Voice of the Intangible. III

g Intangible : LAKE PAGAHR1T, SOUTHERN run *^^^K Chapter III — A Prying Curiosity When Ben Rojer reached home, ragged and sunburnt from that first trip; when he turned Stripes into the pasture and sank with the fond attachment of childhood into arms held out to receive him ; when he heard their commiseration for his lean and battered appearance, it is not surprising that he felt a strong desire to stay at home a long time. But what a thrust to that desire when, after the second day at home, his father said, "Now, son, the next thing on the program is to gentle those colts on the mountain." A father like Fred Rojer could not fail to see how offensive the range had become to his son. Nor did Fred Rojer fail to see it. Better still, he caught Ben's eye in such a way, and brought his own fatherly love to bear in such an irresistible look of kindness, that the boy blushed for his displeasure and his shallow nature so. quick to give it away. "You see, son," pleaded the kind, bearded lips, "there's nothing here for you to do, and after going alone all these years and building up so much on your company, I hate to go alone any more." "I don't want you to go alone any more, Pa," declared Ben, his heart in his eyes; "I'm plum willin' to go right now." The little brown face with sore lips followed into the hills again, and Bowse brought up the rear. It was not the old trail over the Cedar Ridge, but nevertheless a trail leading through forests of cedars, and up rocky canyons to the flat-topped timber region of the Elk Mountain.

K)(.S IMPROVEMENT ERA The two made camp in a qnakingasp grove, near a spring known as Peavinc. The mountain abounded in crystal springs, green leaves and shade. The summer breeze from the canyons below, and the summer birds concealed in the aspen leaves, seemed to declare the place a paradise of rest, where servile work would be little short of sin. To this sentiment of rest, Fred Rojer seemed to voice a decided Amen — in fact, this Amen appeared to be no small part of the premeditated business of the trip. They rode leisurely among the cool timber, corraled their colts, and by mild, unhurried means began breaking them to lead. They always quit work early in the day, and some days they did no work at all. Stripes and Bowse improved in flesh all the time. It seemed like a pleasure-trip, and young Rojer wondered if his father had forgotten the purpose for which they came. All the same he looked and listened. Sometimes he looked so intently at the wooded canyons below, or listened so earnestly to the wind and the birds, that for a while he lost account of everything else. Fred Rojer spent a great part of his time reading books, of which he usually carried a supply, and Ben found time to ramble about among the trees to his heart's content. He learned the habits of chipmunks and squirrels, he watched the coyote skulk and sneak, he found the tiny eggs in the humming-bird's nest, and learned the grouse-hen's secret of hiding her chickens. When Stripes grazed over the grassy hills, Ben often wandered near by, noting the love and trust between horse and dog, and assuring them with pats and caresses of his own unchanging fidelity. The yellow pony never once thought of resenting capture ; he whinnied to his young master on first sight, and looked his horse-regret when they parted. If Ben could have no handful of oats or corn in his pocket, he made it a point to cut a sweet bunch of grass from among the rocks, that he might court the pony's favor whenever they met. As to Bowse, he was sure of a dainty morsel whenever it could be had. In all the pines and aspens of the mountains, there was nothing more delightful to Ben than racing over the smooth flats with Bowse frolicking ahead or behind. No wild band could outrun them, and in the horse round-up, young Rojer and his buckskin were recognized as a swift combination. Ben liked to take up the shapely little feet and trim them carefully, if they were not

PEAVIN'Ii GROVE shod, and he enjoyed watching them plough into the soil when he was "making a run." No stripe, or joint, or mark, on the shapely little creature escaped the boy's notice, and he often looked a long time into those loving horse-eyes, and tried, by careful search, to find the gallant horse-soul behind them. By a grove of oaks, not far from the Peavine camp, Soorowits, the Pahute, had pitched his summer wickiup. Young Rojer watched the Pahutes hunt in the twilight, or come loaded with venison in the gray dawn of morning. He watched them milk their goats, ride their vicious cayuses, and prepare their magic medicines from herbs, and roots, and the bark of trees. He stood by with their own half-clothed children while the flesh of the deer was smoked and dried. He watched them transform its hide to the soft buckskin. Toorah, for that was the name of Mrs. Soorowits, had no objections to Ben in the camp, and he watched her nimble fingers prepare the fine bead-work, and make the dresses of red and yellow and green and blue, so dear to the heart of every Pahute woman. She had a handsome face, a straight form, and with her thirty odd years was quite an attraction to young Rojer, especially since she showed a pronounced solicitude for his welfare in his tenderness of years. Soorowits and his chief disciple. Buhhre, belonged to a tribe who refused a reservation. They took pride in roaming where they pleased, often making bold to tell where they had murdered

1070 IMPROVEMENT ERA white men in the earlier settlement of the country. Soorowits said nothing against the white boy's presence in camp, in fact he did not deign to see him at all, but stalked back and forth with great dignity — the silent, sullen dignity of a red man. Since white men arrived in the Rocky Mountains, and planted their orchards and gardens along the desert streams, the appetite for fruit and melons has become a mania among certain Indian tribes. This abnormal appetite began to breed discontent in the THE OLD GRAVE AT SOLDIER CROSSING, SAN JUAN COUNTY, UTAH, WHERE TWO WHITE MEN WERE KILLED BY PAHUTES, IN THE EARLY 80's summer home of Soorowits, and brought him to the bank of the river by the desert village, about the time Ben and his father returned home. Booths of cotton-wood limbs were prepared for a shade, and the Pahute household anticipated two fat weeks of peaches and water-melons. Then a terrible misfortune filled the camp with grief : Soorowits shot Toorah with a Colt's-45. He swore it was an accident,

VOICE OF THE INTANGIBLE 1071 and it may have been. Also it may have been a quick flash of his cantankerous temper. No difference, he felt genuinely "cut up" about it, and sat in tears and sobs on the shady side of his wickiup. A swift messenger, probably Buhhre, went for a medicineman, and the singing and chanting and mixing of herbs went on incessantly during a week. The grief-stricken red man employed all the skill the village afforded. It was a hopeless case. One evening the chanting ceased; the camp resounded with shrieks and cries, for Toorah had gone to the Happy Hunting-ground. The news of this tragic affair found in the village no more sympathetic heart than that of Ben Rojer. On the day following her death, he chanced to be hunting cows in the sandhills, just as a shot rang out and a great smoke arose from a certain cave up among the cliffs. He knew Toorah's remains were in the fire, and he resolved to visit the place next day. He confided his discovery to two boy companions, Jim and Mort, and the three settled upon the next afternoon as the proper time to pay their respects to the cave. Now the cave was hidden behind a pointed sand-knoll, and when the three young adventurers reached the top and looked down into the great hole, Mort decided to stand guard on the hill, while his fellows went to view the cremated squaw, and the horse whose spirit had been sent along for her to ride. The ghastly sight that met the two pairs of youthful eyes should have satisfied the most prying curiosity; it no doubt satisfied them, for with one look and never a word they turned to climb again to their horses. All was still save for a little breeze moaning in the cavernous depths behind them, and the boys instinctively climbed faster and faster. All at once a deafening yell seemed to chill the very marrow in their bones, and the black and furious visage of Soorowits appeared over the hill-top above them. He used the most awful words in the English language, and a great many others which no doubt meant even more to him. He charged down the hill on his cayuse, trying to trample the boys beneath its hoofs. He struck at them with his quirt, and drove them about over the sand and among the rocks till they were half dead with exhaustion and fright, when Fred Rojer came dashing up on Mort's pony.

1072 IMPROVEMENT ERA Mort had bolted for town at the first sight of the Indian, forgetting to give his friends the alarm ; and when they climbed breathless and pale to their saddles again, they had something to remember always. Ben's lungs burned like fire, and twenty years have hardly sufficed to repair the damage of those fifteen minutes. He was also badly unstrung, having expected every minute to be shot. Just what the whole affair meant to the red man is not quite clear. It seems that visiting a funeral fire before it has gone out is a grave violation of some old Pahute tradition. It is also probable that shooting the boys on that ground would have desecrated the place. But the three became singularly obnoxious to the Soorowits gang, who pointed them out on the street as profaners of sacred things. Soorowits himself felt a mortal fear of his wife's brother Nariant, and as soon as possible after the fire had died out, departed to Pagahrit, or the Navajo Mountain, to abide in hiding till their friendship should be patched up again.- Before going, however, he sent word to the boys that some time he would come back and punish their offense with the torture it deserved. This message, accompanied by the memory of the cruel, sombre face, became a ghost of fear and dread, haunting the boys at home and in the hills, in the day and in the night. [This story of the mysterious Pagahrit country, in southern Utah, will continue in Vol. 16 of the Improvement Era. It consists of twentyseven chapters that awaken the readers' interest and attention on every page. There are cowboys, Indians good and bad, outlaws, wild animals, mountain trails, round-ups, box canyons, the call of the genuine wild, the silences and voices of the desert, a boy's love for his horse and dog, and whisperings and communications of the Voice of the Intangible. A young boy begins this wild ranch life with his father, and grows up in these surroundings. There is a clean, inspirational and faith-promoting spirit penetrating the text, and the description is true to conditions in one of the wildest districts of the Wild West soon to vanish.]