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NORTH SHORE BREEZE 
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THE FAR SOUTH WEST---A PART OF 
OUR COUNTRY WE DO NOT KNOW 
A Trip Down Devil's River from Source to Mouth—a Weird, 
Burnt up Locality on our Frontier. 
[By M. J. Brown, Editor little Valley (N. Y.) Hub.] 
When you come to west Texas, 
stop at Juno. 
You’ll have to stop there, for 
there is nothing farther west. It 
is the jumping on place. West there 
is nothing—not a post office, a gro- 
cery or a hotel. It is as far west as 
cultivation goes. 
On your map you will find traced 
a rather crooked stream from Sono- 
ra to Juno, and it is labeled Devil’s 
River. I drove a mule down its bed 
for over 100 miles and I do not be- 
lieve that anywhere on the course 
for 60 miles could a damp stone be 
found if you dug for 50 feet. Devil’s 
River, it is indeed, if it ever rains 
out here, for this great draw is the 
drain for a hundred miles, and when 
general rains come this channel is a 
raging dangerous torrent. 
Your geographies tell you that 
west Texas is a plains country. I 
wish the man who wrote this mis- 
statement could follow down dry 
Devil’s river, from Sutton county 
to the Rio Grande, for west Texas 
history would change. 
This great draw, in places two 
miles wide, and again narrowing 
down to 300 yards apparently was 
once a great river. For over a hun- 
dred miles it is lined by great bare 
bluffs as high as the Allegany 
mountains, these bluffs running 
back many miles in every direction, 
and forming smaller canyons—trib- 
utaries to the big draw. 
The trip down this dry river is 
one a travler will never forget, be- 
cause of its weirdness, its desola- 
tion, its dryness, its heat and its 
strangeness. Shut in this great val- 
ley, and looking up at the walls of 
rock and sand on either side, one 
will occasionally stop and wonder 
where he is at—wonder if he is still 
in the United States. These hills are 
different than any hills you ever saw. 
There is a strangeness associated 
with them, and an awesome feeling 
comes over you. It seems as if the 
baked buttes had been heaved up 
from below, pushed up ages ago by 
some volcanic action, and had ever 
since been waiting for the moisture 
that never comes. 
Many of the hills are as devoid 
of vegetation as is John Rockefel- 
ler’s head of hair, acres and acres 
covered with sand and stones, stones 
as small as marbles and as large 
as houses. Then will come miles of 
Spanish dagger 
cacti, cat claw, soto, dwarf oak, 
and sicaweista. 
Hundreds of caves are hidden in 
these bluffs, the homes of coyoutes, 
panthers, loafers and wildecats, and 
thousands of pounds of honey are 
hidden in these chambers. 
Hunting? Well, if you could only 
find your way back you could go 
up almost any of the side draws and 
start a deer. They abound in these 
hills and the roughness of the coun- 
try protects them and will for many 
years to come. But unless one has 
one of the old timers for a guide, 
he had better shoot quail in the main 
draw, for the country is a maze, and 
he will become hopelessly lost in an 
hour. Every draw looks just like 
the other draw, crossing, intersect- 
ing and winding, and to become lost 
in these canyons, with not a ranch 
house in 50 miles, is dangerous. But 
any tenderfoot is cautioned when 
lost to climb to the top of the high- 
est peak he can find, make smoke 
signals and wait for someone to 
come and get him. 
There are panthers on these hills 
as big as yearlings; wild turkeys are 
numerous, deer are plentiful; there 
are a few bears, while wolves, wild- 
eats and civie cats can be started 
anywhere. 
And after hours of riding through 
the hot drains we come to Juno. 
This cow town is 125 miles south- 
west of San Angelo—a nice little 
three days’ drive. It is probably 
the most peaceful and the wildest 
and the wickedest west Texas cow 
town, and one of the oldest towns 
on the Devil’s River country. Two 
general stores, a smith shop, a ho- 
tel and a saloon make up the town. 
But the saloon should have been 
named first for it is the magnet. 
Without it Juno would long since 
have been lost from the map. 
Every Saturday the cowboys come 
in from the canyons and until Mon- 
day morning there is anything in 
the way of wild west entertainment 
one wants to see. And when these 
common drunks become monoton-. 
ous, a barbicue is pulled off. The 
‘09’ boys come in to clean up for 
the tailor shop outfit and west Texas 
makes history. 
Why men will live in those desert 
hills and canyons I cannot under- 
stand. I talked with a bright young 
puncher regarding his life and 
_this stream, 
found he was just home from the © 
rich cotton lands of Texas, and glad 
to be back. 
‘“‘This is sure “nough a sorry 
country, but I wouldn’t give one of 
these little ole sand hills for all the 
country west of Devil’s river.’’ 
Such is love of home. 
Texas, from Deaf Smith County ~ 
to almost the whole west half of 
the Rio Grande, is dried up. Not 
since the spring of 1906 have there 
been general rains, and the ranches — 
are in bad shape. On many pastures 
a fourth of the cattle have starved 
to death, being unable to find 
enough vegetation to keep alive on, 
Sheep men are drifting out of the 
country for want of range and the 
price has risen from two cents per 
head in 1906 to six cents per head 
now, and almost unobtainable for | 
this price. 
One gets a pleasing surprise on 
the drive from Juno, down the dry 
Devil’s river to Comstock. For 
miles you follow the winding can- 
yons through a country that seems 
burnt out,, gigantic ash heaps that 
seem to have been heaved up, and 
parched dry, so dry that the air 
feels it. And then without the 
slightest suggestion, and when you 
would think there was not a drop 
of moisture within a hundred miles, 
the team stops and the horses lower 
their heads to drink from as beauti- — 
ful a mountain stream as ever rilled 
down the Alleganies—a big strea 
of blue, cold mountain water, aa 
from hundreds of springs and filled” 
with trout and catfish. And here 
starts wet Devil’s river, as beautiful — 
a stream as ever mocked a desert. 
Along the banks are giant pecan — 
trees and beautiful groves of shrub- _ 
bery, and one can in a degree ap- — 
preciate the feelings of the men of © 
‘*49’? when they reached an oasis 
in Death Valley. 
A dozen miles the trial follows — 
crossing it a dozen — 
times, and then it is with genuine © 
regret that the route breaks through — 
a cannon gate and comes out on a 
divide country—the up and doewn 
rolling country. And there is open — 
to the eye-a field of green as far as — 
the eye can reach—a field of green — 
on which any horse, cow, sheep or 
goat will starve to death, a vegeta= 
tion of a dozen varieties that cattle — 
cannot and will not.eat...This scene — 
is a paradox, a mockery, of starva= 
tion, and reminds. one.of the, ex 
clamation of the shipwrecked sailor, 
‘“Water, water. ev ony where, but not 
a drop to drink dt Ba 
Miles and miles, hours. et hours 
one will drive, through. this rolling 
country of white hills, almost strip: 
