194104 desert magazine 1941 april

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W>ut&iA.Life means romance to BETTYWOODS who wrote "Lava Frontier" forthis issue of Desert Magazine. She foundromance when she took a course in writ-ing at Denver University. Her teacher,

now a novelist and m agazine writer, threwin with the course, a practical demonstra-tion or what a real-life love story mightbe. She married him to find, as she assertsunqualifiedly, that they do live happilyever after.While Clee and Betty Woods have ahome at Tyrone, New Mexico, they spend10 months every year gypsying all overthe country in a house trailer. "But mostof that time," Betty says, "finds our rub-ber-tired home here in our Southwest be-side some great natural wonder, a Navajohogan, a prehistoric ruin or an historiclandmark. Perhaps, even, in some spotthat holds us by its beauty alone. The m oreremote or unknown these places are, thelonger we stay."The Woods live truly the royal gypsylife. They go wherever fancy or the sea-son calls. Or wherever they are led bytheir great love for the Southwest out-doors, with its various manifestations ofthe primitive, ancient and picturesque.

MARY KEELER SMITH, another writ-er new to Desert Magazine readers thismonth is a former school teacher. Shespent 23 years of her life teaching brown-skinned youngsters, from the Philippine

Islands to the Ute reservation in Colorado.Mrs. Smith was born and educated inKansas and taught eight years in ruraland city schools in that state. "Then," inher own words, "I went all the way toManila, P. I. to marry a man by the nameof Smith (when the woods at home werefull of them)."We spent our honeymoon on themountain tops of Benguet, near Baguio,the summer capital of the islands, in theland of the Igorots, the head-hunters ofthe Philippines. Later, we went to Cebuwhere my husband was supervisor ofschools, and where I was appointed toteach in the high school. Four months afterwe reached Cebu, our home was complete-ly destroyed by the worst typhoon thathad ever swept the island. Of our furni-ture we had left a phonograph and analarm clock, both capable of running whenwound up."During the years I lived in the Philip-pines, I taught among the Visayans, the

EAST^SOUTH

No extra rail fare to go east via fascinating New Orleansand the deep South. Board our famous Sunset Limited orArgonaut in Los Angeles. Go via El Paso, San Antonioand Houston. Continue from New Orleans to New Yorkby rail. See your nearest Southern Pacific representative.

S o u t h e r n P a c i f i c

Ilocanos, and the very cosmopolitan popu-lation of Zamboanga."In 1926, I transferred to the Indianservice and taught for seven years at Saca-ton, Arizona, among the Pima and PapagoIndians. Then at our request, we weretransferred to the Ute reservation in south-western Colorado, for another period ofseven years. However, during the time myhusband was on the Ute reservation, I wasasked to go to the Navajo reservation andorganize day-schools. I worked among theNavajo Indians for three years, then cameback among the Utes.

"In 1937, I retired from the Indian ser-vice because of physical disability, andcame to California."

Among the manuscripts recently ac-cepted by Desert Magazine editors is oneby BARRY GOLDWATER of Phoenixa vivid story of one of the most desperateepisodes in southwestern history - - theBisbee massacre in 1883. This will appearin an early number of the DM. Just howBarry finds time to carry on his varied ac-tivities is a mystery. He is one of the man-agers of a highly successful business con-cern, is an amateur photographer of highrank, explorer, lecturer, collector of Ari-zonianaand now he is writing magazinefeatures.

Charles Francis Saunders, about whomHOPE GILBERT has written for the Des-ert Magazine this month, is the dean ofsouthwestern desert writers. He is quietand unassuming by nature and since hehas been in comparative retirement for anumber of years, many readers of his booksare not aware that he is still keen and ac-tive despite his eighty-odd years. His booksare in the library of every student of desertlore and natural science. He wrote the kindof copy that becomes more interesting withthe passing years.

W I L D R O W E R SIT'S WILDFLOWER TIME INIMPERIAL VALLEY

The Desert is in Bloom asNever Before

Send for our bulletin tellingwhere to see them.

B flflU l L CaliforniaCHAMBER OF COMMERCE

T h e D E S E R T M A G A Z I N E


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D E S E R T

MAR. 31-APR. 2 Masonic grand lodgesof Arizona meet in Phoenix .APR. 4-5 Utah cattle and horse growersassociation meets at NewhouseHotel, Salt Lake City. J. A.Scor-up of Moab, chairman.5 W om an's club flower show atNeedles, California.

Annual White Sands Playday for4,000 children. Old-timers picnic,Mescalero Indian dancers. NearAlamogordo, NewMexico.5-6 Riverside chapter of Sierra clubto weekend inBorrego valley andhike upPalm canyon. John Gab-bert, leader.5-6 Palm Springs horse show andhunter tr ia ls .5-13 Sierra club pack trip from Rain-bow Lodge, Arizona to RainbowNatural Bridge, Utah. Side tripsto Inscription House ruins, Nava-jo mountain, Colorado river. W.E. (Andy) Andrews, leader .8 Tr ip to Devil's Cactus Gardenand Giant Rock airport, leave fromDesert Museum, Palm Springs,California, 9:30 a. m.8-9 20th annual Arizona Pioneers re-union, for old-timers whocameto thestate before 1891. Phoenix.12 Hik ing trip upMagnesia canyon,leave Palm Springs Desert Mus-eu m at 9:30 a. m.12 Utah state realty association meets

at Ben Lomond hotel, Ogden.12 First comm unity flower show atChandler, Arizona.12-13 Rainbow andCrystal canyons inBullion mountains, northwest ofTwentynine Palms, California ,goal of Sierra c lub. Tom Noble ,leader.13 Annu al rodeo at Victorville, Cali-fornia.14-16 Ladies' invitational goif cham-pionship, Palm Springs.17-20 Arizona state Elks meet in King-man. Boulder Dam and LakeMead trips included in program.18-19 Northern Arizona music festival,

campus state teachers college,Flagstaff.18-19 American Association of Healthand Physical education convention,Reno, Nevada. Miss Elsa Saineth,University of Nevada, chairman.19 Desert Sun Festival at TwentyninePalms, California.26-27 Weekend trip of Sierra club toForty-Nine Palms andInscriptioncanyon. (See Desert Magazine,Dec. 1940.) Dr.Marko Petinak,leader.30-MAY 2National Women's Aeronau-tics association meets in Albu -querque. Mrs. Dale Shockley,president of host unit.

f n V V ^ V THE

Volume 4 APR IL, 1941 Number 6

1941

COVER DESERT LILIES, byLeo Hetzel, ElCentra, California.CONTRIBUTORS Writers of thedesert 2CALENDAR C u r r e n t e v e n t s in t h e d e s e r t 3P H O T O G R A P H Y Pr i ze wi nn i ng pho t os inF e b r u a r y 4PERSO NALITY H e P r o s p e c t e d t h e Deser t for F l owers

By HOPE GILBERT 5TREASURE Los t Yuma Ledge By JOHN D . MITCHELL . . . 8QUIZ ATest ofyour dese r t knowledge 9BOTANY Golden Blossoms on the DesertBy MARY BEAL 10FOSSILS Fossil Hunter in theTropic Shales

By JOHN W. HILTON 11PRIZE CONTEST Announc e m e n t ofPhoto contest 14INDIANS No-mah the Nava jo Weaver

By MARY KEELER SMITH 15LANDMARK E l e p h a n t ' s F e e t B y W I L L A R D B R A D L E Y . . .1 8TRAVELOG Malpais FrontierBy BETTY WOODS . . . .19COVER CONTEST Announc e m e n t ofContest Winners 22HUMOR H a r d R o c k S h o r t y B y L O N G A R R I S O N . . . . 2 2POETRY DE S E R T M I R AC L E , a n d o t h e r p o e m s . . . . 23A R T O F L I V I N G V a g a b o n d H o u s e at1000 P a l m s O a s i s

B y P AUL W I L HE L M 24WILDFLOWERS W h e r e tofind desert flowers inApril 28MINING Briefs from thedesert region 30LETTERS C o m m e n t f r o m D e s e r t M a g a z i n e r e a d e r s . . . . 31BOOKS PEOPLE OF THE VALLEY, and other reviews . . 34PLACE NAMES Origin of n a m e s in theSouthwest 36N E W S Here and There onthe desert 37HOBBY G e m s a n d M i n e r a l sE d i t e d b y A R T H U R L . E A T O N 40C O M M E N T 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 6CACTI Miner's Compass, By GEORGE OLIN 47

The Desert Magazine is published monthly by the Desert Publishing Company, 636State Street, El Centre 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 1941 by the Desert PublishingCompany. Permission to reproduce contents must be secured from the editor in writing.RANDALL HENDERSON, Editor.

TAZEWELL H. LAMB and LUC1LE HARRIS, Associate Editors.Richard B. Older, Advertising Representative, 416 Wall St., Los Angeles, Calif. Phone TR 1501

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 shouldsend notice of change of address to the circulation department by the fifth of the monthpreceding issue.SUBSCRIPTION RATES: 1 year $2.50 2 years $4.00 3 years $5.00

Canadian subscriptions 25c extra, foreign 50c extraAddress subscription letters and correspondence to Desert Magazine, El Centro, California

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Q ad UtMonument ValieuBy CHAS. L. HEALDBerkeley, California

This unusual photograph of a storm in Monu-ment Valley, Utah, is first prize winner in DesertMagazine's February contest. It was taken with a31/4x41/4 Series BGraflex. Exposure 10 minutes, f4.5,about 9 p. m. Panatomic X film.

Nawzjo- Si& tebiBy PERCY BROWNLordsburg, New Mexico

Awarded second prize in the monthly photo-graphic contest conducted by the Desert Maga-zine, this picture was taken with a Rolleiflex,Zeiss Tessar 3.5 lens. Aperture f8, exposure1/100 second, film SSPanch rom atic. These littlegirls were herding sheep 75 miles north of Flag-staff, Arizona, on the Navajo Indian reservation.

Special MesiitConsidered by the judges to have unusualmerit in this month's contest were the following:Ironwood, by Aries Adams, El Centro ,Calif.Red Rock Canyon, by Robert Schulz, Los An-geles, California.Squint Eye, by Willard Luce, Blanding, Utah.



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Charles Francis Saimders in cam p under a n ancient m esquite near Indian Wells(betiveen Indio and Palm Springs). The tree had been used as a campsite beforeSaunders moved in. Photo by J. Smeaton Chase. 1915

fttoipected the"Peiett fiot rlowet5By HOPE GILBERT

CAMPING trip into the Cali-fornia desert? The idea is pre-posterous!"This, in effect was the reaction of east-

"Easterners in those days," confided

Mr. Saunders was in an

As he recalled those earlier scenes, IP R I L , 1 9 4 1

thrilled to his vivid recounting of experi-ences exploring desert and mountain andstudying Indian life 40 years ago. Al-though now in his 81st year, Mr. Saun-ders' enthusiasm and interest are as keenas in the years of his first expeditions intothe California desert. All about us in hisstudio were evidences of his continuedresearch and literary productivity. The listof his scholarly b ut very readable works onthe flora of California, the California mis-sions, and Southwestern Indian culture,is long and impressive."When circumstances induced me in1902 to take a leave of absence from thePhiladelphia shipping firm with which Iwas associated," Mr. Saunders went onto explain, "I felt that in setting out forCalifornia I was going into temporaryexile. Like most of my Atlantic coastcompatriots, my whole training and sym-pathy were centered in the East. Califor-

Charles Francis Saunders ar-rived in Palm Springs in a buck-board in 1902. He was a tender-foot, just out from the east. Buthe liked the desert so well he re-signed his Philadelphia job andremained in the Southwest towrite some of the most popularbooks ever published on westernsubjects. He is now in his 81styear, and resides in Pasadena,but his enthusiasm and interestare as keen as in the days whenhe explored the desert in questof material for his books andmagazine stories.nia was not then the magic name that itis today. I was as benighted as the ma-jority of Easterners!"Little did Quaker-born Charles FrancisSaunders dream of the rich experiencesawaiting him west of the Rockies. Theticket which he bought that autumn daycompletely changed the course of his life,a change whereby the literature and loreof California and the entire Southwesthave been vastly enriched.The stark beauty of our desert countrywas a revelation to his Eastern eyes."My love of flowers and 'botanizing'was responsible for my first trip to PalmSprings," he said. "Palm Springs in itsincomparable setting was in 1902 a smalldesert outpost populated mainly by per-sons 'chasing the cure.' The only meansof transportation to the springs was bybuckboard from the railroad station, six orseven miles distant. The chief establish-ment there was the health resort founded


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Charles Francis Saunders today in hir Pasadena home garden.in 1886 and conducted by Dr. WellwoodMurray, virtual discoverer and 'dictator'of Palm Springs. A less assuming tent-house resort for convalescents was con-ducted by a Mr. Crocker. On the site ofthe present Oasis Hotel were the post-office and a general store run by Mr. Blan-chard. Across the road from the villagewas the Indian reservation."The leisurely atmosphere of the springswas typified by Mr. Blanchard's somno-lent burro which regularly dozed in theshade of a big cottonwood on the mainvillage stree t." M r. Saunders testifiedfrom sad experience that although Mr.Blanchard's burro moved with sprightlygrace when conveying his master homefor the midday meal, this same burro be-came obstinacy incarnate when a meretenderfoot from the city of Brotherly Lovepresumed to mount his back.

Mr. Saunders recalled, however, theglorious outings botanizing with the aidof "mamma's little cart." Mamma was Dr.Murray's wife, but the worthy doctor, adecided Scotchman, was not averse torenting out mamma's property. So it wasthat in this mule-drawn conveyance ofquestionable vintage Mr. Saunders wouldset forth on botanical jaunts. Chino can-yon, west of Palm Springs, was one of hisfavorite spots. With its two springs, onewarm and one cool, it proved an idealcamping site.Locating a rich vein of gold, or discov-ering a strange new planteach holds itsdistinctive thrill. To C harles FrancisSaunders have come several such thrills."To the man in the street," Mr.Saunders commented, "there may be noth-

ing noteworthy in discovering a rare plantthat has been lost to the world of sciencefor 27 years, but to a plant lover it is astirring experience."A reminiscent sparkle lighted his eyesas he settled back in his chair and beganrecalling the incidents of one such experi-ence."Ferns," he remarked, "had always helda special interest for me. I knew them inthe East as a usual part of the flora of coolravines and damp woods. I was surprised,therefore, to find them along the desertedge. For several years I had been fre-quenting the canyons about Palm Springs,but never had I been so fortunate as tocome upon that rarest of ferns, Cheilanthesparishii, or Lip-fern, which was discover-ed in 1881 in Andreas canyon by S. B.Parish, the famous botanist who manyyears ago brought to light so much of ourdesert flora. For more than a quarter cen-tury after Parish's discovery no one found

another specimen of this Lip-fern any-where."Then, one March day of 1908, as Iwas clambering up the side of Andreascanyon, I suddenly caught sight of an un-familiar fern looking at me from a rockcrevice. It was a lacy little thing, two orthree inches high. I could hardly believemy eyes. But it was true; I had unwitting-ly rediscovered the long-lost Parish Lip-fern !"This dainty desert fern proved a shy,elusive creature. Although I searched forit many times in succeeding years, never

again was I rewarded by a sight of it.Seasons came and went, and no one elsewas any more successful than I. Then, 13

years later, in December 1921, Dr. PhilipMunz of Pomona college found a thirdspecimen of it, once again in Andreas can-yon. So far as I have heard that was itslast appearance to anyone, and Andreascanyon is the only spot in the world whereit has ever been found."In the Mojave desert, northwest of Vic-torville, Mr. Saunders had another note-worthy experience. There he discovered abluish purple flower, resembling the wist-aria, and belonging to the Dalea or Paro-sela genus."This flower which grows on a shrub-like plant two or three feet high," Mr.Saunders commented, "has given botan-ists considerable trouble as to its exactclassification. At the time of my discoveryof it in 1903, it was classified by botanistsas a new species and named Dalea saund-ersii. Since then, however, Dr. Munz hasdecided it is not a new species but rather avariety of Dalea jremontii, a species dis-covered by John Charles Fremont whopassed through the Mojave desert duringhis western explorations in the 1840s."Mr. Saunders states that he does notknow the exact present status of the name.But, so far as he knows the Mojave desertis the only area where this variety of Daleais found.There is an exquisite beauty in Mr.Saunders' prose writings on flowers. Eachdescription is a fragrant nosegay, thewords being chosen with consummate ar-tistry redolent of desert sand dunes andmajestic canyons. "Flowers," says Mr.Saunders, "are an expression of life justas we are an expression of life." He likes

to think of them as human companions.In "Western Wild Flowers and theirStories," his latest botanical work, he hasgathered an amazing amount of human in-terest material on the better known wild-flowers.That first year spent exploring desertand mountain regions completely capti-vated Mr. Saunders' heart. No longer askeptic he returned to Philadelphia tohand in his resignation to the shippingfirm where he long had been associated,and shortly returned west to devote histime to writing.Mr. Saunders first acquainted the Eastwith life in the California desert throughhis regular contributions to Outlook,Youth's Companion, and other Easternperiodicals. His first real volume on aCalifornia theme, "Under the Sky in Cali-fornia," traveled a thorny path before itfinally was sponsored by a publisher. TheEast was still dubious of the West'scharms. There was little information aboutthe state being published for tourists atthat time. "Our Italy," written in the1890s by Charles Dudley Warner andplaying up the resemblance of SouthernCalifornia to the Riviera, was the tourist'schief standby and it was out-of-date."Every time my manuscript would comeback from a publisher," admitted Mr.



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In the early 1900s Sunset Magazinemade a proposition to Mr. Saun-Eastern publisher to buy 500 copies

Sunset subscrip-This work of Mr. Saunders remain-lisher's lists until 1939, mak-

Meantime Mr. Saunders had become in-

"T he Indians of the Terracedhad at the beginning a limited circu-

the attention of John Collier,

Mr. Saunders lays no claims to beini* ahe has had his finger in

In 1916 he made his first trip to El M or-or Inscription Rock, in New Mexico.

the bureau of ethnology

Mr. Saunders next carried the matter

"The resulting action by congress was

Charles F. Lummis, in congratulating

Sometimes Saunders hired "Dutch" Frank and his burros jor pa ck trips into the des-er t in the days before there were paved roads and automobiles.

"Mania's little cart" which Saunders would rent from D r. Wellwood Murray in theearly 1 9 0 0 J for trips to Andreas, Palm and Chino ca nyons.Mr. Saunders for his efforts in behalf ofEl Morro, expressed regret that the barb-ed-wire fence erected to keep out cattlev/as not high enough and fine enough tokeep out ALL cattle, human and other-wise. Ineffective as the fenced enclosuremight be, however, it at least started themovement to provide adequate protectionfor the Southwest's unrivaled stone auto-graph album.Throughout his career Charles FrancisSaunders has written for the lay readerrather than for the student. "Every planthas a story to tell," he says, "and it hasbeen my aim to present that story in every-day speech without the encumbrance ofscientific terminology."To list a few of his works in which chap-ters or sections are devoted to desert plantlife, I shall mention the following: "Withthe Flowers and Trees in California,""Western Wild Flower Guide," "Useful

Wild Plants of the United States andCanada," "The Southern Sierra of Cali-fornia," "Trees and Shrubs of CaliforniaGardens," and "Western Wild Flowersand their Stories."Two handy companion volumes by him,"Finding the Worth While in California"and "Finding the Worth While in theSouthwest," giving concise, authoritativeinformation on these two regions, haverecently been brought up-to-date in re-vised editions.At 81, Mr. Saunders does not see asmuch of the desert as formerly, but hisenthusiasm for the arid region with itsinteresting plant life, has not dimmedsince he came here as a tenderfoot eastern-er nearly 40 years ago. He reported hisobservations accurately, he wrote them en-tertainingly, and today his books are read

and reread with increasing appreciationfor their charm and authenticity.A P R I L , 1 9 4 1 7


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Taking a last look around to makesure no Indians were in the vicinity,they headed their horses doicn thesteep mountainside toward the westand out into the cactus covered-desert below.

The Apaches disclosed thesecret of this rich gold ledge tobut one white manand whenhe violated their confidence hemet with a mysterious death.

Jloit l/iu meBy JOHN D. MITCHELLIllustration by Frank Adams

/ ' y BADLY rusted Colt revolver suchI j as was used by army and frontiers-men in the early days on the bor-der was recently found in the Arivaipacountry near old Fort Grant and is be-lieved by many of those who have seenit to be a clue to the lost Yuma gold ledgesaid to have been discovered by ApacheIndians long before old Geronimo andhis band of braves were rounded up andplaced on a reservation.The outcropping of rich gold ore wasonce shown to a graduate of West Point

whose real name seems to have been lostsomewhere in the mystic reaches of thepast. He is remembered only as "Yuma"

on account of having at one time beenacting-quartermaster at the post at FortYuma on the Colorado river. Because ofirregularities in his accounts the officerwas courtmartialed and discharged fromthe army.Feeling his disgrace keenly he shunnedhis former companions and hid himselfamong the Yuma Indians under ChiefPascual. Yuma was well liked by the In-dians and spent his time trading amongthem. Eventually he married a buxomYuma woman and became a member ofthe tribe.As a trader he made frequent trips withhis wife into the Apache country and

while trading among the Arivaipa Apach-es he heard rumors of a rich gold ledgewhere the Apaches obtained rich ore totrade for supplies. Yuma was eager tolearn the secret of the rich ledge and afterconsiderable persuasion induced the chiefto show it to hirr. In return he promiseda rifle, some ammunition, and a few trin-kets.Soon after the agreement was reachedYuma, accompanied by the Apache chief,set out from the Apache camp in a north-erly direction across the hills. After travel-ing about nine miles they reached a ridgebetween the San Pedro river on the eastand a deep rocky canyon which terminateda short distance to trie west of where theywere then standing.

Before them in a crater-like depressionwas an outcropping of rose quartz richin coarse gold. With his hunting knifeYuma broke off a handful of the brittleore that gleamed yellow in the morningsunlight. After securing samples the out-crop was carefuLy covered with dirt androcks until no s:.gn of the ore remainedon the surface. Yuma was not a miner butrealized that the quartz was very rich.

8 T h e D E S E R T M A G A Z I N E


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Also, he knew it was guarded by Indianswho would kill him on sight if they everfound him there again.

After remaining in the Arivaipa coun-try a few days Yuma went to Tucson wherehe showed the ore to a man by the nameof Crittenden whom he had known as afreighter when he was in the army postat Yuma. Yuma and Crittenden decided toreturn to the Arivaipa country and explorethe mine and sample it more thoroughly.Accordingly they set out from the oldpueblo of Tucson late one afternoon andafter riding all night they arrived earlythe next morning at Fort Grant.

They refreshed themselves, fed and wa-tered the horses and that afternoon rodenorth down the San Pedro river. Aftertraveling about 10 miles they made campin the brush along the river and waitedfor morning. When the first rays of lightappeared in the east they started to climbthe steep mountainside toward the west.The terrain was rough and they wereforced to lead their mounts most of theway. They soon came to the long ridgeoverlooking the river and the deep box-canyon.

They found the quartz ledge and witha pick dug out 25 or 30 pounds of the richo r e . Putting the ore in a sack they coveredthe ledge again and hid the pick. Takinga last look around to make sure no In-dians were in the vicinity they headed theirhorses down the steep rocky trail to-ward the west and out into the cactus-covered desert below. They rode all thatnight and arrived in Tucson early thenext morning without having seen anyof the Apaches.

The sack of ore that they brought outwas crushed in a mortar and produced$1,200 worth of gold. Knowing theApaches were on the warpath and thatit would be extremely dangerous to under-take any development work at that time,Yuma resumed his trading and Crittendencontinued his freighting operations be-tween the mines and the post at Yuma onthe Colorado.Yuma loaded his pack mules with sup-plies and with his Indian wife set outacross the desert toward the Papago coun-try. That was the last ever seen of themby their friends. There is a story among

the Papago Indians at Ajo that Yuma andhis wife were killed by a band of rene-gade Apache Indians whom they met inthe Growler pass north of Quitobafuita.They were buried by the Papagos and thepiles of rocks marking the graves maystill be seen just a few hundred feet westof the old road that leads through theGrowler pass and on down to Ciprianowells near the border.When Yuma and his wife failed to re-turn to Tucson after several months, Crit-tenden, believing them to have met withfoul play, decided to return to the mine

alone. Mounted on a fine horse he leftTucson early one morning and after rid-

ing all that day and far into the night hearrived at Fort Grant where he rested fora few days. He revealed his plans to theofficers at the fort and as the Indians werein a hostile mood they advised him againstmaking any effort to work the mine. Dis-regarding their warnings Crittenden de-parted for the mine. He was armed witha repeating rifle and a Colt revolver.When several days had passed and he

had not returned to the fort, soldiers weresent out and found the horse and saddleabout 10 miles down the San Pedro. Thehorse was tied and was almost dead fromthirst. There was no trace of Crittenden.Whether he reached the mine and was

killed by the Apaches, or the victimof an accident, was never known. The factthat an old rusty rifle was found manyyears ago on the edge of the desert belowthe mountain where the mine is said to belocated, and the finding of a rusty Coltrevolver just recently in that vicinity,would seem to indicate that Crittendeneither lost his way while looking for themine or met with an accident and diedfrom the twin demons of the desert, heatand thirst.

The Apaches never revealed their secretto another white man, and it is doubtfulif any living Indian today knows the lo-cation of the lost Yuma gold ledge.

T R U E O R f f l L S E You have to know your desert well to scorehigh in this testbut you can learn muchfrom these questions and answers even if youdon't make a phenomenal score. There are no trick questions. The answers haveall appeared in the Desert Magazine at one time or another. They cover the fieldsof botany, mineralogy, geography, history and the general lore of the desert coun-try. If you get 10 of them right you know more than the average person about thedesert Southwest. A dyed-in-the-wool desert rat should be able to answer 15. Ifyou score more than 15 you are either lucky or YOU KNOW YOUR DESERT.Answers are on page 35.1Rattlesnakes are most vicious when the weather is cold.

True False2Quaking Aspen trees shed their leaves in winter.

True False3Shungopovi is the name of a Hopi Indian town.

True False4First mission at Tucson, Arizona, was established by Father Garces.

True False5Chuckawalla lizards were eaten by the desert Indians.True False6Pipe Springs national monument is located in Utah.

True _ False7Sevier desert is in Utah. True False8Catalina mountains of Arizona may be seen from Flagstaff.

True False9Some of the Pueblo Indians of the Southwest still use a stone metate forgrinding meal. True False

10The old Butterfield stage line crossed the Colorado river near Blythe.True- False ....

11Blossom of the Ocotillo is always red. True False12When completed, the new dam in the Colorado river at Headgate rock near

Parker, Arizona will be the fifth dam in the river below Grand Canyon.True__ - False13Wild burros were roving the Southwestern deserts when the Spaniards first

came to this region. True False14Ballarat is a famous ghost mining camp in Nevada.

True False15Desert lilies grow from bulbs. True-- False16Grand Canyon may now be reached by boat from Boulder dam.

True- False17Green river is a tributary of the Colorado river. True False-18Azurite is a form of iron ore. True False..19Hualpai Indian reservation is in New Mexico. True False20McNary, Arizona, is famous for its lumber industry. True False

A P R I L , 1 9 4 1


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G enerous w inter rains bring the promise of an unu sually colorful wild-flower display on the desert this yearand one of the most conspicuousexhibits in Nature's garden will be the golden blossoms of Coreopsis. It iseas ily recog nized. In her story this month M ary Beal describes the threespecies to be found on the sandy plains of the Southwest.QaldenOH

By MARY BEALC' VERY home gardener knows Core-/ ^ opsis. I t long has been a favoritebecause of its long-continued pro-fusion of bright color. The desert toocherishes a Coreopsis, a wildling as bril-liant and golden as its cultivated cousinand as prodigal of bloom.Innumerable acres of gravelly desert areemblazoned with the brilliant gold of the

Coreopsis. Spring scatters its blossomswith such lavish abundance that frequent-

ly the radiance of it attracts the eye of thewayfarer from a surprising distance. Orit may form a harmonizing part of a bro-caded design of varied color, spatteringwith gold the magic carpet of lilac-pinksand verbenas, azure Gilias, tidy littlecrimson mats, white evening primrosesand pale-yellow dandelions.I hold in treasured memory a gentleslope sheeted with a fairy-like mist ofdelicate lavender Linanthus, accented at

intervals by golden Coreopsis, as winsomea picture as spring paints on desert mesasand mountainsides. I t is one of the mostabundant of the desert flowering plants,so wide-spread that one cannot go farwithout being attended by myriads ofCoreopsis, and pretty companions they are.The flowers are so like the gardener'sstand-by as to be easily identified by eventhe novice. The heads are an inch or twoacross, with double involucre, and golden-yellow rays centered by an orange disk,atop stems 5 to 18 inches tall, the blue-green leaves being finely dissected. Thefinest individual of the clan that I everbeheld caused me to pause in amazement.It was a perfect little flower-bed all to it-self, nearly 2 feet broad and glorified by97 open flowers and over 40 buds, liftingup its radiant heads to a height of 17inches. If any ambitious Desert Coreop-sis has eclipsed this achievement, I yieldto it the accolade and render due homage.Three species of Coreopsis enliven thedesert flower parade.Coreopsis bigelovii

By far the commonest species. Its blue-green leaves, with thread-like lobes, areall disposed in a low basal tuft. The flowersgrow singly on slender naked stems, 5 to14 inches tall (rarely more), the golden-yellow rays oblong or elliptic. The erectinner row of involucral bracts are ovate,the spreading outer bracts very narrow.The flattened oblong achenes are fringedwith soft white hairs and tipped with apappus of 2 slender chaffy awns. Inciden-tally it's the seed that is responsible forthe genus name, which in Greek means"Bug-like," and also inspired the com-mon name, Tickseed, infrequently used.Countless numbers of this species fore-gather on slopes, foothills and plains ofthe Inyo, Mojave and Colorado deserts.

Coreopsis douglasii is similar, with nodifference apparent to the layman. Th ef lowers may be somewhat smaller but thedistinguishing variation is in the seeds,which are hair less and have no pappus. I tis found in Arizona and Lower Californiaand in the Colorado and Mojave deserts.Coreopsis calliopsideaA stouter plant with more luxuriantfoliage, the leafy stems from 8 to 20 incheshigh or rarely more, the pale blue-greenleaves divided into 5 to 7 remote narrowlobes, which in turn are often deeply lob-ed. The golden-yellow flowers are fromIVi to over 2 inches across, with broadrays. The spreading outer bracts of theinvolucre are short, broad and rounded,those of the erect inner row are longerand narrower. The disk achenes have longsilky hairs on the inner surface and mar-gin. Not found in abundance except in afew localities on plains and hillsides ofthe central and western Mojave desert.Most frequent west and northwest of Bar-stow, where it sometimes makes memo-rable displays of glowing color, carpetinglarge patches of flat ground and flinginglustrous tapestries over low hills.



11/48

This month John Hilton turnsfossil-hunter. It was a new ex-perience for Johnbut he had agood guide and a fertile field forexploration. Finding fossils, andtaking them intact from theirmatrices, Hilton learned, is anart that calls for real skill.

One of the hills near Tropic where fossils are found embedded in the calcareous sandstone.

To55il tfu ntet intopic

By JOHN W. HILTON

Herman P ollock's little daughter, withone of the Ammon ites found by herdaddy in the Utah fossil fields.

>O W E N T to Bryce canyon in south-\J ern Utah to collect and write about"^ gem minerals. Fossils were thefarthest thing from my mind when I en-tered the interesting little museum con-ducted by Laura Babb near Ruby's Inn.Here I found a fine collection of gemstones and petr if ied wood that had beengathered in that region. Also there weremany Indian relics gathered from the cavesin that part of Utah. But the thing thatsurprised me most was the fossil displayin Mrs. Babb's shop.A few questions brought out the factthat the fossil material was all of localorigin. Before I realized it I was wantingsome of those fossils for my own collectionsome that I would go out and f ind for

myself. And so a tr ip was arranged for thefollowing day.Herman Pollock, who is both guideand entertainer at the Inn, took my fatherand me to his home in Tropic to see his

private collection of rocks and fossils.Herman's story is interesting.He found his first fossil shell while rid-ing range for his father. He was just a boyat the time, and had not yet become in-terested in mineral collecting. His jobwas to keep track of a herd of young rangecattle. Rocks were just rocks.

Then one day as he was r iding downone of the rugged gorges in that area hisattention was attracted to what appearedto be a giant snail embedded in the bankabove himtoo high to be reached evenfrom the saddle.Being curious, he tossed a rock at the"snail." It fell, but struck a boulder atthe base of the cliff and broke into severalglittering pieces. He gathered them upand put them in his saddlebag.Later he showed them to members ofhis family and friends. Some of the youngMormons who rode the range knew aboutthese shells, and called them "cartwheels."A P R I L , 1 9 4 1 11


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Herman Pollock, cowboy-naturalist, who led H ilton to the Tropic, Utah, fossil beds.Here is a piece of Indian pottery found by Pollock as he followed the cattle trail onthe Utah range.It was not until some time later that Her-man showed them to a scientist who stop-ped at the Inn, and learned they were fos-sils known as Ammonites.Herman's interest in collecting fossilsdates from that incident. He has foundmany other Ammonites in the hills there,but never another as large as the brokenspecimen.Pollock was our guide on the trip thenext day. Our destination was the famousTropic shales.The various geological formations, itshould be explained, are separated intogroups according to the age of their depo-

sition. Each group of sediments hasdefinite characteristics and a general simi-larity wherever it occurs. It also has a welldefined sequence of stratigraphy withinitself which, when once established, be-comes a veritable index for the benefitof the visiting geologist.For instance, the geological report of aparticular formation may list a three-inchband of coal covered by a layer of sandymaterial six inches deep and followed bya clay bed containing limestone concre-tions and fossil Gastropods. Such a se-quence of layers, if found in several differ-ent exposures of a sediment, is listed as a

stratigraphy feature and becomes athumbmark to other pages of geologicalhistory.The term "Tropic shales" would leadthe uninformed to expect a large mass ofnothing but shale. Actually, this sedimentis so called to distinguish it from othermasses of material above and below it.Layers of coal, clay, calcareous sandstone,limestone, sulphur, bentonite and evenpure sand all go to make up the sedimen-tary mass known as Tropic shales.Another factor that makes collectingrather easy in the Bryce canyon area isthat the geologic mass is identified by arather distinctive coloration. This startswith a flame-colored formation at the top,eroded into the fantastic pinnacles thatmake Bryce canyon famous. It is knownas Wasatch limestone.After one has traveled in this area andbecome familiar with the geological namesit becomes easy to recognize the dun-col-ored masses of Dakota sandstone, the greatcliffs of white and reddish cross-bedded

sediments known as Navajo sandstone,the brilliant red Wingate sandstone, andthe soft pastel shades of the Chinle for-mation.The Tropic shales are no exception inthe matter of distinctive coloration. Onemay stand on any hill in the Tropic regionand see plainly a wide band of bluish greymaterial several hundred feet in thick-ness. In some places it is completely un-covered by erosion and in others it is cap-ped by soft yellow sandstones. The bandof grey is Tropic shale.In some parts of the world a geologicalformation of so soft a color would be hardto trace, but here the rocks surroundingthe Tropic shales are so brilliantly coloredas to make this neutral band quite con-spicuous.It is only a short distance from the Pol-lock home in Tropic to a point on thehighway where we could begin lookingfor fossils. We parked our car and climbeda low hill on our right. As we went up theslope we could see thin layers of poorgrade coal and beds of fossil oyster shells.Here and there were groups of small Gas-tropods or snail-like shells, but they weretoo soft to make good specimens. For thegeologist, however, these may be just asvaluable as the hard shiny fossils soughtby the collector.I found some small bivalves of theclam or scallop type that were very wellpreserved. Herman explained that theseprobably had weathered out from above.Some of the finest fossils found in thisarea have been discovered in this manner.The weathering action of the elementsseems to extract a shell from its matrixmore carefully than can be done by thebest trained expert.Presently we reached a level whereconcretionary masses of calcareous sand-

stone protruded from clay-like weathered12 T he D E S E R T MA G A Z I N E


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Herman, however, was not satisfied to

arther away from the highway where thefield is still undisturbed."As we stopped to rest at the top of thenext hill I remarked about the beauty ofhis wild region, and asked Herman aboutits nameKaiparowitz plateau. He ex-plained it is an Indian word meaning"one armed," and was the Indian namefor one-armed Major Powell, intrepid ex-plorer of the Colorado river.That the Indians did have such a namefor the explorer is confirmed in a transla-tion of a speech by a chief of the Shivwitztribe during a conference between Powelland the famous Mormon Scout JacobHamblin. In this speech the chief referredto the Major as Ka-pu-rats, meaning "onearm off." Whether this is a mispronunci-ation on the part of the interpreter is notknown. A. H. Thomson, early explorerwho gave the name to this plateau refersto it merely as the Indian name for a smallpeak in the region.Finally we reached the place Hermanhad in mind, and started to hunt for fos-sils in earnest. Here again the concretion-ary masses protruded from the soft shalesand clays in which they were embedded.It was plainly seen that these concretionsfollowed a definite level along the hill-side.The procedure for collecting fossilsfrom hard sandstone, I soon discovered,is somewhat different from ordinary rockcollecting. Here the hunter is workingblind, for few fossils appear on the sur-face of the rock. A light blow with a geol-ogist's hammer will usually crack openthe sandstone. If a fossil is exposed it be-comes a matter of the personal skill of theindividual in breaking away the rock.No matter how careful the rockhoundmay be, he is likely to break more speci-mens than he takes out whole. It is a goodidea to stop trimming the matrix whenhalf of the fossil is exposed. Usually anattempt to break the matrix material offentirely results in a broken fossil. How-ever, if the broken parts are carefullywrapped in separate packages, they maybe assembled with the aid of a little chinacement and a lot of patience, and restoredto the status of attractive specimens.

This is about the only way that com-plete fossils of some of the types may beobtained. I refer to such elongated speci-mens as the pencil-shaped Belamites andsome of the Gastropods with barbs orprotuberances.To reassemble a broken gem stone and

G O O D5CALCITEBALLS

A P R I L , 1 9 4 1 13


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place it in one's cabinet would not givethe average gem collector much satisfac-tion. But it seems that in fossil huntingthe gluing together of tiny bits of bone orshell is the accepted procedure.I noted that here and there in the sand-stones were small seams of pale yellowcalcite. This material also was evidencein the cavities of some of the broken fos-sils.About eight feet above the level of thefossil bearing gravel I found some con-cretionary balls similar to those I hadseen in Mrs. Babb's museum. Examiningthem, I found they contained the sameyellow calcite in lovely patterns. In some-instances the hollows were filled withwell-formed rhombic crystals of calcite.These might be called "concretionary ge-odes" and are fine specimens indeed. Theyall contain calcite in some pattern, so it isbest to collect them whole and saw themlater. The resulting smooth surface givesone a much more attractive specimen.It did not take long to discover that this

was no small deposit. The Tropic shalesextend for miles, and once the collectorhas become familiar with the layer thatcarries the good material he can trace itfrom hillside to hillside for a great dis-tance.There is a real fascination in this sportof hunting sea shells in the middle of thedesert. The ever-present curiosity as towhat is in the next rock, and the challengeto the collector's skill in getting it out.combine to make a fossil hunt a trip with-out a dull moment.But the real thrill came that night inthe cabin at Ruby's Inn. With a portable

quartz light built for me by Kenneth ReedI spent the evening testing the fluorescen tqualities of the samples we had picked upduring the day. We were pleasantly sur-prised to find that both the calcite in thegeodes and the lining of the fossil shellsfluoresced . Wh at is more, they pho sphor-esced after the light was turned off. Someof them held their glow for several sec-onds.Collectors who are already interested infossils will of course enjoy a visit to thisfield. For those who have always regardeda fossil merely as a dusty something witha number on it in a museum, is reservedthe special thrill I felt when Herman Pol-lock took me out and introduced me to thefascinating novelty of collecting the fossil-ized organic life of a million years agomore or less.Here again I want to stress the impor-tance of properly labelling a sample as tolocality. You may not know the name atfirst but this is less important in the longrun than the exact data as to where andwhen it was collected. Most collections, aswe know, live beyond a single generation.Eventually they fall into the hands of an-other collector, and perhaps they may intime reach the cabinets of a scientific in-stitution. In such cases there is nearly al-

ways a specialist at hand who can identifythe sample as to specific namebut ifthere is no location on the tag the speci-men may have little if any scientific value.One more suggestion for those whowould visit this area. Allow plenty oftime. There is too much to be seen here toattempt to cover it in a day or two. Post-pone the trip until you have time to reallyget acquainted with this interesting region.e o

FIRST 67,947 ACRES INANZA PARK APPROVEDAt its meeting in February, the Cali-fornia park commission tentatively ac-cepted 67,947 acres of land in the Carrizoand Vallecitos desert areas of SouthernCalifornia for inclusion in the proposednew Anza State desert park.While this action is regarded as an im-portant initial step in California's desertpark program, there still remain nearly300,000 acres of desert wilderness in SanDiego and Imperial counties which pro-

ponents of the project hope to see set asidefor park purposes.Filing fees already have been paid to thefederal government on 88,000 acres ofthis additional land, and Anza MemorialConservation association and other civicgroups are now raising funds from privatesources to provide fees for another 209,-441 acres.As California's option on these landsexpires June 29, the fate of the park de-pends on the decision of the state parkcommission during the next three months.In the meantime a bitter controversy isin progress, with a San Diego county su-pervisor leading the opposition to the add-ing of more lands to the park, and conser-vation-minded people urging the com-

mission to carry out the program as origin-ally planned.The 67,947 acres tentatively accepted bythe commission lie along Carrizo creekfollowing the route of the old Butterfieldstage station. The additional lands soughtto be included would extend the park toinclude Coyote, Fish creek and parts ofthe Vallecitos range, also parts of Carrizogorge and the Dos Cabezos areas.W eatlt& t

F R O M P H O E N I X B U RE A UTemperatures DegreesMean for month 58.8Norm al for February 55.1Hig h on February 28 - . . .. .81.0Low on February 8 42.0Rain InchesTot al for mo nth ...1.78No rma l for February 0.77Wea the rDays clear 5Days partly cloudy 6Days cloudy 17

G. K. GREENING, Meteorologis t .F ROM YUMA BUREAU

Temperatures DegreesMean for month 62.4Norm al for February 58.6High on February 11 80.0Low on February 8 43.0Rain InchesTot al for month 0.5072-year average for Feb ruary 0.42W e a t h e r -Days clear 9Days partly cloudy 12Days cloudy 7Sunshine 77 percent (238 hours out of possi-b le 308 ) .Colorado river Discharge for February atGra nd Canyon 497,0 00 acre feet. Releasefrom Boulder dam 503,000 acre feet. Esti-mated storage February 28 behind Boulderdam 23,411,000 acre feet.

JAMES H. GORDON, Meteorologis t .

Each month the Desert Magazineoffers two cash prizes for the bestcamera pictures submitted by amateurphotog raphers. Th e first award is$5.00 and the second $3.00.Pictures are limited to desert sub-jects, but there is no restriction as tothe residence of the photographer. En-tries may include Indian pictures, rockformations, flowers and wild animals,canyons, trees, waterholcs in facteverything that belongs to the desertcountry.Following are the rules governingthe photographic contest:1Pictures submitted in the April con-

test must be received at the Desert Maga-zine office by April 20.

2Not more than four prints may besubmitted by one person in one month.3Winners will be required to furnisheither good glossy enlargements or theoriginal negatives if requested.4Prints must be in black and white,3V4X51/2 or larger, and must be on glossypaper.Pictures will be returned only whenstamped envelopes or photo-mailers areenclosed.For non-prize-winning pictures acceptedfor publication $1.00 will be paid for eachprint.Winners of the April contest willbe announced and the pictures pub-lished in the June number of the maga-zine. Address all entries to:Contest Editor, D esert M aga-zine, El Centro, California.



15/48

This is the story of a yo ung Nav ajo I ndian wo ma nwho l ives near the western boundary of New Mexi-co. She ha s never attended school, d oes not read norwrite, and some would call her ignorant and unedu-cated, but along certain lines, and in certain skills,she is far better educated than I am, and I havespent years in school.She can take complete charge of a flock of sheep,caring for the lambs, and seeing to it that the wholeflock gets the best pasturage within the shortestwalking distance of her home.She can shear sheep as fast and as well as anyman in her community. She knows how to wash thewo ol and dry it, dye it, card it and spin it into sm oothyarn and weave it into wonderful rugs or blankets.That is quite an education in itself..She is an excellent horsewoman, and in spite ofher voluminous skirts, of which she seldom wears

less than three at a time, she ca n ride any horse thatshe can bridle and saddle.She knows how a hogan should be built and oftenhelps her father in the construction of one. She cancook successfully over a small, open fire, her onlycooking utensils being a coffee pot, a kettle and afrying pan. She sweeps the hard dirt floor of herhoga n with a broom which she m ade of small twigsbound together.She h as no time-piece, but she can tell the time ofthe day or night by the sun or the stars.In case of sickness, she knows which herbs re-lieve pa in, and usu ally ca lls on the white doctor onlyas a last resort, and with very little faith in him, atthat.So I would not call her ignorant, but educated byher own people in practical ways for her life on thedesert.

A /o-mak , the A /avalo W eaverBy MARY KEELER SMITH

11 O-MAH, the pretty daughter ofy \/ Hosteen Begay, sat at her loomunder a shelter of juniper boughs,just outside the hogan, and her deft fingerswove the smooth yarn swiftly into the de-sign of the blanket she was making. "No-mah, ni-zon-t bitso-i" (No-mah, the beau-tiful daughter) her grandmother calledher, for she loved her granddaughter notonly for her looks, but also for her indns-try.No-mah felt that she must hurry andfinish this blanket and take it to the traderat Redrock. He would weigh it and giveher the white man's goods in exchange;she would get cloth for a new skirt. Shemust ask also for go-hweh (coffee) forgrandmother and alth-kes-di-sih (candy)for Chee Yazzy, her four year old brother.Maybe there would be enough be-so (mon-ey) due her so that she could have someof the sweet chewing gum, which thetrader sold. It was so much better thanthe pinon gum, although she liked thepinon gum when she was up in the moun-tains. So ran No-mah's thoughts as herfingers flew at her weaving.

Her little brother came out of the hoganand said, "No-mah, come play with me."But No-mah, thinking of all the purchasesThe Navajo Weaver. Seated beforeher crude loom, sh e iveaves upward .roiling her rug at the bottom as herwork progresses. When she startedher weaving, she sat on a sheepskinon the grou nd u ntil her iveaving wasshoulder high; from then on . she sitson a stool. The rug now in her loomwill contain the figure of a Navajodancer. She has finished the feet and

legs and a part of the dancer's skirt.Frasher photograph.A P R I L , 1 9 4 1

La* I


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she would make, replied, "No, Chee Yaz-zy, be-so bi-ki nash-nish." (I am earningmoney.) "Soon we will go to the moun-tains ; then w e w ill play and have muchfun."The summer days were becoming verywarm; the sparse vegetation on the desertwas already dry and brown. Even alongthe sandy wash, the sheep had nibbled thegreen grass down to the roots. The animalscould find little to eat and spent much timelying in the shade of the scrubby junipertrees, or under the stunted cottonwoodsalong the arroyo. Across the sun-drenchedland No-mah could see the sand-devilswhirling over the dry mesas, promisingmore heat. Her grandmother believed thatthese whirlwinds were the souls of badmen who were not allowed in the HappyHunting Ground, but were punished bybeing blown and whirled across the desertall summer long. So No-mah hurried withher weaving. Perhaps tomorrow she couldgo to the trading post. A little more greyyarn in this corner of the background, alittle more white in the end of the de-sign, a little break in color here, leaving aplace for "her mind to escape," then aborder of black along the end, and shewould untie it from the loom, brush offall the loose wool, roll up her finishedblanket so she could carry it on her horse-to the trader.

She was sure the trader would like it,and praise her fine weaving, for he hadtold her before that her blankets were thebest that were made at Redrock, and healways paid her the highest price for hergood work.As No-mah finished her blanket, hermother and grandmother came out of thehogan and sat with her in the shade ofthe "summer house." Her grandm otherasked, "How much money will you getfor your blanket, No-mah?" And No-mahreplied, "Be-so nez-nab, Si-mah-tsani,"(ten dollars, grandmother) and I will buysomething for you. Tell me, grandmother,who taught the Navajo women to weaveblankets."Grandmother settled herself comfort-ably on some soft sheepskins and said,"My mother told me that long, long ago awoman was walking away from her hoganand she saw a little hole in the ground.She stopped and looked into the hole, andsome one under the ground said, 'Comedown here.' The woman said, 'I can't come-down; the hole is too small.' So the holeopened up and let the woman go down,and there she saw the Spider Woman andher husband, and the Spider Woman wasweaving a blanket."The Navajo woman watched the Spi-der Woman make four different blankets,then she went back home and made aloom, but she had no silk like the SpiderWoman used, so she went out onto themesa and gathered wild cotton and spun

it into yarn."When she wanted some colored yarn,

she gathered the flowers that grew on themesa, put them into a round hole in tiieBig Rock, covered them with water, threwin some hot stones, and boiled the flower suntil the water was a bright color. Thenshe dipped her white cotton yarn into thisdye until it was the color she wanted. Shealso gathered sumac berries and bark andthe gum from the pinon tree and madeother colors which she wove into herblanket in beautiful stripes."When her people asked her who taughther to weave blankets, she always said,'The Spider Woman taught me, and shesaid I must always leave a spider hole inthe center of my blanket, or it wouldbring me bad luck.'"When the other Navajo women learn-ed to weave, some of them made cords ofyucca fibers and wove in feathers, makingwarm feather blankets. Others used tuftsof rabbit fur with the yucca fibers, whichmade soft, warm blankets. They 'ilso usedthe wool of the mountain sheep when thehunters brought one home. But it took a

long time to make these blankets, becausethe material was hard to find."My mother also said that some of ourwomen w ere once stolen away by the HopiIndians and taken to the Hopi camp. Therethey saw the Hopi men weaving clothfrom wool. The Navajo women watchedthe Hopi men and from them learned toweave. Later on, they escaped from theHopi camp and came back to their ownpeople. Soon the Navajo had sheep oftheir own, and the women tended the sheepcarefully. Their flocks increased very fastand all the women were busy spinningyarn and weaving. They had black sheep

and brown sheep, as well as white, so theyhad black, brown, white and grey yarnto weave into their blankets, without anydyeing."No-mah said, "But I wouldn't want toweave without the beautiful red German-town yarn which the trader trades me forwool. When did the Navajo women firstlearn to use Germantown yarn, grand-mother?""When I was a little child," grand-mother replied, "not as big as Chee Yazzy,the white soldiers from Washington cameto Tseh-ho-tso-i (Ft. Defiance) and hada big battle with our people. Many Nava-jo were killed and the ones who were leftwere captured and taken on the Big Walkto Hwalte, which the white men call Ft.Sumner. We walked for many, many days.Some of the old people fell down and diedon the way. When we got to Hwalte, wewere very tired and so hungry."The white men gave us corn and meatto eat, but we did not have our sheep, andmy mother said the Navajo women werenot happy, because they had no sheep tocare for, and no wool to weave into blank-ets. My mother said that some of the Nava-jo women went to the trading post at

Hwalte and saw Germantown yarn. It wasnice and smooth, but not as hard and

tight as the Navajo yarn."We were kept at Hwalte for four sum-mers and four winters, then the whitesoldiers said we could go back to our owncountry if we would promise not to fight,or kill, or steal any more. Our men prom-ised that they wouldn't fight any more,and when we got back to Tseb-ho-tso-i,the soldiers gave us two sheep for everyman, woman, and child."We built our hogans, and planted ourcorn and b eans. W e took care of our sheepand began weaving our blankets, but wedid not forget about the nice, smooth yarnwe had seen at Hwalte. The trader gotsome Germantown yarn for us, and wepaid him with wool from our sheep. Butthe women who live a long way from thetrading post still dye their wool and spinall of their yarn.""Grandmother, did you ever see a Bay-eta blanket?" asked No-mah."Yes," said grandmother, "my motherhad one which was very, very old.""Why was it called Bayeta?" No-mah

asked."Because," replied grandmother, "thecolored threads woven into these blanketscame from cloth which the Navajo gotfrom the Spanish soldiers. The cloth wascalled 'baize' and the Navajo women tookthis bright colored baize, unravelled thethreads, re-twisted them and wove theminto their blankets with the native wool.""When I was a girl," said Amah-tsan-i,"all the wool had to be washed with yuccasuds, and then picked apart by the fingers.Now we can buy soap from the trader, andwe have our wool cards which clean thewool much faster. Work is easier now."No-mah's father came up from thewood-pile with a small armful of drywood. No-mah looked up with a smile,"Father is hungry," she said. Her fatherreturned her smile and said, "Go-hwehsa-nil-bez." (Make me some coffee.)No-mah gathered cedar bark for grind-ing and lighted a small fire where threefire stones had been placed outside thehogan. It was too warm to have a fire inthe hogan, now. She filled the coffee potand placed it on the fire stones. Soon thepungent odor of burning wood was min-gled with the fragrant aroma of coffee.Then she placed mutton on a crude grateover the hot coals and took flour and saltand water and stirred them into a stiffdough, then patted it into thin, flat cakesto be fried over the coals.Next morning as the sun was rising,No-mah saddled her horse, took her newblanket and left the camp. She reachedthe trading post just as the trader wassweeping the floor."Ya-a-teh, No-mah," he greeted her."Ya-a-teh," No-mah replied quietly,"bi-li-ga-na bi-yel ha-sah." (Good morn-ing; I have come for the white man'sgoods.)

The trader weighed her blanket. "Thatis a fine rug, No-mah; I will give you ten16 T h e D E S E R T M A G A Z I N E


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The July sun shone softly through thehe year are so often draped in clouds.Showers had been falling every afternoonfor a week, and the clean-washed mountainair was redolent with the fragrance ofpine.A narrow, rutted road, which had cross-ed the desert from Shiprock to the Red-rock trading post, turned abruptly to theleft, and skirting sand dunes and arroyos,climbed steadily up from the hot desertsands to the cooler foothills and the pinontrees. Here it widened and seemed topause as it crossed a little stream of coldspring water, then turning left, and nowright, the road seemed to hurry on up,climbing and twisting a tortuous wayaround the shoulder of the highest peak,up among the giant pines and the noddingaspen trees.

Mountain ferns stood three feet talland mingled their lacy greenness with thedelicate blue and white of the wild colum-bine. In little clearings, where the pineshad been cut the grass grew lush and sweet.Here and there, in the natural depressions,were small lakes of water from the slowlymelting snowdrifts. Here were flowers,birds, chipmunks, and squirrels. Occasion-ally, a black bear ambled his way clumsilyamong the trees.Into this fragrant mountain pastureland,with their flocks and herds, came the Red-rock Navajo to spend the summer months,and so in the late afternoon came No-mahand her mother on their horses, drivingtheir sheep. Behind them, in the wagon,rode father, grandmother, and little CheeYazzy, with a big bundle of sheepskinsand blankets for bedding; a frying panand a kettle; some flour, sugar, and coffee,a shovel and axe. Father selected theircampsite where pasture for the sheep wasplentiful, and here he began the erectionof a summer home, a small log house on awell drained plot of ground, near a small

stream, which he called "sweet water."Here, No-mah and her mother herdedthe sheep while her father built the cor-rals, for the sheep must be guarded atnight against marauding wild animals.No-mah couldn't express in words herlove for these beautiful mountains, b ut hereyes took on a new luster, her step a newlightness, and there was a joyous lilt inher laughter. All summer, she stored upvigorous health of body and mind, andfrom her association with Nature in allits forms, the forked lightning of thethunder storms, the zig-zagging streams,the strata of rock, and the stately trees ofthe forest, she acquired many new designsfor her next winter's weaving.

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A Navajo Rug. The colors of this rug are red, white, black and grey. The centralfigure is the Navajo Bu tterfly design, in red on a ground of pure white to representlight. Outside of this white space is a border of black in mountain pattern, ivith theblack squares representing a comm unity of homes-a community of homes in themountains. Surrounding the homes is the grey earth, and above the earth, the ivhitecloud ladder.The saw-tooth border of b lack and w hite along the sides of the rug in-dicate streams of run ning w ater. In each corner of her rug, the weaver has p lacedher "direction pattern." Th e star rays which end in a square represent north, east,west and south, and the grey ray without a square represents the direction down intothe earth; the ivhite ray represents the direction straight upward into the light. TheNavajo woman is a sincere student o f nature, and wh at she sees in nature, that sheweaves into her rugs. Frasher photograph.17


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E L E P H R N T ' S F E E T Winner o f the Deser t Magazine ' s FebruaryLandmark contest is Willard Bradley ofFlagstaff, Arizona. He identified the ac-companying picture as the "Elephant 's Feet" on the Hopi reservation nearTonalea trading post , Arizona, and has given glimpses of some of the otherinteresting places for the motorist to visit in that great scenic plateau regionof northern Arizona. The winning manuscript is published on this page.By WILLARD BRADLEY

/ i N the northwest corner of the Hopi( / Indian reservation in northeastern* Arizona are the Elephant's Feet,shown in the February, 1941, Desert Mag-azine.To reach these interesting natural monu-ments leave Highway 89 about nine milesnorth of Cameron, thence follow the Nav-ajo Indian service road northerly 14 milesto Tuba City. From Tuba City continuenortheasterly 25 miles to Red lake orTonalea trading post. One mile beyondthe trading post, on the left side of theroad, are the Elephant's Feet. The roadformerly passed between them, but inrecent years has been shifted to the east.The resemblance of these two greysandstone monuments to elephant's feetis remarkable. The spread of the feet andeven the toes are clearly shown.Gretchen Green, world traveler, is au-thority for the statement that in India it isa well known fact that the circumferenceof the left hind foot of an elephant is justhalf the height of the elephant. On thisbasis, assuming one of these sandstone

pillars is the elephant's left hind foot, theanimal would be nearly 380 feet in height.The height of the monuments which Na-ture has preserved here is between 60 and65 feet.Continuing along the road six milesfrom Tonalea is Cow springs trading postwhere the road forks, the left fork goingto Rainbow lodge and the Rainbow bridge-national monument, and the right fork toKayenta and Monument valley. A detourfrom the Kayenta road will take the motor-ist to Navajo national monument where atrail down into Tsegi canyon leads to thewell preserved Betatakin cliff dwellingruins. Returning over this trail you willsee two perfect elephants sculptured byNature in the red sandstone cliffs. No feetare visible. Just why Nature left the feetso far away on the high desert I do notknow.At Tonalea Johnny Taylor has a tradingpost and also very comfortable cabins andaccommodations for tourists. On the pla-teau in this area are many Navajo hogans,and here may be seen the real "long hair"

Navajo, his home life and his sheep andgoats and horses.A trip to the Elephant's Feet countryshould be m ade without serious road prob-lems during the months of April, May,June, September, October and November.During July and August there is the possi-bility of summer showers which maycause delay, but seldom a serious hazardto the traveler. N E W W I L D L I F EREFUGE ES TABLI S HEDApproximately 51,000 acres in the reser-voir above Imperial dam on the Coloradoriver have been set aside as a nationalwildlife refuge under presidential orderannounced by Harold L. Ickes, secretaryof the interior on February 28. It is thesecond refuge set up on federal reclama-tion projects this year and brings the totalnumber of these refuges to 29 throughoutthe western United States. Three of themare on the Colorado, the other two at Park-er dam reservoir, 155 miles below theLake Mead, and at Boulder dam. Amongother refuges in the arid west are the Saltriver refuge in Arizona, the Fallon inNevada, the Lake McMillan in New Mexi-co and the Strawberry valley in Utah. Therefuges range in size from 1120 acres atthe Conconully reservoir in Washingtonto the 649,000-acre refuge on Lake Mead.Imperial and Havasu, the two latest refugesordered by the president are said to beideal for the preservation of waterfowlon the main flyway.



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rt ant letIn Ne w M exico is a great lav a field, so jagged and treacher-ous and awesome that few humans have ever attempted to ex-plore itand those who dared have often met with tragedy. Itis a pla ce of strange contradictionsblistering heat a nd perpetu-al ice, barren and uninviting in its general aspect and yet sprin-kled with little islands of pines and wildflowers. Betty and CleeW ood s penetrated a s far into this black w ilderness as it is sa feto goand here is the story of what they found.Black acres, with a hu ge crater in the background.

By BETTY WOODS/ Jy E were campedmy husband andy y Iat the edge of New Mexico'sgreatest lava flow. It extends southfrom Grants on Highway 66 to Trechadoon H ighway 32 ; from Putney M esa onthe east to Inscription Rock at El Morro,on the west. We had come here in searchof a remote frontier rich with drama andcolora place not yet discovered by other

writers.After the sun had burned itself downinto the unknown sea of blackness, a littleold prospector ambled out of the earlydusk."Howdy, folks!" he greeted, peering atus with eyes aged by sun and wind andsand.After he was seated by the fire, Cleesaid, "Maybe you can tell us about themalpais.""Well," the oldtimer chuckled, "theyain't no man as knows them lava bedscomplete."Then, in his inimitable manner our vis-itor told us tales of gunfights and buried

gold. Of a white city which two aviatorshave seen hidden deep within the lava. Ofendless caves in one of which crude gold-mining equipment still remains. He toldus, too, of a queer rock death trap set byred man in a lava cave in centuries longdead; and of a small stone house aboutwhich lava had flowed, lapping into onetiny window.But the most fantastic tale of all wasabout a redheaded skeleton frozen in ice!

Clee and I remained skeptical of thatstory until later when it was confirmedby a Mexican sheepherder. The sheep-herder and his brother told us that theyremoved the skeleton from the ice cave,but sun and air soon changed it to dusta ghostly exit for what man? What storybehind our story?The next morning the yapping of coy-otes jerked us awake. Forty-five minuteslater we set out to explore the flow onfoot. Both of us wore thick-soled shoesfor protection against the knife-edgedlava. We climbed to the tar-hued crest ofa high dome to gain an unbroken view ofthat chaotic blackness.There it was, sometimes 50 and 60 feet

high. A mass of twisted, snarling blackrock. Ropy, gnarled, pitted, a w rithing yetinert slice of creation haunted by a fewanimals and the home of not one humansoul. In the distance we could see the pineand pinon wade on trunk-deep into thelava. Yet down at our feet was nothingbut the glossy ebony piled wantonly about."It's the most fascinating spot I everlaid eyes on," my husband marveled."It's the most depressing thing I ever

looked at," I spoke my real feelings. "Itis so foreboding!""That," Clee laughed, "is only yourimagination."We struck out to the west where itseemed blackest, picking our way care-fully over the undulating waves of lava.Infrequently, the going would be overlevel malpais seamed with a million wrin-kles. Then the stuff would hump up andbreak into giant masses or crumple intopiles of sharp fragments. No two feet ofthe lava are the same. The Navajo aptlysay of it, "When you go back to the sameplace, it is always different."The top of a single pine tree guided usfor 10 minutes over wavy black ridges.

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Spring near outlaw cabins. BettyWoods holds the divining rod foundat the diggings.The lone tree grew out of a grassy sink-hole a stone's throw in diameter. In thisvicinity we came on many of these bowl-like formations. Sometimes they were sodeep that not even a tree-top gave us ahint that a miniature park, with waterand grass and trees, lay just ahead. Inshallow swamps cat-tails grew with furryabundance. No wonder that during theWorld War 1 two army deserters livedhere with perfect securitya retreat thatno officer could ever find.Just before noon we encountered whatis really the greatest danger in the whole60 miles of lava. We had been watchinga black lizard darting ahead of us; neitherhad been conscious of a deep hollow soundunder our feet until now."Listen!" I said."What's the matter?" Clee asked.Then he heard that deep, hollow soundfrom below. W e were on the roof of a"blister" or a great "pressure dome!" Thisroof, only inches thick, might breakthrough any second and send us crashingto death.I foolishly tried to make myself lighteras I ran to safer footing. When our feetceased to drum hollow sounds, how goodit was to know we were on solid lavaagain. Close by, we saw where a blister roofhad fallen in, exposing a hole largeenough to hide a three-story building. Wemust be guided by our ears as well as oureyes.There were other dangers. Great crev-ices so deep that the snow never melts at

Lava wall which surrounds the out-law hideout. In right foreground areruins of one cabin.

the bottom. Some so wide and long that Icould picture a bandit horseman ridingthrough, deep down below me, huntinghis way into a hideout which even he wasnever sure of finding. In one of these giantrips Frank Childers found the enormoushorns of several mountain sheep.Lunch time found us at the mouth of abarrel-shaped cave. Insid e, an ice-coldstreamlet flowed over the lava floor. Fromsomewhere a cool draft stirred our papernapkins as we ate. Later, we yielded to thetemptation to explore this cave, but a few

minutes tramping revealed that it was oneof the many caves which go on and on foimiles.I had an uneasy feeling of how helplesswe would be if our flashlights failed, formatch flames would be useless with that

mysterious wind sucking through the cave.The going was made more difficult by thethousands of lava slabs which had drop-ped down from above. Behind these up-right slabs we searched futilely for fine,prehistoric Indian pots. Others had foundbeautiful pottery in such places.We scrambled back into the welcomesunlight and veered toward the southeastwhere more pine and pinon fought forroot holds. Rabbit bush, lemita and penolgrew with determination, and in small,sand-filled cracks cacti bristled fierce ly.Deer, wildcats, rabbits, rats and miceshared their retreat with snakes and liz-ards.In this more friendly area we pickedup a prehistoric Indian trail from the eastwhere, high on a mesa, stand the stoneruins of an ancient village of 400 rooms.Were these the Indians who had left thebeautifully decorated pottery in the caves?If so, were they themselves hiding fromconquerors? Or were they making offer-ings to an imaginary god of the malpais?All day we kept coming upon new mar-vels, yet we had seen very little of thisstupendous phenomenon. W e were sotired now nothing amazed us. All wewanted was supper and a good night'srest.The next morning, however, we set outto explore the western side of the flow .Returning to Grants, we took the dirthighway that twists southward throughrapidly changing country for 23 miles andfinal ly, at Paxton Springs, seems to die inexploration itself.In this locality a pair of cinder-coveredpeaks had blown off their crowns in hecticviolence as they disgorged the liquid stone.Very little is known about the malpaisregion geologically, except for generalconclusions based on very limited fieldstudy. Much of the flow seems older here,



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dating back perhaps 4,000 years. It looksweather-worn and is faded to a brownish-red. There were places where we saw thejet black of two later eruptions spilled outover the old, like giant ropes of ebony.Between the two craters lies a huge blis-ter from one end of which a small openingleads downward into a large ice cave. Inthis cave, ice freezes constantly, within afew steps of New Mexico's bright sun-shine. Because this is the only ice cavereadily accessible, it is visited by thousandsof tourists every year, but there are otherand more extensive ice caves in the mal-pais.In the summer of 1938 three womentourists parked their car within 200 yardsof this cave, and took the foot trail to it.They became lost and wandered for threedays in the lava. The governor of NewMexico conducted the search for them andthey were found only a short distance fromthe cavern. In fact, they had never beenmore than three miles from their car!Leaving the ice caves, we set out insearch of the most baffling spot of all themalpais, the mysterious but tritely named,"Hole-in-the-Wall." There were endlessmiles of dim roads and bare trails, juttinglava ridges, stretches of pine woods andsometimes little dry lakes.Clee had listened carefully to numerousdescriptions of roads and landmarks, butnow it was only keen sense of directionthat prevented us from becoming entirely

lost. For half a day we kept skirting thelava. At sundown we made dry camp.

I was utterly confused, but Clee insistedthat we were near the entrance to the oldoutlaw hideout, the Hole-in-the-Wall.The hideout actually is 20 sections of clearland surrounded by the malpais. Our diffi-culty in finding this 12,000-acre "island"within the malpais only emphasizes thetremendous size of the lava beds.At sunup we turned back to find a guide,only to learn that few men even in thisregion had ever been to the Hole-in-the-Wall. When at last we found a guide, hetook us right back along the same roadsover which we had retreated!"How about the buried gold in theHole-in-the-Wall?" Clee asked."Some folks think it's still in there,"our guide answered. "Only last month anoutfit went in there with a team and scrap-er. Headed by an old codger what buriedit himself when he was jist a young but-ton.""Did they find the treasure?""They claim not."I had heard the story. Two wanted menhappened into the Hole-in-the-Wall justat the time a pair of train robbers were di-viding their loot$50,000 in gold. There-was a gun fight. Three men died. Thesurvivor, one of the intruders, was quiteyoung, and the havoc of the fight hadterrified him. He dug a hole hastily, dump-ed the gold into it and got out of there,lest partners of the train robbers appear.Years passed. The young man, no long-er young, came back. Furtively he ap-proached the spot. But cabins had been

built in the clearing and three Mexicanchildren were playing nearby. Sheep weregrazing in an adjoining pasture. The manwent away, not daring to dig. Forty yearswent by. He came again. Now he coulddig safely with team and scraper. But stillthe gold eluded him.Here before us now was the torn-upearth and the stone foundations of thecabins. The searchers had piled out manyyards of earth but not one piece of gold.I wandered over to look at the newestand deepest pit. It was five or six feet deepand 40 feet long. Down in the hole lay aforked stick from a cherry tree. Strange,when there were no cherry trees withinmiles. Then I knew. This was a diviningrod, cut at a certain time of the moon tostrengthen its power of locating gold."Sometimes such spirit rods work won-ders," said the guide, eyeing my find dose-Hold ing the divining rod in a most com-plicated twist of hands and wrists, hestarted to walk. Clee stood grinning."Now," the guide averred, "the gold,if any, will pull the stick and me towardit. Sometimes the stick will jump out ofa locater's hands."When the divining rod failed to "lo-cate" for him, he walked over to a breakin the lava where a spring seeped out. Thespring made the "island" a perfect hide-away. Water. Grass. Inaccessibility. Onesecret trail to it. And, above all, remote-ness.The guide returned to us and handed

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A giant blister, from which an icecave leads downward at extreme jarend. The author may be seen as alight speck on the rim upper center.me the divining rod, lamenting, "The goldsimply isn' t here."I started back for the cabin site. Acci-dentally, I dropped the forked cherrystick. When I picked up my find and wenton, the guide remained behind. With ussafely out of the way, he superstitiouslystepped off distances to mark the spotwhere the divining rod had fallen from myhands . W e have of ten won dered if heever went back to dig at that point.

Everywhere in this black-walled refugethe grass grows abundantly and tall yellowpines stand at wide intervals to give it aparklike appearance. N o won der it be-came a bandit haven. Even on this day wewere haunted by the feel of its colorfulpast. I wanted to believe in its legends ofgunfights and buried treasure. In its rus-tled cattle and in its gold mines found andlost in the earth beneath the lava. In thatlittle white city seen only from the sky.Certainly I could believe in the deepsolitude here and in the awesomeness of

the black, jagged world abou t me. W e h adfound our frontier.

Gauel Go-nte&tTo Carl E. Lawrence of Claremont, California, goes the honor and the $15.00first cash award offered by the Desert Magazine in its Photographic Cover con-test which was judged March 1.The prize picture, which will appear on the May cover of the Desert Maga-zine, was a Yuccaseveral of them in fact, photographed in a typical desert set-ting against a filtered sky.Second prize of $10.00 went to Ivan B. Mardis of Tucson for a campfire pic-ture which also will appear on a future cover of the Desert Magazine.The Cover contest, announced in January, brought 162 pictures from 50 con-

testants and the judges spent many hours studying the prints before the winnerswere determined.Desert Magazine reserved the r ight to purchase non-winning pictures at $3.00eachand nine photographs for future covers were selected under the provisionof the rules. The pictures selected were:"H om e of Mr. and Mrs. Packra t" by Fred Han kins, Taft, California."Date Palm Garden" by Richard B. Freeman, Los Angeles ."La Reina del Canyon" and "Joshuas" by Loyd Cooper, Claremont, California."Night Blooming Cereus ," by L. A. Powell , Oakland, California ."Red Rock Canyon," and "Titus Portal," by Josef Muench, Santa Barbara,California."Joshua Tree" and "Joshua Blossom," by N. Kozloff, San Bernardino, Cali-fornia.Judging was done by staff members of the Desert Magazine, and the f ine in-terest in this contest as evidenced by the scores of beautiful photographic printson display for selection, was gratifying to our magazine organization. Eventually,the readers of the magazine will share in the enjoyment of the 11 prints selected.

S e zHard RockShortyofDea thValley

B y L O N G A R R I S O N"It was just this mornin' ," an-nounced Hard Rock Shorty, "that Iheard it over the radio. Seems likethey needs pipe fitters an' welders inthe shipyards. Mayb e I 'd ought totell Gene Banks about it. Of course,

he ain't no welder that I know of, an'he ain't had no experience fittin"pipe, but any guy that c'd rig up thepipe line he's got over to his FriedEgg canyon hotel 'd be a help tomost anybody."Hard Rock blew the dust off hispipe stem and loaded up with hisfavorite blend of shavings, hay, andstink powder."Yes s irGene done all r ight.Got the idea o' the carbon dioxidegas that comes out o' the ground onhis place for a refrigerator for thehotel. Put in a pipe line, screwed 'erup tight, an' froze the refrigerator upsolid. Finally he got it thawed out abit an' the flow regulated and every-thing was swell."Then he decides to cool off acouple o' rooms an' has to changethe pipes . When he goes out to lookat 'em them pipes is one solid streako' ice. They was so cold they tookever' drop o' moisture out o' theair an' she froze right on the pipe."Well, that didn' t make muchdifference so Gene got a Stillson an'starts untwistin' the last joint. The

da ng thin g bro ke right off in ishand an' when he looks real closehe finds out he ain't got any pipe.Somethin' in that gas'd eat out allthe pipes right inside the ice an' thegas was just runnin' through a icepipe."Gene looks at that a while, an'then he gets the idea. Except to startwith he don' t need no pipe. Theice's good enough. An' that 's whatI meant by him doin' weldin' . Theice piped leak once in a while an'it sure usta look funny to see Geneout mendin' it with a blow torch an'a icicle."



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Desert Lily in the Dunes.DESERT MIRACLE

B Y B E S S F L Y N NCoronado, CaliforniaMy heart was filled with bitterness and woeNo ray of hope shone through the clouds ofg loom;I ceased to struggle 'gainst the surging tideThat bore me onward to the gates of doom.Like the dying beast, that seeks to hide his painAnd meet the great "Unknown" in loneliness;I sought to hide my anguish from the worldIn the desert broken wastes of nothingness.When grief and pain seemed more than I couldbearAnd life's bleakness filled my soul with rudealarmsI sought its healing solitude, and foundPeace and solace in its sheltering arms.Great pitying stars smiled down from out theb l u e -Soft breezes touched my brow with gentle grace.Twas then I heard its wistful, soothing voiceAnd learned to love its scarred and rugged face.The sighing whisper of its ever drifting sandsWas like a benediction from the skies;Cool shadows reached with friendly beckoninghandsTo close in dreamless sleep, my tear wet eyes.And so, I smile when fools malign its nameCalling it sinister, cruel and unkind;For I have found within its silent realmInfinite courage, and blessed peace of mind.

ALONE ON THE TRAILB Y I V A N T . D O W E L LSan Diego, CaliforniaThe sun has gone down, a breeze has sprung upAnd hurries away o'er the sands.The planets lean out, and their rays take theshapeOf beckoning seraphic hands.No sound breaks the calm of the limitless voidSave the coyote's shuddering wail.The barren sand hills climb black toward thesky,And I am alone on the trail.The old moon is up, and her distorting beamsForm fantastic shapes on the sands;As the night opens up like the maw of a ghoulShe illumines this strangest of lands.A jackrabbit flees awaymonstrous shape!

From the hills comes the coyote's wail.Then measureless silence forever descends,And I am alone on the nail.

*1BY M A B E L H A T T O N M A R K SClaremont, CaliforniaThe Desert! Now a glowing landOf elemental fire and lightFrom stretch of tawny sandTo silvered heightOf mountains; here the warm rains bring

Rich reds and purples, golds and bluesIn frenzy of wild-flowering:Soft pastel tints and almost savage hues.The Desert! Painted with a lavish handFrom palette whose rare colors makeThe grateful heart of sky and landRejoice for Beauty's sake.

0 OMY PRAIRIE GARDEN

B Y G LA D Y S I . H A M I L TO NMancos, ColoradoGod made the garden just outsideMy western cottage door:He planted all the nodding bloomsThat dot the desert floor.Small yellow Johnny-jump-ups grow

Beside the spiked bluebell;And Indian-paint and fair flax flowersMidst the flaming cacti dwell.The rocks and I, and wind-swept grassAre deep-set in the sod.A place of peace, my home, withinA garden made by God. THIS APRIL DAY

B Y I DA C RO C K E R D U N C A NDenver, ColoradoThis April day haloed in desert lightIs fashioned out of warm sweet lovelinessAs lovely as the thrill of flowers in sight.As mystic as the piled-up clouds that bless,No labored words may paint your sweetawakening.The wave of wonder in my singing heart;No song bird, or world of blossoms breakingCan tell th e joy, to be of you a part.

0 6 *DESERTBY L E L A M . W I L L H I T EM ontebello, CaliforniaThey say that you're harshToward those whom you charm;But God in His HeavenMust know that no harmYou'd doonly the weak,Who leave reason behind.Will find your vast reachesHarsh, grim or unkind.

WISE SILENCESBY G E O R G E B U Z Z AHollywood, Califor

194104 desert magazine 1941 april

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