450 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Sept. 18, 1909. 
unnoticed, and I interrupted him: “Whether 
north or south,” said I, "the way of throwing 
the diamond hitch, of shooting to kill, of gen¬ 
eral ‘getting there’ is the same. I guess I have 
seen as much of the unfenced country as you 
have, and mine was a better one, not a dreary 
waste of dry sand.” 
How childish my interruption was I realized 
before I finished speaking, and Sonora’s kindly 
eyes agleam with good-natured mirth height¬ 
ened my confusion. "I take it back, said he: 
“Let’s forget it. This is what I started to say: 
All the old prospectors down in this part of 
the country believe that sheep, yes, and ante¬ 
lope, too, go for months without drinking. I 
myself have long had a hunch that they don't 
do any such thing. Many a time I have thought 
of watching them just as you did, but I never 
got to do it.” 
“When I get back to the Superstitions, I’m 
sure goin’ t’ take t’ watch a band that lives 
out to the west end of ’em,” said Old-Timer. 
“Everybody says they ain’t any water in that 
end of the range.” 
“I guess we’ll try the experiment right here,” 
Sonora proposed: “we sure can’t drink this 
cactus juice forever. Taken regular, maybe it 
isn’t good for a fellow.” 
We breakfasted and then had a long nap, 
then another feed. About two o’clock we took 
our rifles and started up the mountain on dis¬ 
covery, agreed that for the present no sheep 
should be killed. 
In this desert land of few rains the moun¬ 
tains appear to disintegrate as rapidly as they 
do in climates of frost and snow. When the 
lains do come they are torrential—frequently 
cloudbursts that fairly tear the side out of a 
hill. We came upon such a slicing soon after 
leaving camp, a place where comparatively re¬ 
cently a hundred acres of the mountain side 
had been swept clear of everything loose upon 
it. Boulders of many tons weight had been 
torn from place, plowing the bedrock as they 
went, and were piled in a mass a hundred feet 
deep at the bottom of the slope. We noticed 
several narrow streaks of copper ore in the 
clear swept rock. When within a couple of 
hundred yards of the dome-like summit, a band 
of seven sheep appeared on it from the other 
side and stopped and gazed at us with apparent 
curiosity. They were ewes and young with the 
exception of a two-year-old ram, and he looked 
very tempting to three meatless men. “Man! 
there’s roasting rib for you,” Sonora whispered; 
and “Yes,” I agreed, “some fine chops for 
broiling, too.” Old-Timer said nothing, but 
the way he smacked his lips was more ex¬ 
pressive than our words. 
The sheep looked at us, looked at the right, 
the left, behind them and then again at us, the 
old ones frequently stamping the rock with 
their fore feet. We did not wish to scare them, 
nor did we care to stand where we were all 
day. We moved slowly forward a few paces; 
they retreated, then came back for another look, 
and this performance was repeated several 
times. “Oh, shucks!” said Old-Timer at last, 
“shoo! scat!” and he made a spring and waved 
his arms. Then they did go, but trotting in¬ 
stead of with a wild burst of speed. We agreed 
that in all probability we were the first two- 
legged animals they had ever seen. 
By the time we stood where they had been, 
the sheep were a quarter of a mile away and 
leisurely traveling toward a big, deep wash that 
lay between the knob we were on and the next 
peak to the south. When near it they broke 
into a trot, then a ‘lope, and bobbed out of 
sight into the black cut. “Water there,” said 
I, “they generally do break into a run when 
near -it, and so do most all other game, and 
even cattle.” 
Sonora allowed that I was right, but Old- 
Timer sniffed and remarked that "seein is be¬ 
lievin’.” We sat down, prepared our various 
smokes and waited for the sheep to reappear, 
and lo! while waiting more sheep—three big 
rams—appeared on the far side of the wash, 
and our relief was not small when we saw them 
plunge into the wash near the spot where the 
others had disapeared. Even Old-Timer was 
now satisfied that there was their watering 
place. It was too late in the day to move 
camp, six or eight miles around the northern 
end of the range to the opposite side, but we 
were well content to use cactus juice for an¬ 
other night. After watching the sheep straggle 
back out of the wash—still in separate bunches 
_ we went down to our beans and bacon the 
last pig meat we intended to eat for some time. 
After helping the others to pack up in the 
morning. I started straight across the divide 
to exactly locate the water and kill some meat 
if possible. By the time I got to the summit 
the day was very hot. I was not at all sur¬ 
prised when I failed to see any sheep, for by 
this time they were sure to be lying m the 
shade of the big rocks and cliffs, or under 
some of the few mesquites and palo verde 
struggling here and there to survive the awful 
aridness of the desert. I found evidence that 
sheep were plentiful in the range; everywhere 
their droppings and not a few skulls and parts 
of skeletons, evidently the killings of predatory 
animals — not man. 
I went on down the west slope, quartering to¬ 
ward the wash over a big area of rough 
boulders—lava and black sienite—seeing no liv¬ 
ing things larger than a few tarantula hawks 
and a multitude of brilliant-colored lizards. At 
every step I expected to hear the whir of a 
rattler, but in that I was agreeably disappoined. 
At last, wet with perspiration from jumping 
the rocks, I arrived at the edge of the wash; its 
walls were from twenty to fifty feet high and 
broken here and there by tributary washes. Its 
smooth gravelly bed looked very tempting after 
my teetering course over the boulder field, and 
I slid down to it. Here I found tracks of sheep 
—no end of them, and other tracks which T 
surmised had been made by deer. In some 
places the bed of the wash was a hard mixture 
of soil and sand, and there the shape of the 
animals’ feet was very clearly defined. Before 
long I approached an abrupt bend in the wash 
and there in the shade of the rocky wall I 
discovered a lone ram at the same time he saw 
me and lazily got up on his feet. It was plain 
that he did not realize the danger he was in, 
and when I "fired he merely humped up. swayed 
a bit and collapsed. There was not much sport 
in that sort of killing, but there was a whole 
lot of satisfaction and pleasant anticipation in 
butchering such a fine big, fat animal. This 
Mexican variety of Ovis montana is said to be 
the largest of all, but I could not see any 
difference between them and those of the 
Northern Rockies, except that the former are 
darker in color. This ram was a four-year-old 
and had perfect but not noticeably large horns. 
Skinning out a fore quarter of meat for 
present use, I shouldered it and went on down 
the wash. By the ever-increasing number of 
tracks, I knew that I was getting close to water 
and soon came to it. a pool about two by six 
feet and a couple of feet deep in bare bedrock 
at the foot of an out-sloping wall. The bed of 
the wash was bare for some distance from there 
on and dropped rapidly in a series of reefs. A 
stream of water so thin that it was no larger 
than a sheet of paper flowed steadily from the 
pool down over the bare rock, and was 
evaporated within twenty feet of its source. 
Down I lay and found the water pure but warm. 
Then, as I sat up and rolled a cigarette, 1 
noticed that there was abundant bird life twit-! 
tering, fluttering and singing everywhere 
around; besides the familiar Sonora, mourning 
and white-wing dove, mocking birds, scarlet 1 
flycatchers, woodpeckers, flickers and quail,; 
there were many other varieties that I cannot 
name. Here were they gathered and nesting 
in the near vicinity bcause of the pool of water. 
There were no traces of man in the wash; 
any that might have been left by travelers or 1 
campers would have been obliterated by the 
tropical downpours of rain. I climbed up or 
the mesa on the south side of it, and there, a.‘ 
I suspected I would, learned that I was by nc 
means the first person to drink from the little, 
pool. But every thing I found was of native 
manufacture and the most of it pre-historic 
broken metates, grinders, obsidian heaps anc 
fragments of pottery that was—some of it—it 
design and texture like that of the Casa Grandi 
and other ruins of the Gila valley, Arizona. 
To the ancient agriculturists of that regiot 
sea shells were more precious than turquoise 
even as to-day they are to their descendents, 
the Hopi people. The minute ones were struni 
together by hundreds for necklaces, larger one 
formed the material for bracelets, rings, am 
hair ornaments. Very large ones—those of th 
giant clam especially—were necessary in th. 
performance of all religious rites, for they rep, 
resented that important element, without whic 
crops must fail and the people die. 
With every skeleton found in the excavatio 
of the ruins of Casa Grande were more or lesj 
shells from the California Gulf. I remembe 
that we found no less than twenty huge clai 
shells with the remains of one big man wh 
must have been a priest of great distinctioi 
He believed and taught that shells were tl 
cause, not the product of water, and there 
fore to possess them—to use them in cen 
monial prayers to the gods—would bring tl, 
rains. I had always believed that the peop 
of the upper Gila used a well defined trail c. 
their journeys to the Gulf after the sacred ol 
jects, and it is not improbable that here at th] 
pool I found one of their resting places alor 
its arid course. If not, then why the similari 
in pottery make and design? 
I went on down to our rendezvous at tl 
mouth of the wash and arrived there long b 
fore the others. On the way I selected a cam 
site near the pool, and yet far enough from 
not to alarm the game. When Sonora ai 
Old-Timer arrived, they, and the burros as we 
were certainly thirsty. I led them up the tr. 
