Foundling in the Wilderness

Foundling in the Wilderness The True Story, By a Noted Arizona Historian, of a Child Who Escaped Death

By WILL C. BARNES It WAS Christmas day sometime in the seventies. The west-bound Santa Fe-Prescott mail stage swung around the point of a ridge 100 yards east of Horse Head Crossing, Arizona. Here was an early-day stage station and Navajo Indian trading post on the line of the overland mail route from Santa Fe, New Mexico, to Prescott, Arizona. As soon as the dust from the stage was seen the station came to life. The three or four loafers around the saloon sauntered out onto the brush-and-dirt-covered porch to watch the stage arrive, which was, in fact, the event of the day for everybody about the place, even the dogs, came to life.

Located on the north side of the Little Colorado River, just below the point where the Rio Puerco-Spanish "nasty" -joined it from the east, a general store, the inevitable frontier saloon, the stage station, corrals, etc., together with half a dozen rough adobe dwellings scattered around in a grove of grand old cottonwood trees, was the extent of the station. Off to one side were three or four Navajo Indian "hogans," used by the Indians when they came in from their nearby reservation to trade with the storekeeper and sell their wool and blankets.

The so-called "stage" was a rickety yellow "buckboard" drawn by a couple of bronchos and was piled high with mailsacks, express and baggage. A single weary, dust-covered passenger climbed down from its seat. The driver tossed the reins to a Mexican who, having unhitched the animals from the buckboard, led them off to the corral for water and food, as a fresh team would take their place when the westward journey was resumed. The passenger followed the driver into the station, where dinner was ready in the dining room. A blue-eyed, golden-haired young girl waited on them. The passenger watched her with deep interest. Every other female about the station was of the dark, swarthy Mexican type and the girl seemed like a lovely flower in a garden of weeds. The stationkeeper, who sat with his guests, called her "Cris-mus."

The hungry passenger looked inquiringly at the man. "Odd name, that," he remarked. "How come?" The girl had disappeared into the kitchen.

The station keeper smiled. "'Bout eight years ago come next Christmas day, the east-bound stage found the burned remains of a buckboard standing beside the road on the west side of the Leroux wash, 'bout four miles west of here. As the driver pulled up his team a couple of desert ravens rose into the air with shrill and noisy 'caws.' A man and a woman, both almost naked, lay dead near a cold campfire. All signs pointed to either Indian or white outlaws. Their two horses had been killed and the camp looted and what things the murderers couldn't carry off with them had been thrown on the campfire and burned to ashes. Even the buckboard had been partially burned.

"A short distance from the camp, under a bunch of ironwoods, where the dead ones had evidently made their bed, lay a piece of heavy canvas. The driver lifted one corner of it and there lay a childa little girl-sound asleep, evidently worn out from crying and hunger. Just why she had been spared we have never been able to discover. She was possibly a little over three years old and could tell us nothing of what had happened or who the people were whose dead bodies lay in the lonely roadside camp.

"After a hurried examination the stage driver brought the little one here, where we did everything we could to comfort her. Child-like she soon forgot the terrible experience she had been through. Possibly she was asleep through it all and never knew just what had happened. Of course, as soon as the stage left we went back to the deserted camp to bury the dead and, if possible, discover something as to their identity; but though we searched for hours in and around the deserted camp not a single shred of evi dence could we find as to who they were. Continued on Page 21)