194704 Desert Magazine 1947 April

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a r o u n d iheNext t ime you're in a U n i o n Oil Station, watch the procedurethe Minute Man follows in serving you. He works in a circlearound your car, starting with the driver 's windshield and end-in g up at the left front window.As he goes , he cleans your h eadl ights, wind ow glass and reflec-torschecks your water and oil and tests the tires. Like everyfeature of Minute Man Service, this procedure has been care-

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UNION Oil MINUTE HUH SERVICETHE DESERT MAGAZINE


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DESERT CALENDARMarch 29-30Second annual exhibi t ,Imperial Valley Gem and Mineral so-ciety and Imperial Lapidary guild.Central junior college auditorium, F.ICentro, California.March 29-April 5Sierra club Eastervacation trip to southern Arizona andFlying H ranch.Apri l 1-4Yaqui Indian ceremonials,Tucson and Phoenix, Arizona. Week'srites.April 2State symphony orchestra chil-dren's concert, Tabernacle, Salt LakeCity, Utah.April 4Easter pageant in Box canyon,

Mecca, California, at 8:30 p. m.Apri l 4-5Annual convent ion, Daugh-ters of Utah Pioneers, Salt Lake City,U tah .Apri l 5Fiesta Jardinera (Gardeners 'fest ival ) , Phoenix, Arizona.Apr il 5-6Fifth annu al Gila RiverRound Up and Rodeo, Safford, Ari-zona.

Apri l 5-6Arizona state high schoolchampionship ski meet , Snow Bowl,Flagstaff, Arizona.April 5-6Sierra club, Desert Peaks sec-tion, climb of Coso and Maturangopeaks, Inyo county.April 5-6State Mine ral Society ofTexas, mineral show in Plaza hotel,San Antonio, Texas.April 6Easter sunrise services, Traver-tine point, Coachella valley, Cali-fornia.April 6Easter services, Grand CanyonShrine of Ages, Grand Canyon, Ari -zona.Apr il 6A nnual Easter services onmountainside, Palm Springs, Cali-fornia.Apri l 6Horse show, Sonoi ta, Arizona.Apri l 7Second an nual Yum a countyagricultural fair, Yuma, Arizona.Apri l 7-May 7"Message of the Ages,"pageant of Church of Jesus Christ ofLatter-day Saints, Tabernacle, SaltLake City, Utah.April 9-13 Dese rt Circus, PalmSprings, California.Apri l 11-13 W orld 's championshiprodeo, Phoenix, Arizona.Apri l 12Annual White Sands playday,given for children all over Southwest.White Sands nat ional monument , Ala-mogordo , New Mexico .Apri l 12-13Indian Wel ls Val ley Stam-pede and Rodeo, Ridgecrest, Mojavedesert, California.Apri l 12-13Arizona state champion-ship ski meet, Snow Bowl, Flagstaff,Arizona.Apri l 12-May 4 Junior Navajo andHopi art show, sponsored by Museumof Northern Arizona, Flagstaff, Ari-zona.Apri l 17-18Mesa Garden club flowershow, Mesa, Alrizona.Apri l 18-20Imperial Val ley Roundup,Imperial fair grounds, Imperial, Cali-fornia.Apri l 18-20 !Niner ' s Days ,California.Apri l 19-20Siesection overnight camping trip to RedRock canyon, (talifornia.Apri l 21-23Women's gol f tournament ,Palm Springs, California.

April 25Annual hobby and flowershow, sponsored by P.T.A. at Mecca,California, 7 pi m.

>econd annual Forty-Desert Hot Springs,rra club, Nature Study

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Volu me 10 APRIL, 1947 Num ber 6COVER ENCELIA. Photograph by Norton Allen, La Mesa,California.CALENDAR April even ts on the desert 3PHOTOGRAPHY Prize winn ers in Feb ruar y contest 4FIELD TRIP They Call it "Petrified Hollow"By HAROLD O. WEIGHT 5CONTEST Prize photo anno unce men t 8PERSONALITIES Home on the Rim of the DesertBy MARSHAL SOUTH 10WILDFLOWERS Fo rec ast for April 12ART Sun Painter of Santa FeBy DOR OTH Y L. PILLSBURY 13LOST MINE L o s t J o h n C l a r k S i l v e r M i n e

B y J O H N D . M I T C H E L L 1 5T R U E O R F A L S E A t e s t o f y o u r k n o w l e d g e o f t h e d e s e r t . . . . 1 6BOTANY F r e m o n t ' s P e p p e r G r a s s , b y M A R Y B E A L . . . 1 7POETRY To a Night-Blooming Cereu s, an d other poe ms . 18EXPLORATION Palms of the Carrizo Country

By RANDALL HENDERSON 19HUMOR Hard Rock Shorty of Dea th Va lley 22NATURE His ProtectionSpeed and ColorBy RICHARD L. CASSELL 23HISTORY He Saved the Life of a SavageBy HAROLD BUTCHER 24GEM STONES Stone That Flashes FireBy COURTNEY COTTA M 27MINING Curren t ne w s briefs 29LETTERS Com ment from Desert rea de rs 30NEWS Here an d There on the Desert 32LAPIDARY Am ate ur Ge m Cutter, by LELANDE QUICK . . 38HOBBY Gem s an d Minerals , Edited by Arthur L. Eaton . 39COMMENT J u s t B e t w e e n Y o u a n d M e , b y t h e E d i t o r . . . 4 6BOOKS Current review s of Southwest books 47

The Desert Magazine is published monthly by the Desert Press, Inc., 636 State Street,El Centro, California. Entered as second class m atter October 1 1, 1937, at the p ost office atEl Centro, California, under the Act of March 3, 1879. Title registered No. 3B8865 in U. S.Paten t Office, and contents copyrighted 1947 by the Desert Pres s, Inc. Permission to reproducecontents must be secured from the editor in writing.RANDALL HENDERSON , Editor. BESS STACY, Business Manage r.LUCILE HARRIS and HAROLD O. WEIGHT, Associate Editors.

Unsolicited manuscripts and photographs submitted cannot be returned or acknowledgedunless full return postage is enclosed. Desert Magazine assumes no responsibility for damageor loss of manuscripts or photographs although due care will be exercised. Subscribers shouldsend notice of change of address by the first of the month preceding issue. If address is un-certain by that date, notify circulation department to hold copies.SUBSCRIPTION RATES

One Year . . . $3.00 Two yea rs . . . $5.00Canadian subscriptions 25c extra, foreign SOc extra.Subscriptions to Army personnel outside U.S.A. must be mailed in conformity withP.O.D. Order No. 19687.Address correspondence to Desert Magazine, 636 State Street, El Centro, California.


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A B A N D O N E D . . . .This photograph taken by Loyd Cooper ofClaremont, California, was awarded first placein the Desert Magazine's February contest. Thesubject of this contest was "Desert Homes."

I M P R E G N A B L E . . . .This photograph of a Red Tailed Hawk's nestin the top of a saguaro cactus in Arizona wasawarded second place in the February contest.The photographer wa s M rs. Edna W ard of PalmSprings, California.

A P R I L C O N T E S T . . . .Prizes in Desert's April contest will beawarded for the best pictures symbolizing "The

Spirit of the Desert." This subject gives a widelatitude to photographers, since the intangiblecharm of the desert country has a different ap-peal to each individual. Rules of the contest ap-pear on another page of this issue of Desert.T HE D E S E R T M A G A Z I N E


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Petrified Ho llow, a blue-grey valley at the base of colorful buttes of the Chinle formation.Petrified wood is scattered all over the cedar-clad slopes, but no t much of it is cutting quality.

"I w a s too hot to mo ve, and he w as too hot to rattle." Thus does HaroldWeight relate his encounter with a rattlesnake while hunting petrifiedwood in the plateau country near the Arizona-Utah boundary. Here is thestory of a collecting trip to a little known region where Nature has pro-vided both gorgeous scenery and beautiful rocks for those who do notmind the rough s ide roads .

By HAROLD O. WEIGHTPhotographs by the AuthorREAT, whi te thunderheads pyra-mided into the August sky asMother, Dad and I cl imbed to the

Stretched out before us were the giant

plateau. From the Permian buttes in thesage-grey valley below to the hazy Eoceneheights of Paunsaugunt plateau, sometwo hundred million years of geologicalhistory were on display. Across the valleylay the flaming ramparts of the Vermilioncliffs. Above and beyond their jagged can-yons rose the White cliffs and still farther,still higher, the Pink cliffs merged into theplateau top.

Through a series of national parks, ourrock-collecting hunger had been ragingunappeased. Scenery is wonderful, but thetrue rockhound cannot live by sceneryalone. Somewhere he must scratch out afew pebbles if a vacation is to be entirelysuccessful. But the National Park servicefrowns upon the carting off of its parkspiecemeal. While to rockhounds this at t i-tude seems harsh and unfeeling, it is un-doubtedly justified. Every one of us knowssome rabid member of our breed whootherwise would attempt to prove that theGrand Canyon, reassembled in his ownback yard, was much more attractive thanstuck way off in an isolated corner of Ari-zona.The Vermilion cliffs form a red sand-stone arc which stretches 120-odd milesfrom the Paria to Hurricane fault . Theywere laid down in the Triassic age, whenancient forests were being uprooted andburied in the sediment of shallow seas. Atthe bases of the red cliffs lie Chinle claysand Shinarump conglomerates. In theseformations beautiful petrified woods arefound. And we had heard of a spot in theVermilion cliffs that the people of Kanabcalled Petrified Hollow.As we looked do wn on Verm ilion cliffswe had visions of some lovely new sped-

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Monum ent to Jacob Hamblin, great Mormon frontiersman and missionary,located at Kanab, Utah, is built largely o\ petrified wood from theVermilion cliffs area.mens for the cabinets at home. When wedrove on down U. S. 89, the masses ofcloud over the great valley darkened, andthunder rumbled. Broad grey columns ofrain smashed down on the crimson cliffs.But before we had reached Kanab, the sunwas shining hotly and we realized that itwas mid-summer, a fact that we had nearlyforgotten on the cool high North Rim.

Kanab is the county seat of Kane coun-ty, and its history is inextricably entwinedwith that of the great Mormon frontiers-

man, Jacob Hamblin. First settled in 1864,it was abandoned under pressure of raid-ing Navajo. Hamblin re-established it asa frontier outpost in 1867 and maintaineda home there d uring the years of his almostincredible travels through the southwest-ern wilderness, as an apostle to the In-dians .There is a monument to Hamblin westof the town where the highway turns. I tand the Fort Kanab memorial beside it areof special interest to rockhounds, as they

contain specimens of almost every type ofpetr if ied wood found in the Vermilioncliffs.Jacob wouldn' t recognize the old towntoday. The movies have discovered thetechnicolor scenery of the Kanab countryand one company or another seems to bethere most of the year. Some startling con-trasts pop up in the resulting half pioneer,half Hollywood atmosphere, and accom-modations for tourists are frequently notavailable.Whenever I go on the hunt for petr if iedwood it seems that the gremlins in chargeof mechanical difficulties, road wrecking,bad weather and miscellaneous devilmentunite for a blitzkrieg. On this tr ip, our di-rections for f inding the wood proved in-adequate, we bounced back into town withthe granddaddy of all thunderstorms inhot pursuit and were forced to backtrackmany miles to f ind accommodations thatHollywood hadn' t grabbed.The next morning the shining blue skylooked as if it had nev er held a cloud. W etook a deep breath and started again. UtahHighway 136 washboards around theshoulders of the Vermilion cliffs, and thegoing actually improved when we turnedright on a s ;de road at 8.4 miles. The sideroad ambled through sage and farm landand over little r ises crowded with Utahjuniper and pinon, following a low pla-teau. The edge to the south is called theChocolate cliffs by some map makers, and"the r im" by the local inhabitants.At 15.8 miles, the road curved to theright and dropped through a break in therim toward the big valley. It was the mostlikely spot we had seen and we stopped tohunt. Almost immediately, as I climbedthe gentle slopes to the south I came upontiny, colorful flakes of petrified wood. Istarted prospecting the washes, expectingto find larger pieces as I climbed higher.I found more chips.

I f inally groaned and plumped downinto the shade of a big cedar. It was quietand peaceful where I rested. Lizardsambled unhurriedly over the rocks. A red-tailed hawk drifted low in the blue sky. Afew feet away a cotton-tail rabbit sat upand blinked at me."Look, Do c," I sa ;d, "How do you pros-pect around here?" The cotton-tail blinkedhis eyes again and took off. I noticed thatthe ground where he had been sitting wasalmost black. And there, sticking out ofthe burned earth was a grey bit of pottery.Looking about, I saw the sites of a dozenancient fires. The reason that I could findonly chips became clear. I was in the midstof a great, primitive munitions factory.The pieces I had been gathering held newinterest. I t isn' t everywhere that you canfind cabochons roughed out by savage ar-tisans of generations past.As I climbed tow ard the edge of the r im,the sherds were so abundant in spots theyformed nearly half of the surface covering.

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To Zipn MTo Bryce Canyon -== \ '^

To North Rim & Flagstaff

ready for harvesting.I t must have taken many generations ofIndians to leave so much debris. In recentimes this was the range of the southernPaiute. According to W. R. Palmer, thehomelands of three bandsthe Paepas ,the Unkakanigi ts and the Kaibabitsjoined in this area. The Paiutes say that thepainted pottery was made by the Hopis

who lived in the terr itory in more ancienttimes.W e set up camp in a little flat near theroad, and spent the remainder of the aft-ernoon wandering over the bluffs. I founda small cave blackened by the smoke ofmany fires, its floor covered with ash andthe burned bones of small animals. In theshelter of a white cliff several hearths hadbeen constructed. In this cliff I found thefirst big log of petrified wood. It could betraced for more than 30 feet in the sand-stone, but it was not of cutting quality.Other large pieces that I found embeddedin brownish conglomerate were also ofpoor replacement.In the morning we packed up, but be-

fore we left, an old timer rode up to us.His hair was white and his face lined withthe years and outdoor life, but he satstraight in the saddle and rode with rhyth-mic grace as he herded four beautifulhorses toward range pasturage. We passedthe time of day and I asked him about thealleged presence of a petrified forest in thevicinity."Sure," he pointed to a rutted road cut-ting off from the main one a few hundredyards from our camp. "Follow that overthe hill and around the cliffs about sixmiles till you reach a blue valley. But thereisn' t much colored wood left."We thanked him and he gal lopedsmoothly on to round up the straying

Specimens of silicified wo od from Petrified Hollow in Utah's Vermilion cliffs region.

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horses. We held a council of war. The heatand dryness of the area had been sappingour water supply and we had only threegallons left. And our food reserve was notadequate . But we wanted that wood. Thevote was three to noth ing to go on.I t wasn' t much of a road. more adouble- rut ted t ra i l t rending nor theas t . Butit was in good enough shape except at thewashes where we had to do a little work.What with that and an occasional pros-pecting side tr ip where the country lookedfavorable, it was early afternoon beforewe rounded a little point and came out inthe blue valley of Petr if ied Hollow. Wedrove on to the bottom of the little valleyand hal ted.Great buttes of pastel shaded Chink-clay rose from a greyish-blue f loor spottedwith the green of cedar. Above the Chinlewas the magnificent red of the cliffs andabove that the blue and white of the sum-m er sky. On all sides lay chunks and bitsof petrified wood. In the washes, wholesections of legs could be seen. There wasjust one catch. About 90 per cent of thewood is not cutting quality. But scatteredthr ough it were pieces that in color andgrade would match any found in the West.We started our long-delayed rock hunt-ing. But it was, to put it mildly, hot inPetrif ied Hollow. A process of dehydra-tion seemed to set in the m om ent we en-tered the place. Water simply vanishedbefore our thirst, and seemed to give littlerelief. Dad took a swig from his canteen."This valley is the driest I've ever seen,"he said. "Why, if we stayed here . . ." Hisvoice became a croak and he had to takeanother drink to finish the sentence. "Ifwe stayed here a week we'd be petrifiedourselves."

Mothe r had her own system of hunt ing .She would scurry out to collect rocks whenth e sun went under a cloud. When it cameback out, she would retire to the shade ofa tree with the loot.I set out across the rolling, wash-cuthills to the east, toward a small, cedar-cladhil l . The farther I got from the road, thebetter the hunt ing was, until it became aprocess of selection. I sat down in theshade of a rock to do a little sorting. Myeye caught a movement under the curveof the rock and I saw the deadly tr iangularhead and sinuous body of a rattler whichhad crawled into the shade to doze awaythe torrid hours. For a m om ent we lookedat one another . I was too hot to j u m p andhe was apparently too hot to rattle. Nordid he start to buzz until I commenced of-fensive action.I wish there were some way that wecould communicate with these creatures.I would like to be able to say, "Look, Joe,you leave me alone and I'll leave youa lone . " I'm sure that the rattler would

keep his end of the compact, and a lot ofterror and bloodshed would be spared bothsides. Most of the many that I have run

MOTORLOG00.0 Kanab. Set speedometer at zero atjunction of U. S. 89 with Utah 136.Go east on Utah 136.8.4 miles. Leave U-136 for good dirtroad branching right.15.8 miles. Leave good dirt road forfaint road branching left. Treestands in V between main road

and branch. Many evidences ofold Indian encampments on sur-rounding mesas.16.1 miles. Stock gate. Close after pass-ing.19 2 miles. Road forks. Keep right.19.4 miles. Deep wash.19.8 miles. Faint left fork. Keep right.21.3 miles. Deep wash. Jasper in washtoward Vermilion cliffs.21.7 miles. Stock gate. Close after pass-ing.miles. Petrified Hollow.2 .3

N O T E : In the Southwest some-body is always making a new road.Remember that you are heading fora large outcrop of purplish Chinleclay on a point of the Vermilioncliffs.

into were entirely on the defensive. Leftalone, the rattler 's only thought is to es-cape. But his night-wander ing habits andnatural tendency to strike if someone stepstoo near, makes him an impossible camp-fellow.W h e n I reached the car again, the sunwas setting in a welter of red cloud behindthe Vermilion cliffs. In the half- light, thebeauty of the little valley was sheer magic.The soft light brought all the colors of thespectrum, it seemed, to the clay hills. Lav-enders, blues, purples, greys, browns, yel-lowsand above them the deepening redof the cliffs and the darkening blue of thesky. The air had that crystalline qualitythat sometimes comes on desert evenings,an d it was fragrant with the smell of thesun-heated sage.W h e n we had disposed of a rather slimsupper , the night sky had cleared and thestars were out. Cool air began to stir. Ourfire flickered, rose and fell, casting fan-tastic shadows toward the blacker shadows

of the cliffs. In those same cliffs, in thechilling winters of the sixties, JacobHam bl in and his Paiute allies had guarded

D e s e r t I n P h o t o g r a p h s .... C o n t e s tIf you have taken a picture which more than any other seems to ex-press the spirit of the desertits cloud-flecked canopy of sky, the soli-tude of its canyons, the beauty of its sunsets, a lovely flower in asweep of arid landscapeany of these and many more subjects maywell reflect the courage, the mystery or one of those other intangible

qualities which find expression in the desert country. From amongyour desert photographs select the one which to you is most express-ive of what the desert means to youand that is the picture Desert'sstaff wants for this contest.First prize is $10, and $5 for second place. For non-prize-winningshots accepted for publication $2 each will be paid. Entries must reachthe Desert office in El Centro by April 20, and winning prints will bepublished in June.

HERE ARE THE RULES1Prints must be on black and white, 5x7 or larger, printed onglossy paper.2All entries must be in the Desert Magazine office by the 20thof the contest month.3Prints will be returned only when return postage is enclosed.4Contests are open to both amateur and professional photo-graphers. Desert Magazine requires first publication rights of prizewinning pictures only.5Time and place of photograph are immaterial except thatthey must be from the desert Southwest.6ludges will be selected from Desert's editorial staff, andawards will be mad e imm ediately after the close of the contest eachmonth.7Each photograph submitted should be fully labeled as tosubject, time, place. Also as to technical data: shutter speed, hourof day, etc.

ADDRESS ALL ENTRIES TO PHOTO EDITOR, DESERT MAGAZINE,

EL CENTRO, CALIFORNIA

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Mo/her of the author is sitting on a log of poor quality holding a section of "high grade.' 'the frontiers of Zion against the Navajowho forded the Colorado at the Crossingof the Fathers to raid southern Utah.A single coyote sent his greeting from adis tant h i l l . When Powel l , Thompson,Dellenbaugh and the rest of the expedi-tion camped before a similar cliff a fewmiles away, in 1871, the "wolves" fairlyringed the spot. At night they would comein to steal, one even carrying off a hamfrom its supposed place of safety as a pil-low under Capt . Dodds ' head.Their descendants left us strictly alone,though. In the morning we checked ourresources. W e w anted to stay longer, butthe inventory showed one small canteen ofwater apiece, a can of beans and one of to-mato juice. While we weren't too far fromsupplies and water, desert common sensetold us to move out. We had enough smallpieces for all the cabochons we wanted,and the providential discovery of a smallbut completely si l icified log weatheringout of the road directly in front of the cargave us a nice group of cabinet specimens.

Much material has been removed fromthe Hollow, but a great deal remains.Large pieces of colorful wood are scarce,but we were told in Kanab that they may

still be found, back in the draws. TheKanab boys formerly rode out to collectspecimens which they sold to tourists onthe Grand Canyon buses, when Kanab wasa lunch stop for the stages. It is a local fadto use the logs for porch posts and decora-tion, and collectors have no doubt helpedthin the supply. But the average rock-hound who would l ike some real souvenirsof a vacation in the tri-park area, will findall the beautiful cabochon material hewants here, and some larger pieces if heis will ing to hunt them out.

The area is in public grazing land and isopen to the rockhound so long as he usescommon sense. Stock gates should bescrupulously closed and fires watched andput out. Camps should not be made in nar-row washes in this country, nor should thecar be left in them if there are storm cloudsover the drainage area.W e will probably pick a t ime when theweather is a little cooler when we go backnext time. But we are going back, and withfood and water enough for a real stay. Evenwithout the attraction of the multi-coloredwood, this would be a beautiful spot tocamp, a magnificent desert area to explore.

DESERT HOMESTEADERSASK FOR SURVEYSOne hundred and twenty-eight 5-acrehomesteaders who have fi led on govern-ment land in Section 36 at the mouth ofCat canyon in Riverside county, California,are preparing a cooperative appeal to theUnited States Land office to survey andstake the tracts so they will know whereto build their cabins.The homesteaders are mostly metropoli-tan dwellers in the Los Angeles area, whohave taken advantage of the dollar-an-acre-a-year land law to acquire cabin sites onthe desert.Init iat ive in organizing the "jackrabbithomesteaders" was taken by one of theirnumber, Maud Joss of Pasadena, whocalled a meeting on the section late inFebruary. Thirty entrymen responded,and formed a committee of five to set up apermanent organization to be known asThe Mutual Assistance Group of Section36 . Under the chairmanship of Mrs. Toss

meetings are being held at her home at736 S. Madison avenue. Pasadena, to pressthe matter of surveys. Later plans for acooperative well are to be considered.A P R I L , 1 9 4 7


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Banner Queen ranch house. Scattered about the yard are many Indian metates and otherrelics of the aboriginal days in this restful desert valley.

Banner Qu een w as once a roaring go ld cam p. But the rich ores pinchedout and the camp had long been abandoned when Bill and AdelineMushet rediscovered the rambling home where the mine superintendenthad lived. It was a lov ely setting high up on the edge of the desert. Andnow they ha ve restored the building w ith its old-fashioned balconiesand have found contentment in operating it as a cattle and guest ranch.By MARSHAL SOUTH

11 / HEN the late Charles F. Lummis,yy picturesque author and individu-alist of the Southwest, was build-ing with his own hands his romantic homein the Arroyo Seco, Los Angeles, he hadfor spectator and self-appointed helper, athoughtful little boy of twelve years whowas tremendously interested in the build-ing of walls, the fashioning of adobe bricksand in each item of Indian handicraft inthe Lummis collection.The little boy's father was one of Lum-mis' closest friends. And with this pass-port, as well as that of his own eager in-terest in everything of the West, the In-dian and the desert, it is not surprising thatthe bond of friendship which grew up be-tween the boy and the celebrated author-builder was very close.That little boy was William Mushet.And the fruits of that friendship withLummis when the boy grew older, were asuccession of construction jobs, all of themflavored with the picturesque. The veryfirst of these was connected with the mak-ing and placing of adobe bricks in the con-10

struction of the "Casa Adobe," an annexof the Southwest Museum.That was the beginning of a colorfulcareer of building and contracting. Theword colorful is used deliberately. For, asBill Mushet says today: "There are justtwo ways to do a thing . Either you can loveit and put art into it, or you can figure it asjust a job to be doneand make grimdrudgery out of it. And I don't care if youare building a palace or a hog pen. Thesame truth applies."And color and imagination and genuinelove of the work in hand went into all ofBill's construction jobs. He prospered andmade money. On the sidefor his ownamusement and his own homehe fash-ioned furniture and gadgets and bits ofart work, each of them with the distinctiveflavor of the pioneer West and the Indiandesert country that is part of his nature.Bill was fortunate. For when he marriedAdeline the team was complete. Adeline,or Ad, as she is known to all her acquaint-ances, was an artist in her own right. Shesketched, painted, hammered upon silver,

wove and wrought batik, and had a flairfor interior decoration. Soon the Mushethome resembled a museum of handicraft.The job of adequately housing the collec-tion became increasingly complex. All thistime Bill was working and building andmaking money."But I wasn't satisfied," Bill says, "andAd wasn't satisfied either. The thing wasempty. There was something we wantedand hadn't got. Money isn't everything.You can't feed your soul on it. Besides,the youngsters were desperately important.We wanted to give them the best possiblefoundation in life."Finally, Bill closed up his contractingbusiness and Ad shut the door of her giftshop. They took their car and headed in-land, away from the creamy surf of theCalifornia beaches. They headed towardthe desert.It was a long search. "We traveled allover the Southwest," Ad says, smilingreminiscently. "We hunted all sorts of sec-tions and couldn't find a thing that suitedthe ideal we had in mind. We were dis-couraged when we turned homeward. Itjust didn't seem that the place we wantedexisted anywhere on earth."But it was on the homeward trip thatthey found it. Right in the desert foothillsof their own backyardin Southern Cali-fornia. It was the old story of the man whosearched for diamondswhen they lay, allthe time, within arm's reach of his ownback porch.T HE D E S E R T M A G A Z I N E


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The Mushet family at their corral. Left to right, Mike, Buzz, Adeline and Bill.Bill and Ad had found their dream place.And it was in San Diego county, on therim of that enchanting desert of the an-cient Cahuilla Indians. Leaving Julian theroad tips downward along safe and easygrades through the wind-harped music ofthe pines towards the long, mysterious vis-tas and mirage ghosted buttes that are thedesert wonderland. It is a great land; amighty and mysterious land which no

modern intrusion of manneither con-crete highway nor droning airplanehasbeen able to rob of its charm and mystery.There it lies, shimmering in the sun; eachturn of the road opens it up in new vistasof breath-taking beauty.And, inset like a jewel on the inner edgeof the mountain uplift that forms the rimof the great bowl, you will find Bill andAd's haven. It nestles among the desertfoothills, its green trees and cool tricklingrills of water glistening in the sun. Youcan't miss it, for it is only six miles downthe grade from Julian, and just a short dis-tance beyond the ghost-remnants of theonce roaring mining camp of Banner. Ban-ner was a booming camp in its day, whenthe golden flood that poured from itsmines drew hard-fisted miners and adven-

turers from all parts of the nation. But thewinding-sheet of the silently drifting yearshas covered it. And today, the old town-site, almost utterly denuded of its oncecrowding buildings, sleeps in the shadowof its oaks and sycamores. Only the nameremains. Banner! It is significant.The Banner Queen ranch has capturedand still holds much of the flavor and ro-mance of the old time mining daysandof the days long, long before the minersever came. In the gravels of the creek thereis still gold, and beneath the broad spread-ing oaks there are worn mortar holes.Holes that were made who shall say howfar back in the dim past by patient Indianwomen, grinding their acorns and mes-quite beans. Somehow, beneath the oaksand the sycamores and beside the trickleof the little creek, there dreams a land ofyesterdaya colorful atmosphere of thepast which the genuinely western ranchmaintained by Bill and Ad does nothingto disturb. Rather it adds to the charm. Forwith the happy gift which both of thempossess they have succeeded in weddingthe past to the present in a picture that isboth restful and fascinating. And then,too, there is Leandro.

LeandroLeandro Woods, to give himhis full nameis an institution at theBanner Queen ranch. Leandro is one ofthose rarest of rare things, a genuine old-timer of the frontier. Romancein bootswalks with Leandro. Just to see him rolla cigaretteto see him swing into his sad-dleto see him wheel his horse am idst thedust and excitement of a round-upis tocatch a genuine part of the days on theborderthe days that are almost gone.Leandro's eyes are almost always cheery,with a glint of genuine good fellowship.But there are slumbering lights in them.Once in a while they can flash hard. Thenyou can see another Leandro. A Leandrowho once swung racing coaches across thedusty deserts of Sonora and whose eyescould glint hard along the barrel of a blaz-ing six-gun. Because he is so good naturedand nearly always joking, many people donot see the real Leandro. He is an old timerof the Julian district and muy hombre.Leandro can, if he will, tell you many atale of the old days, the old days of Ban-ner, and of Julianand of the Mexicanborder.Bill's business is cattle ranching. But hestill amuses himself by making original

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and artistic furniture for the rooms andcabins of his big ranch house. And Ade-line still beats upon silver and indulges hertalents for painting and interior decorat-ing. Indeed I suspect that they get more.satisfaction out of these pursuits than theydo from the colorful business of the ranchitself.Bill and Ad now take a few guests attheir comfortable ranch house, whereJerry, Ad's sister, assists with the man-agement. "I didn't have to do it," Bill toldm e , "but somehow I felt so darn selfish,locking up all this peace and sunshine forjust ourselves. It didn't seem right. So Idecided to make the experiment. It'sworked out well and we're very happy overit."

Perhaps the reason why Bill's guest ex-periment has worked out so well is thatneither he nor Ad look on their payingguests as guests. To them they are friendsand real friends at that. Guests maycome to Bill and Ad as strangers. But theycannot remain so. There is somethingabout the genuine warmth of welcome,something about the flavor of westernhospitality which exists in the great ranchhouse living room, with its hand carvedfurniture and great ceiling beams, thatbanishes all feeling of aloofness and sub-stitutes the warmth of a friendly handclasp."It's a pretty good world," Bill said tome not long ago. "Pretty good if you goafter the good things in it. Only somepeople haven't sense enough to knowwhat the good things are. Maybe Iwouldn't have known either if it hadn'tbeen for the things I learned from myDad, and from old man Lummis. But any-way I'm glad I had sense enough to cutaway from the grind and throat-cuttingand to head out here. I didn't know justexactly what I was looking for when Iclosed up my business and started out tosearch. But anyway I found it. Found itright here."

He fell silent, leaning back in his oldrawhide chair and staring out across therailings of the ranch house porch. The sunwas setting and a maze of purple shadowswere weaving mystery through all thetumble of mountains and ridges and fardesert washes. You could almost see thePast therehazy and mysterious as a half-veiled picture. And with it the Presentwhich is no less alluring. A night hawk-went by like a shadow, brushing the ranchhouse eaves with a faint rustle of ghostly wings. And presently Adeline came outand stood silently, the turquoise and sil-ver of her Navaio bracelets gleamingmysteriously in the shadows. The pinksand blues of the far reaches deepened anddarkened and faded and the peace of nightdrifted in to fill the great, mountain-rimmed bowl.

Y e s . Bill and Ad have found something.They have found it on the rim of thedesert.

A p r i l F l o w e r P a r a d e o n the d e s e r tCalifornia DesertsW hile the w ildflower show on the Colo-rado desert this season will be limited inall but a few areas, a few flowers will beseen along nearly all the roadsides in lateMarch and April unless their season is cut

short by abnormally hot dry winds. Flow-ers should be at their best in Joshua Treenational monument during April.However, there are a few places wheregorgeous fields of blossom may be seenabout April 1. One of these is in easternImperial county along the eastern toe ofthe Algodones sand dunes where patrol-men along the Coachella branch of the All-American canal report that a winter cloud-burst has carpeted the floor of the desertwith green sprouts which will blossom latein March. Desert lilies will be found herein great abundance, and these will extendover the area east to the Colorado river andnorth of Highway 80.Given rain in February or early March,April will be a month of flowers on thesouthern Mojave desert, reports Sara M.Schenck of Twentynine Palms. CreamySpanish daggers bloom on the rocky hill-sides and the ground is variegated withyellow, white and blue of coreopsis andscale bud, California chicory, pincushion,chia and phacelia. There are bushes ofgolden senna and the purple bloom ofCalifornia dalea. Apricot-colored clumpsof desert mallow are found and in placesthe ground is covered with golden gilia orthe pink of Scott gilia.Rains so far in the Antelope valley re-gion have been perfectly timed, Jane S.Pinheiro of Lancaster reports in a detailedsurvey of the area. But more moisture isnow badly needed and past due. Unusuallywarm weather and the lack of late rainseems to be forcing wildflower plants intoearly maturity and consequent smallerbloom.Poppies were in full bloom on Antelopebuttes and were coming at Fairmont.Joshua trees were blooming at Lancasterand Mojave and might continue into earlyApril, but the blooms were not numerous.There seemed to be few flowers towardMuroc, and Hi Vista expected an averageyear.Most exotic of all blooms, thistle sage orPersian prince, has sent up great numbersof soft grey rosettes of leaves that givepromise of a bumper crop.

NevadaDesert travelers driving through south-ern Nevada will see plenty of beautifulflowers this spring, according to DoraTucker of Las Vegas. Some will be showy,but the really lovely ones will be found inthe side canyons and along old water-courses. Some, such as tansy mustard, star-dust and baby breath, are so small thatthey should be seen through a magnifying

glass, but they are perfect in every way.Later in the season there should be a dis-play of cactus bloom such as has not beenseen in the past four years.With a little more March rainfall,Boulder Dam national recreation areashould have the best flower display sincethe spring of 1941, in the opinion of Gor-don C. Baldwin, park naturalist. By lateMarch, the following should be bloom ing:four-o-clock, lupine, sand verbena, desertpoppy, desert dandelion, stickleaf, desertmallow, buttercup, desert chicory, eveningprimrose, phacelia, aster and desert sun-flower. The Joshua trees were just begin-ning to bud along the lower mountainslopes at the beginning of March.

ArizonaPlenty of fall rain got the Arizona areasoff to a good start, but a dry winter in m ost

sections has caused flower prospects to bebelow average. William R. Supernaugh,custodian of Organ Pipe Cactus nationalmonument, reports that a great manyspring annuals have been blooming allwinter. Greatest displays should occurabout the first of April. The desert thereis showing signs of drying up, but the cactihave plenty of moisture stored so that thereshould be flowering all during April andMay.In Saguaro national monument, therehas been virtually no rain since December2 6 . Because of this the spring flowering ofmost of the plants, especially the herba-cious ones, was expected to be below aver-a g e , according to William L. Howenstine,park ranger. Normal peak period for flow-ering in area is last ten days of April andfirst ten days of May, but later blooming isexpected this year. Ocotillo and palo verdeshould be blooming in April. Saguaro willprobably reach its peak, as usual, early inMay.Desert wildflowers and weather areabout two weeks ahead of season at CasaGrande national monument, but unusuallylate frost might upset conditions. A. T.Bicknell, custodian, listed following asApril possibilities: staghorn cholla, hedge-hog cactus, prickly pear, brittle bush, apri-cot mallow, lupine, desert marigold, mes-quite, devil's claw, scorpion weed, goldfields, fiddleneck and crownbeard.Because of the dry winter, spring flowerdisplays in Tumacacori national monu-ment area will be very limited, custodianEarl Jackson believes. Ocotillo, cream cac-t u s , hedgehog cactus should be blooming,with verbenas and poppies at height ofbloom. Flowering season here will reachits peak in late July or August. FromChiricahua national monument, acting cus-todian Charles C. Sharp reported ocotilloand some of the earlier-flowering yuccasmay bloom in April in the lower canyonareas.

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In a little ranchito out of Santa Fe, New Mexico,Pansy Stockton has developed a unique art that isall her own. She has discarded the paints andbrushe s of the conventional artist and depicts beau-tifully colored la nd sca pe s w ith bits of bark, feathers,lichen, leaves and mossand has found a wide-spread market for her unusual "sun paintings."

By DOROTHY L. PILLSBURYr EN MILES out of Santa Fe, New Mexico, on the SanSebastian ranch, a new kind of adobe house went upamong the pifion trees a few years ago. Mexican adobeworkers shook their heads and chattered in excited Spanish."It's round," they exclaimed. "Never was there a round adobehouse. Verdad!"Tha t round adobe house was copied after the kivas, the sacredceremonial buildings of the near-by Pueblo Indians. Into itmoved Pansy Stockton who is given to new ideas in building aswell as in art.Pansy Stockton has developed a new way of depicting South-western landscapes which she calls sun paintings. No paint nordye touches them. They are intricately composed of bark, feath-ers, lichens, moss, and twigs gleaned from nature's storehouse.They sell faster than she can make them.Sun paintings are not just clever handiwork. They hang in theWhitney Museum in New York City, in art galleries in Denver,Chicago, San Francisco, and Hollywood. They are in privatecollections in London, France, South America, the HawaiianIslands and throughout the United States. One hung in theWhite House during the occupancy of the Franklin Roosevelts.Shows of sun paintings meet with enthusiasm back and forthacross the country. The only difficulty is that they are bough t sofast, it is a problem to get enough together for a showing. Theiroutstanding quality is not that they depict the beauty of theSouthwest with a peculiar velvet-like softness and a distinctthird dimensional effectthey are the Southwest.Back of these sun paintings is the artist, Pansy Stockton, apersonality as warm, vital, and sun happy as the landscapes shecaptures. "Panchita," as she is known to her friends, has beeni nature lover all her life. She grew up in the Southwest. Beinga follower of western trails, she developed a second consuminginterestan interest in the Indians who first traveled thosetrails. Dark of hair and eye, Panchita has often been taken foran Indian, even by the Indians themselves. But she is Anglo-American with a generous thread of French ancestry. Aside fromher great interest in them, the only connection she has with theFirst Americans is that she has been for many years an honor-ary member of the Sioux tribe.The circular walls of her adobe kiva are decorated with agorgeous collection of Indian dolls hung arm to arm like afrieze. She has an extensive wardrobe of Indian costumes. Tosee Panchita parading among the pifions in her yard or seatedby her out-of-door campfire in full Sioux regaliaheaddressand allis to see something lovely and natural in its setting.The top of her kiva is flat with shallow steps cut from adobeleading to its summit. When she first moved to the San Sebas-

Panchita in Sioux costume.dan, the inhabitants were somewhat startled at sunrise and sun-set to hear a rich feminine voice lifted in song to the sun god.Now the neighbors take it all in stridethe outbursts of songfrom the kiva top and the pounding of Indian drums whenPanchita entertains around her campfire on starlit summernights.

But for days at a time the kiva remains songless and lifeless.Panchita is far afield in her station wagon, gathering the ma-terials for her sun paintingslichens from rocks above timberline, bark from upland forests, moss from beside wind blownwaterfalls, flowers from Alpine meadows, and twigs and leavesfrom mesa top and desert. "It's w onderful," she smiles with thatwarm sunny smile of hers, "to have such a good reason to wan-der all over the Southwest."

"Do you know how I started my sun paintings," she asked."It was because of an endless search for color and an intensedesire to give my paintings the illusive quality of depth. Thepalette painters who built up their landscapes with paint heav-ily applied with a palette knife had fascinated me. But theirmethod did not seem to be exactly what I wanted.""Yes, I have always painted in oils and water colors. WhenI was a youngster I took a prize for my painting. Then one dayI picked up a bird's feather in my ramblings. It was the exactshade of blue I had been trying to find in paint for a bit of sky.Why not use the feather? And then I began dragging homeother things picked up along the trailsa scarlet wild straw-

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Sun pa inting of the old church at Taos.berry leaf, a twig bleached by the desert sun. I began to experi-ment by pressing the gleanings from my wanderings into a ce-ment backing with a heavy iron."First I painted the outline of the landscape I wanted to do.Then I literally built it up, often three layers deep, of bark,moss, and dried leaves. I found that much of the material hadto be treated with acids to keep it from fading. But little bylittle I worked out a method. Since the sun paintings have be-come popular, m any people have tried to copy them but theycan't do it," she laughed.

Panchita brought out sun paintings she had made to fill or-ders. Mounted and framed under glass they looked like anyother well executed oil paintings except for their natural color-ing and a magnificent sense of spice and depth."Won't these fade," she was asked."They can't," she answered.But you must use some paint or dye.""Not one drop," she insisted. "Why should I? All the ma-terials I use were painted by nature, by rain and frost, and des-ert sun. Who," she demanded, "is a better painter than thesun?"She held up a sun painting of the Grand Canyon, a subjectthat many good artists have tried with indifferent success to puton canvas. But Panchita had caught in her sun painting the il-lusive blending of color merging with color and the inspiringsense of limitless depth. The eye traveled from topmost sundrenched rim down, down to far distant depths veiled in mys-tery and remoteness.

The old heavily buttressed church in Taos is another favoritesubject. Panchita has caught the flavor of the ancient place, itsmassive walls, out-of-plumb crosses, and even its reflection ina little puddle of water at its base.Other favorite subjects are sun mellowed adobe houses hungwith scarlet chiles, mountain waterfalls, and grey-green ex-panses of southwest desert land, swimming in a haze of overlap-ping color. Looking at them it was hard to realize that they hadbeen "built"tiny twig against twig, milkweed thread againstthread with a patience that has something of the primitive in it.14

Pansy Stockton's sun mellowed adobe."How many have you done?" she was asked."I've lost count," she laughed. "Hundredssome of themnine by twelve inches, some four feet long.""But when do you find time for such tedious work?""I'm up earlywith the sun. Then everything is quiet and I

can put my mind on what I'm d oing.""But I suppose you have to use many different kinds oftools?"She laughed again, that good laugh of hers w ith western sun-shine in it. "Only one little knife and a heavy iron to press thematerials into the coating of cement."Thus in simplicity and much industry are sun paintings done."You'd be surprised," said Panchita, "the friends my work hasbrought me. People all over the world send me things to use inmy sun paintingswhite birch bark from New England, shrubsfrom the Holy Land, and kelp and sea grasses from the depthsof the Pacific. They come in boxes and bales from the ends ofthe earth."You'll be interested in a strange paradox," she added.

"Every bit of the material used in my sun paintings of the des-ert, comes from the bottom of the ocean. That is one of nature'sjokesor maybe one of her truths."Another odd circumstance is that my sun paintings shoulddevelop here in a country where the Navajo sand paintings havebeen done for hundreds of years. Sun paintings and sand paint-ings have at least a thread of family relationship. Not that I haveever heard of one of my paintings curing anyone of any diseaseas the sand paintings are supposed to do. But they have given alot of people better vision. That is the best thing about them."You see people look at the sun paintings closely and theysay, 'Why, that mountain stream is made of milkweed floss andso is that cloud in the summer sky. And that adobe w all is a pieceof bark and that greenish butte is a bit of lichen.' All of a sud-den they begin to look around with new vision when they aregoing through the country. They begin to collect things to sendto me to use in my work. That is the best part of sun painting,"said the trail-wise Panchita, "to give people new vision whenthey wander over our Southwest mesas, moun tains, and deserts."

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the early day miners had to fight as well as mine."

Unlike many of the fabled lostmines, here is the story of a buriedvein of silver located in an areaknown to have been a rich silverproducer. No one can say for surethat the old Clark mine is as rich asthe legends would indicate, but atleast the historical backgroundand the locale described by theauthor are authentic. Recent ad-vance in the price of silver hasgiven added incentive to thosewho would seek to relocate theburied wealth of John Clark.

By JOHN D. MITCHELLIllustration by John Hansen

( S O M E W H E R E in the Cerro Coio-j rado mining district, southern Pimacounty, Arizona, is an old mineshaft believed to be about 125 feet deepand to contain, besides a rich silver vein,40 tons of silver ore assaying 2000 ouncesto the ton. The mine was discovered andworked for a short time by a man namedJohn Clark, who left St. Louis, Missouri,in the early '50s to prospect for gold andsilver in the mountains of the West. Mak-ing his way across plains swarming withhostile Indians, he came finally to theCerro Colorado district where he locateda vein of rich silver ore. The Heintzelman,Austerlitz, Albatross, and many othernoted mines were being operated underprotection furnished by the United Statesgovernment.In 1861 the soldiers were withdrawnfrom the territory of Arizona to fight inthe Civil war. As soon as the troops weregone the Apaches under Cochise andothers again started their raids on thesmall mines and ranches. Many miners,freighters and ranchers were waylaid andmurdered. The two original locators of theold Albatross mine about five miles southof Cumaro wash were killed in a smallcabin near the mine entrance. Their twingraves may still be seen on the high bankof the arroyo just north of the old tunnel.

Raids were frequent at the Canoa andSopori ranches on the Santa Cruz andmany people lost their lives. During anattack on Sopori an American woman gavebirth to a girl baby. The mother was mur-

dered on the high point of rocks just acrossfrom the old adobe ruins where she alongwith others had fled for safety. The babygirl was rescued later and grew to woman-hood in Tucson.Two Mexican bandits disguised as min-ers, secured work at the Heintzelman mineand a few days later when they had famil-iarized themselves with the lay of the land,murdered John Poston, the superinten-dent, and eleven other employes. TheMexican miners joined the bandits in loot-ing the mine offices, store and the ore binsat the mine. In their haste to reach the bor-der ahead of the officers they were forcedto abandon much of the stolen loot. Theroad from the mine to Saric, Sonora, wasstrewn with merchandise taken from thestore.When the officers arrived from Tucsonseveral days later they found the bodies ofJohn Poston and eleven employes, bothmen and women, scattered over the hill-side between the store and the mine. Thebodies of the dead were buried on the littlered hill just north of the old store and of-fice buildings, only the foundations ofwhich now remain. The foundation of around watch tower at the northwest cornerwould seem to indicate that the early dayminers had to fight as well as mine.Clark packed his ore in strong leatherbags and had made one shipment of 40

tons to St. Louis, with a caravan from theHeintzelman mine. This shipment nettedhim $80,000 as silver at that time wasworth $1.00 per ounce. When the soldiers

were withdrawn and the Apaches againstarted their raids Clark had 40 tons minedand stored in a small rock house near theshaft. Foreseeing that he would be un-able to ship this ore with any certainty ofit reaching its destination, he threw it backin the ground and pulled the timbers outaround the collar af the shaft, allowingthe loose dirt to cave in on the ore and thevein from which it had been mined.Clark and the other miners and ranch-ers who had not been killed abandonedtheir mines and ranches and fled to Tuc-son for safety. The Apaches continuedtheir raids until 1886, when by the jointoperations of the American and Mexicangovernments they were rounded up andplaced on reservations where they have re-mained to this day.Clark died in the east, silver was de-monetized and the old mines, with fewexceptions, have laid idle ever since. Allrecords of Clark's early day operationsseem to have been lost. The late Mrs. MaryBlack, wife of Judge Black, pioneer juristof Santa Cruz county, taught school at theHeintzelman mine in the early '60s andknew Clark well. She told this writer shesaw the pile of rich ore that Clark threwback in the old shaft. She further stated theshaft was located some distance from theHeintzelman mine and that it was on oneof the great fault fissures along which the

rich ore bodies of the district are found.These fissures are in the old andesite andare water courses through which the richmineralized solutions circulate. WhereverA P R I L , 1 9 4 7 15

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a vein or hard dike cuts across the fault ithas a tendency to dam up the solutionscausing them to precipitate the rich ore ingreat bodies of highgrade silver-copper.The rain water that falls on these soft out-crops forms a weak solution of sulfuricacid which leaches the silver-copper andcarries it down to water level where it isprecipitated as secondary enrichment. Thesoft outcrops are made up of kaolin andiron stained quartz badly crushed. Occa-sionally rich pieces of ore th at have resistedthe leaching process are washed out byheavy rains.In the early days the Mexican minerswould leave their work after each stormto hurry along these fault fissures andgather up these rich pieces of float, whichoften assayed from 5000 to 6000 ouncessilver and 25 per cent copper. One goodchunk was often enough to buy sowbellyand beans for several months.Clark's mine w as somewhat isolated andit was not unusual to see small bands ofApache warriors riding the high ridgesjust out of shooting distance for the old-time rifles in use by the soldiers and min-ers throughout the country. A sub-chiefcalled Bobtailed Coyote and known to theAmerican and Mexican miners as RobertT. Wolf, passed Clark's camp frequently.One day, when about half drunk, he lefthis little band of warriors out on the flatsand came into camp alone. He was in asurly mood and demanded ammunition,tobacco, grub and more firewater, threat-ening to raid the camp if he did not get it.Clark told him that while he was short on

all the above named articles, he did havesome strong medicine with which he couldlick hell out of the chief and any numberof his warriors.Clark was bothered with rheumatismand on one of his trips east he had pur-chased one of those old time electric ma-chines used throughout the east by quackdoctors. Clark set the machine up in theback room of his cabin and had been hav-ing a lot of fun by trying it out on theMexican miners and freighters in thecamp. Naturally the drunken Indian wasanxious to know more about the whiteman's strong medicine. After some persua-sion the Indian took hold of the handleswhich had been run through the wall intothe.front room. At a given signal one ofClark's friends in the back room turned onthe juice by cranking the machine. Thechief got the surprise of his life and whenthe cranking stopped and he was able toturn loose the handles he rushed out thefront door and never stopped running un-til he had reached the little band of war-riors he had left on the flats.Bobtailed Coyote continued to ride thehigh ridges just out of rifle range, butnever again came into camp. However, al-

ways when passing that way he neverfailed to dismount and walk up to the topof a little hill and go through some insult-

ing movements. This annoyed Clark andhe decided to teach him a lesson that hewould not soon forget.One of Clark's friends in the East hadsent him a high-powered rifle that hadjust been put on the market. This guncarried several yards farther than the gunsthen in use in the West.Sometime later the chief and his band ofwarriors were seen riding the high ridgejust east of the mine. As had been his cus-tom in the past, Bobtailed Coyote dis-mounted, climbed to the top of the littlehill on the prairie and prepared to start hisshow. Clark poked the barrel of his riflethrough a crack in the wall and waited.When the chief was humped over Clarkfired, putting a bullet through the fat partof his buttock. The chief jumped about six

feet into the air and let out a lusty war-whoop. He hit the ground running andthe last seen of Bobtailed Coyote he wasgoing over a hump in the prairie as fast asany buck Indian had ever done before orsince.Since the Apaches were rounded up in

1 8 8 6 , Mexican and Indian gambusinoshave made a good living working these oldsilver mine dum ps. There is not much lefton the surface but any prospector or minerable to read the surface indications should,at the new price of silver, be able to findsomething good in these old silver miningcamps that have so long been idle. Thentoo there always remains the possibility ofrunning onto the old Clark shaft with the40 tons of 2000-ounce silver ore at thebottom.

T R U E O R F A L S E According to the law of averages, youshould get half of these right even if youdo not know anything about the desert.But most Desert readers will do better than that. A score of 15 is very good18is super. Anyway there is no harm in trying, and your score in Desert's quiz willimprove from month to month if you are a regular reader. The answers are onpage 29.

1Salt for commercial purposes is harvested from the Great Salt Lake.True False2Roosevelt dam was named in honor of President Theodore Roosevelt.True False3Stalactites protru de from the floor of a cave. True False4On a dear day Mt. Whitney may be seen from Palm Springs, California.True False5Woodpeckers sometimes build their nests in the trunks of saguaro cactus.True False6The desert padre, Father Garces, was killed by the Indians at Yuma, Arizona.True False

7The burro is a native of the desert of the Southwest. True False8Elephant Butte dam is located on the Colorad o river. True False9The states which meet at the famous "Four Corners" are New Mexico, Ari-zona, Utah and Texas. True False

10The north rim of Grand Canyon is higher than the south rim.True False11The book, Rim. of Christendom, written by Herbert E. Bolton, is devotedmostly to the missionary work of Father Kino . Tru e False12Hopi Katchina dolls are moulded from clay. Tru e False13The peccary, or javelina, runs wild in southern Arizona.True False14Fluorescent calcite always fluoresces blue. True False15A line drawn north and south through Santa Fe, New Mexico, would be eastof Albuquerque. True False16Lowell observatory is located near Flagstaff, Arizona. True False17The blossom of the ocotillo is always red. True False18Only native vegetable dyes are used in coloring yarn for Navajo rugs.True False19 The Joshua tree is a member of the lily family. True False20M any of the descendants of the original cliff dweller Indians were still occu-

pying the stone houses in the cliffs when Kit Carson came West.True False



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TtemontBy MARY BEAL

ERHAPS you call it Desert Alyssum, or Explorer's Pep-per. The specific name honors that distinguished ex-plorer of the West, John C. Fremont, who first discov-ered it along the Mojave river. You'll find it growing in abun-dance over a large part of the Mojave deserta low roundedevergreen shrub which looks in springtime like an oversizedbouquet of Sweet Alyssum, our old friend of cultivated borders.Its racemes of tiny white flowers have the same lacy appearanceand exhale a similar delicate fragrance. The little desert bushcomes by that resemblance naturally, being a cousin of the daintygarden plant. Both belong to the extensive Mustard family,which has given us many other ornamentals, such as Candytuft,Stock, Wall Flower and Rockets, and also food plants and con-dimentsCabbage, Turnips, Water Cress, Radish, Mustardand Horse-radish. The common name of the genus, Pepper-grass, comes from the pungent juice characteristic of the family.Explorer's Pepper has useful as well as ornamental qualities.The Arizona Indians used the seeds as food and seasoning, andthe watery juice shares with other Mustard family relativesanti-scurvy attributes. It also is recommended as a hair-tonic,combined with Sage, Henna leaves, and Cinchona bark. Eachbush with its amazingly profuse bloom is a natural repository ofnectar, a magnet for bees and one of the high-ranking honeyproducers of the wild bee-gardens.Botanically it is classed as

Lepidium \remontiiLepidium, little scale, because of the numerous flattened seedpods which densely cover the bush in fruiting season. Usuallyrounding in outline, a foot or two high , and as broad or broader,with many green branches from woody lower parts. The linear,pointed leaves are an inch or two long, smooth and hairless, thesurface veiled with a faint bloom. One of the first shrubs tobloom, sometimes as early as January, all through the spring itis a perfumed sphere of lacy white blossoms, the racemes socrowded as to completely conceal the herbage. The individualflower is about 1/6 of an inch long with 4 clawed petals and 6stamens. The thin pods are light in color, somewhat heart-shaped, winged and notched at the apex.This Lepidium is a very common perennial of the mesas overa large part of the Mojave desert, between 2000 and 3000 feetelevation, but may be found as low as 500 feet and as high as4500 feet, from dry sandy and gravelly flats to rocky mountainslopes. It extends into Inyo county and Nevada, southwesternUtah, western Arizona, and the northern Colorado desert.Resembling Explorer's Pepper but much smaller is the fol-

lowing, Mesa Pepper, or in botanical parlance,Lepidium alyssoides

A perennial but not shrub-like, only the base being woody,the several green stems usually only a few inches high (5 to 8 ) ,the herbage hairless. The leaves are up to 1Vi inches long, pin-nately parted into oblong-acute lobes, except the upper oneswhich are entire. The racemes are short and dense, the weewhite flowers not more than half the size of the Fremont species,the pods oval and extremely small. The plant, as the specificname indicates, bears a strong resemblance to the garden Alys-sum. In California it is confined to the eastern Mojave desertbut ranges eastward into Nevada, northern Arizona, New Mex-ico and Texas. It also is closely allied to Mountain Pepper-grass,or more familiarly Bronco Pepper, which follows.Lepidium montanum

By some botanists the foregoing species is classed as a more

Fremon t's Pepper-grass, named jor the explorer who jirstdiscovered it along the Mojave river. Mary Beal photo.

enduring variety of this mountain biennial. Sometimes there isonly one stem branching above, but oftener there are severalfrom the base, 10 to 14 inches high, the herbage minutelyhairy. The leaves vary from less than an inch to nearly twoinches in length, the uppermost sometimes entire, the otherspinnately parted or incised. The white flowers are disposed indense racemes and the pods broadly ovate to orbicular, slightlynotched at apex, finely reticulate. It favors mountain valleysfrom 2500 to 7000 feet in elevation, blooming in April at loweraltitudes and as late as September in the higher locations, innorthern and central Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico and west-ern Texas, also in Mono county, California, and northernMexico.

Lepidium jlavumYellow Pepper-grass is a prostrate annual, 4 inches to IV2

feet across, the several branching stems spreading out from abasal rosette of rather fleshy leaves, the yellow-green herbagesmooth and hairless, the brittle stems breaking easily at thejoints. The basal leaves are oblanceolate in outline, cleft intoshort, rounded lobes, the stem leaves varying from oblanceolateto obovate, somewhat lobed or toothed or entire. The brightyellow flowers are bunched into head-like racemes, mostly inthe leafy axils or forks. The pods are broadly elliptic, slightlywinged and widely notched at the apex, the surface marked bya fine network. This attractive yellow mat adorns broad sandywashes and dried flats from Inyo county, California, throughthe Mojave and Colorado deserts to Lower California, and westto Nevada. Try it sometime to spice up a salad if it grows inyour neighborhood.There are a number of other species of L epidium in the desertbut these are the most noticeable, the others being classed mostlyas weeds .

A P R I L , 1 9 4 7 17


18/48

a

Photograph by M. D. Bradshaw, Thermal, California.S U N W O R S H I P P E R

B y N E L L M U R B A R G E RCosta Mesa, CaliforniaI have a rendezvous with life . . .I want to feel and see and l ive;I want the desert wind and sky,A nd all the sun that God will give

M O U N T A I N M A NBy GE ORGE E. B U T T SFontana, California

His step was sure as themountain goatThat played on the rocky crag;His st ride as swift as the western wind,As quick as a running stag.The prai rie gave him his food anc drink,The sweet warm earth his bed;Of buckskin were the clothes he wore,A coonskin covered his head.He lit t le knew, or little cared,As he roamed the desert sand,T h a t he blazed the trail for the pioneerT o a newer, better land.He bared his head to the wind and ra in ;His home was a rocky cave.He's sleeping now on a mountain topIn a lonely, unmarked grave.

THE DESERT IS CALLINGBy G. C. C O N S T A B L EPasadena, CaliforniaI must goW h e r e the Joshuas grow,W h e r e the sand is bleached and dry;

T o a region policedBy buzzard and beastAnd peopled with gaunt cacti .I dream at nightOf the dazzling lightOf stars that are close at hand,Of the carminedyeIn the sunset sky,And dawn in that wondrous land!I seem to hearW i t h myinner earThe coyote's plaintive callA nd the stealthy beatOf unseen feetWhen silence is over all.I feel the needOf the desert 's creed;Of its stark reality.I must go againFrom theworld of menThe desert is calling me.

A/itjJtt-BloamUuj.Geneul

By BARBARA STARR CARTERGlendale, CaliforniaW i t h an airy graceYou pose against the night ,A gay, luxuriant flower.Excitement and mystery you impel,G lowing in the moonl ightA t the magic hour.I watch you unfold . . .As from my towerYour beauty like a heady wineLeaves me t remulous wi th del ight .White velvet petalsGlisten with dewAnd elfin lights.Pale mist of lovelinessGlowing wi th an inner fire.Slowly you lift your head . . .Handsome . . . ardent . . . luminous.And enchantment is upon a darkened world.

W I L D F L O W E R SBy E L IZ ABE T H M. R O T HSouth Pasadena, California

I wandered out on a clear March morn,And what did I find on the way?A patchwork of wild flowers wonderfullybright ,Spread out in a pattern gay.There were patches of yellow as bright as thesu n("Desert gold" it is called in the book)Patches of Lupine as blue as the sky,Sand Verbenas with Persian rug look.I went farther on, andwhat did I find?Shooting Stars of deep lavender hue,Tidy-tip daisies and Brodiaea tall ,Called onions bysome careless few,Golden Poppies, our state flower, added theirpartTo the quilt Nature spread on display,Their color so brilliant it looked as if firesWere creeping up mountainsides' way.It's a picture noteasy to put into words,An d on canvas it looks overdone,You must see for yourself this quilt of rare

charmDame Nature spread out in the sun.

DESERT NIGHTB y J A M E S E. R O A C HNorth Las Vegas, Nevada

The moon is molten silver,Its beams of gl istening gold;And the desert night'Neath the brilliant l ightIs the Garden of Eden of old.

B E C O N T E N TB y T A N Y A S O U T H

Walk then contented of your lot.H ad you earned better, you would notBe as you are! Walk full content,Knowing that in God's elementTruth conquers all in t ime and must,And Fate is ever right and just.

18 THE DESERT MAGAZINE


19/48

Looking down into Carrizo Palm fork from the railroadright-of-way 40 0 fe^; / /^ / //?


20/48

ig[ 1 i ' \ '" y ' . * : ' : V ' ' - * \ - , , - , , ' '

^ J . % ,

Passengers on the San Diego and A rizona railroad get a passing glimpse of the palmoasis as the coaches travel from tunnel 20 to tunnel 21.sary to stop and retreat. And when youlose your travel momentum in sandwell,all desert motorists know the penalty forthat.We planned to explore as many of Car-rizo's tributary canyons as could be coveredin two days. We came to the first of thesetributaries IVi miles up the canyon on ourright. As the entrance was blocked withboulders, we left the car and hiked.From my prospector friends I havelearned a lesson of great aid in locatingcanyon palms. I look for float. The float inthis case is bits of palm frond or fruit stemto be found in every canyon where palmsare located. It washes down and lodgeswith the drift along the sides of the watercourse. Invariably such evidence is foundwhen palms are growing higher up in thecanyon.

A mile's hike up that first canyon yield-ed neither water, palms nor palm float. Sowe crossed that one off and returned to thejeep. The next tributary, three-quarters ofa mile up the canyon on the right had awide sandy entrance. This was easy goingfor the jeep and we followed it 3.3 milesto where the watercourse divided, and ona little bench in the fork was a stone cabin,a camp maintained by cattlemen. Waterhad been piped down from a spring in oneof the tributaries above. The camp was un-occupied at the time, and from this pointwe explored the tributaries on foot. Theright branch yielded "pay dirt." High upon a ridge we saw three aged palms. Theremay be more of them over the hump be-yond but we lacked time for further ex-ploration of this area.

Continuing up the main canyon in thecar we passed through a gate in a fencethe cattlemen had built across the wash.The next tributary on the right had fouryoung palms. There may be more treeshigher up, but further exploration of thatside canyon will have to await anotherweekend. Two days is not enough timefully to explore the Carrizo canyon system.Our main quest on this trip was to reach20

the palms we had seen from the railroad.We passed more tributaries coming infrom both sides of the gorge, but it wasgrowing late and we wanted to take thejeep as far as it would go up the maingorge before dark. Boulders were becom-ing more numerous and we had to pick ourway among them. The smoke trees of thelower canyon had given way to a heavygrowth of willows, with some mesquite.At 9.9 miles from our starting point atImperial highway the going became toorocky even for the jeep, and we made campon the sandy floor of the gorge in the shel-ter of a rocky wall. Supplementing oursupply of dead wood for the campfire thatnight we had some splintered railroad tim-bers which had washed down from upperCarrizo gorge where they had been dis-carded by the construction crew 30 yearsago.

Early the next m orning we continued upthe main canyon on foot. In less than ahalf mile we came to a stream of water. Wefollowed this for nearly two miles, gain-

ing elevation steadily, but without seeingany evidence of palms.The railroad grade could be seen highup on the mountainside above us. Butwhere was the palm oasis we had expectedto find in the bottom of Carrizo gorge atthis point?Gradually it became evident the palmswe were seeking were not in the maingorge of Carrizo after all. We comparednotes and decided the oasis must be in an-other watershed, probably along the rail-road farther down toward the floor of theColorado desert.If this guess was correct, then it wouldbe necessary to climb the steep talus slopeto the railroad and follow it down. Andthat is what we did. It was 800 or 900 feetof steep climbing up to the tracks. As weclimbed higher the rugged terrain of up-per Carrizo spread out before us. High-lighted by the early morning sun it was agorgeous panorama.Walking down the railroad track a halfmile we came to Tunnel 19700 feet inlength. As we emerged from the lower endof the tunnel we realized we had passedunder a ridge and into another watershed.And there in the headwaters of anothercanyon below was a little group of palms,an outpost of the main oasis we were seek-ing.Farther along we went through Tunnel20, and then we saw 400 feet down a steepslope a dense little forest of palms nestlingon the floor of the barren-walled gorge.We worked down over loose rocks of therailroad embankment and found a delight-ful spring gurgling from among the rocksat the roots of the palms. Except for theconcrete foundation of the pumping plantonce located here, the oasis appeared neverto have been disturbed by visitors. As amatter of fact, it seldom is. For this spotis very remote, and inaccessible except by

Cattlemen's camp near the head of one of Carrizo's tributaries.


21/48

a railroad whose trains never stop on thismountain grade.W hen 1 visited this oasis in 1936 Icounted 164 palms here. Now, 11 yearslater, the number had increased to 172, ex-tending along the bottom of the canyon adistance of 300 yards. Some of the oldertrees have been burned in years past, butthere were many mature trees with fullskirts of dead fronds.At several places during the day's hik-ing we had found the grinding stones ofdesert tribesmen who knew all the water-holes in this region and had left their mor-teros and broken pottery as relics of theirprehistoric residence here.Our trip was in January and the onlyblossoms seen along the way were an oc-casional encelia, ocotillo and chuparosa.The latterthe hummingbird floweristhe one desert species which seems to blos-som every month of the year. It was tooearly for the normal blooming of ocotilloand enceliabut an occasional one in asheltered spot was out two months aheadof schedule.I have no conclusive theory as to the ori-gin of the native W ashingtonia jilijerawhich appears in widely scattered areasover the Southern California desert. Butduring the years when exploring for thesepalms has been a hobby, I have reachedone definite conclusion as to the mannerin which, even today, they are being spreadto new waterholes and springs. Undoubt-edly the Indians, in prehistoric times, car-ried the edible seeds from one spring toanother. But occasionally I have found inout-of-the-way places young palms which

obviously sprouted there since the Indiansceased to roam these canyons.The answer, I am convinced, is coyotes.They are the "Appleseed Johnnies" whohave played an important role in seedingand reseeding the W. filifera in the Colo-rado desert, and in Mexico as well.Coyotes eat the palm seeds as they fallto the ground, but their digestive organsabsorb only the sweet outer skin. The ac-tual seeds pass through the animal undi-gested. And if the reader could have beenwith me on numerous trips when I havefound the canyon floors scattered with coy-ote dung which consisted very largely ofundamaged seeds, I am sure you wouldshare this conclusion with me. Perhaps theIndians, and even the birds, played minorroles in the spreading of the palmbutas far as I am concerned I am crediting onegood deed to the much-maligned coyote.

Now that we had reached our goal,Aries and I debated the best route back tothe jeep. We were not sure whether thecanyon in which the palms were locatedwas a tributary of Carrizo,. or an indepen-dent canyon that came out on the floor ofthe desert somewhere down toward DosCabezos. We knew that over the ridge tothe west of us was Carrizo gorge and ourcamp. But that ridge was high and steep.

' \ To Vallecito and ... Hwy. 7 S

>l"5 -MTN. PALM SPRS.%'

;' To Carrizo,Plaster Cityand US.Hwy.80

"'(IV**-^"'/.,.Mm- -^OL D IMPERIAL HIGHWAY

(IMPASSABLE ORDINARY VEHICLES)

TheLOWER CARRIZO GORGEJ E E P R O U T E -ROUTE-HIKED

SCALEM IL E S

A P R I L , 1 9 4 7 21


22/48

The only way to get this geography clearin ourminds was to follow down the can-yon in which thepalms were located, andsee where it came out. We decided to dothat even though it might take us off inthe opp osite direction from our car and in-volve an overnight bivouac on short ra-tions.Continuing down the canyon we en-countered an occasional palm, generally ayoung tree which probably had sproutedfrom seed washed down the watercourse.We were traveling north down this can-yon, and we had gone nearly two milesbefore webecame convinced that it swungaround and entered Carrizo as a tributarysome distance below where the jeep wasparked. Actually, we followed it threemiles and then had to deadhead up Car-rizo another two miles to ourcamp. It wasfour in theafternoon and weestimated theday's hike at nine miles, not including thevertical distances involved in trampingover this kind of terrain.Undoubtedly there are more palms inthe Carrizo canyon system than we foundon this trip. It would require many daysof hiking and climbing to do a thoroughexploration of the region. Our log of theday's palm discoveries is as follows:

PALMSRight fork above cattle camp 3First tributary on rightabove fence 4South tributary oppositetunnel 19 3Ravine below railroad gradejust above tunnel 19 1Upper east fork of Carrizo,above tunnel 20 6Palm fork of Carrizo betweentunnels 20 and 21 172Trees dispersed along Palm forkbelow main group 17

Total palms 206The cattlemen probably have names forsome of the tributary canyons we visited,but those names have not yet appeared onthe maps. When the map-makers getaround to it, it is to be hoped they willgive preference to terms already appliedby old-timers who know this region.Aries and I never retrace our ownrouteif we can help it, so the return to El Cen-tro was over Imperial highway route toMountain Palm springs and thence overthe old Butterfield stage road to PlasterCity. TheButterfield trail along Vallecitocreek is passable, but I would not recom-mend it for tourist travel. It is rough, andvery sandy in places.Carrizo palms properly belongs in theAnza desert state park, and I believe it isplanned to include them in thepark if thishas not already been done. In the mean-time, their best protection istheir complete

isolation, and the rugged terrain in whichthey are located. A delightful oasis isCarrizo.

C O L O R A D O R I V E R F O R E C A S TThere has been no material change inwater supply outlook of Colorado riverbasin due to January precipitation, accord-in g to February forecast of United Statesweather bureau. There has been a slightdownward revision, but outlook at thistime is for exactly normal inflow at LakeMead. About 65 per cent of normal pre-

cipitation which may be expected has al-ready been observed. Water supply for1947 will be satisfactory if remainder ofthe year is normal.On the upper Colorado flow will beslightly above normal except RoaringFork, seven per cent below normal. Totalflow at Grand Junction on the Gunnisonwill be 15 per cent below normal withnear normal in Taylor river and 20 percent below in Uncompahgre basin. Do-lores river will benear normal and outlookfor Green river basin is satisfactory.

Duchesne, Price and SanRafael basins aregood with a range of 120 to 140 percentabove normal. San Juan, with exceptionof Los Pinos basin, will be 15 percent low.Los Pinos basin forecast calls for only 50per cent of normal.Snowfall varied widely in the Colorado

basin, but was slightly below normal as awhole. Glenwood Springs had61 percentof normal, while Fraser showed 164 percent. Accumulated snowfall for the seasonwas near normal. Precipitation came prin-cipally from three storms, one January 6,one from January 13-15 and the last Janu-ary 27-31. Total for the season was nearaverage. Temperatures for month wereslightly subnormal at most stations. Dueto unusually warm December, tempera-tures for season were still well above av-erage.

Hard Rock Shorty n i so f D e a t h V a l l e y . . . ^ ^

A lone prospector, dust-coveredand dragging hisfeet with wearinessas heplodded along behind his bur-r o , trudged down the sandy trail to-ward Inferno store."Huh!" said Hard Rock Shorty,perched on the soap-box seat underthe lean-to porch in front of thedilapidated frame building. "Guesso l ' Pisgah Bill ain't found hismineyet. He'd be steppin' along a lotspryer 'n that if he had anygold inhis poke."The well-tailored tourist havinghis car filled with gas, waited forShorty to go onwith hisstory. Final-ly, he could restrain hiscuriosity nolonger. "Youmean he's got a goldmine out in those hills?" heasked."I dunno," said Hard Rock. "Buto l ' Pisgah thinks so. He ain't neverhit a jackpot yet, but maybe he's gotone this timeif he can find it."The tourist wanted to hear moreof the story, and continued askingquestions. Shorty's only responsewas an occasional grunt. But therewas no getting rid of this pest, soHard Rock finally took the easiestway out."Yu see it wasthis way, stranger.It all started with that beecave upEight Ball crick. Wasn't much sugardurin' thewar, andPisgah'd lost hisration book anyway, so one day he

took hisburro andwent up thecrickto rob thewild beecave. He filled acouple o' them heavy paper cementbags which he'd cleaned out, an'hung 'emover the pack saddle. Butthe paper wuzn't as strong as Billthought, an' on theway home one o'them bags busted and leaked honeyall over the burro. It was an awfulmess, and when Bill got back heturned thebeast loose for a few days."When theburro didn't show upfer a week Bill went out lookin' ferhim. He found him up the canyonnear them soda springs. Thehair o'the animal was all caked with sandwhere it'd been rollin' in thegravel.As Bill wuz lookin' it over tryin' todecide how to git rid o' that layer ofsand and honey, he saw somethin'sparklin' on the side of theburro. Itwas a spec o' gold. So Bill scrapedall the sand he could offen the bur-ro's hide and brought it back tocamp and washed it out. That sandwas lousy with color."Somewhere outaround thisdes-ert that burro did his rollin' in a richplacer field. But it might be twomiles away or twenty, an'Bill hadn'tany notion which direction. He'sblame near wore hisself outthis win-ter pannin' sand allover Death Val-ley and its side canyonsbut I knowby hislooks hedidn't find it today."



23/48

V -fc v # ,Gridiron-tailed li.ardCallisaurus draconoides ventralis. Photograph by Glenn Vargas.

E OF the speediest members olittle fellow with the gridiron-taion the desert mesas and in thedraconoides ventralis. He has a couple onames are gabbii and myurus.You'll not find it easy to cultivate aventralis,partly because he is very muchbecause his protective coloration makes .see him even when he is almost underfoHe seems to have no low or intermedstanding still and perhaps bobbing its .reasons that have never been entirely cle,or else it is darting away so fast the eye hWith much patience, it is sometimes

lizard, and in that event it will be noted tdark and light cross bands, the numbereight. The males have a bluish patch onA P R I L , 1 9 4 7

By RICHARD L. CASSELL

the lizard family, thewhom you often meetarroyos is Callisauruscousins whose specieslose acquaintance withon the alert, and partlydifficult sometimes tot.ate speeds. Either it isIwdy up and down forr to the scientific men,dly can follow.

possible to stalk thisat his tail is marked byranging from four toither side of the belly.

In flight the tail is carried in a graceful loop over the body.When the lizard is standing still, just before it darts away, thetail will start wagging from side to side. Normally it foragesduring daylight hours, but in midsummer avoids the middayheat. When in danger, it may dart under loose sand for protec-tion.The food consists largely of insects although leaves and blos-soms sometimes are eaten. Some observers have reported thatthis lizard changes color, becoming a lighter shade to preventundue absorption of heat when the temperature rises above 104degrees.According to Hobart M. Smith in Handbook of Lizards, therange of C. ventralis or eastern gridiron-tailed lizard is centralsouthern Arizona and south into Sonora. C. myurus, or northerngridiron-tailed lizard is found in western Nevada, and C. gab-bi i ranges through southeastern California, southern Nevada,western Arizona and south into Baja California and Sonora.

23


24/48

"Kino on the Trail." Diorama in the m useum at Tiimacacori national monument inArizona. N ational Park Service photo.

If nothing else were known about Father Kino, one episode in the lifeof this courageous padre of the desert Southwest would reveal him as aman well deserving of the high place in the hall of honor which has beenaccorded him by historians. Here is a record of 24 hours in the life of theJesuit missionary.By HAROLD BUTCHER

IJ / HEN an Indian rider arrived at\/\/ San Cayetano del Tumacacori inthe early morning on May 3,1700, with a message for Father EusebioFrancisco Kino, he knew it contained ur-gent news. For the letter was from FatherAgustin de Campos, his fellow-priest atSan Ignacio del Caborca. Father Camposonly two days previously had sent a courierover the 140-mile trip from Dolores to SanXavier del Bac with letters for Kino. Oversuch trails and distances, the padres didnot dispatch messengers so frequently un-less there was great urgency.Father K ino was tired. The previous dayhe had covered the 50 miles from Del Bacto Tumacacori. For many days he had beenriding long and hardperforming the24

baptismal ritual, solemnizing marriages,meeting Indian chieftains. Always therewere distant settlements to be visitedand his zeal for the salvation of these eagersavages of the Pimeria Altathe land ofthe upper Pima Indiansdrove him onand o

Documents

194704 Desert Magazine 1947 April