June 5, 1909.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
889 
I thought, in one who kept his camp so clean 
and orderly. He came, presently, packing a 
stump of ironwood, a little, thin, care-worn 
faced man of sixty or more, blue-eyed, gray¬ 
haired and gray-whiskered, dressed in khaki 
trousers, blue shirt and high laced, serviceable 
shoes. 
“How!” said I, rising. 
“Howdy! stranger. Howdy!’’ he replied 
solemnly and slowly, throwing down the wood 
and seating himself upon* it, the while looking 
at me searchingly. 
As he did not ' speak' further, I opened the 
conversation: “I did not expect to find any one 
camped here,” I said. “I walked over, think¬ 
ing I might get a shot at a deer coming to 
water at the spring. I am camped at the spring 
west yonder about three miles.” 
He nodded his head: “Yes, I’ve seen your 
tent,” he drawled. “I went over that way yest’- 
day, countin’ on layin’ for a deer there. You 
^ wan’t to home, so I didn’t linger none. If we 
want deer, I guess we’ve got to get out an’ 
hunt ’em. They’s a few around—mighty few 
compared to what they used to be, an’ they’re 
terrible wild. I’m needin’ meat purty bad my¬ 
self, so if you won’t walk too fast. I’ll go with 
you on a hunt to-morrow.” 
I readily agreed to that, and at the urgent re¬ 
quest of my new acquaintance, I stayed and had 
supper with him, a -good meal of beans, dried 
venison, bread and coffee. 
That was my first meeting with the man, who 
for the past three months has been m}^ frequent 
hunting companion, and with whom I have ex¬ 
changed many visits, yet I do not know his 
name; but of his adventures I have learned 
something. To myself, and to his face I call 
him “Old Timer.” He chooses to call me 
“Pardner.” 
We went hunting the next day down the wide 
arroyo—or wash—formed by the junction of 
the two smaller ones in which our several 
springs are located. One unused to the ways 
of these desert mule deer would undoubtedly 
have gone in the opposite direction, up on the 
steep mountainside. Singularly enough, in this 
southern country the deer prefer to lie on the 
more level places; particularly where they can 
see out across a wide arroyo. They usually 
rest under an ironwood, or palo verde tree and 
arise and move several times during the day, 
in order to keep in the shade, which is grate¬ 
ful here, even in January. 
After walking several miles on opposite sides 
of the wash, we found where the deer had 
solved the water problem for themselves by 
pawing down to it through the gravel of a blind 
tank. Here the arroyo dropped a number of 
feet over successive outcroppings of bed rock, 
and back of each rim was a trough-like de¬ 
pression filled with gravel, sand and water. 
The water could not be seen, nor could the 
sun’s rays easily evaporate it from under its 
covering of detritus. But the deer knew it was 
there—no doubt they could smell it—and by 
pawing down about eight inches they had been 
able to expose it. Many a tenderfoot, I pre¬ 
sume. dying from thirst in the desert, has 
walked over just such blind tanks and has never 
suspected the presence of the precious fluid. 
After discovering the water hole—and drink¬ 
ing—we proceeded more cautiously, and before 
long I saw a deer jump from his bed. run a 
few paces and turn to look at me. I could see 
only his head and neck at one side of a giant 
cactus and he was a long way off, but I fired 
anyhow, and had the pleasure of seeing him 
fall. He proved to be a two-year-old witli little 
slender antlers—pronged, of course—that a 
Northern two-year-old of the kind would have 
been ashamed to wear. And as to size, he was 
little larger than a yearling mule deer of Mon¬ 
tana. The largest, grayest old bucks here do 
not compare in size with their Northern kin¬ 
dred. In dressing him I had the curiosity to 
see what he was feeding upon, and found that 
the contents of his i)aunch consisted almost en¬ 
tirely of the leaves and nuts of a certain bush 
locally known as buck brush. 
On our way campward after Ruminator, on 
whose sturdy back we packed in the meat, we sat 
down to rest on a point, from which we had 
an exceptionally fine view of the great desert 
and the vallej' of the Gila River wunding 
through it aw'ay westward to the Colorado and 
the sea. In the clear air the little town of 
Florence, although miles distant, was so sharply 
contrasted with its green setting that we could 
count its every wooden store and adobe dwel¬ 
ling. Florence you know is the “Red Dog” 
of Alfred Henry Lewis’ interesting book 
“Wolfville”; and three miles further down the 
valley lie the ruins of .\damsville—“Wolfville” 
—which its rival finally vanquished, although 
Mr. Lewis’ “Old Cattleman" does not tell us 
so. He keeps that sad episode to himself. 
As w'e sat resting and smoking. I gave my 
companion a short synopsis of the story and 
the principal characters, and he was deeply in¬ 
terested. “By gum!’’ he exclaimed, when I had 
finished, “that writer feller must sure a' been 
there to get it all down so pat. Too young, is 
he? well then, the Old Cattleman must have 
been a real live, old talker an' been there him¬ 
self. - I wonder now’, who it could be. 'S'ou set, 
I was there myself. Yes, sir, an’ I seen her die. 
“In the first place, you see, Adamsville was 
a stage station an’ a place for emigrants to 
stop and rest, an’ licker up. Some of theni 
emigrants, while restin’—an’ mebby losin’ some 
of their cold casfi at faro an’ poker—takes a 
look at the country surrounding. They sees the 
ruins of Casa Grande an’ many another un¬ 
named place where thousands of people once 
lived—who ever they, w^as—an’ they sees there, 
riinnin’ in every direction across the desert, 
the old ditches w’ith which these same dead an’ 
gone folks raised corn an’ cotton, an' beans, 
an’ all sorts of truck. ‘We can do the same,’ 
says some of 'em, an' they settles here an’ there 
along the river an' goes at it. In consequence, 
Adamsville grows. In almost no time she 
grows to be a cpiarter of a mile long, adobe 
houses—some of ’em two stories high—on both 
sides of the road. -Mso. they’s a grist mill, two 
hotels, two butcher shops, an’ saloons an’ htirdy- 
gurdies galore. The grist mill don’t never run 
much, for the ranchers’ ditches fills up w'ith 
silt, or the river changes an’ leaves ’em dry. 
But that don’t make no difference: Just then 
the Silver King mine is struck back there in 
these Superstition Mountains—millions was 
took from her before she petered out—an’ 
Adamsville jest naturally wallow's in coin.” 
“After a while some fellers who has quite 
considerable dust, an fer certain reasons is not 
well liked in .Adamsville. puts up a job on us. 
They goes out yonder on the desert, locates a 
opposition town they calls Florence, an’ then 
petitions the Territorial Council to make this 
here country a county, an’ their town the county 
seat. Right there war begins between the two 
places. Money flows like water an’ whiskey an’ 
bottled beer the same, more an’ more, freer 
and freer as election time draws nigh. 
“It’s sure surprisin’ how this opposition town 
of Florence grows. Of course, bein’ right on 
the emigrant trail an’ east of us, they has the 
first chance at the incomin’ pilgrim an’ loads 
him with red licker and’ reasons why he should 
locate with them. Mostly, the fact of free licker 
is enough, an’ they stays. Well, we puts our 
heads together, an' figures out a scheme to beat 
that. We sends one trusted an’ prominent 
citizen to Tucson, an another to Yuma, each 
with a big wad of money, an between ’em they 
induces about three hundred Mexicans to emi¬ 
grate to Adamsville an’ become citizens of the 
town. We gives ’em their board, tobacco, some 
whiskey. I leave it to you if that ain’t enough 
for any greaser. 
“Well, sir, election day dawns an’ we rises 
with the sun happy as birds, b’cause this day 
we gets the county seat sure, an’ most of the 
county offices, an’ Florence becomes the back 
number she deserves to be. That’s the way we 
figures it. But in half an hour all’s changed. 
We notices that the cholos ain’t cornin’ out of 
the brush as usual, shiverin’ under their 
blankets for their mornin’ drink. An’ this is 
the day they should be on hand prompt, for 
they're to cast their votes an’ get five dollars 
apiece. We all rushes down into the brush; not 
one is to be seen; the ashes in their fire-places 
is cold. Some of us jumps on our horses an’ 
hits the trail for Florence, but when we get 
there it’s too late; the last of our three hun¬ 
dred cholos is jest cornin’ out of the votin’ 
place, an’ the crowd standin’ by gives us the 
big laugh. They’ve beat us at our own game, 
an’ Adamsville is dead.” 
“Florence itself doesn’t seem to be very much 
alive.” I remarked. 
“Drat her, no!” the Old Timer exclaimed, 
rising and shaking his fist at the far away town. 
“She's dead, an’ she’ll stay dead, unless the 
Government turns loose an’ builds a big dam 
’way up the river like that one at Roosevelt. 
As for me, I hope she’ll stay dead. I ain’t 
never been in the place since the day they horn- 
swaggled us out of the county seat. 
“What killed her? Why, the Southern Pacific 
passed twenty-eight miles south of her an’ then 
they was no more emigrants to sell whiskey to. 
Next, the Silver King petered out; an’ now 
what is they out around there? Nothin’ but 
filled-in ditches an’ deserted ranches. Serves 
her right, by gum!” 
As we walked on I wondered where this 
strangely vindictive little old man got his sup¬ 
plies; since he did not visit Florence, and why, 
as he hated the town so much, he chose to 
camp where, every time he looked southward, 
the place was plainly to be seen in its desert 
setting. But I forebore to question. In good 
time I would know, I concluded, and in the 
meantime, by casual remarks, I gave him to 
understand that I had no interest in the country 
further than as a pleasant place to pass the 
winter months. 
“In all my travels,” I said to him one day, “I 
