A MAN stepped out of the darkness into the little illuminated circle about our failing camp-fire and seated himself upon a rock.
'You are not the first to explore this region,' he said gravely.
Nobody controverted his statement; he was him-self proof of its truth, for he was not of our party and must have been somewhere near when we camped.
Moreover, he must have companions not far away;it was not a place where one would be living or trav-elling alone. For more than a week we had seen, be-sides ourselves and our animals, only such living things as rattlesnakes and horned toads. In an Ari-zona desert one does not long coexist with only such creatures as these: one must have pack animals, sup-plies, arms--'an outfit.' And all these imply com-rades. It was perhaps a doubt as to what manner of men this unceremonious stranger's comrades might be, together with something in his words in-terpretable as a challenge that caused every man of our half-dozen 'gentlemen adventurers' to rise to a sitting posture and lay his hand upon a weapon --an act signifying, in that time and place, a policy of expectation. The stranger gave the matter no attention and began again to speak in the same deliberate, uninflected monotone in which he had delivered his first sentence:
'Thirty years ago Ramon Gallegos, William Shaw, George W. Kent, and Berry Davis, all of Tucson, crossed the Santa Catalina mountains and travelled due west, as nearly as the configuration of the coun-try permitted. We were prospecting and it was our intention, if we found nothing, to push through to the Gila river at some point near Big Bend, where we understood there was a settlement. We had a good outfit, but no guide--just Ramon Gallegos, William Shaw, George W. Kent, and Berry Davis.'
The man repeated the names slowly and distinctly, as if to fix them in the memories of his audience, every member of which was now attentively observ-ing him, but with a slackened apprehension regard-ing his possible companions somewhere in the dark-ness that seemed to enclose us like a black wall; in the manner of this volunteer historian was no sug-gestion of an unfriendly purpose. His act was rather that of a harmless lunatic than an enemy. We were not so new to the country as not to know that the solitary life of many a plainsman had a tendency to develop eccentricities of conduct and character not always easily distinguishable from mental aber-ration. A man is like a tree: in a forest of his fellows he will grow as straight as his generic and individual nature permits; alone in the open, he yields to the deforming stresses and tortions that environ him.
Some such thoughts were in my mind as I watched the man from the shadow of my hat, pulled low to shut out the firelight. A witless fellow, no doubt, but what could he be doing there in the heart of a desert?
Having undertaken to tell this story, I wish that I could describe the man's appearance; that would be a natural thing to do. Unfortunately, and some-what strangely, I find myself unable to do so with any degree of confidence, for afterward no two of us agreed as to what he wore and how he looked;and when I try to set down my own impressions they elude me. Anyone can tell some kind of story;narration is one of the elemental powers of the race.
But the talent for description is a gift.
Nobody having broken silence the visitor went on to say:
'This country was not then what it is now. There was not a ranch between the Gila and the Gulf.
There was a little game here and there in the moun-tains, and near the infrequent water-holes grass enough to keep our animals from starvation. If we should be so fortunate as to encounter no Indians we might get through. But within a week the purpose of the expedition had altered from discovery of wealth to preservation of life. We had gone too far to go back, for what was ahead could be no worse than what was behind; so we pushed on, riding by night to avoid Indians and the intolerable heat, and con-cealing ourselves by day as best we could. Some-times, having exhausted our supply of wild meat and emptied our casks, we were days without food or drink; then a water-hole or a shallow pool in the bottom of an arroyo so restored our strength and sanity that we were able to shoot some of the wild animals that sought it also. Sometimes it was a bear, sometimes an antelope, a coyote, a cougar--that was as God pleased; all were food.
'One morning as we skirted a mountain range, seeking a practicable pass, we were attacked by a band of Apaches who had followed our trail up a gulch--it is not far from here. Knowing that they outnumbered us ten to one, they took none of their usual cowardly precautions, but dashed upon us at a gallop, firing and yelling. Fighting was out of the question: we urged our feeble animals up the gulch as far as there was footing for a hoof, then threw ourselves out of our saddles and took to the chaparral on one of the slopes, abandoning our en-tire outfit to the enemy. But we retained our rifles, every man--Ramon Gallegos, William Shaw, George W. Kent, and Berry Davis.'
'Same old crowd,' said the humorist of our party.
