Los Angeles herald., 1890-08-25
TURTLE STEW.
A Lively Trip to the Santa
Ritas.
Scared By a Band of Indian
Horses.
A Shoemaker Who Objected to
Being Poisoned.
And Wouldn't Starve Either-An Indian
Battle Where Empty Whisky
Bottles Were the Offensive
Weapons.
Written for the HERALD.

lWllItcH iOl VIC hEhALD.J
A few months after the Southern
Pacific railroad had been extended be-
You'd Tucson, l. happened to be in that
place to which no Tucsonite ever dreams
of abiding otherwise than Oy the appel
alive of Ancient and Honorable
Pueblo" The rainy season, which
occurs in the summer in Arizona, was
just over, and the weather, though yet
hot, was splendid.
While taking in the sights OF the
Barrio Libre, the Mexican ward of Tue
son, l ran against Los Angeles shoe
maker, who had become prospector.
1t was the time of the mining excite
ment in Arizona, and the army of pros
pectors had been recruited from all
trades and professions. Many tailor
made a competency in those days that
he could never have hoped to attain
with his goose and needle, and many
good mans bones are whitening in the
mountains and canoils, whose dreams
of wealth were not to be realized.
This good shoemaker was friend of
mine. In fact, he had done me the
honor of naming one of his many claims
after me. 1t is true that it was but
hole in the ground and always remained
so. To tell you then, that when he ex
tended me an invitation to visit with
him his "group of Mines" l accepted
with enthusiasm, is needless, l pre-
sumo.
He intended to leave in the afternoon
of the same day. So l went down to
my quarters, got my serape, my pistol
and knife, and returnedsto the corral
where he had roasted during his visit to
town. My friend had in the meanwhile
chartered two NANCY bu1ros as means
of locomotion. His claims were situated
in the Santa Rita mountains, at a dis
lance of about twenty eight miles. His
calculation was to start at or 3 O'Clock,
ride on till dusk, then camp and have
supper, and as the moon would be Quit
the middle Of the night, he suggested
that we should then resume the trip.
AS we were ready to pull out one of Els
ki-men-zen's Apaches came in town and
informed the authorities that some of
the San Carlos Apaches had left the
reservation and were committing depre-
dations on the San Pedro. Es-ki-men-
zen, was a so called civilized Apache
chief who had some land under cultiva-
ton on the San Pedro river. He had
number of squaws and also some fol-
lowers. 1t was shrewdly suspected that
he it was who supplied the Chiricahaus
with cartridges for their Winchesters
and procured them firewater and tiswin
when they had dance.
Here was damper before the start
As we had to pass through a considera-
BILE part of the Papago reservation how
ever, and as this tribe is in bitter
enmity with the Apaches, we calculated
that we could proceed without much
fear of molestation, and we accordingly
mounted our sorry burros and away we
went towards the mission of San Javier
del BAG.
NY friend insisted that we need not
cucumber ourselves with many provi-
sions as he had plenty of grub in his
dugout in the mountains. So all we
lugged along was couple of pounds OF
crackers, half pound of coffee, some
sugar, an immense Bologna sausage and
an empty tomato can to make the coffee
in. Our canteens were we'll supplied
with water and we had bottle OF
whisky to counterfeit mosquito bites.
At San Javier we said adieu to civiliza-
ton in bucket OF steam beer, and hav-
ing watered our donkeys we sped on.
Our road lay through wood in which
mesquit. stinkwood, sahuaros, bisnagas,
choyas and tunas predominated. The
sahuaro is tremendous cactus with
long arms and resembles candelabra.
The bisnaga is an immense, round varl-
ETY., covered,with spines. In the miners
vernacular it is called "niggerhead. )"
The tunas were covered with prickly,
yellow and red pears, but the subtle pain
OF their tiny spines made us very wary
II :: i Ir,
alone.
After couple of hours of slow travel
ing we entered the Papago reservation.
The scene here changed and was truly
beautiful. The grass, after the rains,
was luscious and tall, and here and there
were fine shady trees. We camped and
made coffee in our tomato can. Then we
proceeded onward until it was very dark
and made camp. AS the burro had
ridden had nearly shaken me to pieces,
l was asleep in five minutes.
Fancy my horror when after three
hours or so my friend rudely awoke
me and said:
"The Apaches! The Apaches are
upon us". needed no further parley
to be thoroughly awake and ready to
burrow in the earth. We heard the
measured tramp of a number OF horses,
but could see nothing. MY TREND
whispered that he could hear the gut
teral accents of the Indians, and though
heard nothing, l thoroughly believed
him. After haunting each other with
being scared, he made me ashamed OF
myself and 1 crawled on hands and
knees towards the quarter where the
sounds came from. Finally l obtained
a good sight of the band and was
relieved. 1t was herd of Papago
horses, grazing! This incident nearly
spoiled the trip, for my friend and l
started in to blackguard one another
and it took all the whisky in the bottle
to restore equanimity. We likewise
made, coffee again and ate up all the
crackers and the balance of our wurst.
AS the moon had now reported for duty
we saddled the asses and once more
started on the road to King Solompn's
mines. Soon daylight came: The land
scape was perfect. In the distance, lar
in front Of us were the Santa Rita
mountains, and away behind us the
Santa Catalinas. We were in green
plain. covered with the finest kind of
grass, and here and there could be seen
many cattle grazing. A deer or two was
occasionally in sight, and as for jack
,ol>L;+. oo lorOa az pazpllpa thew were