Desert Neighbors

THE ARIZONA DESERT is a warm and kindly place and we are always pleased to park our trailer beside the ironwood and saguaro as we have done for several winters.

One year we had a saguaro and heavy ironwood just to the side and toward the back of our trailer and at the front was an ironwood. Our door faced a mountain to the south and we built a walk of flat stones out six or eight feet in the shape of an arrow. It was quite warm when we arrived there the middle of October and using the ribs from two fallen saguaros we made a framework over which we spread our bed tarp a heavy piece of canvas 6x15 feet. It made an excellent shade and with it up our trailer was cool and comfortable. We borrowed a garden rake and after raking and burning dead cactus, fallen branches and brush and lining our driveway with stones our campsite took an air of habitability. To our west was a beautiful mountain range and we never tired of watching the sun as it set and sent up its shafts of red and gold behind it and we were thrilled anew each morning as the first rays of the sun sought its rugged surface.

The desert was filled with birdlife and it wasn't long before the thrasher, Gila woodpecker and cactus wren found the suet we had put out.

We always knew when the woodpecker was approaching for he is a noisy, saucy fellow. Should the female already be feeding when he arrived she was told in no uncertain terms to move to another branch or at least away from the suet while her Lord and Master fed. If he were there first she moved in as close "A road runner appeared unexpectedly and stopped for a drink."

Some 15 feet of line in its wake. We later found its nest of sticks at the base of the arm of a saguaro not far from our trailer. A mockingbird came occasionally but it never fed from the suet nor from the scratch feed on the ground. Its sole purpose of visit seemed to be for water and it would stand on the edge of Freckle's pan and drink for quite a long time. We tried to keep him from bothering the birds and one afternoon when the mockingbird came to drink he lay for quite a while watching it with his head in his paws and then suddenly sprang up and barked. His manner tried to belie the fact he had barked to frighten the bird from his pan but I had been watching it all from inside the trailer and wasn't fooled. The mockingbird is a past master at singing and is quite an acrobat as well for he will often leave his perch, spring into the air several feet and back to his perch without a break "A cool day brought us the gilded flickers."

"The Gambel's quail were a constant source of joy and amusement."

As she thought advisable and then would sit and wait until he had gone on. They liked not only to eat as much from our larder as they could but tried always to take a goodly chunk of suet with them when they flew away. Freckles, our English setter, came in for his share of scolding should he be lying under the branch to which the suet was tied when the Gilas came to feed. They grew saucier as time went on and scolded us as well if we were too near their suet when they chose to come for it. A favorite pastime for them was to hammer new holes in the saguaro or to enlarge some that already were there. They use the holes for shelter during the fall and winter and for nesting and rearing their young in the spring and summer. Once in awhile they would fly to a group of old tin cans and hammer away at one for a few minutes. We had found a large block of wood and used part of it for a stand for our camera. When the camera wasn't on it they would sometimes hop up onto the block and peer down into a split in it. We thought of letting some fine pieces of suet fall into the crack to see whether they would try to get them and just how they would go about doing so. We grew a little provoked with them when upon occasion they chased others of our guests who fed upon our suet. However, there wasn't much we could do about it since we couldn't shoo them away without also frightening others. At first they moved away when the thrasher came but things turned about as time went on and they chased the thrashers. The thrasher seemed to feed on the ground a great deal and really preferred the scratch feed we scattered for the quail so perhaps he didn't feel the suet was worth the argument.

NOVEMBER, 1941 They have a powerful bill and it was surprising how swiftly and with what force they could flick stones and sticks away to see what might be hidden there. It was the last bird we heard at dusk and the first in the morning uttering a shrill call that might almost be called a whistle. They have a beautiful song and would sing to us from the top of a saguaro or from the branch of a tree. It was nest building time before we left and any string within reach went into the building. We would set our camera in position outside for pictures of birds as they came for suet or to drink, and then ran a fishline from it through a screen at one of the windows so that we could trip the shutter from inside the trailer and not frighten them in doing so. One day Mr. Bohl happened to look out and there was Mrs. Thrasher very intently gathering up a loose end of line the other end of which was tied to the line which tripped the camera. There was some hasty scrambling to hie her on her way before the damage could be done. Another day the camera wasn't set up but the line was still strung through the window and the loose end wound loosely around a stick that was nailed to the block. Inside the window we had the other end attached to a small piece of stick in order to keep it from sliding through the screen and, too, it gave us something to readily take hold of when we wanted to take a picture. Several times the stick banged against the screen and when we looked out a thrasher was busily gathering up the line in its beak and when it had quite a mouthful would attempt to fly the line jerking PAGE THIRTY-SEVEN.

it so hard we thought it would break its neck. We had plenty of line so we cut it loose from the stick and away flew the thrasher, dragging in his song. They love to sing in the moonlight and occasionally we heard them on the desert but we saw them more often in the fruit groves and near homes.

A cool, cloudy day and especially after a rainwill bring out new bird customers and such a day brought us a pair of gilded flickers. They were not noisy like the Gila woodpecker and more retiring. When Mr. Gila came scolding and flying toward the suet they would leave. Sometimes Mr. and Mrs. Flicker fed together and should one already be feeding when the other approached they uttered a low, throaty sound. They were larger than the Gila and really quite pretty. We quite often saw them hopping about on the ground and turning sticks and stones as did the thrasher. However, they never fed from our scratch feed.

That same day a Texas woodpecker came with his beautiful red patch along the top of his head, the black and white markings at the side of the face and the clear and distinct black and white bars across its back. It flew to an ironwood at the side of our driveway and after quite a thorough search of the bark went on its way. We called that little ironwood our apple tree for it branched much like one and was rather scrubby like an apple tree in an old, abandoned orchard.

The cactus wren visited our suet daily and fed from our scratch feed as well. An offering which he and the thrasher both enjoyed so much was small pieces of pie dough. I would scatter it on a Mexican flameball cactus and they would pick it out very carefully to the last crumb. He wasn't easily disturbed by our being about and often picked up morsels of food on rocks in front of our steps while we sat just inside the screen door and watched. They are thrifty, apparently, and should a piece of suet fall while they were feeding from it they would follow the piece to where it had lodged in the branch or pick it up from the ground. They fed daintily and without hurry and often stopped to wipe their bills from side to side. Freckle's presence disturbed them not a whit and one day he was standing directly below the wren and suet looking up at it and hoping to goodness that a piece might fall so he could have it for he, too, likes suet. The branch was about 18 to 24 inches above him and there he stood, mouth partly opened and his tail slowly wagging-intent upon the wren and suet.

When nest building time came the wrens gathered grass, the hair from Freckle's brushings and any piece of string they could find as well as feathers. They didn't seem interested in our fishline, which was back, but picked up all the white cord they could find and we helped them along by pulling to pieces an old holder that was too old and worn to serve very well in handling hot pans. They weren't content with one nest but built three -two between the arms of a saguaro and the other in a palo verde about 10 feet from the side of our trailer. As Mr. Bohl was setting up the camera at the tree hoping to get a picture of it as it worked on its nest, it flew in with a beakful of grass and unconcernedly placed it in the nest and then poised on the branch and looked at him for a moment before flying away. He was so near he could have touched the wren with his hand.

For a long while we had watched the wrens building in the saguaros but hadn't tried for a picture until they had almost finished building and we were about ready to leave the desert. The camera was set up and focused on the nest and I sat back about a hundred feet with the line in my hand ready to trip the shutter. I had waited a long time when suddenly the two of them flew in with nesting material. The first one veered a little at sight of the camera but the other flew directly to the nest and clung at the opening a moment before entering and in that moment the other moved down the arm and within camera range. I tripped the shutter but it was late afternoon, a cloud had moved over the sun and I lost what would have been an interesting picture.

We had found the top of an old oil drum on the desert and after turning up the edge with a pair of pliers it made a fine water pan for our birds. The camera was focused on it one afternoon when a road runner or chaparral bird appeared unexpectedly and stopped at the pan for a drink. The quail had been drinking but they moved back from the pan upon its approach. However, their attitude wasn't one of alarm and they stood about waiting until it had finished drinking. In leaving it passed near a greasewood and very quickly dove into the midst of it. For a second I thought something had frightened it but in a split second it was out with a lizard held in its bill. Without dropping the lizard it turned it from a crosswise position to swallow it head first and then disappeared into the desert again. We got the picture of it while it was drinking and were pleased to have it turn out so well.

At dusk when the stars had begun to twinkle the hoot of the owl told us that another desert neighbor was about and one evening a grey, silent form swept past our trailer and lighted for a few minutes on a saguaro near us. Although it was a large owl it moved without a sound so silently it seemed it were an apparition instead of a thing with life. Owls seem to hold a fascination and we love to hear them call whether we are in the north woods of Wisconsin or Minnesota, the duck country of Arkansas and Illinois or the desert of Arizona. We sometimes walked to the mail box just at dusk and often we saw a small owl sitting on a mailbox along the way or on the post to which the box was attached. It would turn its chubby head as we passed but didn't fly unless we stopped-thinking, apparently, that it hadn't been discovered. On the one or two occasions it did fly it stayed very low, just skimming the tops of the low bushes near the ground.

The Gambel's quail were a constant source of joy and amusement always to us on the desert and last winter we fed as many as 74 at breakfast time. We didn't really know what they might prefer in grain but the small scratch feed seemed to fill their needs nicely. The first morning we put it out we waited with all the concern in the world to see whether they would accept our offering and there was quite a thrill when a few of them stopped and picked it up. Some, on the other hand, seemed so intent on going down the wash they didn't come to where the few fed. We remedied that by scattering feed in the wash and then back toward the trailer and before long we had the covey feeding beside the trailer and drinking from our pan. Any noise within the trailer didn't seem to frighten them and as they grew more and more used to seeing us about they would run off at a short distance and peer at us from beneath a bush. Seldom did they fly and we learned that if we moved about slowly when outside they were less apt to be startled. At first they had rather regular feeding hours early in the morning and again about 4 in the afternoon but as time went on there were usually a few around at all times.

The covey always came in from the west in the early morning and returned from the east in the late afternoon. Some mornings we were up and having breakfast before they came and we kept looking to the west to sight the first one as it approached. In the chill morning air they looked like little puff balls as they huddled into their feathers. We always scattered their feed the evening before so that they would be sure to have it when they came for occasionally they were there before we were awake. Since they fed beside our trailer, their talk came to us through the open windows and awakened us. What a pleasant alarm clock they were!

As the days grew warmer and they became more accustomed to seeing us they didn't hurry away after breakfast but would dust themselves under bushes here and there, returning to have another drink of water or to look for more feed.

When quail are feeding they are not unlike chickens talking, scratching three times with either foot and taking a good peck at one another now and then which was sometimes a hard enough peck to pull three or four feathers. That suited the cactus wren all right for he gathered the feathers for his two and three nests.

On several occasions hawks appeared while they were feeding and one day a hawk lighted in a group but before it had a chance to grab one they had scuttled under greasewood, cactus or any other cover. Whenever we saw them run for cover we looked to see if a hawk were about and gave chase if one were. One evening Mr. Hawk was quite determined he was going to have quail for supper and kept flying from one saguaro to another in the vicinity of our trailer as we gave chase. When hawks approached the quail didn't fly but depended on cover rather than on speed of wing to protect them. The hawk, undoubtedly, is superior to them on the wing and they must sense it.

Among the quail which fed at our trailer were three cripples-one a hen that had either been shot or injured in some other manner and which had caused her to be blind in one eye, a cock whose one foot was half off at the ankle and another with a broken wing.

When first we noticed the little blind hen she moved about very slowly and was humped up as a sick chicken might be. It was difficult for her to pick up the grain as her beak remained partly open all the time. However, after two or three weeks she grew sleek and pretty as the rest, the swelling went down at the side of her face and she seemed able to close her beak. She was probably half starved when she started feeding at our place and, too, in her injured condition what feed there was on the desert was probably pretty well taken by others in the covey before she could get to it. She didn't join in the general squabble which the rest engaged in but remained near the trailer with her mate hovering near. He seemed to sense his responsibility and kept constant vigil to protect her from being molested by others of the covey. She fed at our trailer every day for several months then one day she was feeding near a cholla with several others when they became frightened and she flew into the cactus and one of the large spines struck into the blind side of her face and remained embedded. The last we saw of her she was running slowly down the path -a humped up little creature, with her mate following her. How we wished we could have caught her and removed the cactus. She never returned.

The cock with the broken ankle was with us from the first and was among the covey when we left in the spring. It took several weeks for him to lose the injured foot and then the stump healed over very well and he ran about with the best of them. Before we left he had chosen his mate and held his

ground against any intruder with as much ability and fight as any with two good feet to stand on.

The one with the injured wing was with us only two or three weeks. Very likely he couldn't fly into tree to roost at night and a coyote or fox found him on the ground.

Observing the fate of the three cripples, 1 thought of it as a lesson in which might be most important to the life of a quail an eye, a foot or a wing. Though they don't seem to use their wings in keeping from the hawks they do need them for protection in other ways.

When mating time approached the cocks engaged in some pretty good battles, pecking and flying at each other as roosters do when fighting. Their chief concern seemed to be to keep each other away from the little lady of their choice. They started pairing during March-although some remained in pairs all the time often a cock would get into the branches of a tree or bush and call quaw-quaw -repeating it over and over some times for an hour. At times several took a perch here and there and called.

Another call the quail made as they wandered about over the desert was coo-coo-ca-coooo which they repeated several times and more. We used to say it sounded as though they were saying, "Oh where are you? Oh, where are you?" Both the cock and hen made this call.

Occasionally two cocks would approach each other and carry on a regular verbal battle while their heads bobbed up and down. It seldom ended in fisticuffs so perhaps what they were saying wasn't as bad as it sounded. One of the cocks who had an unusually large and pretty plume of feathers we called Beau Brummel for he did seem to like to strut and was quite a dressed up dandy.

In walking about and in feeding the plume falls forward although they can hold it back if they choose but in flying the plume always is held back. They can spring into very rapid flight in a second but soon set their wings and settle down into another wash.

During the first part of April we were gone from our campsite for about 10 days and wondered as we drove into our desert upon our return whether the quail and our other bird friends would be there to greet us. We turned our car and trailer around, backed into the old spot and were working about blocking up the trailer to unhitch it from the car when we heard the familiar talk of the quail and saw several peering at us from under a greasewood. We had brought feed with us and scattered a goodly amount and filled the pan with water. In our icebox was a piece of suet and it seemed we hadn't much more than tied it in the old place on the branch of the ironwood before Mr. Gila was there; scolding and saucy as usual.

We later learned that during our absence a try had been made for some pictures of our quail but not one had appeared. The car was parked at the spot where ours had been and feed was put out but that was no inducement. Since they were there as soon as we returned they did know the difference, then, between our trailer and car and any other.

Tuzigoot National Monument

friendly folk with established rancherias surrounded by fields in which they raised their food supplies and cotton. Could these farm-ing people have been the remnants of the pueblo population, or were these "rancherias" only the settlements of the Yavapais? Perhaps further research will establish the facts some day. Espejo learned that the people of the Verde Valley did indeed have "mines." They found quantities of bright green and blue copper carbonates on the present site of the Jerome copper properties, and they had worked the salt mines at the lower end of the valley for hundreds of years. But gold and silver and cinnabar were quite unknown. The Indians had named their river "Green" in their language because of the copper malachite nearby. But Espejo named it El Rio de los Reyes, the River of the Kings, and described the valley as "a fair land through which a copious river flowed." Later, the Spaniards re-named it the Verde, "Green," from the original Indian name.

During the interval between the departure of Espejo and the advent of Federal soldiers to old Fort Verde, history once more darkened, and we know nothing of life near the ruins of Tuzigoot. In the latter half of the 19th Century, cattlemen and farmers began drifting into the valley, and the 80's brought an influx of prospectors and miners to open up the copper veins in the hills to the west. For many years, the ruins of Tuzigoot remained unnoticed on the least productive portion of a small ranch which later was bought up by the United Verde Copper Co. From then on the ruins, now recognized by the inevitable picnickers and pot hunters, was protected by the Company as well as possible. These precautions were justified when late in 1933 Dean Byron S. Cummings of the Department of Archeology at the University of Arizona, with the cooperation of the Yavapai County Chamber of Commerce and permission of United Verde, later succeeded by Phelps Dodge Corporation, started excavation of the pueblo. Field work was supervised by Edward H. Spicer and Louis R. Caywood, then graduate students in the Depart ment at the University.

First, tons upon tons of loose wall rubble and the debris of ancient roofs and top stories were removed, then, as the rooms were cleared, the long forgotten storage ollas began to appear as clusters of sherd fragments beneath the ancient floors. In some of the rooms where evidence of fire was present, charred corn cobs and kernels and even charred beans were discovered scattered among the sherds-perhaps suggestions of a holocaust in at least a portion of the pueblo at the end of the occupation. Here and there below the hard-packed floors were discovered the infant burials, to the num ber of 170.

By 1935, the ruins lay exposed, with six of the rooms reconstructed to serve as examples of the original ancient aspect of the dwellings. Work by WPA now began near by on a museum for housing the large collection.Finally, through the interest of public-spirited local citizens, the entire hill of Tuzigoot (the name chosen by a delegation of Apaches who translated it "Crooked Water" after crescentshaped Peck's lake, below the pueblo) with museum and complete collection was donated to the Federal Government. On July 25, 1939. Tuzigoot was created a national monument by Presidential proclamation.

Tuzigoot is easily accessible from U. S. Highway Alternate 89, two miles distant. Of the many related features of interest awaiting the traveler going north to Flagstaff are Montezuma Castle National Monument, one of the best preserved cliff dwellings in the United States. Montezuma Castle is 27 miles from Tuzigoot and can be reached by a road branching from U. S. Alternate 89. Like Tuzigoot, the "Castle" was a community dwelling of the pueblo people, and therefore offers many interesting comparisons. Continuing north through famous Oak Creek Canyon and its vividly colored rock formations, many more attractions lie alhead near Flagstaff, including Walnut Canyon, Wupatki and Sunset Crater National Monuments, and the Museum of Northern Arizona.

Traveling south, the visitor has an opportunity to inspect the amazing town of Jerome. perched high on a mountainside 2000 feet above the valley. From the top of the pass beyond Jerome, it is now possible to drive deep into the Mt. Mingus Recreational Area, along a series of lookout points affording an even more spectacular view, at an elevation of 7,400 feet. From the top of Mt. Mingus, we have a last look at the rich Verde Valley, and far below, in the arms of the Crooked Water, the ruins of Tuzigoot.

Romance of Brands

(Continued from Page 25) Brand for their home town. The bar was burned under the CO, as if to underline it for emphasis. The SX was used by men from Essex, England. The 45 brand was designed by a man who fought his way into the west with two 45 calibre pistols. The 4D was used by Mr. Ford, and the Cross B by Mr. Crosby. The KT Bar was burned on Mrs. Katie Barr's cattle. 2FAT was the brand of a man who weighed 240-odd pounds, although the BONY brand referred not to somebody's physique but to the rancher actually named Napoleon Bonaparte.

Most brands grow out of initials mixed with simple geometric designs-straight lines, angles, squares, ovals, circles. But these geometric names are lost in rangeland. A straight line becomes a bar or rail. A circle may be an Oh, and an oval a goose-egg. A square becomes a box, an angle a rafter. It is the picturesque language of the cowboys which fascinated students as much as their actual work. But a great many of the storied brands are really pictures.

Nature supplies "inspiration" to most men when they design a brand. The west has known countless sunset, trees, and lightning brands, for instance. Next in importance come the tools around the rancher. His stirrups, his knives, guns, ladders, scissors, kettles, wheels, almost everything he sees can be made into some kind of brand design by the cowboy's ingenuity. Many a loyal Mason has used the Square and Compass for his brand. So have college fraternities been used. So have flags and pennants and pins.

There are three requisites when you go to design a brand. First, it must not be exactly like any other brand in your state (or county, if brands are registered by counties as in Texas). If it does duplicate another registered brand, it will not be permitted by the state government, because obviously your cows and the other fellow's would be mixed at stock yards or at roundup time. Second, the brand should be as simple as possible and therefore easy to burn on and to read. Third-and this sounds almost contradictory-it should be complicated enough to thwart any thief who might try to change it. Cattle rustling by changing brands is not very common today, but in the early days of ranching many a herd was launched on changed brands. If some clever "rewrite man" could stamp right over your brand with one of his own, nobody would ever know it unless the animal was killed and the inside of the hide inspected. A tell-tale difference would show there and this has often been used as evidence at court trials. But the temptation to change brands still exists, and it is poor policy to have an easy one.

Historians have written that branding originated in Texas about 1830, also that it originated in Mexico in 1780, and in Kansas in 1865. Actually, cattle were being branded as early as 2,000 B. C., and in almost exactly the same way as they are branded now. Proof of this has been found in pictures of brands and branding technique in ancient Egyptian tombs. And in all these 4,000 years nobody has found a better way of marking cattle. True, ears are cut or tagged, and chemical branding is used to a limited extent. But the hot iron is still the standby at roundup time. Its use promises to continue for a few centuries more at least.

It was said above that westerners brand things other than their cows. This is more true than the eastern city resident ever suspects until he comes west. Cattle brands, being the interesting and often beautiful designs that they are, have been adapted to almost every conceivable decorative use.

The prettiest girl at the most exclusive western resort last summer was a shapely somebody in lastex with cattle brands stamped on it. Her beach shoes and robe, in addition to her bathing suit, were branded.

Exclusive stores in Phoenix, Tucson and elsewhere out west will sell you beautiful dresses and dress goods of branded linen, cotton or silk. Men's and women's belts of branded leather are always popular. Men's ties with brands on them are favored everywhere in the west. Bedspreads and window drapes in branded fabrics have come on the market in recent years. So has branded jewelry, including tie clasps and charm pins of miniature branding irons.

If you visit a ranch home, you are likely to have pie for dinner and supper with the ranch brand forked into the crust. A pine beam over the fireplace may have brands from a number of friends, put there for sentiment's sake. The front gate, the front door, the very floor on which you walk, may carry the ranch brand.

John Hale, co-author here, today owns the world's largest collection of branding irons, and his efforts at getting them have turned up some stories of surprising interest. For instance, John was hunting in the Arizona wilderness, when he came to an old fashioned shack that had once been a country school. The roof was gone, the windows out, the few old desks crumbled in dust on the floor. John turned over one desk top. On it he found not the initials of bad boys from yesteryear, but the carvings of more than a dozen ranch brands.

On that old desk top, for instance was the Flying H of Pecos McFadden, the Lazy 4 of the Kleinmans, the Open A Cross, the Quarter Circle U, the Y Slash Z, the Broken Arrow, and the Double Circle, all distinguished brands in Arizona's history, most of them still owned by Arizona women and men. One brand carved there was the T Turkey Track, and under it was the word "Doc."

When John Hale returned to his home he hunted up a middle-aged man named Doc Kline, and showed him the old desk top brought from the abandoned school. Doc Kline's eyes turned misty.

"I remember that!" he said, excitedly. "Yes sir! That very desk! Lordy, what good times that brought back. I remember us school kids used to have a pack rat's nest nearby, and we'd catch the rats and brand 'em with little wires, and play like they was our cattle. Lordy, what memories this desk brings!"

In the Hale collection, too, is the door from a man's toilet from a saloon in Globe. That door has nearly a hundred brands carved on it.

The very word, "brand," has come to hold importance in the American language. It has been adapted to business use far away from mesa or mountain or corral. But it is used most expressively on the ranches them-selves. If you are branded right in Arizona, you, "belong." Consider, for instance, the meaningful little poem written by Mrs. Se-bastian Brooks of the Double Diamond Ranch: "I want my man To have a brand So all the world Will know it's sand In his git-up.

"Not high-falutin' Talk nor shootin' Off at the mouth Gits anywhere In this old world.

It's his kind ways And busy days That makes me glad To give my thanks That I'm his girl.

"I'm glad my man Has such a brand So all the world Can know it's sand In his git-up."

PAGE FORTY-ONE

The Apache (Continued from Page Thirty-five)

Supernaturals and a ceremonial prayer on behalf of persons who are ill or infirm; a healing prayer to the gods which govern the destinies of men.

It is traditional that the dancers should be unknown to the person for whom the ceremony is being performed. When a person who is ill is being attended by a medicine man and a dance is regarded as advisable, he arranges with a group of dancers to come and dance on his or her behalf. Unknown to anyone except the medicine man the dancers come. However, the leader must arrive in daylight to prepare the ground and see that everything is in order. At night-fall the drums begin and the medicine man starts the song. Apparently out of nowhere the dancers and singers appear. There are usually four who beat the drums, and five dancers and the leader or "clown" weaving in and out among them, provides a contrast, a sort of comedy relief, accentuating the stateliness and sincerity of the performers. The costumes consist of black masks, towering painted headdress, short kilts of buckskin or plaid wool and high fringed moccasins. They carry fantastic swords and eagle plumes. There are a hundred songs, each with many verses, enough to continue all night, if such is thought necessary. There is a few minutes intermission, as each song is ended, because this dance requires a lot of energy and the tight buckskin masks de not allow for any too much fresh air.

At times the singing rises to stirring climaxes which are reflected in the emotional responses of the Indian group who joins with the dancers in a prayerful interest throughout the entire ceremonial.

In former times the celebration for girls' "coming out party" took place at once when the girl arrived at functional maturity. Today it is postponed until the school term is ended. Immediately afterwards the round of coming out parties begins.

When the appointed time arrives a huge pile of wood is heaped to one side of the ceremonial grounds. Before dark the guests begin tó arrive. The men join the group that forms to the west of the circle, the singers and drummers and the medicine man who will conduct the ceremony. As a rule a ceremonial wickiup has been built about which the group gathers. The ritual varies somewhat in different parts of the reservation.

At dark the ceremony opens with the singing of the twelve songs which celebrates the maiden's coming of age. The fire is lighted, the drums begin to beat their steady four-four rhythm, and the singers open the first chant, their voices rising and falling in minor unison. As the chant begins the maiden appears at the northeast point of the circle. With her is her maid of honor probably a girl whose "coming out party" was given last year. The girl is young, only eleven or twelve, slender, deeply impressed by the importance of the occasion, and completely charming. She wears a bright silk dress made in the Apache style, a forehead ornament of shell, and soft eagle plumes in her hair, in her hand she carries a staff decorated with an upstanding bunch of eagle feathers. She links arms with her attendant and they start the slow, single step dance they are to keep up for most of the night or as long as anyone else dances or sings. The singing of the twelve songs takes perhaps two hours; there are short intervals between in which the singers and dancers rest. Other women and girls join the dancing in twos, fours, or fives; they have a little more freedom of motion, they may move a few steps forward or back. All antics are reserved for the next number on the program.

About midnight the songs are over; there has been a little intermission, a ripple of excitement is felt, the fire is replenished, flames leap, and the Devil Dancers appear. These are four black masked men in towering painted head-dresses whose function at every important Apache ceremonial is to discourage the powers of evil. Their naked bodies above the short kilt of buckskin are elaborately painted They wear high fringed moccasins and carry fantastic swords and eagle plumes somewhere about their person. They are preceded by a masked white painted clown who apes and burlesques their dance trying to distract the dancers and the crowd, and to get a laugh. The Devil Dancers go through antics and contortions. The clown and Devil Dancers circle about them, waving their swords and making weird sounds. They appear and disappear several times, perhaps dancing in all about an hour.

Social dancing follows the Devil Dance. In Apache social dancing the unmarried girl or woman is permitted to choose a partner, and together with another couple or more dance the little forward and backward step. Usually two or three girls link arms and dance facing two or three boys. It gets on toward morning, the company scatters for a short rest, but the ceremony is by no means over. The real puberty ceremony takes place in the early morning of the next day. During the dancing and singing of the night, the assembled people have had full opportunity to become well acquainted with the young girl about to be accepted as an adult; now she will have her final instructions and initiation.

An elderly woman takes the place of the girl attendant. Both take places at the west of the circle in front of the medicine men, facing the rising sun. They dance to the drums, the girl kneels with hands upraised and open toward the sun. She dances on her knees, swaying from side to side to the rhythm of the chant. At last she lies prone upon four blankets, while the instructress kneads and moulds her young body into strength and usefulness. This is repeated four times.

They rise and make little running journeys through the crowd in the four directions, some of the older women following. Perhaps these symbolize the journey she will make in life in pursuit of her woman's work of caring for her family. Two small children are then brought into the circle. The girl moulds the baby girl as she herself has been moulded, the little boy she teaches to walk.

A relative stands just outside the circle with a bowl of sacred pollen; everybody walks by the bowl and takes a pinch of powder which they sprinkle on the girl, her godmother and herself. A big basket of food is lifted high and overturned a mad scramble ensues a sort of bride's bouquet the pile of blankets is torn apart and one thrown in each direction or to the four corners of the earth-they are subsequently retrieved. The singing of another song closes the ceremony.

Note: This manuscript prepared from "The Apache," a bulletin written by Frances B. Sanita for the Arizona Writers' Project and published by the Arizona State Teachers College at Flagstaff, also from notes and papers by Mrs. Sanita.

Painters' Eden (Continued from Page Nineteen)

There his education as an Indian fighter began almost immediately.

Also on occasion there were strained relations with his Mexican help. Some of them once concocted a little scheme to murder him which was a great error in judgment on their part.

Woolsey trailed the leader for ninety miles, brought him back to the house, marked off a rectangle two by six and handed the wretch a spade. When the hole was deep enough he ordered out his firing squad, raised his hand, and went in to dinner.

While he was cutting grass in the Gila river bottom one day he was annoyed by some Apaches who kept coming up out of the tall grass shooting arrows at his mules in an effort to stampede them. His only weapon was a shot gun but it just happened to be loaded with buckshot.

The leader was an immensely tall brute with an ugly face who ducked from one mesquite bush to another taunting Woolsey as he let fly his arrows. With the second shot Woolsey blasted him.

Returning to the spot later with some of his men he found that all of the Indians had fled leaving the body of the big brute behind. Woolsey looked at it thoughtfully while he meditated a bit of display advertising that the dumbest Apache might read. With his reata about the neck he strung up the limp cadaver to the limb of a palo verde and rode back to camp.

Some two years later, Col. Poston and a wandering artist visited the springs, and hearing that there was a human scarecrow swinging in the breeze the artist, one Browne by name. always in search of something that would make a pretty picture-like Goya or Rivera-hunted up the spot and made a sketch. Browne described the scene almost too vividly. The skin was like parchment, the body stuck full of arrows and one leg was missing, chewed off by coyotes, etc.

The Rim Country, noted for its abundance of wild life, is a popular hunting area. Elk and many other kinds of game are to be found here. (Photo by U. S. Forest Service.) I sketched Tumacácori mission before the place was “improved” through governmental agencies. In those days any well-behaved artist was permitted to camp beneath the walls of the beautiful old church.

At night there is a haunting sense of mystery about Tumacácori. I used to wander through it when the moon was waning and the nave was filled with thick darkness. The pungent odor of bats, the whir of their flight back and forth, other unidentified sounds, the consciousness of the dead beneath the tiles, all seemed to contribute to a chimera of invisible presence.

As it stood then, squat and solid on the ground, the plaster over the adobe bricks falling away in artistic patterns, with its orange-tinted brick tower, with no fresh masonry and no admission fee, Tumacácori was an enticing subject for the artist.

In Spite of Hill and High Water

Act in the elimination of a sharp elbow curve where the old road hugged a cliff high above the rocky gorge. We arrived just in time, the stage was set, the actors ready; trucks, “cats,” power shovels and bulldozers waiting in the wings; workmen standing by, off center; every eye on that jutting angle in the sheer canyon wall. And then it happened-blast after blast roared and reverberated, the very earth trem-bled, and that stubborn old mountain acted very surprised. Boulders flew across the gorge and pelted the opposite canyon wall, tons of dirt and rock heaved, quivered, and tumbled helter-skelter; and, although that vast elbow was barely nicked, the road looked buried for-ever under the avalanche that came down. But immediately the men moved in, long-armed. reaching shovels, and mighty bulldozers came alive, and in about thirty minutes streams of debris were cascading over the rim into the gorge below.

Soon that stupendous job of streamlining between Superior and Globe will be completed, traffic will swirl through Queen Creek canyon without a thought for what that old road has been through; it will be just another highspeed highway, another good friend to run away from at a mile a minute and forget.

Roads have written hard, strange, triumph-ant chapters in the annals of Arizona. Without them there could have been no Baby State born to the Union of Uncle Sam and Lady Progress.

The Rim Country

montory Butte on top. These approaches are closed during the winter on account of snow. The roads from this section of the state are, when open, well maintained and not in the least arduous of transit. The approaches from other points are over usually well maintained highways, but mountainous, with grades and curves that usually accompany this type of road location.

Within the area a scenic road has been built along the top of the rim from Long Valley on the Coconino National Forest to the Holbrook-McNary Highway on the Sitgreaves National Forest. Under the rim many miles of forest road may be explored on the Tonto National Forest.

Next time you try a new vacation area, why not see the Mogollon Rim? Here is an area that is not crowded. You will find scenery that will long be remembered. You will visit an area that is producing the state's lumber, mine timbers, Christmas trees and other forest products. Here you will see many of your future lamb chops and steaks, alive and growing. Further you will see the area that produces and maintains the water used on Arizona's farms. And to cap it all off you own part of it. It is part of your investment in the nation, these National Forests are public property and on a state basis each Arizonan owns nearly 23 acres of these forests. Therefore it is your responsibility to keep them clean and producing. Charred snags don't produce useful products, nor do ashes that used to be forage produce beef and mutton or insure an even waterflow - so don't burn them.

That would seem entertainment enough for one road show but a most unusual feature was added that day. A mobile power shovel non-chantly nibbled up some rocks quite as big as Austin cars and swung them accurately into the bed of a huge truck - the kind that humps its shoulders and spills at the back. The program called for this humping and spilling to take place on the brink of the gorge and so it did but in the process that giant truck reared off the ground like a frisky colt, poised erect in mid air and, with breath-taking deliberation, tipped backward into space. The truckdriver, with the ease of that well-known flying trapeze act, sailed through the air holding calmly to the wheel; and not until the last half of the split second before his black monster settled on its side in the bottom of the canyon did he step out from under and wave up to us, far above, with a reassuring grin. Another case of “all in the day's work” - those road fellows all seem to be like that so the only upsetting thing about the whole episode was that they wouldn't let me stay on; our way was cleared and we were passed on before that man could get himself dusted off.

Mesquite

(Continued from Page 7) In some regions the mistletoe growing on mesquite is utilized during drouths for cattle feed. The branches may be cut down with an axe so that cattle can get to the mistletoe, or the mistletoe may be pared off. The most mistletoe I have ever seen growing in mesquite is in lower Arizona and in Sonora. In many regions the mesquite is comparatively free of it.

"To find shade under a mesquite tree is like dipping water with a sieve," wrote an early-day traveler. The shade certainly is speckled, but on a hot day of burning sun it may be very grateful both to man and beast. The small pinnate leaves prevent evaporation; no large-leafed tree can exist without abundant water. In death Valley and on the deserts of Sonora, to name two very dry regions, the leaves of the mesquite are much slenderer and shorter than on the mesquite growing under the fairly abundant rainfall of Central Texas. You will find the slender-leafed mesquite thriving in desert lands beside the honca, which has no leaves at all, only thorns.

A small beetle punctures the seed in a fallen mesquite bean and hollows it out, but in dry weather these beans will last a long time for the benefit of hungry stock. A Texas rancher named L. D. Vancleve says that although mesquite beans will fatten cattle during a drouth, they will cause a cow's milk to dry up. He had come to this conclusion through observation when one day, years ago, a neighbor told him that the drouth was forcing him to move a bunch of cattle to a pasture where water and mesquite beans, but nothing else, were plentiful. "Don't take the cows with calves," Vancleve warned him. The neighbor disregarded the advice. According to Vancleve, the cows did fine, but very soon the calves were seen to be starving to death, and they and their mothers had to be moved to where there was something besides mesquite beans to eat.

Horses do better than cattle on the beans. Fiber from the beans and leaves may, however, wad up in an animal's stomach with dis-astrous results. In the old days, before corn was procurable, cheap labor was often utilized by ranch people to gather up mesquite beans and store them for horse feed. They would keep for years. Mexican freighters used to carry sacks of them to feed their oxen.

It is the juicy fiber of the beans that animals get nourishment from. Few of the hard seeds are masticated. Yet it is known that the food value of these seed is high. There has been considerable talk about machinery that will crush the seed into meal and make a rich mixture of chopped-up leaves and beans, but so far the mixture seems not to have proved it self, though during hard times stock go on browsing on the leaves and seasonally picking up the beans. "Bitter mesquite and poor folks' children are plentiful," is an old border saying.

It is common belief that mesquite beans will germinate only after they have passed through the stomach of an animal. They certainly do germinate after passing through animal stomachs. On a prairie country over which Mexicans from below the Rio Grande used to freight salt from a salt lake north of Van Horn, Texas, I have with my own eyes followed their road, unused now for many years, by a thin line of mesquite planted by the freighter's animals. It is said that between Ponca City and Elgin, in Oklahoma, lines of mesquite trees show where Texas catle were driven after they had been unloaded in the old Indian Territory. In New Mexico more than one old route is marked by mesquite.

Colonel Charles Goodnight told me that when he was scouting on the plains during the Civil War, at which time roving Indians were the only human inhabitants of that great expanse, he was always happy when he saw a mesquite. He knew that water could be found within five miles, for, according to him, the mustangs carried and planted the mesquite seed and they did not often range more than five miles from water.

Yet it is certainly not necessary for a mesquite bean to pass through the stomach of an animal in order to germinate. On the other hand, if it germinates in a pile of dung it will have a better chance to take root than if lying on top of usually dry ground. Lying on top of thickly rooted grass, it will have very little chance to sprout and grow.

Most old-timers hold that the spread of mesquite over millions of acres that were prairie fifty, forty, and even thirty years ago is due to the fact that the range is no longer burned off as it was during Indian times. Yet if a mesquite gets its roots established, it will put out growth repeatedly after being burned to the ground. The grass that made great prairie fires possible was, I am sure, a far more potent agent in checking the spread of mesquite and other brush than the fires themselves. When white men over-grazed the country, they left the soil exposed to beans; also, with grass scarce, stock ate every mesquite bean found - and then dropped the seed where the rootlets could, upon germination, get into the ground. The white man sowed with over-grazing; he is now reaping thickets of mesquites that are stabbing millions of acres of land into non-productivity.

Since the mind of man runneth not to the contrary there have been some mesquites in the country. When Colonel R. B. Marcy made his explorations of the Red River country about 1850, he noted the "mesquite flats," the trees standing "at wide itervals upon ground covered with a dense carpet of verdure" and having a "vast geographical range." Buffaloes rubbed their shaggy sides against the big mesquite trees far south of Red River.

Grass will grow underneath a single mesquite, for, as has been noted, its leaves allow sunshine to reach the ground, and furthermore, its roots unlike those of the hackberry, draw moisture from far down and do not sap the top soil. But when mesquites make a thicket, then the grazing area diminishes to the vanishing point.

Land has become so high that owners over large areas of Texas, instead of buying more land to graze more cattle upon, are resorting to the inevitable. They are beginning to reclaim their own land from the usurping mesquite. Grubbing in the old way is too costly. It has been found that kerosene sprayed around the bowl of a mesquite, big or little, will usually kill it, root and stem. In 1937 the Waggoner ranch of over 500,000 acres, with headquarters at Vernon, Texas, spent in excess of $38,000 for kerosene oil and at one time had around 750 men employed eradicating mesquite and prickly pear. It has cleared thousands of acres of grazing land. Ten-ton roller tractors aid in the work. These machines, as formidable in appearance as any German war-tank, are to be found slaying the mesquite on the O'Connor and other ranches in southern Texas. The mesquite has over-spread itself. The machine age is meeting it.

But the mesquite will always be characteristic of the Southwest. It seems to me the most characteristic tree or brush that we have, from the Gulf of Mexico, near Houston, to the Pacific Ocean, from Tascosa on the Canadian, where nature has called a halt to the northward spread of its switch-shrub growth, to the big trees hundreds of miles below the Rio Grande. Riding east or west, north or south, I never tire of noticing the form of the mesquite changes with changing climate and soil.

As a tree it seems to me as graceful and lovely as any tree in the world. When, in the spring, trees and bushes put on their delicately green, transparent leaves and the mild sun shines upon them, they are more beautiful than any peach orchard, to which they have often been compared. The green seems to float through the young sunlight into the sky. Then the mesquite is itself a poem.

Primroses burn their yellow fires Where grass and roadway meet; Feathered and tassled like a queen, Is every old mesquite.

Several poems have been written about the mesquite. That by Boyce House, wherein he calls the "brave mesquite" a "very parody of a tree," is outstanding. The parody-size, however depends on geography. No matter what its size or form, mesquite is something intensely native, something that belongs, something akin to folks with roots in the soil. It holds all the memories of the soil itself.

There is an old saying, "The mesquite knows"-knows when winter is over and will not be caught putting out, like the often premature peach, not yet naturalized, before the last frost has passed. Generally, the mesquite does know. Sometimes, however, even it is caught by the unpredictable weather of Texas. The freeze, a week or ten days before Easter in 1938, scorched new leaves on the mesquite all the way from the Gulf of Mexico to New Mexico. It was noticeable that the mesquites on hills overlooking valleys suffered much less than those in the "protected" valleys; often they were not touched at all. This proves the wisdom of cattle, which in coolish weather will seek high ground to bed down in, avoiding valley troughs.

"When the mesquite begins to bud, it's time to put out the tomato plants," is one old-time garden direction. Again, "plant cotton when the mesquite oc-casionally-very occasionally-makes a mis take, its general reputation has never been confused with that of the redbud, which, be cause it so often puts out buds that get nipped by frost, was in the Cherokee tongue called "liar." Another saying, "When the mesquite trees are heavy with beans it will be a cold winter," is hardly to be credited. On the other hand, it is commonly held that a heavy bean crop comes only in a drouthy year. This is an error, for mesquite does not thrive in absolute deserts. Although extraordinarily drouth-re sisting, it requires some moisture. It does not want rain while it is pollenating. If rains wash out the pollen, then the bean crop will be light. Hence, the association of beans with drouth.

casionally-very occasionally-makes a mis take, its general reputation has never been confused with that of the redbud, which, be cause it so often puts out buds that get nipped by frost, was in the Cherokee tongue called "liar." Another saying, "When the mesquite trees are heavy with beans it will be a cold winter," is hardly to be credited. On the other hand, it is commonly held that a heavy bean crop comes only in a drouthy year. This is an error, for mesquite does not thrive in absolute deserts. Although extraordinarily drouth-re sisting, it requires some moisture. It does not want rain while it is pollenating. If rains wash out the pollen, then the bean crop will be light. Hence, the association of beans with drouth.

Phin Reynolds, who was born in 1857, moved two years later with his family to western Texas and can give some extraordinary facts about the great drouth of 1862-64; but no drouth he has passed through equalled one that a very ancient Tonkawa Indian he knew at Fort Griffin used to tell about. "This old Ton kawa," to quote Phin Reynolds, "said that a dry spell once drove the Indians as far down the Brazos River as the site of Waco for game and water. He was explaining to me the reason for what the white settlers called "the dead mesquite forest." It covered parts of what came to be Taylor, Jones, Scurry, Haskell, Dickens, Baylor and other counties nearly to the foot of the plains. It consisted of big mes quites, all dead and killed at a time and by something that caused them to be well pre served, and it was plain to be seen that it had not been done by fire. The strange part of it, too, was that there was hardly a living mesquite tree or brush in that section. The lack of them provided no beans for a new start. This dead forest was there when the earliest settlers arrived, and it remained until the early Eighties, when fencing started. Much of it was cut for posts. Old 'Tonkawa' could furnish no better information as to the time of the killing drouth except that it happened 'way back."

The first written account, so far as I know, of the mesquite is in Cabeza de Vaca's narrative of his journey across Texas to the Pacific slope. Cabeza de Vaca was cast on Texas soil in 1528 and spent six years among the Indians. Of a certain tribe he says: "They brought us their children to touch. and gave us much mesquite-meal. This mes quiez is a fruit which, while on the tree, is very bitter and like the carob bean. It is eaten with earth and then becomes sweet and very palat able. The way they prepare it is to dig a hole in the ground, of the depth it suits them, and after the fruit is put in the hole, they pound it to a meal with a piece of wood, the thickness of a leg and one and a half fathoms long; and to the earth that mixes with it in the hole they add several handsful and pound again for a while. After that they empty it into a vessel, like a small round basket, and pour in enough water to cover it fully, so that there is water on top. Then the one who has done the pour ing tastes it, and if it appears to him not sweet enough he calls for more earth to add and this he does until it suits his taste. "Then all squat around and everyone reaches out his hand and takes as much as he can. The seeds and the peelings they set apart on hides, and the one who has done the pounding throws them back in the vessel, pouring water over them again. They squeeze out the juice and water, and the husks and seeds they again put on hides, repeating the operation three or four times at every pounding. Those who take part

NOVEMBER, 1941

In that banquet which is for them a great oc casion, get very big bellies from the earth and water they swallow." In 1854, James G. Bell, who kept a diary of a trip he made to California with a herd of Texas cattle, found the Pima Indians on the Gila River utilizing the mesquite in much the same way. The food of these Pimas, Bell records, "is the Mezquite Bean; prepared by pounding in a mortar made in the earth, and with a wooden pestle. The pod alone is made into meal, the bean being too hard and not easily broken. When sufficiently beaten, it looks something like a cob meal. This is put into a water-tight basket, water poured on sev eral times, before it is fit for bread. The liquor is like new metheglin and is used as a drink. The pulp is then taken in the hand and pressed until the water is all out, and put into a small round-bottomed vessel, again press ed down and allowed to remain to harden. Now it is ready to eat. It has a honey-sweet taste, and would be palatable but for their dirty manner of making it."

The name of the meal or bread from the mesquite bean is masquitamal, and the poorer Mexicans of Mexico and occasionally of the border country on this side of the international line use it. They crush the beans on a metate, in the way corn is crushed, working the hard seeds and the strings out. Then they some times mix the brown cane-sugar called piloncillo with the mass, thus making the sweet taste less bitter. The meal, dried, will not deterior ate. It is made into bread; it is mixed with water and made into atole, a kind of mush. The Mohave Indians make mesquitamal of the screw-bean, tornillo, a variety of the mesquite found in the extreme western part of Texas and on into Califronia. Thus, it is seen, the mesquite bean, like corn, affords both bread and liquor.

In the days of the Texas Republic, or shortly thereafter, Elisha A. Briggs, a Texas ranger, found some Mexican freighters who had been raided by Indians living on prickly pear apples, mesquite beans and rattlesnakes. He asked an old Mexican how long a person could live on such a diet. The Mexican answered: Con tunas solo se puede vivir, pero con tunas y mesquites los dos se engorda mucho." ("With pear apples alone one can live, but with pear apples and mesquite beans also a person will get big fat.") As for remedies provided by the mesquite through bean, leaf, root, branch and bark they are many. Like the name of the mes quite itself, most of the remedies are Indian. though many have been taken over by Mexi cans, from whom English-speaking people of the Southwest in turn borrowed. I know of a man who, out on the frontier in the 80's, had such a severe case of flux that his life was in jeo pardy. Tea made of mesquite root restored him. Tea of the bark is said to be excellent for the same malady. The root boiled in water is also recommended for nervousness and the colic and as a balm for flesh wounds The Yuma Indians use an infusion of the leaves for venereal diseases. For headaches, the Yaqui Indians mash the leaves to a pulp, mix with water and urine, and bind the poultice around the forehead. On a hot day one may often notice a Mexican vaquero or a Mexican la borer of any kind wearing mesquite leaves under his hat. This may be para dolores de cabeza (headache), but more than likely it is simply to keep his head cool and prevent his getting soleado, a sunstroke. The fluid ex tracted from the leaves, which is called alcool, is used in Chihuahua as an eye lotion. The sap is just as good for the same purpose.

Between the Nueces River and the Rio Grande, Mexican women can yet be found who, in order to make clothes especially white. will put a handful of mesquite leaves, tied up in a cloth, in a wash pot and let them boil with the clothes. The same woman will assure you that the white inside of the mesquite bark will cure dyspepsia.

Mesquite gum, which despite many efforts, has never been much commercialized, dissolved in water is used as a gargle for sore throat and is swallowed as a relief for dysentery. A pre paration of the gum has been dispensed by a drug company in the United States as an emo lient for inflamation of the mucous membranes. The gum in a pure state is chewed by Mexicans for toothache, though a hot poultice of the bean meal mesquitamal is used against toothache, neuralgia, etc., also. The gum makes a glue. The mistletoe, to which the mesquite is host. affords a hair tonic.

During the Civil War when coffee became unprocurable in Texas and parched okra seeds. parched wheat, corn, acorns, and other mater ials were used as a substitute, some people made "mesquite coffee." Long before the Civil War the Texans of the Santa Fe Expedition, while lost and provisionless on the then uninhabited plains, tried "Muskete" bean coffee and also ate the beans for food.

The Lipan and Apache Indians, and perhaps other tribes as well, made bows of mesquite wood, reinforcing the wood by wrapping it with hide thongs. When the patriot Morelos in 1810 armed his troops with machetes and rawhide reatas to fight for Mexican liberty against Spain, he constructed the first Mexican cannon out of a mesquite log. It was split. the inside hollowed out, and then the halves were fitted back together and bound round and round with green rawhide. This rawhide pre served the cannon barrel so well that it is, ac cording to good authority, yet to be seen in the National Museum at Mexico City.

It is a pity for people to look out on the mesquite growing upon hundreds of millons of acres in the Southwest without being re minded of anything, without possessing in mind any interesting facts about this native growth. It comes as near being characteristic of the whole Southwest, including much of Mexico, as any species of plant life known to the region. It is as native as rattlesnakes and mocking birds, as characteristic as northers, and as blend ed into life of the land as corn-bread and tor tillas. Men and other animals were making use of it untold generations before Columbus sailed; they are still making use of it.I ask for no better monument over my grave than a good mesquite tree. PAGE FORTY-FIVE