The Venemous Doodle Bug

The Venomous Doodle Bug Their Bite Is Fatal to Nothing But Your Pocketbook-But the Doodle Bug Will Get You if You Don't Watch Out

THEY are the product of a diseased mind and they're invadin' the country worse than the black widow spider. Of course, their bite is not fatal to anything except your pocket book, but if you happen to become inoculated with the doodle bug fever you are a goner, no foolin'. There's no use in me trying to give you a description of the varmint except that the pesky critter was invented to dupe the unwary gold hunter into buying one or hiring the services of one of their dreamy-eyed trainers, and that they come in all shapes and sizes, from four pieces of ordinary copper gas-line stuffed with God knows what, and used similar to the old Spanish divinin' rods, to the full-grown do dle bug made from the oil cup swiped from a horizontal engine when the grease ball wasn't lookin', the latter suspended from the end of a shade roller spring which should dangle from the hand of the trainer until it starts to sway and then stretch out in the direction of the mather lode. Of course, I'm admi'tin' that there is a high-priced contraption, all rigged up with wires and radio outfit which our engineers use in locatin' ore bodies, deep in the old copper mines. But I'm not quarrelin' with that outfit. They must be good or they would be thrown out. The ones I'm writin' about are the pocket models such as the one the writer and Foxtail Johnston used in locatin' the petrified rainbow, up Grand Canyon way.

The native habitat of the doodle bug is Los Angeles and environs, but they are gradually creeping their slimy way through the greasewoods into Arizona. One particularly vicious specimen attached itself to me a few years ago. I admit he snagged me in a nearvital spot and I had quite a time shuck in' him but I finally did after a most thrilling incident which I will chronicle here. Since then various others have got to me with varied results. I'll set them down also so you can judge whether I'm plum loco or just havin' a little fun at my own expense-mostly.

When I was a kid back in Michigan I used to hunt rabbits with a hound dog and a ferret and it never entered my mind that I'd ever chase gold with a doodle bug as a helper until one day, at the foot of Superstition, a wary-eyed pilgrim popped out of the mesquite with a doodad swingin' from his hand which looked like David's sling-shot. I didn't know whether to cut down on him or let him live and suffer. This one was from Arkansaw and believe me he had the much-touted Arkansaw mule trader beat both ways from the ace.

I don't expect I'll ever live this down, but time is sort of takin' the edge off of what happened in the next few min utes. We started off across Tex Barkley's pasture, hopes high as the doodle bug in the hands of its trainer started a slow, sort of wobbly swinging towards Weaver Needle. Course, I'd always kinda had a hunch that the Dutchman mine was in that vicinity so I fell for this bug like a walnut divin' for earth after a heavy frost.

The closer we got to the foot of the ridge, goin' north, the harder the doodle bug worked. By the time we'd crawled through the pasture fence the thing was swingin' up to plum horizontal and was draggin' the king of the doodle bugs off his feet except when we were goin' down hill and the gravity was, or seemed to be greater. I was gettin' worried and I could see that the cussed thing was sorta gettin' out of hand, so to speak, so I kept as close as I could to the point of the wedge that was sweepin' everything out of the way in our mad rush towards the hillside and riches (???).

We was just clearin' the top of a sharp little ridge when my new-found friend let out a yelp and swung his head around to give me the most agonized look I ever saw on the face of a man. It was then I noticed that his feet was plum' off the ground and he started sailin' off across space, out of control. I missed his hind feet by a few inches as he sailed into the air, but undaunted in my effort to save him I took out after the squirmin', kickin', yellin' cyclone and just as I was out of wind and givin' up all hope of savin' him from I didn't know what, he sailed into and snagged himself in a clump of catclaw brush on a ridge a little higher than the one we'd just left.

NOVEMBER, 1935. ARIZONA HIGHWAYS

I made a flying tackle and hooked him just as his Levi's gave way. We were safe for the moment, but the attraction of that vast body of ore was so much stronger in our new position I saw that we were not going to be able to hang on much longer. I hated to tell him to let go of the Doodle Bug, but also I did not relish the idea of having our brains (?) beaten cut on the rocks as we would be dragged along. Fear for my own life finally got the best of me and I yelled: "Leggo the damned thing!"

"I can't," sez he.

It was then I saw that he'd got the thing tied up to his wrist with a clove hitch.

"Halp! Halp!" I bawled as loud as I could. There was a slim chance that Tex would be workin' my burros out of his pasture where they usually hung out when I couldn't find them. Not a hoofbeat did I hear comin' to our rescue. Then I thought of my old Colt. I snatched it out with my right hand while I clung for dear life to my friend's hind leg with my left, and blazed away.

Those three shots brought results. I could hear a scurry of shod hooves and then Tex came bargin' out of the brush, rope swingin'. He snagged one of my feet then threw me his piggin' string and suggested that I tie our human bal loon up to a mesquite nag that was handy to his feet. I did so and was just easing' to my feet to meet Tex's grin when I heard a tearin' sound behind me. There went my hopes, sailin' into space again, the Doodle Bug leadin' by the length of the shade roller spring attached to his wrist. The stump had pulled out of the ground due to the attraction of that Doodle Bug for the Dutchman mine.

Tex dug spurs into his horse and raced uphill as fast as his cayuse could pelt, coiling his rope as he flew across the scenery. If the Doodle Bug King hadn't caught at times in the tree tops on his way over the mountain Tex would never have reached the divide in time to have roped our friend as he just cleared the ridge. It took three dallies to hold our Zeppelin and Tex could not haul him in so they had to wait until I could clamber up the hill and lay to on the lass rope with my two hundred pounds. The added weight was just too much. The spring broke close to the king's hand and the Bug sailed off into space as its trainer sank to earth exhausted and scared to a frazzle.

It's ten miles from where the Doodle Bug took off to where the Highway Department's magnetic road cleaner was gathering nails and flivver bolts from the Apache trail, but believe it or not, that Doodle Bug smacked against the magnet so hard that the boys thought somebody was shootin' at them and they hid in the brush until Tex arrived on the trail of the Bug to inform them of our hard luck.

The moral to this story is: If you want a good doodle bug, borrow the Highway Department's magnetic road cleaner.

Drive Safely To protect your life and property. Advertise Sanely To reach motoring public in Arizona Highways

PHOENIX BLUE PRINT CO. PHOENIX, ARIZONA

WRICO LETTERING GUIDES CITY, COUNTY AND STATE MAPS U. S. G. S. TOPOGRAPHIC MAPS HOME BUILDERS' BLDG. 128 N. First Ave. Phone 4-2407