Mountains Are Playthings

There is a universality of appeal in mountain climbing and a strange kinship of spirit in those who climb. James Ramsey Ullman, the famous mountaineer novelist, expressed it well when he said, "Wherever in the world there are mountains, men have set their hearts on the remote summits and their plodding feet upon the slopes.

This mystical challenge or hypnotic lure call it what you will flows from the mountains of Arizona just as it does from the misty peaks of India's Himalayas and the snow-banked heights of Colorado's Rockies. It stirs men's blood and sends them off to pit their puny strength against the implacable forces of nature. It sounds the call of high adventure.

Boys, with their bottomless wells of energy, are even less immune to adventure's call than men. And so, in Arizona, "wherever there are mountains," there you are liable to find the Kachinas.

The Kachinas are a small band of Phoenix Boy Scouts organized for the single purpose of mountain climbing. They borrowed their name from the Hopi Indian gods who live, or so the legend goes, in the remote snows of northern Arizona's San Francisco Peaks. Theirs is one of the few mountaineering Scout outfits in the United States.

Arizona, with its picturesquely jagged terrain, affords the Kachinas a limitless training ground. From border to border of this incomparably scenic state there are mountains that beckon the hardy climber. They stand in chilly aloofness over the plateaus of the north or bulge up from the southern desert like an island volcano rising from the sea. Many of them have never been climbed, and their summits, once achieved, are well worthy of the rock cairns which mountaineers delight in building to show who ever comes afterward that they have made a "first ascent."

As Ray Garner, 33-year-old motion picture photographer and leader of the Kachinas, points out, "These boys are mighty lucky to live in a state like this. We have a lot of mountains that haven't been touched."

It was Garner who launched the Kachinas on their exhilarating hobby. Mountaineering has been his favorite avocation since he was a boy doing practice climbs on the cliffs of the Hudson river, with only a clothesline for protection. He learned much of the lore and technique of mountaineering from Fritz Wiessner, one of America's greatest climbers. Wiessner had made several sorties up the Himalayas and in 1939 led a party which lost four of its members in an expedition that barely fell short of the summit of K 2, second highest mountain in the world.

Before the war Garner climbed in Scotland and then in Africa during a year spent on the dark continent in the making of a documentary motion picture. He also served as a guide in the Grand Teton range of Wyoming. Small wonder, then, that the stories he had to tell proved irresistibly intriguing to his young listeners when he chanced in at a meeting to talk about mountaineering.

Two of the boys at that meeting, Ben Pedrick and Ed George, were the first to feel the attraction of high places. In June, 1944, they followed Garner up each of the Four Peaks, a quadruple-knobbed mountain in the Mazatzal range northeast of Phoenix. They climbed one after another of the peaks in just 43 hours. Refusing to let the oncoming of night interfere with their climbing, they inched their way up black, cactus-choked canyons with only the thin rays from their flashlights to show them the way. Drenching rain caught them on the mountainside and their shoes came unstitched.

It was a tough initiation for the two Scouts, but they considered the effort more than worthwhile. Not only had they climbed all four of the peaks in a single sweep (they've still to hear of anyone else who has done the same thing), but there was considerable evidence that two of the peaks had not previously been scaled.

Mountaineering had to yield the stage to war about this time, however. Garner went off to fly transports across the Pacific for the army and Ed George, the only member of that Scout group old enough for service, joined the Marines. Then, when the war ended, it was climbing as usual once again. Other Scouts caught the feverthat indescribable enchantment that gives a far-away look to the eyes and puts a tingle in the feet. And so the Kachinas were born. Now the intrepid little group numbers about a dozen youths ranging in age from 16 to 20. They've even devised their own shoulder patch for their uniforms-a Hopi Kachina doll set against the background of snowy mountains. There's scarcely a weekend that doesn't find these young Arizona mountaineers on some cliffside high above the desert, clinging to notches and crevices so precariously that it seems as if a loud word would jar them loose.

No different from climbers everywhere, the Kachinas find themselves groping for the right words when they try to convey the magnetism of the mountains. Every climber of whom you ask the question, "Why do you climb?" will have his own answer. This is how Ray Garner puts it: "I've tried many sports, but this is the nearest a man can approach to the infinite. On the peaks you get a feeling of utter detachment from the world. You feel like a little ant, and at the same time you feel real big. It's a feeling of oneness with God.

"Mountain climbing requires technical skill and teamwork. One man can't do it alone. You also have the feeling that one mistake is going to kill you. You must do it well or else.

"Any other sport is competitive. There's rivalry in it, and unpleasantness to the loser. But in this you are simply up against nature."

Other Kachinas explain their devotion to climbing by saying "it's an excuse to get out of doors," or "it gets in your blood," or they like the thrill of knowing that "one

slip is one too many.

But all of them are convinced that the simplest and most effective way to translate the spirit of mountaineering is to tell the story of George Leigh Mallory who, when he was asked why he wanted to climb Mt. Everest, said only, "I want to climb it be-cause it's there." Not long afterward Mallory and his companion, Andrew Irvine, started up the terrifying slope of this, the world's tallest mountain, and were never seen again.

So, as the Kachinas like to put it, they climb "because it's there."

Already they have clambered up some of the most difficult mountains in south central Arizona and are looking for greater heights to conquer. Last fall they staged a three-day expedition to the top of Weaver's Needle in the Superstitions east of Phoenix, spending the first day packing in to Peralta Canyon. The Needle is a towering rock spire that dominates these mysterious and magic mountains which Indians fear to touch and where lost gold is supposed to lie. The Kachinas believe they were the fourth group of climbers ever to master the Needle, and it took some doing. There were smooth, treacherous faces of rock to traverse and tight chimneys up which they had to wriggle, wondering every moment if they were going to be caught helpless by rock slides from above and battered to pieces.

Early this year the Kachinas staged an expedition to the Saddle Mountain range northwest of Buckeye and followed that up with a series of climbs in the Eagle Tail range just beyond. The first of these excursions led three of the Kachinas-Win Akin, Bob Owens and Ed George -into one of those little crises which lend such a fillip to mountaineering.

They had spent an afternoon negotiating a particularly difficult peak and darkness trapped them high on the mountainside shortly after they began their descent. There they had to spend the night, huddling together for protection from the desert's penetrating cold until the moon came up and cast enough light for them to find wood for a fire.

Far below, at the Kachinas' base camp, the other boys and their leader waited anxiously, wondering if the missing trio were safe. Their anxiety hadn't been allayed by the single exchange of signals which had occurred earlier in the night. They had used a flashlight to spell out the Morse code for "Are you O. K.?" The reply from the three lads up near the summit was a thin cry of "No!" filtering across the expanse of desert silence.

But, as it turned out later, the three who were stranded thought the message was "Do you want us to come after you?" And no Kachina is going to allow himself to be rescued off a mountain for anything less than two broken legs.

Akin, Owens and George finally made it down the next morning and took their razzing like gentlemen.

In choosing such an exciting and dangerous avocation as mountain climbing, the Kachinas are carrying forward here in Arizona a world tradition that dates back nearly 100 years.

Except for a very few scientific ascents, scarcely a great mountain in the world had been climbed or even attempted until the middle of the 19th century. Shortly after 1850 amateurs began to show an interest in climb-ing and in 1856 some English tourists scaled Mont Blanc in the Swiss Alps. The stimulating sport quickly caught on among European adventurers and hundreds of moun-tains were climbed during the 1850's.

This pioneer phase of mountaineering reached a dramatic highpoint in 1865 when the Englishman, Edward Whymper, reached the 14,780-foot summit of the Matter-horn on the Swiss-Italian frontier. It is the most famous of all the Alps, a great isolated pyramid thrusting upward into the clouds. Whymper had tried it seven times before but failed each time. Finally, with six companions, he made it to the top barely ahead of a rival party of Italians. From the summit Whymper and his men could see the Italians not far below as they turned back, chagrined at their defeat.

But tragedy met the descent with the Whymper expedition. A rope broke and the Englishman watched four of his companions plummet to their deaths on a glacier.

In 1857 the first Alpine Club was organized in London to enlarge "the community of feeling among those who in the life of the High Alps have shared the same enjoyments, the same labors and the same dangers." All over the world now there are mountaineering groups, like the Sierra Club of California and the Kachinas of Arizona. They school their new members carefully in the technique of climbing, for an inept climber is a menace to his com-panions. A new member of the Sierra Club, for instance, must fall deliberately at the end of a rope to acquire con-fidence that his companion can save him by absorbing the rope's sudden jerk.

The Kachinas, too, have a regimen of training, although it is of necessity a bit more modest. Scout-fashion, they have set up a succession of grades through which each Kachina progresses by proving his skill. He starts out as a Climber 2nd Class, advances to Climber 1st Class, then Rope Leader and, lastly, Guide. A Guide must have had three years of climbing experience and scaled five Alpine (snow-covered) peaks as leader. Garner so far is the only one to qualify for the lofty grade.

While mountaineers the world over have conquered hundreds of peaks that hitherto were considered uncon-querable, there still remain many to challenge men's courage and tempt their spirit of adventure. The highest of these are, of course, in the forbidding fastnesses of the Himalayas in India and Tibet. There have been few suc-cessful Himalayan climbs.

The highest mountain in the world to have been climbed is Nanda Devi, a Himalayan peak reaching to 25,660 feet in British Garhwal. Climbers have gone even higher, however, in unsuccessful onslaughts against other mountains. The three tallest unconquered peaks are Mount Everest, 29,141 feet; K 2, 28,250 feet, and Kan-chenjunga, 28,146-all in the Himalayas. (In case you're courious, K 2 received its odd name from the fact that it was the second mountain in the Karakoram range of the Himalayas to be covered by the Trigonometrical Survey of India.) Equipment and technique are fairly standard among mountaineers everywhere, and Arizona's Kachinas have been careful to adapt accepted methods to their home mountains.

Their equipment, most of it surplus made available when the army's mountain troops were demobilized, includes implements which you will find trained mountaineers using everywhere. Long nylon ropes, pitons (heavy iron spikes which are driven into cracks in the rock and have eyes in the end through which a rope is threaded), special mountain packs, carabiners (steel snaprings which are clamped into the eye of a piton to hold the rope), and all the rest of the paraphernalia which may mean life or death at some point in a climber's life.

Scout Kachina climbers in Saddleback Mountains

That the Kachinas so far have experienced no serious mishap or injury is a tribute to their training, physical conditioning and adherence to the fundamentals of mountaineering safety. They've even adopted a climbing code, which, among other things, forbids climbing alone and requires the presence of an experienced climber in every party.

As any Kachina will testify, there is far more to the technique of climbing than just putting one foot above another. Almost each phase of an ascent poses a different problem. One who would win his degree in the science of mountaineering and avoid a broken neck while he's about it must be ready with the answers.

Overhangs and "chimneys" are among the most difficult obstructions to overcome. Mountaineers have devised what they call the "courte echelle" to negotiate an overhang. A climber stands on the shoulders of his companion, clambers atop the overhang and then pulls the other up by rope. A "chimney," which, as the word suggests, is a narrow crevice, may be climbed by inching upward with knees pressed against one side and the back and arms against the other.The purists among mountaineers refuse to use the rope for a climbing aid. Its role is that of a protective implement alone, except in rare emergencies such as that occasioned by the encountering of an overhang.

The "rappel" is a favorite technique for facilitating a tricky descent. Coming upon a smooth and precipitous face of rock, the mountaineer loops his rope around a rock or through a piton and winds it about his body. Then he slides down the precipice, the friction of the rope as it unwinds about him serving to retard his speed. It's a spectacular maneuver to watch and even more spectacular to execute.

The Kachinas have long since discovered what every veteran mountaineer knows the descent is often more dangerous than the ascent. Too frequently a novice climber full of the pride that comes with a successful climb becomes careless when he's on his way down. He starts sliding, or fails to look out for loose rock, and then, in the portentous words of one wary Kachina, "That's all. bro ther."

By now the Kachinas have mastered just about the best that Arizona has to offer in the way of mountains. In the true Alexandrian manner they seek more worlds to conquer. Next summer they plan an expedition to the Tetons in Wyoming for ice and snow training. And then in not too many years, they say, they may take a fling at the supreme goal of all mountaineers, the high Himalayas. It's hard to tell whether they mean that seriously or not. But as they talk about it there is a distant and yearning look in their eyes that betrays the mountaineering spirit, the compulsion to climb higher, ever higher.

It was James Ramsey Ullman again who described that spirit about as well as anyone could. The key to it, he said, "lies not so much in what men do as in what they are in the raising of their eyes and the lifting of their hearts. For it is the ultimate wisdom of the mountains that a man is never more a man than when he is striving for what is beyond his grasp and that there is no conquest worth the winning save that over his own weakness and ignorance and fear."

"VOYAGERS IN THE HEAVENS"

over the observation of canals on Mars by the great Italian, Schiaparelli, and Dr. Lowell, and their interpretation of these narrow markings as artificial waterways.

Oddly enough, Lowell, in 1893, decided to take up and continue the study of Mars and the other planets when it became known that Schiaparelli could not be expected, owing to advanced age, to follow observational work much longer. Because of its many advantages the site at Flagstaff was selected and work rushed on the observatory in order that Lowell could study Mars at its opposition in 1894.

Basing his interpretation of the canals on his own extensive observations, Lowell arrived at the same conclusions advanced by Schiaparelli. And as time goes on, Dr. Lowell's interpretations and conclusions become more and more acceptable.

Listed among the Lowell Observatory successes are the first photographs of the canals of Mars!

That achievement by Dr. Lampland occurred in 1905. Dr. Lampland, who joined the observatory staff in 1902, took up the work of photographing the planet in 1903. The photographs, though better than any made previously, still did not show the canals.

Various adjustments were then made with the telescope; all manner of plates were tried, and finally in 1905 canals appeared upon the plates, thirty-eight in all and one of them double.

On learning of the success, Schiaparelli wrote in wonder to Dr. Lowell, "I should never have believed it possible." The British Royal Photographic Society awarded its medal to Dr. Lampland.

Dr. E. C. Slipher, the world's greatest authority on Mars who has seen and recorded more markings on the planet than any other living man, joined the Lowell staff in 1906 and began an assiduous career of the study of the planets. Featuring visual and photographic study of planets, his collections of planetary photographs during four decades are unrivaled in quality and number.

During the favorable approach of Mars in 1907, Dr. Slipher was sole observer on a Lowell-sponsored expedition to the Andes in Chile, South America, for visual and photographic study. In all 13,365 separate images of the planet were obtained. He also made 108 complete drawings.

And the much-disputed double canals were photographed at this time, both at Flagstaff and in South America.

His achievements received world-wide acclaim, and in 1911 he received the gold medal of the Sociedad Astronomico de Mexico.

When Mars, in 1939, paid another of his most favorable "visits" to the Earth, Dr. Slipher traveled to South Africa where the "visitor" could best be observed as he passed almost directly overhead. With Mars in opposition at its closest approach to Earth some 36,000,000 miles away, however he obtained about 250 plates containing approximately 8,000 more images of Mars.

From his photographic and visual studies of Mars at the LamontHussey Observatory at Bloemfontein, South Africa, Dr. Slipher definitely concluded that the polar hood on Mars did not consist of dust particles and that it comes at the season of low temperature-winter on Mars.

The substance of the hazy polar canopy is water, he concluded. and it consists chiefly of very fine ice spicules when the cap is forming in the early Martian autumn. At the same time at the South Pole, the melting cap in Martian summer proved to be a deposit of snow and ice on the surface. Because seasonal temperature change largely controls the coming and going of Mars' polar caps, it was evident their substance must be one peculiarly and conspicuously subject to temperature change. And water is the one substance that completely satisfies the known observed facts.

Further, he revealed, both the South American and African photographs recorded so many of the canals and oases in the positions, form and character as depicted on Lowell's maps of the planet, that they should remove all doubt as to the reality of these markings.

"Many other interesting phenomena were observed," Dr. Slipher reported after his observations in Africa, "such as strange dark Markings, temporary and extensive clouds and veilings over the disk, and projections (clouds) on the terminator (sun-lit rim of planet)." "In the case of all the irregular changes in the dark markings, it is impossible to escape the conviction that they are all capable of a common explanation. The changes are all in the nature of a slow darkening, and a subsequent recovery, of a previously light area, or vice versa. Whatever the cause, we are faced with the fact that large areas of Mars are liable to undergo these changes more or less frequently. We are also faced with the fact that still other large areas undergo the same rhythmic changes every Martian yearthe season changes.

"And finally we are faced with the fact that the canals and oases not only exist, but that they undergo similar changes."

His conclusions add much weight to the theories evolved by Lowell in his Martian studies years ago. Lowell at that time summed up his ideas: "To review, now, the chain of reasoning by which we have been led to regard it probable that upon the surface of Mars we see the effects of local intelligence. We find, in the first place, that the broad physical conditions of the planet are not antagonistic to some form of life; secondly, that there is an apparent dearth of water upon the planet's surface, and therefore, if beings of sufficient intelligence inhabited it, they would have to resort to irrigation to support life; thirdly, that there turns out to be a network of markings covering the disk precisely counterparting what a system of irrigation would look like; and, lastly, that there is a set of spots placed where we should expect to find the lands thus artificially fertilized, and behaving as such constructed oases should. All this, of course, may be a set of coincidences, signifying nothing; but the probability points the other way."

There isn't any doubt in the minds of the astronomers at Flagstaff that there are strips of vegetation along these water courses, and that the changes observed are changes in the vegetation according to the Martian seasons.

But is there life on this ruddy neighbor of ours?

In the belief of the Flagstaff scientists, were they able to take their telescopes and cameras to another planet from which they could view Mars and Earth side by side in the sky, great cities of Earth would be entirely invisible to the telescopes, and they could discern no more certain evidence of intelligent life on Earth than they now can on Mars.

"It isn't possible for us to get a solution to the planet during only one near approach," Dr. V. M. Slipher says. "As instruments are improved we learn more, but the findings raise other questions to be answered. Could we observe Mars and Earth side by side in the sky, we would have to work for years to get full understanding of seasonal changes, data on vegetation, atmosphere and oceans-and visible evidence of man on Earth. Evidence such as required to prove intelligent life on Mars, would be extremely difficult to get, although Earth is much larger in size.

And thus the interesting enigma stands. Although years before Dr. Lowell wrote: "Thus, not only do the observations we have scanned lead us to the conclusion that Mars at this moment is inhabited, but they land us at the further one that these denizens are of an order whose acquaintance was worth the making. Whether we ever shall come to converse with them in any more instant way is a question upon which science at present has no data to decide.

"More important to us is the fact that they exist, made all the more interesting by their precedence of us in the path of evolution. Their presence certainly ousts us from any unique or self-centered position in the solar system, but so with the world did the Copernican system the Ptolemaic, and the world survived this deposing change. So may man. To all who have a cosmoplanetary breadth of view it cannot but be pregnant to contemplate extra-mundane life and to realize that we have warrant for believing that such life now inhabits the planet Mars."

Lowell's conclusions of Mars, often unfavorably criticized, were PAGE EIGHTEEN OF ARIZONA HIGHWAYS FOR OCTOBER, 1947

(please turn to page twenty-three)

SATURN, THE PLANET WITH A HALO, IS NOT ONLY UNIQUE BUT PERHAPS THE MOST BEAUTIFUL SPECTACLE IN THE SKY. NEXT TO JUPITER IN SIZE, ITS GREAT RING SYSTEM COMPOSED OF MILLIONS OF MOON BITS SHOWS AN EVEN GREATER EXPANSE, EXTENDING ACROSS 170,000 MILES FROM EDGE TO EDGE AND CONSISTING OF THREE SEPARATE RINGS. THE SURFACE OF THE BALL IS CLOUD BELTED AND CHANGEABLE, AND LIKE JUPITER'S IS UNREMITTINGLY COLD AND FORBIDDING. LEFT TAKEN 1939, RIGHT PICTURE IN 1943.

JUPITER, THE GIANT PLANET, WITH ITS MAZE OF VARIEGATED CLOUD BELTS. HERE ONE OF ITS MOONS, SATELLITE I, WHICH IS ABOUT THE SAME SIZE AS OUR MOON, IS PASSING BETWEEN THE PLANET AND THE SUN. THE BRIGHT SPOT AT THE RIGHT EDGE OF THE DISK IS THE SATELLITE ITSELF, WHILE THE DARK SPOT TO THE LEFT OF IT IS ITS ECLIPSE SHADOW. THE LARGE OVAL-SHAPED SPOT ABOVE THE CENTER IS THE FAMOUS GREAT RED SPOT, THE ONLY PERMANENT LANDMARK ON JUPITER, WHICH AT THE TIME WAS ONLY HALF RED.

MARS, THE EARTH-LIKE PLANET, AS IT APPEARED AT ITS CLOSE APPROACH TO THE EARTH IN 1939 (LEFT) AND ANOTHER FACE OF THE PLANET AS SEEN AT ITS NEXT VISIT TO THE EARTH IN 1941 (RIGHT). IN THE FIRST PHOTOGRAPH THE MARTIAN SEASON CORRESPONDED TO OUR LATE APRIL IN THE SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE (UPPER) AND THE POLAR SNOW CAP IS EARLY IN ITS MELTING: IN THE RIGHT-HAND PHOTOGRAPH THE SEASON IS MID-JULY AND THE SNOW HAS RECEDED WELL TOWARDS THE POLE. THE DARK BLUISH-GREEN AREAS ARE GENERALLY SUPPOSED TO BE VEGETATED AREAS.

AURORA BOREALIS OR NORTHERN LIGHTS AS DISPLAYED BY THE EARTH'S ATMOSPHERE WHEN STREAMS OF ELECTRONS AND ATOMS ARE SENT OUT BY THE SUN, WHICH GENERALLY OCCUR AT TIMES OF GREAT SUNSPOT ACTIVITY. PHOTOGRAPHED FROM THE OBSERVATORY MAY 14, 1921.

“VOYAGERS IN THE HEAVENS”

Deductions from a large amount of systematically gathered observational data over a long period of many near visits of Mars and it is therefore quite natural that they should be in the main confirmed by later researches. For example, Dr. Lowell based his estimate of the Martian atmosphere upon observations of various atmospheric phenomena such as numerous clouds, terminator projections, "limb-light," bright spots and the like. He had actually measured clouds, like the great one of May 26, 1903, to have altitudes up to seventeen miles. Then the spectrograph at Flagstaff in 1908, repeated and confirmed in 1914, under most favorable conditions, showed water vapor and oxygen in the Martian atmosphere, a result then disputed but finally elsewhere confirmed. Beginning in 1920 more attention at Flagstaff was given to Martian atmospheric phenomena and much data have been recorded there, and more recently elsewhere; and today clouds and the atmosphere of Mars have become very popular subjects generally.

"This is true not so much because of gain in essential facts-for these have been known for nearly a quarter of a century and recent developments have aided rather in gathering the data more easily and clearly-as because of a changed and more open scientific attitude," Dr. V. M. Slipher says. "This has come, due in part to a new generation; and like clear, productive new land, the new mind does not suffer from the obstruction of accumulated 'scientific' prejudice. But this is not peculiar alone to the Mars question; the same thing has discouraged the study in other lines of science, and the history of scientific development shows that it has long been with us."

Mars' secrets, one by one, have been solved during the years as the Lowell astronomers continued their probing studies of Earth's neighbor. Even the temperature on the sanguine planet has been revealed after exceedingly laborious and difficult work in the field of radiometry (method of heat measurement), pursued principally by Dr. Lampland. The observatory long has been interested in radiometry, and Dr. Lampland in 1921 began work in this field with Dr. W. W. Coblentz, eminent physicist of the U. S. Bureau of Standards of the Department of Commerce in Washington, D. C. The work of Dr. Lampland, part in collaboration with Dr. Coblentz, one of the great pioneers in radiation investigations, has been more fruitful than was at first anticipated. Not only has Mars been the subject of their observations. They have included Mercury, Venus, the Moon, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and the Sun, together with some terrestrial and laboratory experiments bearing upon the work.

Of interest is some of the results for Mars. The measures show the temperature near the center of the disk in cases to reach sixty to seventy degrees Fahrenheit; to be higher in the afternoon than in the forenoon; to be higher at dark regions than light ones, and clearly disclosing the seasonal change over the planet.

It also was observed that the noon temperatures of some of the green areas are higher than eighty-six degrees Fahrenheit, although the twilight temperatures are around ten degrees Fahrenheit.

Measures by Dr. Lampland near the summer solstice of the Martian southern hemisphere brought out strikingly the marked rise in temperature of the south polar zone at that season. In that laborious observational work he was assisted by Mrs. Lampland, as well as in the radiometric measures on the planets and the stars in later years. In the studies of the radiation emitted by the planets it was also determined that, with the exception of the Moon and Mercury, Mars shows the highest percentage of "planetary radiation".

The radiometric measures also indicated the powerful absorptions in Jupiter's atmosphere, later shown by the spectograph to be caused largely by methane.

Such have been the planetary explorations of Dr. Lampland as he has blazed innumerable trails for voyagers in the heavens for nearly half a century ever since he joined Dr. Lowell and Dr. V. M. Slipher at the observatory in 1902.

Early recognized for their photographic ability, Dr. Lampland and Dr. E. C. Slipher were the first to begin the tedious search for Pluto and later participated in the direction of the search which finally led to the discovery of the planet by Tombaugh. During his "travels" in search of the elusive Planet X, Dr. Lampland discovered hundreds of asteroids, the flighty residents of the heavens.

He has played a leading role in most of the pioneering activities at the observatory. He featured visual observations of the planets from 1902 to 1908. In 1911, using the forty-two inch reflecting telescope, he began photographic observations of nebulae of different types, and comets and temporary stars.

Although Mars was the immediate incentive of the founding of Lowell Observatory, and while it is studied at every opposition, emphasis given here to Mars, and Pluto, should not be permitted to dwarf the scope of fifty years of reasearch at Flagstaff. All the planets, satellites, asteroids, comets, fixed stars and nebulae have come in for their share of investigation, because it was early recognized that each plays an informing role in the complete understanding of our solar system and universe. In course of time, the entire solar system became the object of intensive search and study, and the result has been a long list of startling discoveries.

Painstaking work and splendid co-operation of the staff members contributed much to the successes. For example, the early searching for Planet X was shared by several staff members, including Elizabeth L. Williams, J. C. Duncan, K. P. Williams, T. B. Gill, E. A. Edwards and others. Much of the success of the final search depended upon the careful use of the highly efficient thirteeninch Lawrence Lowell telescope, with which the work could be resumed under the close supervision of Director V. M. Slipher.

One of the direct results of the study of Venus at Lowell Observatory was an explanation of her intrinsic brightness. The markings observed on the sister planet were proved to be neither clouds themselves nor subject to the caprice of clouds as we know them on the Earth.

During pre-Lowell times the day of Venus was deemed to be just under twenty-four hours in length. It was considered a definite fact to the point that the information was carried in text books.

The subject was taken up at Lowell Observatory in 1896. It was discovered there that the planet possibly turned always the same face to the Sun. Later study by Dr. E. C. Slipher corroborated the fact that the same markings always were visible over long periods of time.

Thus Venus, the Goddess of Love, might possibly be a withered old lady, the astronomers suggested. And if in her old age, tired Venus' wrinkled face might continually be staring at the Sun-perhaps too exhausted to do otherwise.

If that be the case, observed Dr. Lowell, "No day, no seasons, practically no year, diversifies existence or records the flight of time. Monotony eternalized, such is Venus' lot."

Leaving nothing to mere speculation, he directed Dr. V. M. Slipher to turn the spectroscope to this planet, to see if it might refute or confirm what visual observations discovered of the rotation time of Venus. And the spectrograms told a similar story. It was with special reference to this point that the spectrograph at Flagstaff was constructed, and the first object to which it was directed was Venus.

The spectroscope is an instrument for analyzing light. Ordinary light consists of light of various wave lengths. By means of a prism or grating these are dispersed into a colored ribbon or band, the longer waves lying at the red end of the spectrum, as the ribbon is called, the shorter at the violet. The spectroscope primarily is such a prism or grating placed between the image and the observer, by means of which a series of colored images of the object are produced.

The spectrograms showed that instead of a rotation of anything like twenty-four hours, it was, Dr. Slipher said, "a null value for rotation effects." It meant so slow a spin was beyond the spectrogram's power to determine precisely.

To further check this finding and remove the possibility of error, he determined in the same manner the rotation time of Mars,

a test nearly twice as difficult as Venus, and also that of Jupiter. His tests of the two planets proved conclusively his findings on Venus. Through spectroscopic observation he and Dr. Lowell successfully attacked the difficult problem of the rotation of Uranus. The planet is so faint previous observation had been discouraged. Dr. Slipher proved Uranus rotates in 1034 hours.

Not only did his experiments with the spectrograph concern the rotation of the planets, it also included a study of the substances actually composing the distant heavenly bodies. He rightly can take his place among the brilliant pioneers who analyzed the light of the planets to read their secrets.

It had been known since the early days of the spectroscope that the major planets exhibit in their spectra bands produced by absorp tion by the gases of their atmospheres, and that these bands are strongest in the outer planets. Photographs showing this were first made by Dr. Slipher in 1903 at Lowell Observatory.

The bands which appear faintly in Jupiter, the giant of the heavens, are very strong in Uranus and enormous in Neptune's spectrum. For a quarter of a century after this discovery those band remained one of the most perplexing riddles of astrophysics.

It remained for the general solution to be offered by Dr. Slipher and Dr. Arthur Adel.-(Who then had come from University of Michigan, Department of Physics, so highly regarded for its important researches in the red spectrum, and was later occupied at Lowell with important studies of the infra-red of the Sun's spectrum in exploring the absorptive constituents of the Earth's atmosphere.)They announced that the entire series of unidentified bands in the spectra of the giant planets Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune were due to methane in their atmospheres.

Another outstanding discovery was his bold suggestion that there was a “general veil” of gas occupying large volumes of interstellar space. Hardly credible at the time, his finding has been abundantly confirmed recently. No one now doubts that interstellar space is thinly populated by isolated metallic atoms presumably ejected from some star in the remote past, but now wandering in the outer darkness, with practically no chance of returning to the stars.

Included in his list of achievements is the spectroscopic observations of “reflection” nebulae, a difficult task which he first solved; the observations of spiral nebulae, the measurement of the radial velocity of the nebulae, and even Earth's own atmosphere.

The observed motions of the nebulae revealed an enormous velocity of recession, which since by inference of the faintness as indicat ing distance of the nebulae has led to the belief that the materialuniverse is rapidly expanding and that its ascertainable past history covers only several thousand millions of years.

And thus with the spectroscope Dr. V. M. Slipher pushed his voyages farther and farther into a greatly enlarged unknown. And no planet escaped his exhaustive searches as he pressed ahead farther in the heavens than possibly any previous “voyager.” He began the study of the spectra of the planets early in the century, and research in this field has constituted a logical portion of the observatory's regular planetary program, which, because of the observatory's exceptionally favorable site and suitable equipment. could be followed with expectation of fruitful results.

The spectroscopic work of Dr. Slipher long since has had world wide recognition. In 1932, he received both the Henry Draper Gold Medal in this country and the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society of Great Britain. He also has received the Bruce Gold Medal of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, and he was called to Lon don in 1933 to lecture on his spectrographic studies of the heavens in the George Darwin Lecture series.

Nor have the ever-baffling comets been ignored at Lowell Observatory. Henry Giclas, the youngest member of the staff, has fea tured along with variable stars and asteroids, the study of these strange wanderers for fifteen years, while assisting with other in vestigations carried on at the observatory. These fuzzy objects, though usually faint, are surprisingly numerous a half dozen per year is not exceptional and he is apt to have several of them on his pro gram nightly. But the only way to distinguish one from another is to locate accurately the path of each, and this means a lot of pains-taking measures of plates and involved mathematical computations. Some come and go and are lost, others return periodically. Here again, only by accurately following them through the sky among the stars, can he know them. Only rarely are these visible to the unaided eye.

Having excited more superstitious fear in the human mind than perhaps any other of the celestial bodies, the continued existence of the comets is in itself a major riddle of the solar system. Mr. Gic las has pursued these active “tramps” of the solar system as a part of the regular program of the observatory, and the phenomena they manifest may some day be explained at Flagstaff.

No story, brief as it may be, of Lowell Observatory and the men who made it famous could be complete without mention of Mr. Stanley Sykes, the observatory instrument-maker. Skilled in his work and imbued with a zeal as burning as that of the great astronomers with whom he works, Mr. Sykes has played an unsung though important, role in the successes at Lowell.

A native of England but a pioneer resident of Arizona, he has devoted more than a half-century of his life at Lowell. Coming to Arizona in 1886, he helped Dr. Lowell construct the observatory in 1894. Through all these years, when an instrument has been needed. Mr. Sykes has produced it with the same skill employed by the famous men who used it. Among the many things he accomplished was the construction of the mounting for the telescope with which Pluto was discovered.

So were men inspired by a brilliant leader from a famous New England family who returned to the interest of his boyhood-astro nomy to achieve lasting renown. Dr. Lowell's life dates for a com paratively few years, March 13, 1855 to November 12, 1916, but his accomplishments are ageless.

Dr. Lowell bequeathed his fortune to endow permanently the Observatory bearing his name. The institutiton is administered by a sole trustee, after the pattern of the famous Lowell Institute in Boston. The present Trustee of the Observatory is Roger Lowell Putnam. Dr. Lowell's nephew.

From Dr. Lowell's "The Evolution of Worlds" is chiseled: "Everything around this earth we see is subject to one inevitable cycle of birth, growth, decay nothing begins but comes at last to end though our own lives are too busy to even mark the slow nearing to that eventual goal. Today what we already know is helping to comprehension of another world. In a not distant future we shall be repaid with interest and what that other world shall have taught us will redound to a better knowledge of our own and of the cosmos of which the two form part."

Such is the story of Arizona's Lowell Observatory. More than the story of Dr. Percival Lowell, its famed founder, it is as well the story of the brilliant men who have made it his living monument. His body lies at rest upon the hill at Flagstaff, but, in an unquenched spirit of eager investigation. his soul lives on in the work of the great astronomers he inspired.

The other men and women who have shared in the Observatory's research for various periods of time in its fifty-three years of history, are, chronologically: W. II. Pickering, A. E. Douglass, Alvan G. Clark, Godfrey Sykes, W. E. Storey, T. J. J. See, W. Louise Leonard, W. A. Cogshall, D. A. Drew, S. L. Boothroyd, E. S. Manson, Edw. S. Morse, George R. Agassiz, Frank W. Very, Robert W. Willson, E. H. Hanway, O. H. Truman, G. H. Hamilton, A. J. Bennett. Frank K. Edmondson. Kenneth Newman. Alice Rogers, James B. Edson, Lewis Larmore.

ARIZONA'S HAUNTED WALLS OF SILENCE"

But that mattered not to this young frontier sheriff who had been schooled in the rough and tumble cattle ranges of the Southwest.

Holbrook was a typical cowtown on the wild Arizona frontier of the 1880's, and in a land noted for desperate gunfights the events that took place that morning of September 4, 1887, stand out as one of the most desperate and courageous gunfights in the old west. This sheriff was not a two-gun man, for he only carried one six-shooter, one of the long barrel Colt peace-maker type.

When he heard that Cooper was at his mother's cottage he seized his Winchester and went to make the arrest. As in all cases of this kind there is some confusion as to what actually occurred. However, the testimony of witnesses at the inquest was taken down verbatim; but for more than forty years it lay buried in the records of the court house at St. Johns, to be unearthed for Earle R. Forrest when he wrote Arizona's Dark and Bloody Ground. Since then it has disappeared completely.

There were four men and three women in the Blevins house that day-Andy Cooper, John Blevins, Sam Houston, Blevins' boys, and widow of Mark Blevins, who had disappeared in July, Eva Blevins, wife of one of the Blevins boys, and Mrs. Amanda Gladden.

As Owens approached the house he saw a man in front watching but when he saw that the Sheriff was coming directly to the house he ducked inside. When Owens walked up to the door and knocked. Cooper opened the door a few inches with his left hand, holding his six-shooter in his right. John Blevins opened the door at the side, and thus Owens found himself between two brothers, but he never flinched.

Coolly facing Cooper, one of the most deadly man-killers in old Arizona, Owens calmly told him that he had a warrant for his arrest. A few words passed between them and then the outlaw refused to surrender. Both men fired so quickly that it is not known to this day who shot first. Cooper missed, but the Sheriff's bullet inflicted a death wound. Blevins fired from the other door, but missed. As Owens whirled around, his deadly Winchester barked again and John Blevins staggered back with a bullet in his shoulder.

The Sheriff leaped to the street where he could see both sides of the house as well as the front, and when he saw Cooper through a window he fired again hoping to hit him between the shoulders. Just then Mose Roberts came around the side of the house, his Colt ready for action, but before he could fire, Owens shot again and Roberts ran back into the house, mortally wounded.

Inside of the house sixteen-year-old Sam Blevins demanded a revolver from his wounded brother, John, but the latter refused to give him his gun. The excited youth seized the weapon from Cooper's dying hand and rushed out to end the fight and he did, but not in the manner he expected. Just as he was in the act of cocking the weapon the deadly Winchester in the hands of the sheriff barked again, and the boy fell back into his mother's arms with a bullet through his heart.

Many versions of this frontier gun-battle have been told down through the years, but we believe that the most authentic comes from the old testimony of the inquest, which has already been mentioned, and from that this account is given. In not more than sixty seconds three men were killed and a fourth wounded.

Commodore Owens survived those fighting frontier days many years to die in bed with his "boots off," at Seligman, Arizona, May 10, 1919. The Blevins cottage where this battle took place is still standing in Holbrook. Mrs. Eva Blevins, wife of John Blevins, held a babe in her arms during the whole terrible affair.

John Blevins was tried at St. Johns, charged with assault with intent to kill, in September, and found guilty. According to the old records, which, it is understood, have also disappeared, he was sentenced to five years in the penitentiary at Yuma. However, it is certain that he never served a day. The records at the penitentiary show that he was never confined there. According to Blevins' family tradition, Sheriff Owens started for Yuma with his prisoner, but on the way he received a telegram that the governor had pardoned Blevins. Still he refused to release his prisoner and finally when the conductor of the train received a telegram from the governor, the former told Blevins that he was free and did not need to accompany the officer. This ended the affair.

The two posses led by Sheriff Mulvenon and Justice of the Peace Meadows had accomplished no real good, and the war in the valley went on with undimished fury. In the early morning of September 17th, just as daylight was breaking a party of Graham men charged a Tewksbury camp, while the latter were still rolled in their blankets. Both Jim Tewksbury and Jim Roberts fired from their blankets. Harry Middleton was mortally wounded, to die two days later at the Graham Ranch, and Joe Ellenwood received a bullet that shattered his leg. Middleton was buried in the little boot hill graveyard at the ranch, beside other victims of the feud, where their graves may be seen to this day.

In the meantime Sheriff Mulvenon had raised a large posse and when he reached the valley he was joined by Houck, who claimed to have warrants for members of the Graham forces; but these were evidently fictitious, for if Houck held a commission it was from Apache County, and Pleasant Valley was not in that jurisdiction.

Joe McKinney, with two men, was in pursuit of two men who had held up a Santa Fe train near Navajo Springs, but when he reached the Mormon settlement of Snowflake he found that the trail had been obliterated by rain. Believing that the robbers had gone to Pleasant Valley he continued, but two Snowflake citizens, one of whom was Osmer D. Flake, son of Bishop William J. Flake of the Church of Latter Day Saints, joined his small posse.

Interest in the train robbers was abandoned when he learned that Mulvenon was in the valley, and McKinney decided to join that officer, whom he found encamped near the entrance to Gordon Canyon. This spot is on Haigler Creek, and is now known as the Verne Gillette place.

Mulvenon told McKinney that he would have no success in capturing the train robbers with such a small posse, and described the situation in the valley in these words: "Five or six men don't bother those fellows. I was in there a short time ago with that number of men with me and they came right into camp and made their big talks of what they would do and what they would not do, and I saw that I had the worst of it and denied having any warrants for them."

Perkins' store, about a mile southeast of and in plain view of the Graham cabin, was the principal trading center of the valley. During the night Mulvenon took possession of a partly completed stone building, across from the store, and placed several men in the latter. At daylight on September 21st McKinney with five men skirted the foothills and rode boldly to the store in hope of bringing out some of the feudists, but the ruse failed.

A second attempt was made, but McKinney remained at the store, while another man took his place so that there would be the same number in the party. This ruse brought results. Activity was noticed at the Graham ranch, and two horsemen rode towards the store. As they drew nearer they were recognized as John Graham and Charles Blevins. The two men approached cautiously, but what followed is best described in the published account of McKinney, an eyewitness: "They came up to within about four hundred yards of the store, then sprinted their horses off to the right and came all the way around the store and approached it from the southeast corner. We were lying down in the half built walls of the new store building. When they came within ten or fifteen steps, Mulvenon slipped out from behind the half built building and came around the southeast corner, saying: 'Put up your hands, boys, I want you.' "The spurring and kicking of their steeds began. John Graham pulled his pistol, but a charge of shot from Mulvenon's gun in the horse's neck brought his horse to the ground. He then turned to Charley Blevins and the next barrel of his shotgun took effect in Blevins' back. Blevins was drawing his Winchester and had it partly out of the scabbard and doubtless it dropped out before the horse went very far.

"Jim Houck started for Blevins, and I was afraid he would shoot him if he was not already killed. I was at his elbow and when he reached Blevins. I pulled Houck around and said; 'Don't shoot him, Jim.' "He replied; 'I was not going to unless he made a play.' "We turned him over on his back, and the pallor of death could be seen on his face. We carried him to the shade of the big trees that were in front of the house. Nothing but the buckshot from Mulvenon's gun had hit Blevins. Graham was hit with a rifle ball. It hit his left arm above the elbow and went straight through his body. He lived a little while. I got him some water and gave him a drink. He said nothing that I heard.

"Mulvenon said to him; 'Johnny, why didn't you hold up your hands when I told you to didn't you know me?' "

"Graham shook his head. Mulvenon then said; 'He knows he's a damn liar; he knew me. I didn't like that.' "

Neither did McKinney like the action of Houck, whom he forcibly prevented from attacking an unarmed and dying man who could not possibly have made a play. A single rifle ball hit Graham after his mount went down and a fusillade of about twenty guns was fired into a tangle of dying men and horses, while McKinney was rushing to halt the brutish Houck.

"All were shooting," Joe McKinney told Gregory in 1942.

Leaving John Graham dying and unattended, the posse headed towards the Graham cabin, but just then Bonner and Parker were seen in flight, too far away for successful pursuit. As the posse surrounded the house Mrs. Joe Ellenwood stumbled out with a toddling infant clutching her skirt, and as she reached the line of men she sank exhausted. Mulvenon learned from her that her husband, unable to move because of his wounded leg, and Miguel Apodaca, a Mexican ranch hand, were the only men left. The sheriff assured her that neither was wanted, and told her to return.

When they returned to Perkins' store they found that John Graham was dead. They then searched the valley for more Grahams and their partisans, but without success. Mulvenon then told McKinney that the Tewksburys would surrender. When they reached the ranch they found Jim Roberts shoeing a horse held by Jim Tewksbury.

Roberts only paused long enough to remark, "I guess Tom Graham will come home and take charge of the country when they take us away."

Others of that faction who had gathered at the ranch for the prearranged surrender were Ed Tewksbury, Joseph Boyer. Jake Lauffer, George Wagner and George Newton. They were taken to Payson, where they were released on bail.

When the grand jury met at Prescott in December, both factions were there in force, but no casualties occurred. Ed and Jim Tewksbury, Joseph Boyer, James Roberts, George Newton, Jake Lauffer and George Wagner were indicted for the murder of Hampton Blevins, but Tom Graham was not indicted. When their trial came up in June, 1888, witnesses were afraid to testify and they were released.

The Tewksburys charged Tom Graham with the murder of the Navajo sheepherder, and the factions gathered at the little Mormon settlement of St. Johns. It was here that the mysterious George Graham appeared. He was clearly described by Alfred Ruiz, clerk of the court, but after the charges at St. Johns fell through George Graham disappeared, never to be heard of again. The identity of this man remains a mystery to this day.

During the fighting in Pleasant Valley Tom Graham had taken the time to do some courting, and on October 8, 1887, he was united in marriage with Miss Annie Melton, who lived near Tempe. She was just seventeen and Tom Graham was thirty-three. The ceremony was performed by the bride's father, the Rev. W. J. Melton, pastor of the Tempe Baptist Church. Graham took his bride to Pleasant Valley on their honeymoon.

After the failure of the courts to punish any of those implicated there developed a series of assassinations from ambush. Early in November, Al Rose, a prominent Graham fighter, was shot and killed from ambush while camped with two companions at the Houdon Ranch. He had gone out to look for their horses while his comrades prepared breakfast. A few minutes later several shots were heard, and when the others went to investigate they found Rose dead, shot in the back. His comrades packed the body to the Graham ranch, where he was buried in the growing Boot Hill cemetery.

As Jake Lauffer stepped from his cabin on August 4, 1888, a forty-five Winchester bullet smashed his arm; and he got back to the shelter of his house before another shot could be fired. It is significant that he was a Tewksbury man. Local gossip said that he had talked too much, even to suit his own crowd.

James Tewksbury, the most deadly fighter on either side. died in a very unromantic manner; but to this day there are some who claim that he was killed in the feud. As a matter of fact, he died at Prescott in 1888 of quick consumption, following an attack of measles that settled on his lungs.

Probably the most dastardly act of the war was the lynching of James Stott, James Scott and Billy Wilson. While it may have had no direct bearing on the feud it was a result of the war and was carried out by Tewksbury sympathizers.

Jim Stott, a young New Englander who came to Arizona by way of Texas, had a horse ranch at Bear Spring in the Mogollon Mountains. While it has been proven that he did not steal any horses it is known that he purchased some with blotched brands.

On the night of August 10, 1888, four men spent the night at Jim Stott's ranch. In addition to Stott there were Jim Scott, a young Hash Knife cowboy, Billy Wilson, a wandering prospector from Colorado, and a young man suffering from consumption, whose name was Floyd Clymer. Scott and Wilson were simply passing through

and stopped for the night.

The next morning a band of ten or twelve men rode up to the ranch. seized Stott. Scott and Wilson, hurried them out to a grove of trees and hung them without ceremony. Only the consumptive was left. why no one ever knew. unless it was pity. The finger of suspicion pointed to Jim Houck as the leader. especially as he ad. mitted that he had arrested the three. but claimed that they had been taken from him by a party of forty masked men. The sick man carried the news to Holbrook. and a party, led by Sain Brown. a liveryman. cut down and buried the bodies. Will C. Barnes also claimed to have buried the bodies. and which one actually did cannot be determined definitely at this late date.

For many years the three graves were pointed out by cowboys and travelers in the Mogollons, each marked with a pine stake And so they remained there under the shade of the pines of the Mogollons, relics of the bloody pioneer days, undisturbed for fiftyfour years.

In July, 1942, a party from Snowflake. Arizona, opened the graves of the three men buried there more than half a century be fore. Fred A. Turley. of Sundown Ranch, a member of this party. reported the results to Leslie E. Gregory in a letter dated March 12, 1946, in which he states that his grandfather. William J. Flake. helped bury the victims.

Mr. Turley reported that Stott was buried in the grave east of the three. When it was opened, about four feet deep, they discovered that the corpse had been wrapped in a brown woolen blanket tied with cotton rope. This was shown by scraps of the blanket and rotten pieces of the rope that still remained. The large leg bones showed a man about six feet tall. This was evidence that it was Stott, for men still living recalled that both Scott and Wilson were short. At the bottom of the grave was a mat of small hair roots imbedded in the dark pulverized soil at the bottom of the grave. Roots and moisture had completely deteriorated everything else, and there was not a trace of any other bones or clothing.

About six inches square of a red and white plaid shirt and an undershirt were intact, while the two spots of the Levis where the copperrivets fastened the latch tabs in the rear were preserved. The soles and heels of the boots were in good condition. Among the personal belongings were: a worn gold band ring, a rusty pocket knife, two or three white pearl buttons, and about fifteen coinsnickels, dimes and quarters.

All that was left of Jim Stott were the leg bones already men tioned, the large arm bones and the back of the skull. There were no ribs, no vertebrae, nor other small bones. The back of the skull crumbled when exposed to the air. Remains of a sawed pine board that had been placed over the face were found.

The disappearance of George A. Newton, while on his way from Globe to the Flying V Ranch in Pleasant Valley, is a mystery that has never been cleared up, although it is now generally believed that he was drowned in crossing Salt River. Still there is the element of doubt, and some still believe that a rifle bullet ended his career while in midstream. Newton was a cattleman but was drawn into the war on the side of the Tewksburys, just why has never been definitely known.By 1891 the feud in the valley had about shot itself out. Three years had passed since the last hostilities, and George Newton had Searching parties, spurred by a reward offered by his wife, set out, and thoroughly combed every inch of the mountains between Globe and Pleasant Valley, but not a sign of him did they ever find. The earth had swallowed him, probably literally. for it is generally believed now that he was drowned crossing Salt River. Some think that he was shot first.

Tom Graham and his wife remained in Pleasant Valley until the summer of 1889 when he turned his cattle over to S. W. Young on shares, and sought peace on a farm near Tempe in the Salt River Valley. He prospered as a farmer, and the feud was a dark memory of wasted years that he wanted to forget. His cattle in the valley increased under Young's management, and in June, 1892, he returned to his old ranch to gather his share, accompanied by one man, Charley Duchet, who had been his faithful shadow ever since the war in the valley.

Ed Tewksbury, the last man of that family, still lived in the valley, and he permitted Graham to gather his cattle and depart in peace. The leaders of the feud did not meet on this occasion.

Then came the final act in this blood feud that had already cost not less than twenty lives. On the morning of August 2nd, 1892, while hauling grain from his ranch to Tempe, Tom Graham was shot from ambush as he was passing the Double Butte schoolhouse. The team returned to his ranch with the last of the Grahams on the load of grain, mortally wounded, and he died a short time later. Before he died he told his wife in the presence of witnesses that he was shot by Ed Tewksbury and John Rhodes.

Rhodes was arrested and Tewksbury surrendered three days later, and both were taken to Phoenix for safe keeping when word reached officers that a plot was on foot to lynch them.

During the preliminary hearing of John Rhodes before Justice of the Peace W. O. Huson, Mrs. Tom Graham suddenly drew her husband's revolver from an umbrella and pressed the muzzle against Rhodes' back. Before she could be stopped she pulled the trigger, but the gun missed fire, and John Rhodes' life was saved. People who were present said that Rhodes never moved a muscle. A story told years later was that Molly Cummins saw Mrs. Graham's mother re move the cartridges before they left home for the hearing.

Rhodes established an alibi to the satisfaction of Justice Huson. and he was released. No other action was ever taken against him.

Ed Tewksbury was held for trial in court after a preliminary hearing before Justice of the Peace Harry L. Wharton in Phoenix. and a true bill was returned by the grand jury on September 7th. Sixteen months passed before he was finally brought to trial, the delay being caused by legal technicalities entered by his attorneys. Finally, he secured change of venue to Tucson, where he was brought to trial on December 14, 1893, before Judge J. D. Bethune. After six days of what is the most noted murder case in Arizona's criminal history he was convicted of murder and recommended to the mercy of the court.

His attorneys immediately filed a motion for a new trial on the grounds that Tewksbury had not been present in court when his plea of abatement was presented to the court, and for the additional reason that no plea was ever entered on the record by the defendant. This motion was granted on March 4th, 1894.

However, he was not brought to trial again until January 2nd. 1895, this time before Judge Richard E. Sloan. The evidence was practically the same as at the first trial, and on January 10th the case was given to the jury. The defense had raised a reasonable doubt in the minds of the jurors and seven favored an acquittal. When it was found that they could not agree the jury was discharg ed by the court.

A motion to release the defendant on bail was refused at first, but on February 5th he was admitted to bail, and a year later the prosecution, believing that a conviction would be impossible, filed a motion of dismissal. This was granted on March 12th, 1896, and thus the curtain fell on the last act of the bitterest range war in the history of the old West.

Innocent or guilty, Ed Tewksbury spent two and a half years of his life in prison. It is claimed that this confinement brought on a disease that caused his death nine years later. After his release he returned to Pleasant Valley, but his father was dead, and his ranch had been neglected. His cattle and horses were scattered, and he found it only a land of bitter memories. Moving to Globe, he spent the remainder of his life as a peace officer. Ed Tewksbury, the last of his family died in Globe on April 4th, 1904, of consumption.