THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 201 



You set the money thar, an' it'll stay till I git ready 

 to come after hit." 



I wish that it were possible to relate some of my 

 personal experiences with our South Western 

 mountaineers; for though commonly accounted 

 lawless such experiences would be a bit astonishing 

 to their detractors. Such scraps of local history, 

 however, might prove tiresome to "furrin' " read- 

 ers. Suffice it to say that in all my dealings with 

 mountaineers, come down to the Valley for pur- 

 poses of their own, I encountered nothing but the 

 strictest honesty, and even in one special emergency 

 genuine chivalry. The emergency was such that 

 friends in town begged me, almost with tears, to 

 leave my ranch, part of the house being occupied by 

 a mountain family and temporary cowboy visitors, 

 and seek safety with them. I declined the invita- 

 tion, asserting that no matter what might happen — 

 and things were happening at that juncture — I had 

 never felt so secure, so well protected, in my usually 

 unprotected existence. These mountaineers might 

 be under suspicion — the story is too long to relate 

 here — but, rough and unlettered though they were, 

 I had received at their hands such chivalrous treat- 

 ment, such genuine courtesy as could not be ex- 

 celled, possibly not matched, elsewhere in that sec- 

 tion. The sequel proved that I was not mistaken; 

 I slept that night without fear, and my confidence 

 was more than justified. 



In a sense, however, our mountaineers are un- 

 doubtedly lawless. They do not, like the Southern 

 mountain people, hold grudges from one generation 



