "En-te r At Your Own Risk." The wash hereviolates normal erosional regulationsby cutting its waydirectly through thehard rock of the volcanic hills ratherthan seeking an easier route aroundthem. Noble believes the stream musthave established its course while thehills were still buried in the lakebeddeposits, then continued to cut its waydown as the hills became exposed.We wanted to see what the southside of the main hills had to offer sowe headed back up the first washdraining that section. T his side washwas floored with clean sand and gravel,but palo verdes soon made travel upit impossible, even with four-wheel-

drive. We got out and walked. Fartherup, large mesquites showed evidencethat they had sheltered generations ofdesert travelers. Under one Lucilefound a few ancient potsherds androck chips.20 DESERT MAGAZINE


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The same types of material werescattered through these hills and overthe mesitas as they were on the north-ern side, but in lesser qua ntity. Lucilealso found some chalcedony roses. Andin a light whitish and pinkish areaagainst the hills, evidently what Noblehad tentatively identified as either afine-grained silicified rhyolitic ash oraltered rhyolite, I discovered a scatter-ing of small crudely shaped coarse-matrixed geodes. In the centers of thebetter ones were slender, beautifulquartz crystals up to an inch in length.

We decided, before turning back, toexplore the big wash at least to withinsight of Lake H avasu. It proved tobe a regular nursery for thousands ofhealthy young smoke trees. T herewere big ones, too, and mesquitesdecked with mistletoe, and magnificentpalo verdes. Th ere were so many treesit was necessary to search the wash inmany places for passageway throughthem. In one spot, a pocket am ongthe volcanic cliffs on the north side ofthe canyon, we found, two palo verdesin golden bloom although it was onlyFebruary 1. Apparently their loca-tion afforded them both direct andreflected light and hea t. T he beavertail cacti were in bloom all over thehills when we had made our earliertrip, the M arch before.Through the hills and within sightof the lake the sand became so softand deep we foresaw slow going evenin four-wheel-drive so we turned back.It was nearly dusk when we reachedthe paved Lake Havasu road again.We turned toward the lake and ashort distance above it we passed

Small geodes, some with slender quartz crystals an inch in length, are foundin this beautiful shallow wash at the southeastern edge of the hills nearChemehuevi Wash.through a section of the familiar Colo-rado River pebbles which furnish in-teresting and varied collecting forrockhounds.The road divided where the pave-ment ended and nearby was a signinforming us that we were at the edgeof the Colorado River Indian Reserva-tion which is also a wildlife refuge.Uplake the road led past many private

homes and establishments. We veeredright over a little rise and down asteep pitch into a public campgroundand beach. Th ere were a number ofindividual campsites each providedwith a concrete table and benches, anda fireplace, and furnished a little pri-vacy by tamarisk, arrowweed and cre-osote bushes. Most of their occupants,obviously, were fishermen.

Lunch a t the public campg round beside the blue water of Lake Ha vasu. Theancient villages of the Chemehuevi lie under the w ater of this lake, which storespart of Los A ngeles' drinking water.

il liu

N O V E M B E R , 1 9 5 5 21


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Harold W eight's mother, a long-time rockhound, celebrated her 76thbirthday with a collecting trip to Chemehuevi Wash.We picked an empty table at theedge of the lake and had coffee andan evening lunch. Th e cool breeze,

lifting off the broad waters backed upby Parker Dam, made the coffee com-forting, indeed. But we could notescape from a sense of unreality. M in-utes before we had been collectingrocks in dry and barren desert. H erewildfowl rested on the wide blue watersand gulls floated lazily above.Out there beneath the quiet watersof the great bay lay what once was theheart of the Chemehuevi nation whenGarces walked this way in 1776."They came down to me with thespeed of deer," he wrote, "and regaledme with very good mezcal. T he garbof these Indians is Apache moccasins,shirt of antelope skin, white headdresslike a cap with a bunch of those verycurious feathers which certain birdsof this country have in their crest."

The first American expeditionsfound the Chemehuevi here, growingcorn, beans, squash and melons in theirlittle overflow gardens at the edge ofthe river. L t. Ives, exploring the riverin his clumsy steamer in 1858, reportedtrading with them:"Last evening about two dozenbrought baskets and earthen bowls ofcorn and beans. I saw they had comeprepared for a long haggling, and Imade them place their burdens in arow on some boards that were laidout for the purpose; asking each inturn whether he preferred beads ormanta, I placed what I thought a fairamount of the desired article oppositethe proper heap of provisions."The whole tribe had crowdedaround to look on, and their amuse-ment, during this performance, wasextreme. Every sharp face expanded

into a grin as I weighed the differentpiles in succession in my hand, andgravely estimated their contents; andwhen, the apportionment being over,I directed two of my men to bag thecorn and beans, and cooly walkedaway, the delight of the bystanders,at the summary method of completingthe bargain, reached its climax andthey fairly screamed with laug hter. Afew of the traders seemed not to under-stand why they should have had solittle to say in the matter, but havingbeen really well recompensed, accord-ing to their idea of things, the tariff ofprices was well established, and thismorning, when fresh supplies werebrought, they received the same rateof payment without question or de-mur."

The same procedure Ives set fordealing with the Chemehuevi was fol-lowed, in effect, when Los Angelesdecided to store its drinking water intheir valley. The Chemehuevi weregiven what was considered a fair price,and their immemorial homeland wasflooded.And so today automobiles drive onpaved roads to the very edge of thelake and campers light gasoline stovesto warm canned and packaged pre-cooked foods to be eaten at neat con-crete tables. A nd as we looked acrossthe deepening blue of the lake a white

launch, glittering in the low sun, racedamong the resting waterfowl. Th eyrose swiftly and noisily into the air.The launch passed on. The ripplesdied away and vanished. T he smoothsurface of the white man's water tankstretched, featureless, to the silent des-ert hills. E ven so the way of life theColorado River Indians once enjoyedhere has vanished as if it never hadbeen.But go back up a few miles fromLake Havasu into the quiet palo verdeshaded washes of the Weaver Hills and

you still can find the traces of theirhunting trails and camps and weaponmaking. And these traces look noolder than the monuments and pros-pect holes of the brief but feverednitrate rush of 40 years ago.The greenish clay banks and hillsremind us that Havasu is not the firstlake in C hemeh uevi basin. A vastlygreater lake than the one Los Angeleshas gathered, came and went ages be-fore man walked the earth. Perh apssome of the peace we find among des-ert hills comes from the knowledge

they have existed long enough and willexist long enough so that against theirtime scale we can place such thingsas uranium rushes and bomb threatsand even mankind i tselfin properperspective.22 D E S E R T M A G A Z I N E


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L I F E O N T H E D E S E R TR are Bird of the S anta R itas

By DOROTHY W. ALLEN1951 through 1952 myhusband was in charge of sink-ing a large prospect shaft at theold Compadre mine in Josephine Can-yon in the Santa R ita M ountains southof Tucson, Arizona.

Water was flowing in JosephineCanyon C reek that year. O ur campingspot was a delightful oasis of cotton-wood and sycamore trees. Here, farremoved from other habitations, wehad an excellent opportunity to ob-serve the wildlife of the mountain wil-derness. There was always somethinginteresting to write home about.Here is a letter I wrote June 18,1 9 5 2 :D ear D ad: The bird book you senthas been very valuable. These pra c-tically uninha bited Santa R ita M oun -tains are a wonderful natural aviary.The birds are conspicuously marked,barred and co lored. Th is is true alsoof the many insectsa fantastic worldin itself. In certain cases this wouldseem to be an attempt to mimic thebrilliant sunlight and shadows in con-trast, like the stripes of a tiger.

These rocky canyons have wonder-ful acoustics which the birds doubt-lessly enjoy, especially in the cool ofthe morning and evening.A mocking bird, with his check-ered tail sits on a high post with oneeye on me and listens to the feeble andinferior twitterings of a distant rival.In the course of his song he gives afair imitation of all the bird calls formiles around. He is his own phon o-graph record. Yo u often wish youknew what musical genius inventedsome of his outstanding utterances.

There is another extraordinary birdliving here. O ur miners reported th atsome people with a lot of equipmentcame by the camp looking for a birdwith the strange name of Trogon.Old Sam White, a half blind retiredrailroad man, who owns the claimsnext to ours, told one of the minersthat this bird has been seen here inpast years. It was just the prettiestbird you ever saw, all black and redand copper colored, its call soundslike that of a turkey. M y husband saidhe had seen one last year right abovethe mine. It looked to him like anexotically painted road runner, but he

Trogon Ambiguus Ambiguusis one of the rarest of all South-western birds. Few personshave seen this brightly coloreddesert mou ntain recluse. Som esay the Trogon looks like aparrotothers tell you to lookfor a "painted road runner,"but all agree that its call is akinto a turkey's. Dorothy W. Allenbecame interested in Trogonswhen she learned that a neigh-bor in the Santa Rita mountainshad seen them in their canyon.And then one day she heardone outside the cabin door . . .

had not payed too much attention toit. A qu eer looking paisano , that 's allit was!Then we found an account in yourbird book accompanied by a tentativedrawing, as though the artist had neverseen the bird. Th e bird, Trogon Am-biguus Ambiguus, was described

195511 desert magazine 1955 november

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