Paul Carney: Portrait of a Young Man on a Horse

Paul Carney Portrait of a Young Man On a Horse Paul Carney, The Young Man on a Horse

The 1939 grand champion cowboy, who spends his winters in Arizona, is a Colorado boy who started in the rodeo business breaking in young colts on his father's farm. He has followed the rodeo circuit since 1932, traveled all of the U. S. A. and made one trip to England.

Paul Carney is a tall, wiry young man, slow and easy in his speech, with a big friendly smile and a way about him that suggests newly-cut alfalfa and the Spring wind rustling the ironwood blossoms. He's handsome and wholesome and as typically western as the Continental Divide. If you saw him perched on a corral fence you would say he was just a good cowhand who had never been off the range.

But would you be mistaken!

For Paul Carney is about the best rider in the world and he's ridden these past few years before hundreds of thousands of people in hundreds of rodeo audiences all the way from Tucson to Merrie Old England.

He's a traveling young man is this horse riding chap and except for short winters of rest and relaxation (the past two at the San Marcos at Chandler where he manages the string of horses) he travels the big time rodeo circuit and sees every year all of America.

As a result of all this traveling and riding this young man on a horse earned the most coveted title in the rodeo business last year1939 Grand Champion Cowboy. He earned it and the money that went with it by hard riding and hard work, because when you earn anything in the most exciting and exacting sport of all, you have to earn it the hard way. He made his points the hard way, too-bronc riding, Brahma riding, bareback riding, and riding steers. You have to be a top-notcher to clean up on the rodeo circuit and Paul Carney is the best.

He was born in Galeton, a small town in western Colorado, Sep-tember 21, 1912. His father, N. V. Carney, operated a general store in Galeton until 1928, when the family moved to their farm near Galeton. Here the boy, who was twice to be crowned grand champion of the Madison Square Garden rodeo show and twice to be the recipient of the tremendous ovations New York gives her champions, came into uninspiring contact with such prosaic things as hay, grain, pinto beans and sugar beets.

Paul found the life of a farmer rather dull: so when he wasn't going to school (he was graduated from high school at eighteen) he held up his part of the chores by lending willing hands to the cattle grazing part of the farm and in breaking in young colts. Paul's father raised horses and cattle as well as hay, grain, pinto beans and sugar beets.

Thus it was in 1928 that the 1939 Grand Champion Cowboy developed not only ability but a liking for riding bucking broncs and the more they bucked the better he liked them.

The name of Paul Carney was announced for the first time before a rodeo audience at the Livermore, Colorado, show in 1929. He was seventeen and he won third place in bronc riding. That same year he rode in a show at Sterling, Colorado, again taking third in bronc riding and first place in two wild horse rides. There wasn't any doubt about it the kid could ride and some of the oldtimers around Galeton said then that he had the makings of a champion.

As for Paul, well, his future was settled. At seventeen, he was all set to hit the circuit, but the Carneys insisted he was too young; so for the next three years he had to content himself with small rodeos around Galeton.

Paul Carney started to ride in the bigger shows in 1932-and he's been riding ever since.

That year he took second place in amateur bronc riding at Cheyenne, Wyoming, and later in the season rode at the Ski-Hi Stampede at Monte Vista, Colorado. The next year he hit the rodeo circuit in dead earnest, starting out with the Denver Stock Show in January. As he tells his story, he doesn't hesitate to tell you of the times he hit the dirt. You are bucked off as often as you place in the money, champion or no champion. At the Denver show he was bucked off every horse he rode and in each ride had his shirt torn off. As one can readily see, that is not only hard on the shirts but hard on the rider. Greeley, Coloradol Cheyenne, Wyoming! Monte Vista, Coloradol Wheatland, Wyoming! Nampa, Idahol Weiser, Idaho! The Pendleton Roundup! Paul rode in them all, but the winnings were slim. He found riding broncs on his father's farm and riding horses in rodeo shows differed in one thing: the broncs in the rodeos were tougher and the competition keener.

In 1934, after the Denver show, Paul Carney went to England. There he won first day money riding "Re-

We present the 1939 Grand Champion Cowboy, who started out in life breaking colts on his father's farm in Colorado, and to whom fame and fortune has come by following the rocky trail that takes in the rodeo circuit.

In 1934, after the Denver show, Paul Carney went to England. There he won first day money riding "Re-servation," and placed two other days. He placed in the bareback events, but was bucked off every native steer he tried to ride. And they say only the tough steers come out of the west! Paul still has a lot of respect for those steers that came out of the Devonshires, or wherever the steers come out of in England. Back again to America for the same old exciting grind! Pueblo! Billings, Montana, (where he tackled the Brahma bull for the first time!) Seattlel Portland! And then he came to the Omaha, Nebraska, show, where he won final honors in Brahma bull riding, and other places in bronc and bareback riding cleaning up $450.00, his biggest and most profitable meet up to that time. Well, he wasn't making much money but he was having a lot of fun.

He was beginning to win regularly enough to keep himself clothed and fed, and entry fees paid. But some times he didn't make out so well, as for instance, in the Fort Worth show in 1935 where he was bucked off everything he rode and didn't make a cent. Over and above that he sprained both wrists and had a fistful of fingers knocked out of joint.

Each year he extended his travels, and the prize money came in greater quantities. In June of 1936 he went to work for Billy Rose at the Texas Centennial at Fort Worth. He rode broncs and bulldogged in exhibitions and also played the role of the desperado who "held up" the stage coach in best Billy Rose manner.

That year he rode in the Madison Square Garden show in New York. He won final average in bull riding and day money in bronc and bareback riding. His earnings in that show were $1,000, the biggest prize up to that time. Yes, sir! That Galeton, Colorado, boy was doing all right for himself. He won $560 at the Boston show; so his first trip east was profitable.

He made his first appearance in an Arizona show in 1937 when he showed up for the World's Cham pionship Rodeo in Phoenix. He didn't place. At the Fiesta de los Vaqueros at Tucson he won finals in bareback riding, and placed in bronc and bull riding. He was constantly traveling and riding, taking in as many shows as time would permit.

In October he rode at Madison Square Garden again and howdy, stranger! how he did go to town. He won finals in bronc riding, finals in bullriding and second place in the finals of bareback riding. He was proclaimed Grand Champion of the Madison Square Garden and was given a beautiful saddle for that honor as well as completely winning the hard hearts of New Yorkers who considered him the best buckaroo who ever came to town. He was leading all cowboys in 1938 for points for Grand Champion Cowboy Honors when he showed up at the rodeo at Colorado Springs in early autumn. He tore a leg muscle loose riding a bull and had to withdraw from competition. He was hurt again at Madison Square Garden and was through for the year.

The Saddles Represent Victories

A champion rider makes money in the rodeo game, but you have to be in the winning class consistently to make it pay. Carney has been in the money for about three years. These saddles represent championship awards at the big shows. Two were from Madison Square Garden, the top money show of all.

After a winter's rest at Chandler he was back in the saddle bright and early last year and the Galeton, Colorado, boy reached the goal he started out for Grand Champion Cowboy, the award made by the Rodeo Association of America. He had great success at Madison Square Garden, winning Grand Championship Honors for the second time. The bigger the show the better he rode.

The toughest horse he ever rode was "Hell's Angels," which he conquered in New York both in 1937 and 1939. They are almost good friends now. He's made some fine rides and taken some dirty spills. But rodeo is like the theatre, you go on with the ride no matter what happens.

When he started out as a kid rider in 1932 he met Cecil Kennedy and Paul Crain at Ski-Hi Stampede. The three became inseparable, the closest of friends, riding the circuit together, followed a hard profession in the same uproarious way. The trio broke up at Rocky Ford, Colorado, in 1938, when Cecil Kennedy was thrown and trampled to death by a bronc.

The winter following Cecil Kennedy's death Paul Carney went to Chandler to help Mrs. Kennedy with the horses she maintained at the San Marcos stables. They were married in the spring of 1939 and now Mrs. Carney and small son, Gary Kennedy, travel the rodeo circuit with Paul Carney.

Paul Carney travels along also. Friendships are like that in the rodeo business. . . . R. C.

Monument Valley

her thumb into the sky like a giant hitch hiker. By the time we looked at massive Flat Top and Crown Buttes standing side by side, we realized that the sky-line of a great city would be Liliputian in comparison to that of Monument Valley. Far down in the haze toward the Chinle Wash, we could identify the outline of Mer idian Butte towering his lesser brothers. You can call them what you like, for many are nameless, but each has its own peculiar claim to grandeur. Somewhere down in this wonderland of massive rock bastions, mono liths, fantastic spires, and window rocks, there stand a string of almost lifelike fig ures linked together by an eroded ridge. They are fittingly named after the Navajo Gods, the Yeibitchi. Geologists say that these rock strata were laid down when the country was cov ered by seas and lakes ages ago. The waters drained from the land level. Volcanic ac tivity became violent in the southern end of the valley and El Capitan and other vol canic rocks rose from the bowels of the Earth through large vents. Erosion began. The cutting became dominant and reduced parts of the valley leaving the mesas and pinnacles isolated. Wind and water took over the job and seriously began the work of sculpturing the Monuments into their present shapes.

colors of sunset as they played over the Monuments. Sam Jim tossed a pebble at me and said, "Hasthin Ts'o, we should be at the camp of my relatives at Oljato by Moon light Creek before the sun drops into the Western Sea." We had to double back by Goulding's and the Arizona line until we reached a dilapi dated sign which leaned crazily by the side of the road and read OLJATO. We turned and followed the deep ruts of the road that meandered and skirted the base of the cliffs of a large mesa. Every once in a while, we could see a wind-cave scooped out in the walls, and nestled in the half-light, we could see the dim outlines of the little square houses of the Anasazih folk of long ago. One looked more interesting than the others. After a short walk through the riffing sand, we reached the base. Some thirty feet of almost vertical slick sandstone lay between us and the mouth of the cave. There was only one route and that was by using the finger and toe holds carved out of the rock by the ancients. In a moment we were standing on the lip of the cave under the heavy shadow of the arched ceiling. Some ten or more small mud and stone houses clung like swallows' nests to the back slope. Cists and storage bins were scattered about, and underfoot was a layer of debris filled with corn cobs and pottery. The site was typical of hun dreds in the valley, after picking up pottery shards, it was possible to tell by their texture and decorations that the period of habitation was between 1050 and 1800 A. D. While we pushed on toward Oljato, I questioned Sam Jim as to his theory regard ing what had happened to the Anasazih. "They were bad people, I guess. Our story tellers relate that they were stingy and mean to their neighbors. The Gods decided to get rid of them. Great rains came and floods covered the country. Thunder and lightning knocked down their houses and killed a lot of them. Those who escaped fled to the Hopi towns." A tiny thread of green lay ahead marking the base of the rising Segi Mesas. Sam Jim had told me that when we reached the west end of the mesa we would be in the valley of the Moonlight. Soon the green grew larg er and became a row of cottonwoods as we pulled to a stop beside a summer shelter made of boughs. Sam Jim was among clansmen and after a round of greeting and handshaking, we were inside the shelter dipping the discs of native bread into a mutton stew. Sam Jim seemed as busy as I was with his grub, but also seemed to be able to pass the news be tween mouthfuls. After I finished my coffee and had my smoke, I asked to be shown the site of the old Wetherill trading post. My guide was a little scamp, all black eyes, and ragged hair held in place by a questionable red cloth. His ragged blue jeans flapped as he led me to the old site. Little or nothing is left of the old build ings which mark the site of the first trading post in the Kayenta-Monument Valley re gion. I marveled at the courage of John Wetherill and his young wife, Louisa, when they drove their rumbling freight wagons into this known hostile Indian country in 1906. They stayed at Moonlight unharmed and traded with the Navajos and renegade Piutes until they moved to their present home at Kayenta in 1910. When we returned to camp, it was fully dark and the lights of the fire flickered through the walls of the shelter. On enter ing, I saw another visitor had arrived. He was an old man, possibly over eighty, and sat quiet and dignified taking little part in the chatter of Sam Jim and his kinsmen. Oc casionally he would speak a single word or two and then lapse into silence. Sam Jim turned to me as he said, "Hasthin Ts'o, I'm going to tell you a story of some thing that happened in the Valley-in-the Rocks. I have been talking with my people and now I am sure every point is correct." "Sixty-six winters ago two Americans rode into the Valley-in-the-Rocks from the north. One was old (Samuel Walcott) and the other was young (James McNally). They were looking for gold. "When they got near El Capitan, they met a Navajo who is still living. His name is Haskeninih Begay, and he was the son of Haskeninih, the chief. With him was his wife and a Navajo boy called White Horse's Son. After talking to the Americans for a while they made a deal to bring a mutton to the Americans' camp in the morning. "In the morning they took the mutton. With Haskeninih Begay and White Horse's Son was Slim Man. While the old American was cooking breakfast, they talked as they warmed themselves by the fire. The old American even let Haskeninih Begay look

Symphony in Tree Major

odd acres of the Arboretum, but they show you an excellent cross-section, and every plant is labelled as to the name and native habitat.

The short Yellow Arrow Tour-the fifteen minute one-will be for many people the most interesting, because it winds through the cactus garden. The cacti are a unique family of flora, and at the Arboretum some fifteen hundred varieties of these thorny desert plants, brought from all over the Southwest and Mexico, grow as naturally as if they had never been transplanted.

In the springtime this particular section of the Arboretum is a symphonic array of riotous reds, pale golds and downy whites blossoms in a gay fiesta of brilliant hues. Later, in the season, when these plants bear their fruits, the color scheme changes from one cactus to another, but the cactus garden is still splashed with vivid tones.. If you miss the flowers altogether, the grotesque beauty of structure and the delicate color ings of the prickly plants themselves make the cactus collection one of the world's most fascinating sights.

In this garden you will see growing the tall, spindly ocotillo which people in this part of the country often use to make such decor ative fences. Arizonans are used to it, but Easterners are always amazed when they first see a high and practical ocotillo fence alive and a bloom with brilliant flowers. The squat, stubby barrel cactus, with its outside protection of sharp, hooked claws, you must be sure to notice, for its pulpy insides are a water reservoir, and more than once it has saved the life of men out on the desert with empty canteens. Its insides are also used to make delicious cactus candy.

Here also can be found the wicked cholla, sometimes called the jumping cactus, for its ball-like ends covered with sharp needles will pop loose and jump to catch you if you brush by it too closely. This cactus is one reason why cowboys wear those heavy, leather bat-wing chaps when they are work ing out on the range. The strawberry cac tus, thick with long thorns and little red buttons that look like strawberries, is often referred to as "Arizona holly." The rain bow cactus with its subtle reproduction of the rainbow's colors in its pincushion-like depths, is a favorite of many cactus lovers. There, also, are the walking stick, the hedge hog cactus, many varieties of the prickly pear, the century plant, the Spanish dagger, the saguaro, and thousands of others. The most unique, of course, is the boojum, which comes from Mexico, and looks like a giant parsnip as large as a tree growing upside down.

When you return from a visit to the cac tus garden, you should stop again at the saguaro seedling which was planted by the founder of the Arboretum, Colonel Boyce Thompson, in 1929. When it was first set out is was six inches tall. Now, in 1940, it is approximately seventeen inches in height so it is growing at a snail's speed of about one inch per year. The pure white, yellow-stamened flower of this cactus the saguaro (giant cactus) is the state flower of Arizona, and justly so, for these lonely sentinels of the desert are hundreds of years old, and have seen much of the passing his torical show of the country.

Attached to one end of the administration building is a green house used for the pro pagation and breeding of cactus and other desert plants. Here you will see endless rows of small potted seedlings, and some of the succulents are growing out of the pots and creeping over the walls and roof like long, slithering snakes.

The Green Arrow Tour is listed as taking twenty minutes to complete. Its nature trails all the Arboretum paths are "nature trails" because they are like the original ones made there by the Indians-wind through Queen Creek Canyon which is plant ed with trees, shrubs, rose bushes, vines and flowers. You begin this tour by walking on fancy shadow patterns cast by the swaying eucalyptus trees bordering Queen Creek Drive. Some eighty species of the Aus tralian eucalyptus grow here also natives of Arizona, New Mexico and Texas, side by side with those which came from far-off Asia, South Africa and South America.

Blooming rose plants and small patches of bright flowers bordering the trails make sharp color contrasts with the green, gray and brown of the shrubs and tree leaves.

Clipped hedges grow in even rows, and some of these would even surprise the Arizonans, for they are nothing more than the fairy duster, or some other native variety of shrub which grows in such ragged abundance out on the desert of Arizona. But here at the Arboretum they are clipped and cared for, and prove that the scrubbiest bush found anywhere in this country can be put to a useful purpose.

On this tour can be seen the date palm, the black mesquite from Argentina, the palo verde of Arizona, strange olive trees from Spain and majestic cedars-one variety of cedar brought from Lebanon. As you approach the citrus grove, yellow and orange colors stand out conspiciously against a soft background of dark mountain shadows play ing on the pale green of the tree leaves. Here grow tangerines, oranges, grapefruit, lemons, limes and kumquats, and a peculiar variety of citrus which is a cross between the latter two. The fruit here is never harvested, for the Arboretum wants people to see the fruit on the trees. For this rea son, the ground around this grove sometimes is a thick carpet of rolling oranges and lem ons, and birds are forever chirping about anxious to peck at the ripe, delicious fruit.

On this tour you will see a bush with odd flowers blooming on it and giving off a sweet, pleasant fragrance. Its flowers are used in making perfumes, and the Arbore tum staff is attempting to find out if this special bush can be grown successfully in the semi-arid Southwest, for its original habitat is the southern part of France. Here you also see a hedge beautifully laden with black luscious berries. This is not the common blackberry found growing wild in the east and which is made into such deli cious preserves and jellies, but is an ornamental hedge brought to Arizona from China. The luscious looking berries are actually very bitter and inedible. Other shrubs from Asia and Australia look like green, cascading foundations bubbling with red and blue berries.

A soft bed of pine needles and the pungent smell of pine will herald your entrance into a miniature forest of pine trees. There is one in particular that will attract your attention, for it was brought in from Jerusalem. The Canyons on this tour are full of fine shade trees, and there is no better place anywhere for a picnic. Bring your lunch along, if you enjoy eating in a perfect woodland setting.

It is in Queen Creek Canyon that you look up through the jagged crags and see Picket Post House. A huge mansion built like an ancient castle looking out over the vast acreage of the Arboretum. The brown stucco walls blend with the volcanic rock around it, so that only its red tiled roof stands out from its environment. The great house is surrounded by green shrubs, tall swaying trees, and cacti. Visitors can climb up to it on the Red Arrow Route, which is a combination of the Green and Yellow tours and following the walks blasted out of the mountain side, look down through Queen Creek Canyon across many miles of the country stretched out below.Picket Post House is now empty, but its original design and sturdy construction are characteristic of Colonel Boyce Thompson, the man who built and founded the Arboretum.

Colonel Thompson was born in Virginia City, Montana, in 1870 to parents of moderate means. Most of his boyhood was spent around Virginia City and Butte during the great copper mining booms. Mining naturally fascinated young Thompson, and hebegan to buy small mining claims in and around Butte and later went to New York to secure money to finance and develop them. Although he knew little about finance the young pleasant Westerner quickly made friends with the men of Wall Street.

This is a view of the lake on Queen Creek, where water is stored for irrigation purposes at the Arboretum. Over ten thousand people visited the Arboretum last year.

His early years as a financier and mining promoter were hard and disappointing, but he refused to be licked at this game. He finally struck it rich when he developed certain silver mining properties in Canada. From then on, he was looked up to as a mining authority, for this first success was quickly followed by others. For many years he was connected with the banking house of J. P. Morgan as a mining specialist.

His interest in copper mining brought Colonel Thompson to Arizona early in this century. He came to the district which now includes the mining town of Globe, Miami, and Superior, and played an important part in the early development of the Inspiration Consolidated Copper Company Mine at Miami. Later he bought and developed the Magma Mine at Superior, said to be the richest and deepest gold, silver and copper mine in the State.

Colonel Thompson's permanent residence was in Yonkers, New York, where earlier he had founded the important Boyce Thomp-son Institute for Plant Research. He began building Picket Post House as a winter res-idence in 1923, because sudden illness forced his retirement from active business. He chose the site near Picket Post Mountain, because he remembered it as the most beau-tiful he had ever seen. When he first came to Arizona, there were few improved roads, and in order to visit the Magma he was forc-ed to walk or ride horseback over the old trails through Queen Creek Canyon. He never forgot that country and it pleased him to spend much of the last part of his life there.

Picket Post House was not yet completed when Colonel Thompson began thinking about a plant institution for the Southwest, similar to the one he founded in Yonkers. He consulted with the country's outstanding botanists and leading scientific institutions in the Southwest and decided then that an arboretum would be most useful in helping

To solve the plant problems of this dry cli-mate country. It seems strange that a mining man should be particularly interested in agriculture. But as a mining man, Colonel Thompson was aware that Arizona and a greater part of the Southwest depends economically on the products of mining and agriculture. And mineralogists did not need to tell him that the minerals found in the hills were not going to last forever. Sometime, he knew, all of them would be mined out and then the people of this semi-desert country would have to depend almost entirely on agri-culture.

Today when you travel, for the first time, through the irrigated Arizona valleys, you can scarcely help being amazed by the lush greenness of everything acres of lettuce, cantaloupe, citrus, dates, nuts, alfalfa and cotton, the finest in the world. But these crops did not grow merely because the farm-er dropped the seeds into the ground. Expensive irrigation was necessary and also the help of the botanists, the horticulturists and the arborculturists who experimented and learned which plants grew best there. Colonel Thompson established the Ar-boretum not only to help make these irri-gated valleys more productive, but also to find drouth-resistant plants which can grow without irrigation. In the Arboretum, two types of plants are studied: (1) those re-quiring irrigation and cultivation, (2) those requiring neither irrigation nor cultivation.

The latter type is particularly important, for the Arboretum hopes to introduce plants with low-water requirement which will maintain and reproduce themselves outside the main irrigated valleys. Such plants will be very valuable for purposes of soil-binding forage, watershed protection, timber and firewood. Since the Arboretum considers both the utilitarian and ornamental aspects of plants, it also collects specimens from other dry parts of the world and brings them here to be tested for their usefulness as food, forage, fiber, oil, rubber, tannin, dye, medicine, perfume, timber, shade and ornamentation. This testing, of course, involves long painstaking experiments in propagation, seeding and transplanting, as well as studies of soil and the fundamentals bearing on drouth resistance. The location of the Arboretum is ideal for this work. It has different soil types and exposures for it ranges in elevation from a low of 2,300 feet to a high of 4,400 feet. The average rainfall is about seventeen inches and is almost equally divided between mid-summer and winter which gives the Arboretum two hot, dry periods one in spring and early summer and one in late summer and early fall. The mean annual temperature is about 69 degrees F., with 19 degrees F. minimum and 117 degrees F. maximum.

The Arboretum does not stop at the study of trees and other woody plants, for in 1933, in cooperation with the U. S. Forest Service, it set up a nursery for growing of plants to be used for erosion control and revegeta-tion purposes. This is an important piece of plant research, for the study of grasses means much to both the farmer and stock raiser. This nursery has already transplanted a grass a good stock feed from Australia which has grown over seven feet high without the aid of irrigation. This nursery can be seen one mile west of the Arboretum gates on Highway 60-70.

tion purposes. This is an important piece of plant research, for the study of grasses means much to both the farmer and stock raiser. This nursery has already trans-planted a grass a good stock feed from Australia which has grown over seven feet high without the aid of irrigation. This nursery can be seen one mile west of the Arboretum gates on Highway 60-70.

Colonel William Boyce Thompson did not live long after the Arboretum was founded, but it stands as a monument to his love of the Southwest and his belief in its productiveness in the future as in the present. His establishment of an endowment assures the continuation of the Arboretum's important work.

Monument Valley

(Continued from Page 36) Through his far sighted glasses. Everything seemed all right.

"White Horse's Son was curious about the old American's gun that was wrapped in a scabbard. He kept trying to get into the scabbard. Finally the old American got mad. He picked up an axe and began to chase the boy as if he was going to kill him. When the boy started to run away, he turned on Slim Man. Haskeninih Begay caught the axe. When the old man started to draw his pistol, Haskeninih hit him on the back of the head and knocked him down. When he started to come to, Slim Man hit him with axe four times near the ears. That killed him good.

"While this was happening, an old fellow named Little Whiskers came up and said, 'My boys, what are you doing here?' They showed him the old American and told him, what had happened.

"All this time the young American was hunting their horses. While the Navajo boys were talking to Little Whiskers, the young American came into sight. Little Whiskers said that they had better kill him too, for he might go and get the soldiers at Fort Wingate. Haskeninih Begay and Slim Man started to ride toward him with pistols ready. When they got near they tried to shoot him, but their pistols failed to fire. The young American pulled his pistol on them and they ran away for a short distance.

"The Navajos sat around a while trying to figure out how to kill him without getting shot themselves. Little Whiskers got mad at them and told them that he would kill him easy. He said, 'Give me your best horse and let me go after the American fellow. I used to be a great man at fighting with the enemy.

"They all started to close in on the young American from different directions. Little Whiskers crept up near him and hid behind a bush. The young American spied him and shot at him four times. Then everybody started shooting. The Navajos killed three or four of the American's horses.

"Little Whiskers tried to get close again for a good shot. He raised his head above a bush and the American shot him. He fell down and laid there for a while. Then he got up and ran a little ways before falling down again. He did this until he got behind a little hill. The Navajos went and found him. The bullet had gone in near the eye and had come out near his ear. He said, 'I think I am wounded very badly. I want you boys to kill this American. I think that I will die pretty soon.

"Haskeninih Begay got frightened and went to his father's camp to tell him what had happened. Haskeninih came back with another man to where Little Whiskers lay wounded. In the meantime, Slim Navajo had let the young American escape.

"They sat around until almost dark trying to decide what to do. Six Navajos then began to look for the start of the Young American's trail. They lit matches and followed the tracks. The trail led near a Navajo camp and they stopped there to rest for the night. In the morning they could trail faster. The following afternoon they caught up with the young American and killed him near the Fingers above Chilchinbito some 40 miles south of where the fight started. That's what usually happened to White men who came into the Valley-in-the-Rocks to hunt for gold.

The dignified old stranger's head was nodding. His joints creaked as he arose and walked out of the door. We heard the water of the creek splash as he crossed and the branches of the thickets rustle as he started up the rocky trail to a nearby camp.

"Who was that fine looking old fellow?" I asked Sam Jim.

"That was Haskeninih Begay, the man who helped kill the prospector," blandly answered Sam Jim.