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iminutive against the high plains north of Holbrook, three horseback riders jog along. For most of the day, conversation has been as sparse as last year's rainfall. Then Bill Jeffers opens up with a rendition that would make Glen Campbell shudder: "He's a Rhineland cooooowboy." Jurgen Nitsche glowers under the wide brim of his black hat. Bill's sister, Ann, grins.

Both Bill's song and the country are familiar to Nitsche. He knows all the sandy washes and long black mesas of the Jeffers Ranch as well as he knows his own town of Karlsruhe, Germany, where he's a dentist. For 22 years he has journeyed 4,850 miles from his homeland on the Rhine River to Arizona. He comes not as a tourist but as a cowboy.

A German dentist finds home on the range

Nitsche is no city slicker. He's a working cowboy who doesn't mind stretching wire, doctoring sick cattle or hauling salt blocks. His friendship with Bill and Ann Jeffers goes back to 1976 when he traveled around the United States on a fourweek bus pass, looking for some remnant of the real West.

"I'd read a lot about the American West, and I had to see for myself if there was any of the Old West romance left," Nitsche explains. "I had set out for Laramie, Wyoming, because that town sounded Western. When I saw it was a good-sized city, I just kept going."

As the Greyhound bus rolled across northern Arizona, Nitsche saw cowboys moving a large herd of cattle. He got off in Holbrook, located the chamber of commerce office and asked if there were any ranches nearby. The Jeffers Ranch sits on the mesa above town.

Nitsche walked out to the ranch house and knocked on the front door. At that time he spoke After two decades of trading his clinical whites for cowboy blues, Karlsruhe native Jurgen Nitsche switches professions without a hitch.

very little English, but Bill's mother, Nancy, invited him in, gave him a cup of coffee and asked him to wait. When Bill and Ann came in, they found a tall Teutonic stranger sitting on the couch chatting with their mother.

Hesitantly, Nitsche asked if he could stay around for a few days and work. He'd do anything that needed doing, and he didn't mind sleeping in the barn. "I wanted to be a cowboy, to try it, but I didn't want to bother anybody," he recalls.

It wasn't the first time the family had put up with

Making dental braces wasn't as exciting as chasing wild cattle through the sagebrush

Bill, too polite to say no, reckoned he could put up with anyone for a day or two. "Jurgen seemed real pleasant, and he was willing to work," Bill recalls.

Nitsche says, "I tried to stay out of the way, to just watch and listen." He wasn't completely green, though. He had read all the books about old-time cowboys available in German translations, and he had learned to rein a horse Western-style. He discovered quickly, however, that ranch horses have thoughts of their own.

"The horse came back over the hill without him a couple of times," Bill says. "Jurgen walked in later." And, true to the Code of the West, nobody asked any questions.

Nitsche spent the rest of his holiday on the ranch helping with fall roundup. One of the first things he learned was to slow down while working cattle. Chowsing them takes off pounds, and pounds are what pay the bills. "The first time we drove a herd of several hundred head, it was thrilling," Nitsche recalls.

learned was to slow down while working cattle. Chowsing them takes off pounds, and pounds are what pay the bills. "The first time we drove a herd of several hundred head, it was thrilling," Nitsche recalls.

And then it was time for Nitsche to leave. Making dental braces wasn't as exciting as chasing wild cattle through the sagebrush, but he had a business to run, a mother to care for and a girlfriend waiting for him.

When Bill Jeffers took him to the bus depot, he asked Nitsche when he would come back. That was all Nitsche needed to hear. Upon his return to Germany, he subscribed to Arizona Highways, read everything he could find about the state and came back in less than a year.

"It's amazing that the Jeffers family let a foreigner come into their lives like that, without knowing me," Nitsche says.

"Maybe they just felt sorry for me, coming all the way from Germany. They put up with all my mistakes."

But Jeffers disagrees. "He didn't make too many mistakes. When he was capable of doing something, we'd let him do it."

Nitsche knew he had made the grade the first time Jeffers sent him out alone to get some cattle. He helped with branding, fence building and all the ranch chores. In 1978 Jeffers gave him a mother cow, and registered the ZƏ brand for him. The cow had a calf, and Nitsche found himself in the cattle business.

By then he could take the hardships of ranch life as well as any cowboy. "He wanted extremes," Jeffers says. "He liked it better when it was real cold or hot, dry, dusty or windy. He wanted to ride the young horses. He never complained."

Nitsche says, "As long as I was on the ranch, I I knew that those days of the open prairie and the hardships of a long trail were history, but I found out that even nowadays on a big spread like the one I'm lucky to be on you can ride for hours and hours without seeing anything but cow country. And even if the cattle drives are measured by hours or days, not weeks or months anymore, you can sit straight in your saddle and try to do the best with the help of your pony. And if you're lucky, you can look to a great horizon without any fences and be a small part of the heritage and the spirit of the West. And that is what keeps me coming back as long as I'm welcome and able to fork a horse. - Jurgen Nitsche didn't care if I had to get up before daylight and work until after dark." But he discovered the Romance of the Range wasn't always what it was cracked up to be when he had to rescue an old cow bogged down in a dirt tank. He pulled off his pants and boots, waded in and worked her legs out of the mud one at a time. Just as he was emerging from the mud, some tourists stopped to take his picture. He didn't smile for the camera. In 1982 Nitsche brought his fiancée, Sonni, to visit the ranch. If she hadn't liked it, or fitted in, their story might have ended differently, but Sonni found it all fascinating. Nitsche says one of his best memories involves working cattle with Sonni on her first visit to the ranch. They rode together and when they came in with the cattle, they could tell Jeffers how many dry cows, wet cows, calves, yearlings and bulls they had gathered. Nitsche and Sonni both entered dental college, and made plans to open their own practice in Karlsruhe when they graduated. It was a long and difficult struggle, but he'd somehow managed to save enough to come back to the ranch again and again. They were married in 1989 and opened their Own dental practice in 1994. They now have two daughters. The Drs. Nitsche own two quarter horses and a pony for the girls, who are learning to ride Western-style. Their holidays are not all at the ranch. The Nitsches have trekked the Himalayas and rented a yacht on the North Sea, and they enjoy skiing in the Alps. But sooner or later, they always return to Arizona, their second home. Jeffers says, "It's unique that Jurgen has hung on to this type of life. His interests are varied." Nitsche and Jeffers have much in common. Their lives center around their families, but something more than family life draws them together. There is the smell of corral dust, the nicker of a horse waiting for its grain, the squeak of saddle leather on a cold morning, the slap of wind, the taste of sand and grit. The humility of open space. The letting go of self in the presence of something vast and timeless. The cowboy life.

TOUR ONE OF THE BEST PETROGLYPH SITES IN THE WORLD ROCK ART RANCH

Long before Columbus stumbled onto the New World, an Anasazi stood before a cliff in Chevelon Can-yon and chipped away at the sand-stone wall, etching a picture. Many of his friends and relatives did the same. These images, called petro-glyphs, puzzle today's viewers; no one truly knows their meanings or whether they're anything more than ancient doodling.

If chipping petroglyphs served as merely a pastime, then prehistoric Indians must have considered the north end of Chevelon Canyon, 17 miles west of Holbrook in northeast-ern Arizona, a great place to hang out and socialize. Like a gigantic ver-sion of what you'll see in a kinder-garten classroom, drawings cover very few feet of the sheer sandstone

walls. Rancher Brantley Baird, owner of that 4-mile section of the canyon, named his spread Rock Art Ranch. And when he isn't watching over his herd, he's escorting visitors out to the canyon. Like the ancient Anasazi, modern visitors find it a great place to relax and socialize.

"This is one of the premiere rock art sites in the world," said Evelyn Billo, a rock art expert from Flagstaff. "There are more unique, humanlike forms on these walls than we've seen at most sites," she explained.

We boarded a tractor-pulled tram for the 4-mile trip to the petroglyphs. We traversed sand dunes and the low scrub of the Painted Desert, stopping at a replica of a Navajo village at Chimney Canyon, and, finally, at a rocky hillside above Chevelon Canyon, a few miles south of the Little Colorado River.

The dramatic drop-off into the canyon remained hidden from sight even when the tram stopped. Rough slabs of rock served as "steps" for the 70-foot descent from the rim to Chevelon Creek. The petroglyphs pictures of humanlike figures, a variety of animals and symbols - lined the heavily mineralized cliffs.

We learned that archaeologists and volunteers have recorded the rock art at the Chevelon site for several years, but much remains to be done. Some of the images of snakes, deer, sheep -duplicate those at many other sites, but several of the symbols at Chevelon remain unique. One appears to depict a baby being born; another, a crudely stippled geometric pattern, represents a style not found at most other sites.

After a couple of hours wandering along the canyon bottom and finding hundreds of the prehistoric drawings, we returned to the rim for a ride back to ranch headquarters.

Acquired by Baird's father in 1944, along with "871 sheep of all ages," the land that encompasses the petroglyph site now functions as a cattle operation and Western museum. We roamed the grounds, including the last building remaining from the legendary Hashknife outfit, and gazed at displays of Anasazi artifacts some found on-site - and old farm implements.

As the sun dipped low and the sky turned a stunning pink, Baird opened the large doors at both ends of the barn that serves as a dining hall and pioneer museum. Tables had been arranged for a cowboy dinner of barbecued beef.

Just beyond the barn door, the flames from a piñon fire licked into the darkening sky. Baird's wife, Katy, played the piano, and the guests sang "Home On The Range" and "You Are My Sunshine." Copies of the lyrics were passed around so no one would feel left out.

Baird, looking toward the setting sun, remarked, "When we open the barn doors and make a big fire like this, there's an atmosphere you don't see much anymore. It's like the Old West, and I love it that way."

WHEN YOU GO

Location: 240 miles northeast of Phoenix; midway between Holbrook and Winslow.

Getting There: From Interstate 40, take Exit 252 (Business 1-40) to State Route 87, turn right (south). Continue to a left turn onto State Route 99. At Territorial Road (a graded dirt road), turn left. Continue to Rock Art Ranch sign and turn right.

Hours: Tours offered Monday through Saturday afternoons, year-round, weather permitting; dinner and entertainment, or a light lunch, offered by special arrangement spring through fall; closed Thanksgiving, Christmas.

Fees: Vary depending on the number of guests on the trip.

Travel Advisory: Reservations are required.

Additional Information: (520) 288-3260.

ahhh . . . autumn

shades of splendor suffuse the north rim

AHHH... AUTUMN. With a reluctant sigh, summer releases its grip on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. But like a boxer past his prime, yet unwilling to call the fight, the aging year declares it has a thing or two left before yielding to Old Man Winter. With summer's end, the Earth continues its loop around the sun, and those lazy, hazy, crazy days quicken their post-Labor Day pace. Botanists tell us the shortened daylight hours inhibit trees' production of chlorophyll, removing the catalyst for photosynthesis that manufactures the green of their leaves, paving the way for other pigments to show their colors. All that biological stuff may very well be true, but I prefer to imagine the hand of God holding a giant paintbrush, splashing hues and pigments wherever His creative will intends. Without resistance, each leaf complies, and entire forests are set ablaze in their perennial, glorious display. - Pauly Heller Nothing lives long except the earth and the mountains.

(PRECEDING PANEL, PAGES 24 AND 25) Aspens transitioning to fall gold share a slope with crimson-hued maples at the edge of the Grand Canyon's North Rim. ROBERT G. MCDONALD (LEFT) Like liquid pearls, raindrops from a high-country shower gather on fallen aspen leaves. CHUCK LAWSEN (RIGHT) Conspicuous against the paper-white trunks of a grove of golden aspens, a ponderosa pine offers a dignified contrast to its showier companions. RANDY PRENTICE

Stand still.

The forest knows where you are.

You must let it find you.