Ranger Winess joined me on my way to breakfast.

"Don't get far from Headquarters today," he said. "Dollar Mark Bull is in here and he is a killer. I've been out on Tony after him, but he charged us and Tony

bolted before I could shoot. When I got Tony down to brass tacks, Dollar Mark

was hid."

I felt my knees knocking together.

"What's he look like?" I inquired, weakly.

"Big red fellow, with wide horns and white face. Branded with a Dollar Mark.

He's at least twenty years old, and mean!"

My midnight visitor!

I sat down suddenly on a lumber pile. It was handy to have a lumber pile, for I

felt limp all over. I told the ranger about chasing the old beast around with a broom. His eyes bulged out on stems.

Frequent appearances of "Dollar Mark" kept me from my daily tramps through the pines, and I spent more time on the Rim of the Canyon.

Strangely, the great yawning chasm itself held no fascination for me. I could appreciate its dizzy depths, its vastness, its marvelous color effects, and its weird contours. I could feel the immensity of it, and it repelled instead of attracted. I seemed to see its barrenness and desolation, the cruel deception of its poisonous springs, and its insurmountable walls. I could visualize its hapless victims wandering frantically about, trying to find the way out of some blind coulee, until, exhausted and thirst-crazed, they lay down to die under the sun's pitiless glare. Many skeletons, half buried in sand, have been found to tell of such tragedies.

It was only in the evenings, after the sun had gone down, that I could feel at ease with the Canyon. Then I loved to sit on the Rim and look down on the one living

spot far below, where, almost a century ago, the Indians made their homes and

raised their crops, watering the fields from the clear, cold spring that gushes out of the hillside. As the light faded, the soft mellow moon would swim into view,

shrouding with tender light the stark, grim boulders. From the plateau, lost in the shadows, the harsh bray of wild burros, softened by distance, floated upward.

On a clear day I could see objects on the North Rim, thirteen miles away, and with a pair of strong field glasses I could bring the scene quite close. It looked like a fairyland over there, and I wanted to cross over and see what it was really like. White Mountain advanced the theory that if we were married we could go

over there for our honeymoon! I had to give the matter careful consideration; but while I considered, the moon came up, and behind us in the Music Room someone began to play softly Schubert's "Serenade." I said, "All right. Next year we'll go!"

Chapter Header

Chapter III: "I DO!"

The Washington Office decided, by this time, that I was really going to stay, so they sent another girl out to work with me. The poor Superintendent was speechless! But his agony was short-lived. Another superintendent was sent to relieve him, which was also a relief to me!

My new girl was from Alabama and had never been west of that state. She was

more of a tenderfoot than I, if possible. At first she insisted one had to have a bathtub or else be just "pore white trash," but in time she learned to bathe quite luxuriously in a three-pint basin. It took longer for her to master the art of lighting a kerosene lamp, and it was quite a while before she was expert enough

to dodge the splinters in the rough pine floor. I felt like a seasoned sourdough beside her!

We "ditched" the big cookstove, made the back room into sleeping quarters, and turned our front room into a sort of clubhouse. White Mountain gave us a wonderful phonograph and plenty of records. If one is inclined to belittle canned music, it is a good plan to live for a while where the only melody one hears is a wailing coyote or the wind moaning among the pines.

We kept getting new records. The rangers dropped in every evening with offerings. Ranger Winess brought us love songs. He doted on John McCormack's

ballads, and I secretly applauded his choice. Of course I had to praise the Harry Lauder selections that Ranger Fisk toted in. White Mountain favored Elman and

Kreisler. The violin held him spellbound. But when Pat came we all suffered through an evening of Grand Opera spelled with capital letters!

Nobody knew much about "Pat." He was a gentleman without doubt. He was educated and cultured, he was witty and traveled. His game of bridge was faultless and his discussion of art or music authentic. He was ready to discuss anything and everything, except himself.

In making up personnel records I asked him to fill out a blank. He gave his name and age. "Education" was followed by "A.B." and "M.A." Nearest relative:

"None." In case of injury or death notify—" Nobody. " That was all. Somewhere he had a family that stood for something in the world, but where? He was a striking person, with his snow-white hair, bright blue eyes, and erect, soldier-like bearing. White Mountain and Ranger Winess had known him in Yellowstone; Ranger Fisk had seen him in Rainier; Ranger West had met him at Glacier. He

taught me the game of cribbage, and the old game of gold-rush days—solo.

One morning Pat came to my cabin and handed me a book. Without speaking he

turned and walked away. Inside the volume I found a note: "I am going away.

This is my favorite book. I want you to have it and keep it." The title of the book was Story of an African Farm. None of us ever saw Pat again.

The yearly rains began to come daily, each with more force and water than the

preceding one. Lightning flashed like bombs exploding, and thunder roared and

reverberated back and forth from Rim to Rim of the Canyon. We sank above our

shoes in mud every time we left the cabin. The days were disagreeable, but the

evenings were spent in the cabin, Ranger Winess with his guitar and the other boys singing while we girls made fudge or sea-foam. Such quantities of candy as

that bunch could consume! The sugar was paid for from the proceeds of a Put-

and-Take game that kept us entertained.

We had a girl friend, Virginia, from Washington as a guest, and she fell in love with Arizona. Also with Ranger Winess. It was about arranged that she would remain permanently, but one unlucky day he took her down Bright Angel Trail.

He provided her with a tall lank mule, "By Gosh," to ride, and she had never been aboard an animal before. Every time By Gosh flopped an ear she thought

he was trying to slap her in the face. On a steep part of the trail a hornet stung the mule, and he began to buck and kick.

I asked Virginia what she did then.

"I didn't do anything. By Gosh was doing enough for both of us," she said.

Ranger Winess said, however, that she turned her mule's head in toward the bank

and whacked him with the stick she carried. Which was the logical thing to do.