Legends of the Lost

RANGE CALICO

Her bein' as pure as the Christ-mas snow, it won't be long till she's puttin' hobbles on him.

Her old man's usually kinda religious an' don't like cow-boys. They drink an' gamble, are wild an' quick to fight, an' spend their money free an' easy. But the daughter finds 'em more attractive than the sod-bustin' boys. She likes their jinglin' spurs, their gaudy dress, their broad grin, an' free hearted-ness. When a nester boy comes a-courtin', he thinks he's a sport when he brings her a ten-cent bag of gum drops. The cowhand brings her the biggest box of candy he can find in town, an' apologizes because he can't find a bigger one. He's generous with her little broth-ers an' sisters, too. Anyway, a ridin' man's always been more romantic than a man on foot.

In ridin' over the range, if he comes across a little house with a garden in the back or a flower bed out in front, it's a shore sign there's a woman livin' there. A few plants in tomato cans settin' in a curtained win-dow will make him stop an' do a little wishful thinkin'.

While thumbin' through some thick wish book, he's lingered many a time with a heap of wonder at the women's more personal wearin' apparel pictured there. If he passed a place an' saw these same gar-ments hangin' on a clothesline, he didn't need a gizzardful of gravel to find an excuse to stop. Of course he's hopin' them clothes belong to some single gal livin' there.

As the West became more settled, wisdom-bringers were imported to teach the range yearlin's their three Rs. Some of 'em was from the East, educated to a feather edge, an' as full of information as a mail-order cat-alog. Bein' soft an' pretty as a young calf's ears, they never lacked a good saddle horse an' a willin' escort to ride home with 'em. Some admirin' punch-er always jes' happened by with an extra hoss or a buckboard as school was turnin' out.

Some old range waddy even might decide his own educa-tion had been neglected an' try to enroll as a private pupil. But she knowed what he was after an' that teachin' him would be as risky as brandin' a mule's tail. She'd as soon learn a bull calf to drink out of a bucket as teach that old dog new tricks. She had other ways of educat-in' him. It wasn't book learnin' he was after.

might decide his own educa-tion had been neglected an' try to enroll as a private pupil. But she knowed what he was after an' that teachin' him would be as risky as brandin' a mule's tail. She'd as soon learn a bull calf to drink out of a bucket as teach that old dog new tricks. She had other ways of educat-in' him. It wasn't book learnin' he was after.

Sometimes she'd left her heart back East an' was as aloof as a mountain sheep. A cow-hand didn't have no more

I REMEMBER

ONE WIDDER SPINNIN' HER WEB.

BEING IN THE LEAD

WHEN TONGUES

WERE GIVEN OUT,

SHE CAN TALK A PUMP

INTO BELIEVING IT'S A WINDMILL.

show with her kind than a stump-tailed bull in fly time. But it occasionally happened she fell for one of them bow-legged range riders. If she did, he wasn't long in mortgagin' his here an' hereafter for the papers necessary to file a per-manent claim on her affections an' huntin' a sky-pilot to weld him to the neckyoke. After that she'd have him so bridle-wise he'd stand hitched with the reins hangin' down.

But all them wisdom-bringers wasn't as soft an' fluffy as a goose-hair pillow. Some of 'em was of the old-maid variety an' looked like they'd been weaned on a pickle. She wouldn't attract as much attention as an empty bottle. A man'd shore look at his hole card before droppin' by with a saddle hoss for her kind. If he was loco to do so, she'd probably greet him with a look sour 'nough to pucker a pig's mouth. She always seemed soured on life an' couldn't get the acid from her system. Right away he decided her kind couldn't teach a settin' hen to cluck.

Many an old alkali got plumb dissatisfied with the boar's nest he'd been livin' in when some filly cut his trail. Most unmarried men are as homeless as a poker chip. Some of 'em would like to settle down an' stay in one place till they rust, but nearly all cowmen are a little skittish of widders, both grass an' sod. It's the voice of experience ag'in the amateur. Some of them widders might have a short rope, but they shore throwed a wide loop. Once she's got a man in her trap you can't turn her no more'n you can a runaway hog. It's like watchin' a bag of fleas to see which way she'll jump next. You take some old buck who's never been hogtied with matrimonial ropes an' he don't savvy she-stuff. When some widder plucks the emblem of bondage from the third finger of the hand she's once give away an' fastens that hand onto him, he's helpless as a cow in quicksand.

I remember watchin' one widder spinnin' her web like a spider after a fly. She's got so much tallow she only needs four more pounds to git into a sideshow, an' she's got 'nough offspring to start a public school. Personally, I'd jes' as soon have married an orphan asylum. Bein' in the lead when tongues was give out, she can talk a pump into believin' it's a windmill. She's soon got her man convinced he needs her worse'n a fish needs water. From then on, his leg's tied up an' she's wearin' the bell.

The grass widder, too, is a dangerous critter. Bein' of the grass variety don't mean she's lettin' any of it grow under her feet. When she adjusts her sights for a pore male, she don't seem to have no trouble gittin' some rake to gather her hay crop.

The Heart an' Hand woman's another who came West to shake her rope at some lonely batch. She got this name from that old magazine put out bya matrimonial agency. Some love-hungry cowboy'd git a copy through the mail an' read it with a heap of interest - that is, them that could read. His simple soul believed all them descrip-tions. Hey, wasn't it printed? He didn't believe you could print anything that wasn't the truth.

Sometimes he started a letter courtship with one of these cat-alog widders who wanted her weeds plowed under. Maybe it started out of curiosity, to pass the time an' learn news from the outside, or jes' for a joke, but he often found out too late that he'd put a spoke in his wheel, an' some gal was on her way out, ready to surrender like a willow to the wind. He'd find himself drivin' a buckboard 50 miles to the railroad station to meet a lady love he'd really never intended seein' him in his home corral.

The chances are when she stepped off the train, the photo-graph she'd sent didn't show up all the blemishes. Maybe she's got a face built for a hackamore an' ain't nothin' for a drinkin' man to look at, but, as a rule, he ain't no parlor ornament either.

Anyway, he's of a breed whose word's as bindin' as a hangman's knot on a hoss thief's neck, an' lets himself be hooked up in double harness. Occasionally, by the time she's got him harness broke, he's found out she's a cook that can put real flavor in his grub. Once she slips the nosebag on him, he's like a grain fed hoss an's never ag'in satisfied with the hay shoveled out by some old roundup cookie. More'n one such marriage has turned out good, both for a man's di-gestion an' his contentment.

Maybe Eve pluckin' that first apple started this whole thing, but from that day to this, when a woman starts draggin' her loop there's always a man willin' to step into it. Woman has always influ-enced man, either for good or bad, an' most of us know that a smile from a good woman's worth more'n a dozen handed out by the bartender.

ARIZONA HIGHWAYS HISTORY THE GREAT ARIZONA VOLCANO SCARE

Tombstone residents first thought the rumbling noise was nothing more than another ore wagon passing by, but when the din rapidly in-creased until it sounded like a dynamite blast, they knew they had trouble.

In the Crystal Palace Saloon, chandelier globes shattered on the floor and scattered the poker players.

Deep down in the Toughnut Mine, William F. Staunton yelled to his partner, Sam Cheyney, “It's an earthquake! Get under something quick!” Cheyney replied from the depths of the mine, “The Lord knows, I'm under enough already.” The Sonoran Earthquake, the largest known quake to hit the area, rocked Arizona Territory on May 3, 1887. The Richter Scale wasn't doing business at the time, but in nearby Charleston, the saloon did a two-step and the floor did a shimmy, and experts have concluded that it was in the neighborhood of a 7.5-magnitude quake.

From the epicenter, about 40 miles below Douglas in Sonora, Mexico, shock waves radiated throughout 720,000 square miles of the Southwest. In southeastern Arizona, the quake caused rocks to careen down hillsides, geysers to gush, and Miss Annie Wood of Tucson to faint. In fact it shook up a good many folks in Tucson. The Tucson Daily Star reported: “The earthquake seems to have disturbed the mental equilibrium of several people. No less than six persons in Tucson have been reported as laboring under fits of insanity, all of whom have been affected since the disturbance of this section of Mother Earth.” Small tremblors occasionally jiggled Arizona settlers, but nothing prepared them for that earthquake of 1887. Without telephone or television, hearsay and strange accounts grew to proportions larger than the quake itself.

A reporter in Benson knew he had the newsbreak of his life when the quake rattled his windows. As soon as the ground and his nerves stopped trembling, he fired off a story to the San Francisco Chronicle, letting them know Benson had experienced no less than 40 quakes. Knowing Californians wouldn't consider quakes all that newsworthy, he heated up his story with volcanoes spewing from mountains and lava pouring from craters.

The volcano story carried as far away as New York, but there it didn't cause much excitement. Most New Yorkers figured Arizona such a primitive place, it was no wonder volcanoes were popping up like something from a primeval scene.

By May 5, The Los Angeles Times reported a volcano in the Total Wreck Mountains, one in the Santa Catalinas near Tucson, and another in the Winchester Mountains around