194303 Desert Magazine 1943 March

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D E S E R T

"Where is John Hil ton and why don'twe have more of his gem t ravelogs?"This is the question many of our readersare asking. John is "somewhere in thedesert" doing government war work. Buthe hasn't forgotten his Desert readers.W e ' l l let him speak for himself: "I willtry sometime next month to finish somearticles I had started for DM, as I amno w in a tent with a light in it and cando a little writing in the evenings, al-though I am working nine hours a day.Most of us here are desert hounds of therock gathering variety and we are veryhappy that we can fight on this desertfront running a drill instead of a machinegun. We all would rather kick a fewscorpions out of the tent than punch aclock in some stream-lined defenseplant, and are all happy to know thatevery ounce of our material will directlyhelp bring this war to a speedy close, sothat our friends can come back and en-joy the peace of the desert with us." Scheduled for near-future publicationis another historical feature by ArthurWoodwardth i s t ime a thrilling storyof Yuma, Arizona, in 1850, during theperiod of the government fort and theferry service across the Colorado river.Arthur, although still connected withth e Los Angeles museum, is at presentengaged in government research work. Ano ther story in his bird series is pre-sented by George McClellan Bradt inthis issue. It was through his hobby offalconry that George became interestedin photography and desert birds. Hewas teaching in the University of Ari-zona, Tucson, where he graduated in1937, before being inducted into thearmy. He is now stationed in El Paso,Texas . George is a signal corps photog-rapher with sergeant's rating. Geodes, thunder-eggs and agate willbe explained for mineralogy students byJerry Laudermilk, who has shown hisversatile talent by producing some out-standing drawings to illustrate this ar-ticle, to be published soon. One of the rarest of Navajo IndianceremonialsThe Red Ant Chantsoonwill be described by Richard Van Val-kenburgh. He believes he is the onlywhite to have seen the part of the chantwhich he will relate in detail for Desertreaders. Charles Keetsie Shirley hasmade a drawing of the rite. Van says,"T o me it is the most exciting experi-ence that I had in the Navajo country."

CREED OF THE DESERTBy J U N E L E M E R T P A X T O NYucca Valley, CaliforniaThe sun and the wind play a game of tag,And you should hear how the wind canbrag.He likes to say "Wi thou t my handYou could not have a desert land."

Volume 6 MARCH, 1943 Number 5COVER

PHOTOGRAPHYCLOSE-UPSPOETRYWILDLIFE

INDIAN LORE

ROCKHOUND

HUMOR

PHOTOGRAPHYLEGEND

LANDMARKARTIST

PERSONALITYCONTESTART OF LIVINGLETTERSDESERT QUIZNEWSMININGWEATHERHOBBY

MINERAL QUIZCRAFTSBOOKSCOMMENT

BURROWING OWL, on Agave branch. Photo byGeorge McClellan Bradt, El Paso, Texas.

First prize winner in January contes t 2Notes on Desert features and their writers . . . 3Lake Mead, an d other poe ms 4Burrowing for Billy Owls

By GEORGE McCLELLAN BRADT . . . . 5Ancient Antelope Run

By CHARLES KELLY 7Charley Williamsof the Calico Hills

By CORA L. KEAGLE 10Hard Rock Shorty of Death Valley

By LON GARRISON 12Second aw ar d in Jan uar y contest 12Shrine of the Three Babies

By JOYCE ROCKWOOD MUENCH . . . 13The Monume nts, by MARY A. FRITZ 16Cartoonistof the Cactus Clan

By OREN ARNOLD 17Sa dd le Tramp , by CHARLES KELLY 22Landma rk contest anno unce ment 24Desert Refuge, by MARSHAL SOUTH . . . . 25Comment from Desert Magazine readers . . . 27A test of your desert knowl edge 28Here an d There on the Desert 29Briefs from the desert 32Januar y tempera tures on the desert 32Gems and Minerals

Edi ted by ARTHUR L. EATON 33A puzzle for the rockh ounds 35Amat eu r Gem Cutter , by LELANDE QUICK . . 36Mormon Country, and other revi ews 37Just Between You an d Meby the Editor . . . . 3 8

The Desert Magazine is published monthly by the Desert Publishing Company, 636State Street, El Centro, California. Entered as second class matter October 11, 1937, atthe post office at El Centro, California, under the Act of March 3, 1879. Title registeredNo . 358865 in U. S. Patent Office, and contents copyrighted 1943 by the Desert PublishingCompany. Permission to reproduce contents must be secured from the editor in writing.RANDALL HENDERSON, Editor.LUCILE HARRIS and HARRY SMITH, Associate Editors.BESS STACY, Business Manager. EVONNE HENDERSON, Circulation Manager.Manuscripts and photographs submitted must be accompanied by full return post-age. The Desert Magazine assumes no responsibility for damage or loss of manuscriptsor photographs although due care will be exercised for their safety. Subscribers should

send notice of change of address to the circulation department by the fifth of the monthpreceding issue. SUBSCRIPTION RATESOne year $2.50 Two years $4.00Canadian subscriptions 25c extra, foreign 50c extra.Address correspondence to Desert Magazine, 636 State St., El Centro, California.1943


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Sunset on Lake Mead. Charles F. Thomas, Jr., pho to.

OH, PROM ISED LANDBy CARRITA LAUDEREIAUGHPacific Palisades, CaliforniaOh, desert, you have lured me,Lo, these many years,But now that gas is rationedI think of you with tears.

Well , never mind, my Promised Land!I'll get to see you yet.The war can't last forever;Meantime, I won't forgetThat blooming sage is waitingWhere hawks and eagles soar.It cannot take foreverTo win this blasted war!

CALIFORNIA IN SPRINGBy BE L L E C. E WIN GRiverside, CaliforniaThe mountains wear their winter caps of snowWhile in the desert far belowWild flowers walk in a mad paradeTo make a flaming, rich brocade.

DESERT BURROB y E L I SE A N N H O L M E SHollywood, CaliforniaLittle brown beast on the desert trail,Plodding along with drooping tail,What are the thoughts in your dumb mind,Always gentle, patient, kind?

Bearing the burning desert heat,Happy and glad to make a seatFor Indian mother and little son;Toiling on till the day is done.Know you that once, so long ago,Over another path . . . so slowJourneyed another burro small,Bearing a woman in labor's thrall.Carrying under her heart the OneTo save the world ere His task was done?Little brown beast on the desert trail.Patience like yours will never fail!

Suggested by Desert's August cover.

lak* MeadB y C H A R L E S F . T H O M A S , J R .Boulder City, Nevada

A gem, deep set mid serrate high crowned hills.Reflecting through the passing hours of dayA thousand changing hues and countless thrillsWhich greet the eye with sparkling, crystal ray.No talisman, no pearl, no jewel brightCan such spells cast nor myriad moods revealAs from those mirrored depths comes livinglight,Or wind etched facets hidden gleams unseal.The morning sun swings from the east, ablaze,And with the crimson dawn a garnet rareShines from the tinted mountains' circling maze,To double nature's glory painted there.When from the heavens high, at noon, hot raysBurn down on wav'ring peaks, dull, dim anddrear,A smoky topaz there encrusted laysIn strata grey, unpolished, like a tear.Through swiftly winging hours to eventideThe far sun rolls into the rose-hued west;A turquoise blue, deep shaded, sets insideThe matrix of the painted hills' rough crest.From far worlds, night chips flintlike starswhich spillTo gently light the gloom. A darkened shadeIs drawn to hide deep canyon, lake and hillThe crystal waters turn to ebon jade. THE DESERT'S TANTRUM

By MAUD CARRICO RUSSE L LTwentynine Palms, CaliforniaThe Desert had a tantrum!You don't believe she couldShe who's so quiet, so demure?Well, I was there. I stoodAnd saw her lie down and kickUp both her heels, and squeal.She raised a dust terrific.You don't believe ' twas real?All the mountains hid awayThere was not one in sight;The Sun thought bombs were fallingAnd quick blacked out his light.But still she kicked, still she whined.And shrieked, till I was riled.Then, you know what she did next?She faced about and smiled!Of course I forgave herMost anybody would.Her smile was so darned welcome,For when she's good, she's good.But she did have a tantrum,Believe, or believe it notIt must have been a tantrum

If it wasn't that, then what?SPRING ON THE DESERT

By CL ARA S. HO FFPortland, OregonWhen Spring walks on the desertShe takes off her emerald shoes,To walk in brown felt slippers.And wears no gaudy rouge. mDESERT WINDB y S H I R L E Y W A Y C O T TSan Bernardino, CaliforniaThe desert wind speaks softly,The desert wind speaks soothingly;I stand on a hill 'neath the stars,My heart oppressed with life's cares

But the desert wind lays a gentle handOn my face and on my heart,And God's voice speaks to me of faithIn things like the desert wind,An d the desert.T HE D E S E R T M A G A Z I N E


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Familiar to everyone in theSouthwest are the lovable, ludi-crous little Billy Owls. Comingupon them at dusk, standingnear their burrow homes orperched on a sagebrush branch,they gaze upon the intruder witha bland expression then sudden-ly bob in a low grave bow. Fan-tastic stories have been toldabout their living habits. GeorgeBradt was curious. So he andsome soldier c o m p a n i o n ssearched until they found an oc-cupied burrow. After hours ofdigging into the burrow theythought the myth of the rattle-snake roomers must be true afterallbut a final discovery dis-counted this story and led to aneven stranger fact about theBilly Owls.

uttowina

Burrowing owl, also called Billy or Johnny owl, at entrance to his burrow. Remainsof his rodent dinner are seen at his feel.

f 4>NE evening last April mywife and\_y I were taking star pictures on alonely stretch of yucca-covereddesert . While our cameras recorded theancient light of distant stars we sat on thecold sand listening to the sounds of thedesert night and accustoming our eyes tothe starlit darkness.

Very soon we could make out the tallyuccas silhouetted against the blackpurplesky. One of these weird "trees" reachedits dead flower stalk higher than all theothers and we saw, as we sat half-hiddenby a low thornbush, a small dark body flyto it on swift and silent wings. Clutchingthe swaying stalk it scanned the desertfloor until it caught sight of the camerasor of us, and as suddenly and as noiselesslyas it had appeared, flew off into the night.Al though we saw it for but a few mo-ments, its long legs, short tail, and round-ed head told us that our recent visitor was

none other than Speotyto cunicularia, or asit is more familiarly and commonlyknown, Burrowing or Billy Owl. Thenand there we decided to search the desertunti l we found the occupied burrow of oneof these fantastic little owls. We knew wewere in for a real job, but also that the re-ward would be well worth the effort.

Th roughou t the Southwest from west-ern Texas into California the burrowingowls hunt rodent and insect meals on thethirsty deserts, and rear their large familiesin dark and secret burrows. By the sides ofwell-traveled highways, as well as in theloneliest wastelands, this strangest of allthe owls can be seen standing on itsburrow-mound, even at high noon, bow-ing deeply to all passers-by, animal or hu-man. But should it be approached tooclosely it will turn and disappear precipi-tously into its subterranean home.T o see a bird dive headlong into a hole

By GEORGE McCLELLAN BRADTPhotograph by the author

in the ground instead of taking wing as abird should doesn't seem quite right, butthat is the way of the Billy owls. This un-birdlike habit notwithstanding, these owlsare flyers of no mean abil i ty. They evenhave been known to capture bats, and thatcalls for expert flying. At dawn and duskand during the night they hunt their elu-sive prey. The daylight hours they spendeither asleep in their Iightless homes, orbasking in the warm spring sunshine with-in easy reach of their safe retreat.

In order to locate an occupied burrowwe had to make the most of the little freetime an army photographer has at his dis-posal. Late in the long evenings and on afairly regular Sunday afternoon we wouldload up our old car with cameras, shovel,pick, gloves, water and a little food andhead for the desert.Our first burrow, located on one of

these trips, was found by the side of atrans-continental highway. At the entranceto the sloping tunnel stood a pair of thesebrown, elf-like owls. The amazing th ingM A R C H , 1 9 4 3


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was that their bur row opened out not morethan six feet from the paving. They musthave been quite used to the passing cars,however, for while we watched them ahuge Greyhound bus shot by, but nei therof them budged. They merely blinkedtheir great yellow eyes and turned theirheads to watch the bus disappear down theroad.When we got out of the car to excavatethe burrow both birds f lew off to perch ona nearby yucca and watch us work. W e dugfar enough to see the nest-cavity with aflashlight. Unfortunately it was empty ofeggs or young. Disappointed but not dis -couraged we carefully rebuilt the tunne!and departed. Some days later we returnedand were happy to see the owl couple againstanding side by side at their front door.Dur ing the next few weeks we foundfive more burrows but none contained eggsor young birds . On May 2, however , wedid f ind a burrow in an old caliche pit that

looked especial ly promis ing. When wedrove up to it a pair of owls standing onthe bank above began to cry loudly in theirstaccato way, and instead of dashing intothe tunnel f lew about in a crazy, woundedmanner as if trying to lure us from theburrow.On going up to the entrance we foundthe usual pellets, consisting of the undi-gestible parts of the bird's food and castby it each day, as well as miscellaneouspieces of very dead rodent. After gettinga good look at the rock-like caliche intowhich we would have to dig we decided to

round up a couple of soldier fr iends andreturn to excavate the burrow.Early the next afternoon, it being Sun-day, we again headed for the burrow-site.Our forces were now doubled, for we hadsucceeded in luring Sergeants McKay andWilliams into the car with the assurancethat there would be but a very little dig-ging-Coming in sight of the burrow we sawone adult owl standing by the entrance.When it saw us it stood on its "tiptoes,"bowed several times, and then flew offinto the sunlit desert. When it had disap-

peared we piled out of the car , unloadedthe tools, and began digging. I t was in-deed lucky that we had brought along Mc-Kay and Williams. That caliche was thenearest thing to granite I have ever tackled.W e had to use a pick for a wedge and ajack for a hammer to break off slabs ofthe stuff above the mouth of the tunnel inorder to work it back towards the nest-cavity.After an hour of steady digging we hadenlarged the entrance enough to permitone of us to craw] into it. Still we couldnot see the end of the burrow. As far as wecould determine it ran slightly upwards,and after going straight into the bankabout two feet, turned sharply to the left.

At the end of another hour our laborsbegan to show some results. I managed toinch myself far enough into the tunnel tobe able to see around the turn in the pas-sageway. I turned on my flashlight ex-pecting to see the nest, but was disappoint-ed to see only a small, dam-like pile ofloose dir t hiding the end of the burrow.I reached my hand forward in an effort

to push it away, only to be stopped by asound that would have made even the old-est desert rat go cold all over. A harsh,terr ifying buzzing noise was coming frombehind that pile of dir t. Never have 1moved so fast. As I frantically backed outof that accursed hole I must have takenwith me about one half of the caliche pit.When I reached the blessed sunlight I wascovered from head to foot with whitepowdery dust. My good fr iends who hadheard nothing were doubled up withlaughter at my hasty retreat.When I had recovered enough to speak

I announced that the burrow contained atleast one very alive rattlesnake, and thatfrom that moment on my owl hunting dayswere over. No one believed me at first.But my wan appearance must have con-vinced them because McKay volunteeredto crawl in to check up. McKay had livedin northern Mexico for many years andknew rattlesnakes as well as we knowEnglish sparrows. So when he shot out ofthe hole just a bit faster than I had it waspretty evident that the buzzing was not dueto my imagination.While we were planning our next step

someone, as it always happens when bur-rowing owls are under discussion, mentioned that beautiful "design-for-living 'whereby the owls, snakes, and prair ie dogsall live together in one burrow in perfectharmony. Although nothing of the sorttakes place it does make a good story.What probably started the lovely mythwas the accidental f inding, on differentoccasions, of owls and dogs, or owls andsnakes together in the same burrow wherethey had separately fled for safety froma common enemy or for protection fromthe desert sun.Actua lly the three are far from friends.The adult owls undoubtedly eat the little-prair ie dogs when they manage to f indthem. The dogs must make many a mealof owl eggs, and the snakes feed not onlyon the puppies buf on the eggs and youngof the owls as well.After everyone had been straightenedout on this point we again tackled the bur-row. W e were determine d to settle thesnake problem once and for all. At last wehad enlarged the burrow to such an extentthat one of us easily could crawl into itand see the little pile of dirt, from behindwhich had come the ominous rattling, andyet not be close enough to be in danger.

Our plans now called for someone toenter the burrow and push aside the ob-structing dir t. W e had fashioned a longhoe-like affair out of baling wire and apiece of old metal with which to do it.Since both McKay and I had braved thatfearful hole we naturally thought thatWilliams was the logical one to go. Al-though he did not agree with us he wasfinally induced to pick up the "hoe" andenter the tunnel. After a few minutes ofcomplete silence during which only hisfeet could be seen, he began to back slowlyout of the burrow. When he had gottenout he stood up, brushed the dust from hisclothes, and laconically announced:" O w l s . "

He was right. The nest-cavity was fullof owls. W e had found an occupied bur-row at last. But we were still at a loss toexplain that awful buzzing. I t was onlywhen we gently began to prod the little-owls with a long piece of wire in order tocount them that the mystery was solved.Each time the wire was poked at the massof owlets they began to make that rattling-buzzing noise with their little mouths. I twas so exactly like the warning of a rat-tlesnake that even after we knew the truth,cold shivers still ran up and down ourspines . Undoubtedly a hungry enemywould feel the same way and so possiblybe deterred from entering the burrow anddevour ing the young birds .There were in all nine fuzzy, grey-brown, partially-feathered little owls andone furious amber-eyed adult. The parentbird kept snapping her sharp beak whilethe owlets buzzed in chorus. They wereludicrous looking little fellows. Theirheads seemed much too large for theirtiny round bodies. Their wings wereshort, rounded, and boasted only a fewbuff-colored feathers. The ir tails were soshort as to be almost invisible. Their eyeswere large, and unlike the adults ' , grey incolor. At this date they were probably al-most one-third grown.The nest-cavity contained in additionto the owls the bodies of no less than 11rodents. Four were kangaroo rats, seven

were young pack rats, two pocket mice,.md one a white footed mouse. In everycase only the hindquarters were found.This impressive list of pests eliminatedby one pair of Billy owls in a night or twoof hunting indicates how truly beneficialthey are.As we drove away, after partially refill-ing the tunnel to keep out any possiblepredators with a taste for owl meat, welooked back and saw one adult watchingfrom its yucca perch beyond the burrow.In another two weeks or so the little owlswould stumble out of their dark home

and into the sunlight for the f irst time totake their place in the bird world of thedeseit.T HE D E S E R T M A G A Z I N E


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-" ^THOUSAND ISf o A K E '"-(MOUNTAIN

Ancient Antelope RunBy CHARLES KELLYM a p by J o h n H a n s e n

11 / E WERE dr iving over some high,l/y rolling hills at the base of Boul-der mountain a few miles south-east of Bicknell , Utah, when WallaceBransford brought the car to a suddenstop."What ' s t ha t ?" he asked, pointing.At first we couldn ' t see anything unu-sual. Then, as we looked more closely, wesaw what appeared to be a row of blackboulders extending along the brow of ahill almost in a straight line to the horizon.The surface of the ground was sprinkledwith boulders, but nature doesn't oftenlay them in straight lines, so we decided it

must be the work of men. But for whatpurpose? There were not enough for awall, so it couldn't be the ruins of an an-cient Indian pueblo.As we drove on we saw several similarlines of boulders, some running parallelwith the road and others at right angles,but always along the brow of a hill.A few days later, at Fremont , Utah, weaccidentally met a man who knew the an-swer to the puzzle."My father," explained J. Wort hedJackson, "was one of the early pioneers ofFremont valley. When the settlers first ar-rived in 1880, a band of Pahutes was still

Prehistoric American Indianslearned that while the antelopehad a very fleet set of legs, hewas also an extremely curiousanimalcurious to the point ofdumbness. And while it was im-possible to outrun him, it was acomparatively simple matter tooutwit him. Here is the story ofone of the methods they used tobring him within range of theirbows and arrows. Charles Kellydiscovered these ancient ante-lope "traps" on one of his explor-ing trips on the Utah desert.

l iving here. Among them was an old fel-low called Tahgee. apparently about 85years old, who became very friendly withfather and told him many stories of Indianlife before the arrival of white men."Among other things this old Indiansaid that in early t imes, when he was avery small boy, this country was full ofantelope which grazed in large numbers all

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Above This line of loosely piled boulders extends for more than a mile across thedesert. There are several such lines in this vicinity. When freshly turned over therocks were covered on the under side with a white lime deposit.

over those hills at the base of Bouldermountain .Antelope are among the swiftest four-footed animals in America and because oftheir keen sight and hearing and the opencountry in which they lived, it was impos-sible to hunt them as the Sioux hunted

buffalo. Nevertheless the Indians hadplenty of antelope meat. Instead of thehunters following the antelope, they madethe animals come to them. That was thepurpose of those long lines of rocks yousaw on the hills."An antelope has a large bump ofcuriosity. Anything out of the ordinary at-tracts his attention and arouses his suspi-cion. The Indians used this to their advan-tage. They laid up those long lines of rocksacross the hills and built small walls atintervals as blinds, stat ioning a hunter ineach blind. Men were sent to drive the an-imals toward the blinds; when the an-telope came to the line of rocks they wouldnot cross over, but ran parallel with theline. This would bring them past theblinds where the Indians could shoot asmany as they wanted with their shortrange bows and arrows."Since man's bump of curiosity is evenlarger than an antelope's we decided togo back next day and examine the countrymore thoroughly. Near Bicknell , the Fre-mont river flows along the north base of

Below Wallace Bransjord in hunt-ing position behind one of the rockshooting b linds near Bicknell. Utah.Note line of rocks in background,several of which served to guide therunning an telope to within arrowshot o\ the blind.

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Charley Williams followed themines from Alaska to Mexico.Then he discovered the colorfulCalico hills of the Mojave desertin California. It was there, at thebeginning of the century, that hesettled down on a patch of sage-brush, jusi far enough away fromBarstow "so I can ' t hear myn e i g h b o r s ch an gin g theirminds ." Today his deser t gemsand minerals comprise one of theoutstanding collections of thestate. A Mojave neighbor tellsabout Char ley ' s col lect ion andhis " rockhound phi losophy."

Charley Williams in his well equipped workshop where he cuts and polishes stonesthat it'in prizes at shows throu ghout the state.By CORA L. KEAGLE

P h o t o g r a p h s b y F . V . S a m p s o n

11 / HEN all the talk of priorities andVV planes and trucks and tanks be-gins to pall, then Kay and I trekdown to Barstow to sit at the feet of Char-ley Williams, veteran rockhound of thedesert.Kay is the other half of the Keagiepartnership. He likes this sort of a jauntbetter than collecting cactus or studyingminerals. He says he has collected samplesof every variety of cactus spines from Mex-ico to Mojave and worn the toes out of allhis hunting boots climbing rocky moun-tains from whose sides opals were sup-posed to hang in ripe clusters.Last week we arrived unannounced andspent hours mulling over Charley s collec-tions and discussing the mysteries of theformation of minerals. Charley isn't allrockhound. He's part philosopher."There's a sermon in every stone, if youknow how to look for it," he remarked,

picking up a specimen. This smooth,rounded bit from the bottom of a deepshaft brings the message that thousandsof years ago this particular stratum was

the bed of a rolling torrent. At anotherlevel the pink, petrified roots of the palmbear record of a tropical age, while thetrack of a three-toed horse embedded nearby, in what was once clay, conjures upvisions of a prehistoric horse snortingthrough tropical foliage where sandywastes now reach to the horizon."I've been in jail more times than I'vebeen in church," he continued, 'butwhen I look at crystals of quartz or galenaor gold and see how the agitated atoms andmolecules have settled down to definitebut individual patterns, I realize that there-is a guiding hand back of all of this."These are only a few of the messagesbut at one sermon per stone Charley hasmaterial for several thousands of textstuckc-d away in his collection gatheredfrom all parts of the desert regions of theSouthwest during the past 30 years.He goes in for massive specimens.

W hi le a fair sized piece will satisfy the av-erage collector Charley always comes upwith one about four times as large. Someof his sections of petrified logs, cut and

polished until they glow in rich colorsranging from orange, through the reds, tojet blacks, measure 18 inches in diameter.There is color from all parts of the des-ert. The pale blue turquoise is from Gold-stone and the violet amethyst from Lud-Iow. The cinnabar came from Newberrywith magnesite from Hinkley and paleorange onyx from Trona. Geodes ant!nodules from the Chocolate mountainshave been cut and polished to reveal themarvels of their color and formation. Ari-zona and the Ord mountains have con-tributed the deep blue of azurite anil thevivid green of malachite.

Speaking of malachite and azurite,Charley says the finest in the world comefrom Bisbee, Arizona. At the time he wasthere it was very plentiful. Phelps Dodgeof the Copper Queen mine gave Tiffany'sof New York half a baggage car full ofthe best.Of all the collection, crystals are Char-ley's favorites. He is intrigued by the mys-tery of their formation. "Why do the mole-cules of galena or gold form the right-

10 T HE D E S E R T M A G A Z I N E

CharleyWilliamso f theCalico Hills


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isometric forms and those

A large glassed-in front porch houses

violet ray lamp transformsglo win g fairyland of color. At the

with an electric"jagged toothed steel discs used in cot-

Sarah Will iams, Charley's English wife,

Since 1929 the Williams collection ofwherever it has

been shown at state or county fairs. Whe.iasked about his trophies he answered thathe thought there were "some tin cups andsilk rags" around the house. But it wasdtarly up to Sarah to produce them if wewere to have a look at them.At the last San Bernardino Orange-show, the dark room showing his collec-tion of fluorescent stones under the ultraviolet ray and the mercury vapor lights,was one of the main attractions of theshow.

Charley has refused consistently to bewrit ten up or photographed by "thosegeraniums from the city papers" but hefinally consented to tell a little of Irs ex-periences.Following the mines from Alaska toMexico, he acquired a lot of rock lore andstarted several collections but, as he ex-pressed it, "You can't carry a pile of rocksall over the cou ntry with you. " so his firstcollections gradually disappeared.When, early in the century, he drifted tothe mining region in the colorful Calicohills near Barstow, and saw the variety ofstones to be found in this "Jewel Box ofthe World," he decided to l inger a whileand start a new collection.

At that time the town of Barstow con-sisted of a little cluster of houses by therailroad yards down in the river bed. Inorder to have a place to camp while ex-ploring the desert he bought the home-stead relinqirshment to a quarter sectionof land up on the bluff above the river.There was a small house on the place.Some one asked him what he was go-

ing to do with that patch of sage brush sofar from town. His reply was characteris-tic, "I'm going to live there. I like to be-far enough away so I can't hear my neigh-bors changing their minds."Today most of Barstow, including thenew high school, is located on what wasthe Will iams patch of sage brush. Thehomestead cottage became the first house-in upper Barstow. It has been remodeledand still is inhabited.Here is a story he tells of his miningdays. "Walter Olivier, Fred Sloan and Iwere batching out at the Waterman mine.

We'd kept missing our spoons, knives andforks. One day I saw a big trade rat leavingthe house carrying a spoon. I watched himfrom a distance until he disappearedthrough a cleft in a big rock near the cor-ner of the stone house where we were

One o\ the leu cases o\ spec imens which Charley Williams has collected in the Southwest.

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Qaia Qian .de u*tletBy DOROTHY A. BROWNSan Jose, California

Second award in the pho tograph iccontest was taken with a 2A Browniecamera, at 7 p . m., Verichrome f i lm.

Special MebitT h e fo l l ow i n g p h o t o s w e r e j u d g e dt o h a v e s p e c i a l m e r i t :" M o o n r i s e o n t h e D e s e r t , " b y R .V a n N o s t r a n d , E l C e n t r a , C a l i f o r n i a ." T h o u s a n d P a l m s O a s i s , " C o r p o r a lW i l l i a m L . F r os t , En id Ar m y F ly in gS c h o o l , E n i d, O k l a h o m a ." N e w M e x i c o Y u c c a s , " b y F . E .B u r k e , S a n F e r n a n d o , C a l i f o rn i a .

camping. Deciding that he was one ratnear the end of his trail, I lighted the fuse-on a half stick of dynamite, placed it inthe crack between the two sections of rockand stepped back to a safe distance to waitfor the explosion."Suddenly there was a terrific blast.One half of the rock blew off, the tin roofof our house went up in the air and Walterand Fred came running out with eyes bigas saucers . When things quieted down weinvestigated and the mystery was solved.The trade rat had carried several halfsticks of dynamite from a nearby cache andhad hidden them under his rock and mystick had set them all off at the same time.The sad part about it was that the trade ratescaped. I saw him high tailing it up thehill after the blast."When asked how he would advise anamateur to begin a rockhound's career hesaid, "Begin when you are about so high,"indicating his knee, "then some day whenyou pick up a stone to throw at a bird youwill, if you are a natural rockhound, no-tice some peculiar marking and will de-cide to save that stone. You are off on col-lecting and the study of mineralogy. Thatwill lead you to geology and from that tocrysta' logy and into chemistry. Chemistrywill take you into astronomy."Some member of his collect 'on musthave given him a lesson on humility forwith his keen mind, pat wit and a vastknowledge of minerals, Charley Williamsis very modest about his attainments. Oneof his pet philosophies is that a man isready to learn only when he realizes howlittle he knows. In fact this is his favoritequotat ion

I used to think that I knew I knew,But now I must confess,The more I know I know I know,I find I know the less."

Hard Rock Shortyof D ea th V alle y . . . O a^ ^ J A"Now about this rubber short-age," commented Hard Rock Shorty.

"It really ain' t quite as much prob-lem as it looks like to most folks. Infact me an' Baldy Williams had 'erall solved here two 'r three weeksago but things has gone haywiretemporary. We'll get the bugs out ofer though an' then we' ll be ready tomove the rubber tire business r ightdown here to Inferno."Hard Rock s topped long enoughfor the importance of this to be fullyunderstood by his listeners. Then heslouched deeper into his creaky chairand went on with his solution forthe rubber shortage."All began when they started thisYhooley projeck down on Baldy'splacethousands an ' thousands o 'these little rubber bushes set outdown there. Me an' Baldy waslookin' 'em over one day an' fig-gerin' out ways to increase produc-tion. Seemed like it took a lot longertime to get tires out of 'em than wefiggered was really needed."So, Baldy knowed a feller downin Los Angeles an' he wrote downan' got ' im to get aholt of a handfulo' Oriental silk worms. Then we

spread these silk worms out on atray an' started feedin' em Yhooley

By LON GARRISONleaves. The worms didn' t like emtoo well at first bu t it was eat emor starve so they finally begun gob-blin' the leaves an' 'fore long theywas eatin' 'em like they was the realmulberry.

"W e only had a few worm s an' wewatched mighty careful for the firstcocoons they started spinnin'weeven had a govermu nt man downwatchin' with us; an' it was justlike we'd thot. Havin' nothin' to eatbut Yhooley leaves, the thread fromthem worms was the very f inest o'pure rubber bands! Yes Sirallready to unroll an' start usin' . W eunravelled a few an' it looked likewe really had the rubber situationunder control!"But Baldy wanted to keep r ighton experimentin' . He f iggered if wecould seed some sulphur along withthe Yhooley leaves the rubber 'd beall ready to vulcanize. He was r ighttoo, but it ' ll sure have to be done inthe shade. The batch we tr ied thatway, an' it was all our silkwormswe had to work with, got full o'sulphur an' the rubber bands wasjust right. But the sun was so durnhot it vulcanized them cocoons shut

so tight we couldn' t unreel the rub-ber or get the worms out either."



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Shrine of the three Babies

Baby shrine, Papago Indian reservation, southern A rizona. Here a people converted to Catholic, Protestant and Mormon faithsstill gather to commemorate the sacrifice of three babies who were put in the center hole, note covered with rocks, in a sacrificialprayer for rain.When the land of the Papagos was younglong long ago, a droughtthreatened death to all the tribesmen. It was then the wise old medicineman decreed that a sacrifice be made to appease the godsand today,off a little side road between Santa Rosa and Quijotoa in southern Ari-zona, the shrine built in commemoration of the sacrifice still is to be seen.Here is the legend of the Three Babies as it was told to Joyce Muench inPapagoland. Another version relates that a flood menace was the reason

for the sacrifice and that four children, two boys and two girls, were thesacrificial victims.B y J O Y CE R O C K W O O D M U E N C H

P h o t o g r a p h s by J o s e f M u e n c h/ / T WAS a hot clay in July when weV / first visited the Papago BabyShrine. The sun beat down uponaand ma-The camera case was so hot into it, it was unbear-

to the touch.There was not a cloud in the sky andof much needed ra in. When weoff on the little side road between

Santa Rosa and Quijotoa, and came uponthe strange circle of ocotillo branches thatmark this ceremonial spot, we understoodwhy this tr ibe of Indians still celebratesthe festival of the three babies.The Papagos on their reservation downnear the Mexican border have joined thechurches of the white man. There areCatholics and Protestants and Mor m onsamong them. Their wedding ceremoniesare celebrated like our own and they at-

tend church regularly. Living in smallvillages and raising cattle, each year findsthem accepting more fully the ways ofmodern Amer ica . But there is one tradi-tion to which they cling that stems out ofthe earliest tr ibal memory. It has beenhanded down through the generat ions andthe essence of it is as old as man himself.

I tell it here as it was told to me, there-under the blazing sun beside the shrine it-self.Many centuries ago, before the white-man knew that there was such a land asthis that we now proudly call America,the Indian lived here in peace among hisfellows. In the southern part of Arizona,the giant cactus, saguaro, bloomed eachspr ing and then dropped the wax-whiteflowers to replace them with red-meatedfruit, just as it does now. The Papago In-dians gathered the fruit with ceremony andmade festivals that centered around thewine that waspressed from it.Water was as precious then as now. One

13


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While adopting many of the white man's modes, in dress and hair style, this comelyyoung Indian girl dings to the traditional Papago art oj basketry and sells herwares to the trading posts.

year there was no rain. The usual cere-monies had been led by the medicine men.The colored charm strings of desertgrowth hung at the door of each little dirt-floored house. But still there was no rain.The medicine men met and talked far intothe night. They carefully sought for some-ceremonial act which had been forgotten.Finding none, they said that perhaps ifthey had anew the festival of rain, anddanced again and prayed again, it mightrain. So the people gathered together andmade a fresh plea for water.

Still no drop fell. No clouds came intoth e sky. The wells went dry. The cattle-began to die. The crops in the field with-ered and then dried away to nothing.Something had to be done.There was an old medicine man in thevillage' who no longer stirred from hiscorner even for the ceremonies. Those who

sought the wisdom that comes with greatag e had to come to the tiny house on thehill and wait patiently for the few wordsthat he was willing to speak. The peoplehad almost forgotten that he still lived, forthere had been no need for help beyondwhat the younger medicine men mightprovide.Now someone ment ioned him, and so ithappened that under the white noondayheat, the whole village of the Papagoswent up the hill and crowded around thetiny hut. The air lay heavy and those whowere not covered by the shade from thelow tree that sheltered the house, sufferedin the sun. Two medicine men ap-proached the aged prophet and told himof their trouble.T he old man opened his eyes and fora long time looked out through the opendoorway

The date of Wiikita, as thebaby ceremonial is called, is de-termined by a group of Papagotribal elders, who announce itabout 10 days in advanceusu-ally in late fall after the harvest,For nine days, the participantsare busy with preparations.Costumes, paints and otherceremonial paraphernalia aremade ready and the singersand dancers practice the intri-cate s y m b o l i c observance.Some wear painted g o u r dmasks; others paint their facesand wear feathers and ribbons.The clown dancers are dressedin outlandish headdresses andmasks, with jangling bells andrattles. At dawn on the tenthday the ceremony begins, themost sacred part of the rite cen-tering about the small boys andgirls who have been selected torepresent the original sacrifices.The rites performed about themand the songs sung for them aresaid to be the same as those ofthe first sacrificial ritual. The lat-ter part of the day both chorusand dancers form a parade, car-rying floats, prayer plumes andvarious other symbolic objects;then they pantomime the cere-monies of planting and harvest-ing and hunting. Wiikita endswith a night procession.

" T a k e , " he said, "three of your young-est children, and when you have put theminto a hole in the ground, the water willcome again."He closed his eyes and did not evenmove as the villagers protested noisily.Finally they trooped down the hill againto talk in small groups, arguing about thefearful command of the aged one.The next day there still was no sign ofrain. There was hardly enough water todrink.The legend does not say how the threebabies were chosen for the sacrifice, but itdoes relate that almost as soon as theywere lowered into the hole, the rain be-ga n to fall.The rain continued for days. The levelin the wells rose quickly. The parchedearth was refreshed. But the joy of thepeople was tempered by the thought ofthe price they had paid for each life-givingdrop.No drought since that t ime has been sosevere. The Papagos believe it is becausea shrine was built to commemorate thedeath of the three babies. Over the hole amound of rocks marks the place. Around



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dancing, is a circlethe west. Everyolethe

the

water birds are

Their race memory serves them well .in falls The y still rememb er the legend

Right Papaga Indian girl stands be-side a recently planted oleander treewhich has been protected by slakes ofocotillo. When the next rain comesthe fence will pus out green leavesand perhaps even bloom.

Below At the entrance to the innercircle of the Papago bab) shrine,livery year the ocotillo branches arerenewed and about every four years acommemo ration ceremony is held inwhich children lake pan. using suchfigures as the water-bird seen here.

m \ /'


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T H E M O N U M E N T S Winner of the Desert Magazine'sLandmark contest in January wasMary A. Fritz of Los Angeles. Sheidentified the sandstone pillars shown in the accompanying picture asthe Monuments located in the Canyon de Chelly national monument.She entered the most interesting, and most complete manuscript.

Ph oto by D. Clifford Bond.By MARY A. FRITZr HE Monuments rise from a com-mon base nearly 800 feet above thefloor of Monument canyon in Can-yon de Chelly (pronounced Shay) na-t ional monument. The peak of the rock isabout 40 feet square. Since legend relatesthat a huge spider, or Spider Woman,lives there, it has come to be known asSpider Rock. Navajo boys and girls aretold that if they are naughty, SpeakingRock or Face Rock, across the canyon willtell the spider, who will run down therock, snatch the culprits and scurry backup to her nest, taking them with her.

Canyon de Chelly national monument,established F ebruary 14, 19 31 , has anarea of 83,840 acres lying near the

Arizona-New Mexico l ine. At the en-trance, canyon walls rise only 30 feet, latergoing to a height of 1,000 feet and vary-ing from 300 feet to a mile apart. The cen-tral Canyon de Chelly (Spanish corrup-tion of the Navajo word Tse-gi meaning'down among the rocks") is about 20miles long.Branching off to the left is Canyon delMuerto (so named from the massacre ofIndian women and children in 1805 byraiding Spaniards) and farther up, on theright, is Monument canyon. It is near themouth of this that the Monuments of

red sandstone tower above the white sandsof the canyon.In the national monument are some-

thousand ruins dating from early BasketMaker to Pueblo III and including thewel l -known Whi te House and MummyCave. Being in the heart of the flat plateaucountry made this a natural stopping placefor migrations, and archaeologists havefound evidences of many civilizations. TheNavajo have undoubtedly l ived here forseveral hundred years.Lt. J. H. Simpson, topographical engi-

neer, sent out with troops from Santa Fein 1849 camped in Chinle valley and he, ingoing up Canyon de Chelly, discovered theW h ; te House ruin. His report publishedby the 31st Congress in 1850 was the basisfor all accounts of this region for the next30 years.In 1864 Kit Carson, famous Indianfighter, with the U. S. cavalry enteredCanyon de Chelly and persuaded the Na-vajo to go to a government reservation onthe Pecos river with the idea of putting anend to raiding of white sett lements. Thisscheme was i l l-advised and the Navajo

later were permitted to return home.Navajo, superstitious about the ancienthabitations, do not re-enter them but buildtheir hogans at the base of the sheer cliffs,plant corn and fruit trees, and pasturetheir flocks in the bottom lands. After thefall rains, before the canyons become cold,they depart for the rim to return in thespring.Canyon de Chelly national monument isaccessible from U. S. Highway 66 by turn-ing off ei ther at Gallup, New Mexico, orat Chambers, Arizona, via Ganado toChinle, Arizona, where the custodian is

located. Nearby is a trading post andThunderbird Ranch where accommoda-tions may be obtained, also saddlehorses,or an especially equipped car for negoti-ating treacherous sands of the monumentthe better to see its colorful beauty, feelits warm friendliness and speculate aboutits mystifying past.

A N S W E R S T O D E S E R T Q U I ZQuest ions are on pase 28 .

1Cholla cactus.2California.3Hualpai .4Stone.5White Sands national monument.6Malachite.7Flower.8National monument for the preser-vation of ancient Indian ruins.9 Mormon pioneer.10An outpost on the Colorado river.1 1Mt. Hum phreys.12Filifera.13 Quartz .14Motorboat on Lake Mead.15Author unknown.16 Ehrenberg.17Lumbering.18Mullet t .

19--Lavender .20As an ancient home of the giantground sloth.



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Harry Locke, creator of fantastic desert cartoons, sits at his desk putting finishing touches onsome of his "Desert Ciilies." O n the wall is one of his more senoi/s drawings.

OF THE CACTUS CLANBy OREN ARNOLD

Harry Locke was probably born with a grinand that grin has spread to many other facesthrough the infectious humor of Harry's cactuscartoons. He ha s s een the thorny tribe as inspira-tion for a philosophy of tolerance and whimsyand fun. The saguaro, cholla, bisnaga and prick-ly pear are endowed with an animation that isfriendly and gay. His friend, Oren Arnold, says"I can envision a brilliant series of movies car-tooned in Harry's inimical style, one that no Dis-ney, no Slesinger has yet approached."

/^ O M E T IM E in the next half cen-^ tury my good friend Harry Lockewill die andsurelygo to astrange but delightful valhalla of his owncreation. It will be peopled by men, wom-en and children who, on earth at least,have thorns and green paint all over theirbodies, and who cavort in much the mer-ry, winsome way we mortals all wouldlike to do.If that is a fantastic concept, so be it.But it is no more happily fantastic thanthe creations Harry on earth has made. Agreat many folk have discovered the desertas a place of beauty and serious inspira-

tion, but only a few have seen its cacti ascharacters of fun , Harry, an amateur, topsall the other amateurs and professionals Ihave ever heard of in cactus cartooning.His saguaro, endowed with life, is manhimself; man in all his ego, all his failings,all his charm.Penned in gay casualness, this saguaroof Arizona and Sonora is no mere "desertsentinel" or "monument" to Harry. It is ahappy-go-lucky bum hitch-hiking a ride,a woman with arms about her lover, an-other woman gossiping about that love, ahail-fellow-well-met singing in the barbershop, a scholar who loves to think, a but-

ler, a colored minstrel, a wet nurse with ababy, or simply an old, old man walkingwith a cant. The subtlety of Harry's worklifts it far above the commonplace name ofcartooning, into that higher realm we callart. But his is a flexible, whimsical, deli-cate presentation, not a severe art at all.There is no roughhouse business in hissketches, none of the crude comedy withwhich so many cactus cartoons are typed.His characters are as far above slapstick asthe screened Bambi is above Mutt and Jeff.He calls them, not too aptly, "DesertCuties." They are cute, yes, but cut: is toolimited a word. One merchant in Phoenix

M A R C H , 1 9 4 3 17


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borrowed some of his sketches for displayin a show window. I stood by for hours tohear what people had to say."They're just simply darling!" one ladytold her husband."Darl ing! That ' s absurd!" He shotback. "Those things are magnificent!"He was the president of a university inNew York state. His appraisal was tributedeserved.A mere hint of the cartooned characterscan be had from the few reproductionsthat are possible here, but instantly youwill want to know about the man behindthem.Harry Locke is a desert rat (another in-apt term, but inescapable in our desertl o r e ) . For many years he was caretaker ofArizona's meteor crater, which is isolationitself. He well might have stagnated,soured, become taciturn, or he might havesoared with others of us to a semi-religiouslove of the desert vastness and color andform. Not Harry. I imagine he was born

with a grin, and I am sure he will go outof this l ife wearing one. He saw the thornythings as inspiration for philosophy, to besure, but a philosophy of tolerance andwhimsy and fun. Loneliness created nosomber mood in Harry; instead, i t en-dowed the eternal saguaro, cholla, bisnagaand prickly pear with animation that wasfriendly and gay!It was not the cacti alone that impressedhim. He put human quali t ies in Benny theBadger, Fuzzy the Bunny, Frisky the Fox(a vil lain!), Speedy the Turtle, Rip theRattler (secret agent!), Chucky the Chuck -

awalla, Pinky the Pack Rat, and so onthrough a legion of animal cartoons. Butother penmen have done thatseldom sowell as Harry, but well enough, here and

I**f

Harry Locke studies the comic possibilities o\ a barrelcactus.

Chucky the Chuckawalla wearing hissombrero. This is the harmless littledesert lizard that cau sed a juror atthe sivank Westward Ho of P hoenix.

-a *

.

there. Harry's genius is in animating theinanimate things.He was able to educate himself in thetechnique of drawingthere may havebeen a book or two of instruction, broughtin by R.F.D. mail. He learned perspectivebecause there it was endlessly around himfrom the famed crater's rim. and so almostevery one of his sketches now has depththat reaches back miles and miles, im-pressions that you and I get in fleetingstudy of the landscape and could never puton paper at all. I know of only one otherartist who has his flair for penning dis-tance. He is another good friend, the dis-t inguished Ross Santee.I do not remember where Harry Lockewas born, if he ever told me. I do remem-ber he had a long session as a typicalAmerican "poor" boy. (No American isreally poo r.) Tw enty-o dd years ago he-was pioneering the airplane. He was lustyand courageous enough not to give a darnabout his personal neck, and so he riskedit on airplane exhibitions, stunting for afew dollars and a lot of fun. There was a



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period during which he snooped into oldMexico. Once he won a gun fight withMexican banditsask him some day toshow you his scars! But mostly he roamedhere and there about the continent, tast inglife fully, never getting rich and neverwanting to, rarely "staying put" very longuntil he got that meteor crater job andsuccumbed to the desert's peculiar en-chantment .You would classify him now as young-ish middle aged, with a wife and a daugh-ter in Arizona, and with a sense of humorand a sense of personal loyalty to friendsthat few men ever achieve. At this writ ing,he is engaged in what we armchairadventurers must regard with holy awe: heis helping pilot airplanes across theocean.When he gets back home, he is sure tostart catching up on his hobby and his per-sonal fun. Harry is a devilish fellow, if hecatches you unawares. For instance, con-sider his former landlady in town, an un-

imaginative soul.She was sweeping the hotel hallwaywhen out of Harry's door came that mosthorrendous dssert denizen, Chucky thechuckawalla himself!The good lady screamed, ran down-stairs and called police. But officersRight One of Locke's animatedcartoons.

Below The artist sketching in thefield, endowing a spiny ca ctus with a

comic personality. *


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who came to Harry's room found no cause to arresthim, found no horrors at all, told the landlady that deliriumtremens is a malady which only time and abstinence can cure.Then they went away. Later, she pulled Chucky from under thewater fountain, mistaking him for her pet kitten. Her uproar

this t ime was so monumental that Harry packed his trunk andmoved.When he moved he carried one live chuckawalla, six live-horned lizards, a harmless snake, a cactus owl, a kangaroo rat,a pet chipmunk, and a baby skunk. He "declared" this contra-band to the next hotelkeeper, won a new friend and got thewhole gang welcomed.Harry sat at dinner one night in Phoenix' swanky Hotel

Westward Ho whin Chucky came out of his lair , Harry's coatpocket. Again nature took its course. A bosomed dowager fromMiami, Florida, sat at the next table. She screamed with typicaldude resonance. Instantly an emergency was on hand.Harry sat calm. Chucky, impervious to screams and dow-agers, simply crept up Harry's arm onto the table to partakeof his evening meallettuce. A detective came. Six waiterscame. The hotel manager came, along with some dozens of



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Thus goes the life that Harry Locke lives, in peace time.

THE WET N U R S Ethe world as was done with another desert rat genius, DickWick Hal l .Un til then , a very few of us can claim the "exclusive" pleas-urewe know the creator, and we have stood by during thecreation of Locke's cartooned cactus clan.

THE OLDOFCACTUS VALLEy,

Holly woo d is surs to discover" him . I can envision a bril-

- T H EA R C H , 1 9 4 3 21


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.

As he pa ssed over the bill, ivith all his earthly possessionson one pack horse, we bid him goodbye with regret.

Saddle TrampBy CHARLES KELLY

His hair is white and his body is covered withthe scars oi many a personal encounter with thetough men of the early Westbut Harry Mac-Closkey still rides the trails of the Utah desertwilderness. When you have read his story youwill understand why Charles Kelly felt genuineregret when the old man said goodbye and rodeover the hill . . .11 / E WERE sitting in the shade ofYy Dr. Inglesby's veranda in the lit-tle settlement of Fruita, Utah. Notmany travelers come this way now. It wasgrowing twilight as a stranger rode infrom the desert to the easta white-haired old man on an Indian cayuse, lead-ing a heavily laden pack horse. The an-imals moved wearily down the dusty road."Who is that?" I asked the doctor."Don't know," he replied. "Never sawhim around here. Looks like he might haveridden straight out of Robbers' Roost."

When he reached the gate the old mandismounted stiffly. His legs were badlybowed from long years in the saddle andhe walked with a slight limp. Long hairhung below his black wide-brimmed hat,while his moustache and month-old-beardwere also silvery white. Over a Navajovest he wore a fringed buckskin jacket.From his belt hung a .38-40 Colt. Heavyleather chaps, short, high-heeled boots anda pair of heavy Spanish spurs inlaid withsilver completed his costume. His leathercuffs, belt, gun holster, saddle and bridle-were decorated with old Navajo silver. Heweighed about 130 pounds and his eyeswere light blue."Come right in!" Dr. Inglesby shoutedas he walked toward the gate. "Unsaddle

22

your horses and turn 'em in the clover.You're just in time for supper.""Thanks!" the old fellow smiled. "I'dsorta like to stop over night if you've gotroom for us. W e've come 20 miles todaytoo far for a horse with a heavy pack likemine. I got dry back on the desert, andhad to drink some alkali water. It's burn-ing me up inside. You haven't got a smalldrink of something, have you, to cut thealkali?"The doctor happened to have a bottleof alkali remedy, and after a liberal dosethe old man seemed revived."My name's Harry MacCloskey," hesaid as he began unsaddling his horses.Used to ride this country 50 years ago,but it's sure changed a lot. Them days thedesert was covered belly-deep with finegrass, but my ponies like to starved todeath on this trip. I just came from Rob-bers' Roost. Thought I'd like to see theold place again."

Doc glanced at me. His guess had beencorrect, after all. Then he introduced meas the author of a book about Butch Cas-sidy, his Wild Bunch, and Robbers' Roost."So you're the man who wrote thatbook!" the old fellow said as we shookhands. "I read it just a few days ago. It'sall right, maybe, as far as it goes, but

there's lots of things you left out. Nowwhen I was in the Roost in '92 . . ."We were off to a flying start. I had longwanted to meet one of the genuine oldRoosters, but most of them were dead.Here was a man who could give me firsthand information on outlaw activitiesback in the days when the West was reallywild. For the next 10 days I listened to theold man's stories, which cannot be repeat-ed here because they would fill a book.What I want to write about now is theman who calls himself Harry MacClosky.Strangely enough, his own story begins inold Russia.

His real name, he told us, was Ziplin-sky. His father had been captain in theCzar's trusted Cossack guards. During theCivil war Captain Ziplinsky, with hisfriend, Captain Kosterlitzky, had beensent to the United States as military observ-ers. At first they were attached to GeneralSheridan's staff but later went south andremained with the Confederate army untilthe war ended. Then they went to Mexicowith General Shelby and a group of ex-Confederates to fight under ill-fatedMaximilian. After the latter's death Cap-tain Ziplinsky returned to the UnitedStates, but his friend, Kosterlitzky, re-T HE D E S E R T M A G A Z I N E


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Within a year Harry Ziplinsky was

n 15-year-old

Not long afterward a number of valu-

So he sent Harry out alone, with a sad-

"What you doin' here, kid?" Tom Mc-"I was just hunting for some strayed"Them horses ain't lost," the outlaw

"Latigo Gordon sent me after 'em," the"Tell you what I'll do," McCarty said,

So Harry rode 65 miles into G reenriver,

Harry MacCloskeysaddle Iranip.leader lived up to his agreement, and theboy rode back to Carlisle's with the horses.That, he says, was his first contact withthe outlaws of Robbers' Roost.

From the Carlisle ranch Harry driftednorth into Wyoming, where he took partin what is known as the Invasion, or the

Johnson County War, of 1892. Twenty-five prominent cattlemen, with 25 hiredgunmen, attempted to clean out rustler-controlled Johnson county. In this auda-cious undertaking everything seemed togo wrong, and the Invaders were finallyforced to fort up in a long ranch house,M A R C H , 1 9 4 3


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where they were surrounded by 300 rust-lers for several days, until rescued by acompany of soldiers.While this affair was cooling off Har-ry, who had been well paid for his part asa hired fighter, spent several months tour-ing Europe. Returning to NewMexico heworked on various ranches unti l he be-came involved in a fight with a Mexican.H e had to kill the Mexican, he says, andthen, with 15 knife wounds in his body,rode to Robbers' Roost to recuperate andavoid tedious court proceedings. On thisoccasion he had t ime to become well ac-quainted with McCarty and many otherwestern outlaws who found it convenientto be in the Roost. Accepted as one of theboys, he was nicknamed "Dutch Henry"MacCIosky, after an outlaw who had beenrecently killed, because his own Russianname was too hard to remember. Fromthat t ime unti l 1896 he was in and out ofthe Roost frequently, for reasons which hedoes not explain. Besides the knife scars,he has five bullets in his body, any one ofwhich might account for his presence inthe outlaw hideout.

Harry worked on the Panama canal fora t ime, then went to Bolivia and Argen-tina. Returning to the States he marriedand settled on a ranch in Wet Mountainvalley, Colorado. But hiswife died after afew years and once more he took to thesaddle. Since then he hasworked on nearlyevery big ranch in theWest, including theHashknife, where he became acquaintedwith Zane Grey. Constantly moving fromone place to another, he knows the south-western deserts better than any man I haveever met. At one t ime or another hecrossed the trail of nearly every famouswestern outlaw, and his mind is a store-house of their exploits.

Several years ago he was dragged by ahorse andnearly killed. Hisbody is a massof scars, and because of the l imp he ac-quired at that time cowboys nicknamedhim "Step-and-a-Half." S'nce then he hasnot been able to do much hard riding."I 'm just an old saddle t ramp," he says,"no good to myself or anybody else. Ishould have been killed years ago. The onlyreason I keep on living is just to see whatthe hell will happen next." Nowadays herides from one ranch to another, stoppinga fewdays "to get the wrinkles out of hisbelly," then riding on again on his never-ending journey. Everything he owns iscontained in one large pack, including afew treasured books and old family photo-graphs. Too proud to accept old age pen-sion, he insists on working for his keep,and is always welcome wherever he stops.As Harry MacCIosky passed over thehill after a pleasant 10-day visit, Dr.Inglesby and I waved him farewell withregret . He was half Russian Cossack bybirth, and he may once have traveled the

Outlaw Trai l , but to us he seemed the lastl iving l ink between modern "progress"and the tradit ions of the old West .

S O M E W H E R E INU T A HWho can identify this picture?

P R I Z E C O N T E S T A N N O U N C E M E N T . . .Somewhere in Utah is this unusual rockformation. Its odd shape hasgiven rise toits name.It is located in a remote area where rela-tively few visitors have ventured, yet it isin one of the most fantastic and fascinatinggeological areas of the Southwest.How may it be reached and may one-approach it at any t ime of the year. Howhigh is this monumental rock and what isi ts appearance from other views. Whenwas it first seen bywhite men and is there

any historical or legendary informationavailable.Desert Magazine would l ike to make its

readers better acquainted with this land-mark and its surrounding region. In or-de r to obtain the most complete, concisedata possible, a cash award of $5.00 willgo to the reader whosubmits the most in-formative 500-word article about thismonth ' s landmark.Entries should be mailed to Contest Ed-itor, Desert Magazine, El Centre, Cali-fornia, and must reach the magazine of-fice not later than March 20, to qualify forthe prize. The winning story will be pub-

lished in the May issue. Manuscripts willno t be returned unless accompanied bypostage.T HE D E S E R T M A G A Z I N E


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Rudyard ' s d iscovery o f an Ind ian g r ind ing s toneled the South family to engage in the ancient art ofp ino le making . Even Vic to r ia d id her share as shejoined the othersshelling the gleaming red andyellow ears of corn. It was a long job, but worth it.And Marshal tel ls how pinole is made at the Lit t leHouse in the Utah valley where they are l ingeringthrough the winterwaiting for spring 's arr ival be-fore taking the trail again in search of a new home.

By MARSHAL SOUTHr HE necklace lay upon the table. In the wintry desert sun-light that fell across it from the window it shone with astrange mellowed, yellow glow. Something like oldivory; yet different, more mysterious. Our friend, the archaeolo-gist who had brought it, touched the beads lovingly."Basketmaker," hs said. "At least 2,000 years old. Perhapsmuch more. Observe this pendant! Note the workmanship."With the absorption of the specialist his fingers strayed hereand there, touching individual beads, pointing out the careful-ly drilled string holes, calling attention under the lens, to amass of fascinating detail that would have escaped anyone butan expert."We were examining a room in an old Pueblo village," he-explained. "And somehow I wasn't satisfied. I had a feelingcall it a hunch if you want to. I began to dig deeper. And awaydown below the level of the first floor we came upon . . . "You could see it all as he spoke. The grey sweep of the desertand its backing of tumbled mountains. The hard, dry, dustyearth with the traces of old walls. The yawning excavation inthe ancient floora shaft that went not only into the depthsof earth but also the depths of time. From the records of oneancient vanished race into the records of another, still more-ancient. And there in the bottom of the shaft, grey with thedust of forgotten things, you saw the body. And the little heapof beads that, before the string had decayed, had been the neck-lace. And the water jar. And the cooking pot.Knees drawn to chest the woman lay upon her side, her face-turned upward. The water jar, deliberately punctured in twoplaces, was under one arm. The cooking pot by the other. Thegrey bones of the body, laid to its rest in the forgotten centuries,were crumbling to soft dust in the touch of the outer air. Andthere in the grey dust lay the necklace. A little pile of beads andtheir semi-transparent pendantlying where they had trickleddown like tears when the slow march of the years had finally

snapped the string that had bound them about a dusky throat.Our friend went on to tell us about that ancient house locat-ed less than two miles from where we now lived. It had beenunder the floor of another dwelling whose builders had not inthe least suspected what lay below their homesite. He told us ofthe posts and beams, whose fire charred sockets were eloquentof tragedy. He told us of the strata of sand and soil which theslow trowel of Time had spread above the ruin. Strata whichtold of the changing courses of rivers, of the drifting banks ofdesert dust.But we scarcely heard him. We were looking at the necklace-lying there yellowed and mysterious in the- glow of the wintersunshine. It was a talisman. Before its mellowed gleam 20 cen-turies rolled aside and fled. And it seemed to us that in thebright glow of other days we could see again the desert and themountains and the gleaming silver of the river. And the little-houses among the cornfields. And the smoke of the cookingfires. And we heard again the voices of men and women and

Rider cutting out dead woo d for fuel in the thicket near theold reservoir.the laughter of children and the steady thudding of grindingstones, pounding out meal.And the necklace was moving to and fro, clasped about aslender dusky throat that was vibrant with life- and with song.She must have been beautiful, tha t ancient w earer of the necklace.For, even after the lapse of 20 centuries, her teeth, as our friendhad told us, with a touch of scientific awe, had gleamed in thedusk of that opened burial pit like a cluster of dazzling pearls.Gruesome? No, it wasn't gruesome. If you could have satthere as we did, gazing at that old necklace gleaming mellow-ly in the sunshine, and if you could have sensed, as we did, thethings that lay back in the soft dusk of the Time mists, youwould have found nothing gruesome about it. Quite the con-trary. For somehow that old necklace and the pictures it broughtback out of the dead years was a song of glory. A message ofFaith and Hope and Immortality.Rudyard has his dog. Fver since Rudyard could walk andtalk he has dreamed of some day having a dog. Now the dreamis realized. For the other day, out of the northjust: as the Pil-grim camethere came another wanderer. But this time it wasa four-footed wanderer. We called her Bonny.Bonny is of uncertain ancestry. But mostly shepherd. Whatstory of other homes and other days lies behind her gentlebrown eyes we cannot tell. Without collar or mark she cameup the dusty path along the adobe wall and adopted us. She wasweary and hungry and very footsore. The children rushed tohunt up a plate of scraps for her, which she gulped eagerly."Maybe," said Rider, speculatively, "she fell out of some caror truck. Someone must own her."But Rudyard wasn't bothering about questions of ownershipor anything else. He just flung his arms around Bonny's shaggyhead and hugged it to his heart. "My dawg. My dawgmyalways-wanted-dawg," he kept saying huskily. For an hour ormore, as she lay stretched on a sack, resting in a sunny angle ofthe wall, he sat beside her, holding her head and stroking ittenderly. Bonny likes Rudyard.Bonny is now a firmly established member of the household.The boys hunted up a big box to serve as a kennel and Victoriatoddled around collecting old sacks to lay in it for a bed. Now wehave a watchdog. In her kennel Bonny curls up every night with

M A R C H , 1 9 4 3 25


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just the tip of her sensitive nose visible in the starlight. And nointruder, ei ther two-footed or four-footed, goes unchallenged.There is only one jarring note in the new order of things. Tib-ets, the cat, has moved out and left us. Tibbets does not likedogs. Bonny tried her best to make friends with her. But Tib-ets would have none of it. She drew aside her skirts with greatdignity, spat twiceand departed across country. Rider st i l lhas hopes that Tibbets will return, as indeed we all have. Tib-ets was Rider's special pet.Wood gathering is an important job these chil ly days, justas it was at Yaquitepec. Fortunately there is a good deal of deadbrush and larger growth to be found in the l i t t le canyons andin the watercourses. And quite a bit of dry, burnable materialin the thicket around the ol d reservoir. On pleasant days theyoungsters make excursions and come home well loaded withkindling. And once in a while we take the car and trailer andhaul in a mountain of varied fuel.On the last of such expeditions we felt convinced that wehad accumulated enough to last over the winter. But the bulkof it was willow logs, which vanish in the stove almost as fastas our Ghost mountain mescal butts did. So, soon we will haveto make another foray. The boys don't mind, though. Not yethave they outgrown the novelty of this new location, and every

trip is an adventure.The cottonwoods lift bleak, bare branches against the sun-set, and the edges of the mesas are iron-hard and grim againstthe chil l dawns. But so far we cannot complain about the win-ter weather of this new section of the desert. Far to the northof Ghost mountain though it is, the climate is surprisingly likethe one we have been used to. Perhaps even a l i t t le milder. Forthere is less wind. The roaring gales that used to leap uponYaquitepec with a fury that sometimes seemed to make the en-tire mountain tremble to i ts core, are absent here. Sometimes wemiss them.You grow to love the wind. The roar and thunder of i ttheelemental force. A storm has a strange power over the humanspiri t , a sense of buoyant st imulation queerly tempered with

fear. For none of us have yet become so "civilized" that we haveoutgrow n our primitive awe of the elements. W e sometimesthink that we have. But that is only a pretensea thin veneerof artificial shelters of glass and brick that we hide behind. Deepat heart the human being still quails at the heavy rumble of thethunder and at the blinding slash of the l ightningeven asdid his ancestor who cowered from the tempest in the darkestrecess of a drafty cave. Fortunately, in spite of all our frills andtrimmings, we are still creatures of the earth. And there is hopeand comfort in that.Playing outside the other day Rudyard pulled up an oddlyshaped stone that was half buried in the earth. Memory of simi-lar shaped stones away back on Ghost mountain prompted himto trot inside and show us his find. Sure enough it was a grind-ing stone such as the Indian women use in rubbing out corn. Evi-dently it had had considerable use before it had dropped fromthe last dusky hand to be buried in the desert dust. How old?W e could not tell. But we dusted it off an d wipe d the cling-ing earth from the crevicesand put it to work again at its oldjob. Another link across the mists of Time, in the chain thatbinds all humanity and all Life together. The dusky fingers laydown the tool, and the white fingers pick it up, to go on withthe work. Not the first t ime that we have turned old things toour hands in the wilderness. Tanya, who sti l l remembers longbusy hours in the fevered offices of Wall street, smiles some-times at the queer changes the marching years have brought her.W e ma de a batch of pinole with the old grinder. Th e wholefamily, even Victoria, gathe red ro und to shell the corn. W e had

bought it in the ear. Corn that had been raised back in the hills,perhapswho knowsupon the self-same land as that fromwhich the Indian owners of the grinding stone had drawn sup-plies. The gleaming ears were yellow and red, and the fat ker-

nels, as we stripped them from the cobs, seemed literally burst-ing with the health and bounty of the good earth. Victoria choseeasy ears and did not get off many kernels, because she stoppedto admire each one carefully before she dropped it into the dishwith the others. "I don' wan' to hurt them, muvver," she ex-plained laboriously. "They are so boo-tiful."You parch corn to make pinole. And when we had enoughshelled we dumped it into a big iron kettle and set it over thefire, stirring it constantly w ith a woo den spoon so that it wou ldtoast evenly without burning. When i t was toasted to a fragrant,brown crispness we took the pot off and spread the hot corngrains out to cool. Then, with the ancient grinding stone werubbed them to meal on an improvised metate.A long job, but worth it. You can eat pinole "as is" or you caneat it with a little sugar and milk. Any way it is delicious. Thereare various kin ds of it. Some pinole is a mixture of differentvarieties of toasted grains. The old desert Indians went to a lotof trouble in collecting tiny seeds. Many of them seeds of grassesand not much bigger than dust grainsA while ago, choosing good weather, we made a dash downinto Arizona, to investigate a possible location close to theGrand Canyon. The trip proved a failure as far as helping ourproblem of a new homesite. But it was rich in reward in otherways, for we brought back unforgettable memory pictures of a

vast and lonely and beautiful land. Vivid, thrilling memories ofZion national park, of the Navajo Bridge, of the quaint littletown of Kanabof a host of other high spots in a mighty un-tamed world of soli tude and color.But most of al l we brought back memories of the Navajo andthe section of their reservation through which we passed. Notperhaps so much memories of sightsthough there are pictur-esque enough things, and to spare, to be seen in Navajo land.But the things that clung to us were memories of sensation.For, somehow, in the land of the Navajo there is a strange sen-sation of Freedomthe old natural freedom which has van-ished from most of the rest of the earth. It is not a completefreedom, it is true. The shadow of restraint hovers ever in thebackground. But st i l l there is a great measure of Freedom therethe proud freedom of a land and of human beings who hold"Progress" and its insiduous fetters in scorn. Freedom is a fierceand precious thing. To some, self satisfied in ease, it is a thingof small moment. But to those who love it as the wild thingslove it, it is more precious than the breath of life itself.The Navajo dwell upon no sainted pedestal . God knows thatthey, in common with all of us, have faults enough to balancetheir virtues. But they love Freedom. They love it with all thepassionate fierceness of the desert. And their love of itdoessomething to their terri tory. A mysterious something. As youpass through that land you can feel it. The wind blows a littlefresher there. The sunshine is a little brighter. The faint subtlescent of the junipers, clinging along the sandstone cliffs is al i t t le more fragrant than elsewhere. The smoke of the hoganfires rises towards the desert sky like the fume of a thousand

altars, lifted in praise to the Great Spirit.Freedomthose of us who hold in our hearts and veins thatlonging and that fire would rather tread a thousand t imes thehard trails and eat the lean fare of the wilderness than roundout fatted years beneath the yoke of "Progress."

o ASPIRATION

I'm not content! I never am content!They rot who seek but peace and calm repose.Inertia is a parasite that growsClouding the thoughts that might be heaven bent.Who knows the trek of stars? the godly powersThat w e ourselves shall claim some distant day,When we, no longer in this coarsened clay,Shall rise above this huma n state oj ours.

Tanya South26 T HE D E S E R T M A G A Z I N E


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L E T T E R S . . .S e n d s L u c k to Editor . . .Phoenix, Ar izonaDear Miss Harr is :I have never met Mr. Hendersonhaven' t met any of you folks, but we cer-tainly wish him the very best of good luckand success in the biggest job he ever hasha d or ever will have. Lots of good luckto you and the Deser t too. Now, more thanbefore, we need something like the Desert(and our hobbies) to ease the mentalstrain.

H . S. KEITHLEY Greetings from War Worker . . .San Francisco, CaliforniaDear People:I want to express my appreciation forthe splendid job you folks are doing inkeeping the magazine functioning so well ,cons ider ing the trying conditions you mustbe working under now.In fact, Desert seems to be gett ing bet-ter with each issue. Believe me, if I werein some far off country I would not ap-preciate the magazine anymore than I do.In the work I am now doing I am con-stantly hearing and ta lking war from 8 to10 hours a day without le tup. So. when I

am through work I love to spend an houror two planning great t r ips with the aidof my file of Desert.I certainly had my thoughts expressedin last month's issue by Mora Brown. Iknow how she feels as I have gone overthe same territory several times myself.A nd I like Mary Beal's beautiful work ondesert plant life. F RED H. R A G S D A L E Knows Hualpai Basketmaker . . .Gardnervi l le , NevadaDear Sirs:In the November issue you had a storyand pictures of Queenie and other Hual-pai Indians. I knew Queenie when I wasa little girl living at Peach Springs, Ari-zona. I was so glad to read somethingabout them. While l iving there I attendeda three-day pow-wow at which theyburned all the beautiful blankets and bas-kets they owned as an offering to the dead.Their chief had died a few months be-fore.

W e specially enjoy all the Indianlegends and to read of some you knowabout first hand is a real thrill.P R I N C E S S T H O M P S O N

Hilton Out lines Desert Job . . .Thermal, CaliforniaDear Randall :I read a lot of your Letters to the Editorbut it isn't often that I feel like writ ing onemyself. Now I have real news for a gr oupof selected "rockhounds."W e are busy out in one of the roughestparts of the desert producing a mineralthat Uncle Sam simply has to have tospeed up the war effort. So Jar this onemine is the only source of any importance.Positions are open to several really goodm en who like the desert and rock huntingan d can rough it in the full desert sense ofthe word. There is a chance to f ight thewa r out here on the desert and do as muchgood as in any branch of the armed forces.

Applicants must have excellent refer-ences, be will ing to work for the durationthrough all sorts of desert climate at hardbut exceedingly interesting labor. Thereis no need for a degree in mineralogy, justa genuine interest in rock collecting and agood physique are impor tant .Applicat ions can be m ade to Mr. Ar-nold Hoffman, care of John W. Hil ton .Thermal, California. It would be best towrite and make appointments for inter-views. All I can say is that anyone whoworks on this job for the duration will feelmighty proud after the war when the fullimportance of it can be told.

J O H N W. H I L T O N

A M O D E R N M I R A C L E . . . Water from the snow sheds a thousand miles

away is brought to Imperial Valley to trans-form a barren desert into the garden spot ofAmerica.

Stored behind the vast confines of Boulder Dam,the life-giving water is released to wind its waydown the tortuous stretches of the Coloradoriver. From the river it is carried across 80 milesoi sand and waste land by the huge All-American Canal and finally delivered to indi-vidual farmers' delivery gates from a net work

of 3,000 miles of canals and ditches in ImperialValley.

Charged with the responsibility of distributingthe 2,000,000 acre feet of water diverted into theValley each year and with making over 75,000individual gate deliveries, is the Imperial Irri-gation District.

SNOW FLAKES FROM THE HIGH SIERRASTO PRODUCE ESSENTIAL CROPS ON THEDESERTTRULY A MODERN MIRACLE!

I m p e r ia l I r r i g a t io n D i s t r i c tU s e Y o u r O w n P o w e r - M a k e i t P a y f o r t h e A H A m e r i c a n C a n a l

MARCH, 1943 27


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Friend oi Indians Likes DM . . .Dayton, OhioDear Sir:

W e have had to leave our belovedSouthwest during this war emergency, andfeel the need of Desert Magazine morethan ever.I enjoy the stories and articles aboutthe Southwest Indians especially, as Ihave many wonderful friends among thePueblo Indians.M R S . J O H N T . W A L L A C E

Likes Far Corners . . .Beverly Hills, CaliforniaDear Mr. Henderson:

Have been reading Desert Magazinesince you first started to print same in1 9 3 7 , and will say there has been nothingof its kind published in the United Statesthat compares with it in description ofthe desert country. Your writers have cer-tainly gone into the out-of-the-way placesto get their wonderful stories of this mys-terious region.

I have spent my vacations in this region,off and on for a period of more than 35years, and was more than interested in yourstory of Cataract canyon with its wonder-ful waterfalls. It brought back memoriesof the trip I took there abou t 30 years ago.Being in the mining business I was inter-ested in the expedition of Mooney and hisassociates in trying to discover the minesupposed to be below one of the high wa-terfalls. The iron ladder that was built byMooney's associates after his death givesone a vivid idea of the hardships these menwere ready to endure in their search forthe precious metals. When I was there anold rocker that they used to concentratethe high grade ore was still in a fair stateof preservation, but expect it since hasbeen washed away by floods.

Hope it will not be long before you areable to write your story of Beaver falls, asI think this is one of the most interestingscenes that I have had the pleasure toview.Was also interested in the articles byCharles Kelly, as he is writing about a ter-ritory where I spent a great deal of time.I also, years ago, made an investigation ofthe lost mine of the Navajo and found Mr.Kelly's description about the same as thestory I got from the Mormons who l ivednear this region. My guide was EzekielJohnson, the famous Mormon guide whohas been with the National Geographicand Bernheimer expedit ions in that re-gion. He is custodian of the NaturalBridges national monument and I had thepleasure of visiting these bridges withhim only a few years after their discovery.

In 1910 I visited and interviewed CassHiteabout two years before he died.I came into that region through the WayneWonderland and by way of Hanksvil le.

F R E D W . K O E H L E R

D E S E R T Q U I Z Get a pencil and a comfortable chairand here wego for another of those lessons in the fact and loreof the great American desert. It is fun, even if youare not too familiar with the history and geography of the arid Southwest. Theaverage person will not answer 10 of these correctly. However, the folks whohave prowled over the desert country and observed well as they went along shouldanswer at least a dozen. Fifteen is a good score even for a desert rat, and any num-ber exceeding 15 means you are either very lucky or very smart. The answers areon page 16.

1The Cactus wren gene rally makes its nest in Beavertail cactusCholla cactus-- Saguaro Ocotillo-2San Gorgo nio pass is located in California Ne vadaArizona Utah3Stopping at Peach Springs, Arizona, the Indians you would see loitering inthat vicinity most l ikely would be Pahute NavajoHualpai PapagO--4 Th e old territorial prison at Yu ma , Arizona , was built mainly ofCot tonwood t imber Adobe Stone. -5-Going from Las Cruces to Alamogordo, New Mexico, the most interestingscenic attraction wou ld be Carlsbad caverns Aztec ruins

Enchanted mesa W hi te Sands nat ional monum ent6A zurite is most often found in formation with Opal MalachiteZinc-- Hemat i te7 Fairy duster is the com mon name for a desert Lizard-- Insect .Mineral Flower8T uzigoot is the nam e given An Arizona range of mou ntainsA river in Utah A cave in Providence mou ntainsA national monument for the preservation of ancient Indian ruins9--Ja cob Ham bl in was a Mormon pioneerScout for General Kearny's armyFirst man to navigate the Colorado riverGovernment agent in making surveys for the Gadsden Purchase-

10 -C allville was once- An outpo st on the Colo rado riverThe place where Geronimo surrenderedThe scene of a famous Indian battleA stage station on the Butterfield trail11Highest of the San Francisco peaks in northern Arizona isAgassiz peak Telescope mou ntain Catalina peakMt. Humphreys12Palms growing in Palm canyon in Southern California are of the speciesSonorae Filifera Arizon ica. Robusta1 3 Chalced ony roses, whe n in place, generally are found in seams ofCalcite Manganese Qua rtz Lead ore14 Icebe rg canyon is most easily reached by -Motorb oat on Lake Mea d Pack trip from Bluff, Utah

Motor excursion to the lava beds in New MexicoClimbing to Aguereberry Point in Death Valley15 The poem "M ornin ' on the Dese rt" was writ ten by ChaseVan Dyke Shar lo t Hal l Author Unkn own1 6The- old Co lorado river town w here H ighw ay 6() now crosses the stream isproperly spelled Ehrenberg Ehre nburg Ehrre nburg .Erenberg17Principal industry at McNary, Arizona, isM ining Sheep raising W eav ing Lum bering. ..18The species of fish for which an island in Salton sea was named isCatfish Mullett Bass Shad19Blossom of the salt cedar that grows around the desert cienegas isW hite Y

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194303 Desert Magazine 1943 March