26° 
NORTH SHORE BREEZE 
SAND ENDS FROM A 
it te 
ye NEWSPAPER MAN'S NOTEBOOK 
little Incidents of Weeks of Travel in the Southwest—Little 
Stories out of the Ordinary. 
5 
: [By M. J. Brown, Editor Little Valiey (N. Y.) Hub.) 
= In closing: this series of southwest 
stories I find a variety of notes in 
4 book, of matters and incidents 
rerlooked or sidetracked -in~ the 
stories, and most too good to omit. 
Here they are: 
Fin a curio shop in ‘isan Antonio, 
Texas, I saw a remarkable example 
of Mexican patience and handicraft. 
az flea—just an ordinary, tiny sand 
insect—dressed in a full suit of 
clothes, pants, sweater and hat, and 
sa delicate and small that I had to 
see it through a magnifying glass to 
appreciate it. This is literally and 
honestly a fact, and without any 
exaggeration. The patience and skill 
of some of the Mexicans is more than 
wonderful. Give one of them a sil- 
ver coin and he will make of it some 
rare curio, will spend hours on it 
and then sell it to you for a few 
cents. From horse hair and human 
hair they will plait watch chains 
and neck chains of exquisite work- 
manship and beauty. Time has no 
value—and a Mexican has more pa- 
tience than anything else in the 
world. 
At a ranch in west Texas I wit- 
néssed some cowboys at play—hig, 
htisky sons of the range having their 
sport. A cow would be turned loose 
from a corral, and the fellows would 
wage their skill and money seeing 
which could rope, throw and tie the 
cow in the shortest time. One of 
the cowboys did the trick in 38 see- 
onds. 
29 1-2 seconds. The cow is chased 
around the corral until she is thor- 
oughly frightened, and when re- 
leased she hits the fastest gait she 
has: ‘The cowboy, on his horse out- 
side the pen,, starts when the cow 
starts, runs her down, throws the 
rope, throws the cow, dismounts and 
ties her legs and throws up his hand 
for time. Think of all this being 
done in little more than a half min- 
ute, and you picture a pretty speedy 
cow puncher. | But half the credit 
wie} api rn to the cow pony. The 
mitiite the’ throw is made and the 
cow Boy sees it is good for the horns, 
he'dismownts,' and the instant the 
rope settles over the horns, the well- 
trained pony rears back, throwing 
-the cow, and as soon as she falls the 
‘The record time I believe is’ 
cowboy is on her, tying her feet. 
These men will wager a month’s pay 
on these half minute contests. 
The gambling spirit is the leading 
spirit in the mining towns—barring, 
possibly, the bartender’s — spirits. 
These men will gamble on anything 
and everything that offers a chance, 
and when chances run out, they make 
them. JI saw as much as $500 bet 
one night, in a mining town, ten to 
six on Nelson, and I saw a dozen 
men take bets on both ends of a two 
to one shot that the next morning’s 
fast train from California to New 
Mexico, on the Santa Fe, would be 
on time. 
In front of a curio store in Santa 
Fe, crumbling to ruin, I saw a Mexi- 
can eart of the old Spanish days, a 
eart of the time of Christ, and I 
could not but think that were this 
relic any where else in the world but 
in this corner so rich with curios, it 
would be almost priceless. <A friend 
told me I could buy it for $25. I 
went out and counted my money, and 
when I came back the shop was 
closed. That night I left town. The 
wheels were solid, and at the hubs 
fully a foot thick. There was not an 
ounce of iron or metal on the cart— 
not a nail even. Every bit’of the ma- 
terial and parts of construction were 
wood, and the crude wooden spikes 
told of the almost toolless days when 
it was made. 
Silver City who 
dollars in a few 
I saw a girl -at 
earned a thousand 
minutes by riding across a canyon 
in an ore bucket, suspended on a 
wire. The bucket went from peak to 
peak of a mountain, and was 1000 
to 12,000 feet from the- ground. No 
person had at that time made the 
trip across, altho’ they say it is of- 
ten made now. I asked her where 
she got courage enough to make the 
trip and she rephed: ‘‘I sat down in 
the bucket, kept looking at the bot- 
tom of it, and just naturally went 
across.’’ A Denver newspaper gave 
the thousand, and the girl has now 
a reputation which has won for her 
the position as head (and only) 
waiter in a mining town boarding 
house. She was pretty enough to 
make a man a steady boarder, but 
I was married. 
In'a wager a miner took a full 
pint of what the mountaineers eall 
‘‘snake whiskey,’’ put the neck far 
down his throat and never closed the 
faucet until every dram of the spirits 
had run out. He pocketed the mon- 
ey, sat down in a chair a few min- 
utes and then pitched forward on 
his face into the sawdust. 
Mexicans have hotel waiters skin- 
ned all ways in pan-handling for 
tips. They will press their services 
on you, for accommodations, and 
then openly hold out their hands for 
change. Give it to them and you 
are a ‘‘tourista,’’ and they will fol- 
low and obey like dogs; refuse, and 
you are a ‘‘gringo,’’ and they would 
stick a knife in you if they dared. 
In the mountains of New Mexico 
I saw a little animal called a Kan- 
garoo rat, having short fore feet and 
long hind legs like a Kangaroo, and 
running with that peculiar jump of 
the big animals. I have never heard 
of these little animals, and they were 
of much interest to me. 
One of the most curious sights in 
the mountain localities of the south- 
west is the burros—and the little 
donkeys—and the wonderful — bur- 
dens.they carry. I have seen these 
little horses come down from the 
mountains with loads of cedar wood, 
cut in stove lengths, and tied on to 
them until only in front could I tell 
what made the wood move. The 
Mexicans will load them until only 
their heads and tails are visible, the 
loads hanging down on the. sides 
until they touch the ground. And 
these hardy, sure-footed little beasts 
will seale ledges, carrying these 
loads, where a white man would not 
dare crawl on his hands and knees. 
There are scattered throughout 
the low places in New Mexico mud 
wells (I forgot the proper name) 
that are places of danger to riders. 
These wells are from six to ten feet 
across, covered over by a dry shell 
that looks as hard as concrete, but 
underneath this thin, sun-baked sur- 
face is a very deep well of liquid 
quicksand and mud—too wet to dry 
up and too thick to flow. It is very 
easy for one not familiar with the 
covering of glazed mud to think the 
spot one where the grass did not 
grow, and to walk over it, and if he 
did, his relatives would never know 
how he died, for these wells will suck 
