The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1899-10-08
THE LOST BIGHORN'S HOME.
, HUNTING TRIP IN THE DEAD
DESERT IN Old MEXICO.


Tame Birds and Notwithstanding of Two
Bighorns and Suicide OF Third.
Tucson, Ariz, oct. l. II have just been clear
outsd. the world" remarked Sam Millard an
oId mining engineer TO party on the porch Of the
san Xavier Hotel the other evening. I left civil.
,,,,p farther behind than the Philippines in two
r,,.s' trip, and found some new placer fields;
but that cuts no figure TO speak OF. found wha'
Ib,yr been looking for the past ton years and tha'
is IN. home Of the lost bighorn You may hardly
,esll,c IT, but the bighorn is about as nearly e1-
urct IN the United States as the buffalo, and thero
are more with grizzlies to their cred' IN inc
mast decade than there are who can snow the neau
of A prong horn sheep Of their own killing You
ran understand I am pretty generous IN giving up
the cache too for I'm going to get some more oil
thos, sheep before they are all hunted out pu'
m.t now a hundred miles in Mexico seems good
ds,l farther than q thousand in almost any o'hrr
direction. | guess | WONT nave mucn opP"S'
non In my now preserve for awhile
+ ,r,saed the line down at Sasabee dead south
- tho hotel here You can drive IL in two days
nth g,od team. and when you are once across
the line YOU are a hundred miles from railroad
AMI n hundred and fifty years behind yesterdays
rsr.n,r There were only three of us and one
wa. A Mexican teanster, SO he didn count we
,,.rs not out on the hunt very much because wha'
We were looking up were those northern Sonora
plncer fields at q little place called the Ileh'ga
o,.t west Of Alta But we had about rs iair
h,,,,ng from the wagon as you could expect
.1tsa desolate country for the most part outside
tho mountain valleys. and the people down there
I.,, ,.op, IN have the savvy to live in them
yo,,u And little dusty towns and settlements scat
TOAD ort in the midst OF the desert alongside
,,,o,, tina, runs about fifteen minutes each sea
r /, i,'s nm to its schedule They will squeeze
r,,er enough out Of wells and tanques 10 run
their settlement on a typhoid OASIS tha' "ou'u
s,,ndAIize New Orleans, and water lew uuck
,,.,cb.s through their ditchcs but when you come
=, the edge of town you hitright outinto the desert
.yoin and il, may be forty miles to the next water
Or It may b. a hundred M
'I,,, The deserts a fascinating place for all it's
90 dead still and lonely. |, isn't rackless,
sandy waste such as they pictured In the old
Biographies. by a long shot There are forests OF
c..,ns growing forty feet high, against ten feet
h,.b an this side of the line There are great
b;y ssyuara cacti like factory chimneys, and that
,,,. organ breed that the MeNicans call petoya,
and bushy choyas big as oak trees oack N the
States with yellow spInes that would turn tooi
steel and thick As the feathers on hen There
AZ. hundred and fifty seven other sorts OF desert
growth every one OF them armor clad with spines
and prckles except the creosote weed ana that
smells so that II Is safe even from the burr"s But
the Papago Indians say II Is great medicine they
stew il and USE it for hair tonic They say u VIII
raise a crop Of hair on saddle ana oriule II you
Apply it often enough. Maybe II will
Even the birds seem solemn and preoccupied
in that southern desert country. There is a big
brand Of voodpecker that makes a specially OF
carving apartment houses out Of the saguara
cactus and ell sit up and drill away hours to-
gether without as much as passing the time OF
tay with the kangaroo mice and sand squirrels
that are working for a living picking up choya
Appes down at the foot of his perch. The little
brown desert birds are all quiet too. They drlft
along in punches from one patch oil mesquite 70
snoth,r like dead leaves floating down the wind:
and even when the big bar-tailed hawk makes a
dive at them from the top of a dead ironwood tree
the whole performance is quiet and solemn. and
never a chirp from anybody except the little fel
low he pinches The coyotes even are quiet, and
don seem ~ sit UP and hold ghost dances at night,
as they do further north They never row eS-
cept when you happen to camp on the water
course they resort TO early in the afternoon, and
keep them from coming IN al sunset Tor their
drink Then they will slt of IN the brush and
debate a paragraph or two and come right into
camp and steal the bread out of hot Dutch oven
soon az you are asleep | accumulated SIX
skins of fellows that had fingered around that
L
Got them all with six shooter without getting
out Of my blankets any time The PapagoS are
all good tanners, and they won't take the hair of
in the process If you Ht over them with club.
But man that's got time enough for that on his
hands must be millionaire or a tramp
Tho greatest cinCh for white man IN the
way OF deer hunting is FL Humo the big smoky
mountai about forty miles south Of Sasabe
went prospecting there and didn't find anything
but deer The trouble with the place from the
Indian standpoint is that it is haunted II used
To be an old volcano few centuries before Cortez
pointed into that country, but it's had its fires
drawn and been on the drydoCk ever since But
the Indians say that's only a bluff few hun
dred years don't count for much in Mexico and
they say the old witch doctor up in the hill is
liable TO start boiling his kettle any time. Well,
the deer don't believe in witch doctors and there
are stone tanques around the foot of the hill that
hold water after the rains and there are few
springs the mountain itself, so the deer all
pasture in there and get fat on thorn bushes and
slide rock and things We killed one big burro
deer before we had been on the mountain hall
an hour and We jumped three white tail and one
Of tho little mountain red deer and could have
killed them all if we had had any way Of pack
ing them back to the wagon, but we were moi
out on a hunting trip. so we let them go
The white tail deer is about as big as the Nir
glna deer back in the States but his gray hide
is more shot with silver and he has bigger horns
The red deer is a beautiful little fellow abou
the size Of an antelope and almost sorre color
But the burro deer is the queerest Of the bunch
He is the biggest Of tho lot stumpy in the leg:
and not much horns to speak OF, but heavy II
the barrel as a very big burro a pretty SINAI
mule He's tough his namesake at that
W" started down the coast later on, anC
he canterCd of into the hills with three Colt forty
hves IN him and ono ingot Of about go calibr
from the nondescript gun the Indian with III
was carrying. If he lived he's got the who'll
collection with him now and would be worth work
ing as mineral claim and il he's dead he share
tn" distinction of Moses for his grave no maj
knowcth unto this day.
Jack rabbits and quail don't count much a
game but the country down there is so full o
them You have 10 kill few you go along tn
road lust in self dciencc We never though
nj using any thing but a six shooter 10 kill rat
hits with for they would come up and invest
oil tua to I'd no th