Soon after our wedding the Chief crossed to the North Rim to meet a party of celebrities, which included his old friend Emerson Hough. This was to have been
our honeymoon trip, but I was left at home! The new Superintendent needed me
in the office; therefore White Mountain spent our honeymoon trip alone. I had heard of such a thing, but never expected it to happen to me. I might have felt
terribly cut up about it but on the South Rim we were fermenting with excitement getting ready to entertain important guests.
General Diaz of Italy and his staff were coming, soon to be followed by Marshal
Foch with his retinue. And in the meantime Tom Mix and Eva Novak had arrived with beautiful horses and swaggering cowboys to make a picture in the
Canyon. What was a mere honeymoon compared to such luminaries?
Tom and Eva spent three weeks making the picture, and we enjoyed every minute they were there. Ranger Winess was assigned to duty with them, and when they left the Canyon he found himself with the offer of a movie contract.
Tom liked the way the ranger handled his horse and his rifle, and Tom's wife liked the sound of his guitar. So we lost Ranger Winess. He went away to Hollywood, and we all went around practicing: "I-knew-him-when" phrases. But Hollywood wasn't Grand Canyon, and there wasn't a horse there, not even Tom's
celebrated Tony, that had half as much brains as his own bay Tony of the ranger
horses. So Winess came back to us, and everybody was happy again.
While the picture was being made, some of the company found a burro mother
with a broken leg, and Ranger Winess mercifully ended her suffering. A tiny baby burro playing around the mother they took to camp and adopted at once.
He was so comical with his big velvet ears and wise expression. Not bigger than
a shepherd dog, the men could pick him up and carry him around the place. Tom
took him to Mixville and the movie people taught him to drink out of a bottle, so he is well on the road to stardom. Ranger Winess, visiting in New Jersey a couple of years later, dropped into a theater where Tom Mix was in a vaudeville
act. Mix spied the ranger, and when the act was over he stepped to the edge of
the stage and sang out: "Hey, Winess, I still got that burro!"
A dummy that had been used in the picture was left lying quite a distance up the side of a mountain, but quite visible from their movie camp. Tom bet his
Director, Lynn Reynolds, twenty-five dollars that the dummy was six feet tall.
He knew quite well that it was not six feet tall, and knew that Reynolds knew so too. But the bet was on. A guide going to the top, was bribed by a ten-dollar bill from Tom, to stretch the dummy out to the required length. This guide went up
the trail a few hours before Tom and Reynolds were due to measure the dummy.
Imagine their feelings when they arrived, and found the money and this note pinned to the object of dispute:
"Mr. Tom Mix, deer sir. I streetched the dam thing till it busted. It hain't no higher than me, and I hain't six feet. You'll plees find herein
yore money.
Youers truly,
SHORTY."
It is said that Reynolds collected in full and then hunted Shorty up and bestowed the twenty-five dollars on him.
White Mountain returned from the North Rim full of his trip. He, together with
Director Mather and Emerson Hough, had been all through the wonderful
Southern Utah country, including Bryce Canyon and Zion National Park. Mr.
Hough had just sold his masterpiece, The Covered Wagon, to the Saturday Evening Post, and was planning to write a Canyon story. He told White Mountain he felt that he was not big enough to write such a story but intended to try. His title was to be "The Scornful Valley." Before he could come to the Canyon again, he died on the operating table.
Preparations were made for the visit of General Diaz, who came about
Thanksgiving time. A great deal of pomp and glory surrounded his every movement. He and White Mountain were alone for a moment on one of the points overlooking the Canyon, and the General, looking intently into the big gorge, said to the Chief: "When I was a small boy I read a book about some people that stole some cattle and hid away in the Canyon. I wonder if it could have been near here?" White Mountain was able to point out a place in the distance that had been a crossing place for cattle in the early days, which pleased the soldier greatly.
Hopi Joe and his Indian dancers gave an unusually fine exhibition of their tribal dances for the visitors. The General expressed his appreciation quite warmly to
Joe after the dance ended, and asked Joe to pose with him for a picture. He was
recalling other boyhood reading he had done, and his interest in the Indians was
quite naïve. Joe took him into the Hopi House and they spent an hour or so going over the exhibition of Indian trophies there.
After dinner, the General retired to his private car to rest, but the staff remained at the hotel and we danced until well after midnight. The General's own band furnished the music. There were no women in the visitor's party, but there was no lack of partners for the handsome, charming officers. That few of them spoke
English and none of us understood Italian made no difference. Smiles and flirtatious glances speak a universal language, and many a wife kept her wedding-ring out of the lime-light.
