The Mount Holly news. [volume] (Mount Holly, Burlington Co., N.J.) 1891-1942, 1900-04-03
THE GIRL OF
WILD HORSE RUN !:
ASTORT OF NEW MEXICO.
By FREDER1cK F. THOMPSON

the story will never forget 1t, and moi
one of the cowmen or the miners passes
the lonely spot without taking off his
hat in mute respect to the memory OF
the unknown girl
81 never knowed, and don't s'pose
/, no one ever knowed, what her name
was" said Joe Dunno as he sat in from
Of his adobe and rolled a cigarette
s'I'm bout the last of 'en alive as evel
knowed her, and / wouldn't be here
talkin bout her If 'twasn't for what
she done. When it was all over, we
buried her the best we could. We
couldn't get no monuments or fancy
stones, such as they have down east
so we just piled rocks over the grave
to show where it is and to keep the
wild creaturs from diggin it up. Since
then some more rocks has been put on
and now the heaps so big guess it'll
last forever. But it'll never get toe
big for the act she done, which was
one mighty few men would "a wanted
| to tackle.
cit was way back in the days when
was kid. Bein as was born and
brought up along the Rio Grande,
was almost as much Greaser as was
white man, and when them eastern
prospectors come along they hired me
to go with them as interpreter, even If
was only kid. In fact, they couldn't
get no men to go along with them cause
the men was mostly all off prospectin
on their own account.
"There want no railroads down here
then. There want nothin but Indians
and Greasers. If you wanted grub,
you had to freight it fronlAlbuquerque,
or If you was hard up for it you could
get little from the old stage station
in the valley just beyond where Las
Cruces is now.
"Wild Horse Run is up in the noun
tains back of there. 1t amt no pretty
place-just a little stretch of mesa
where there was water and where the
wild horses used to come until they
had worn the ground all away like a
man lived there. The old man was
nutty on them mountains. He said
they was full of gold and silver and
pretty much everything else, and
guess he was right, though there amt
much of it been got out yet.
well, he settled right there near the
run, grubbin round in the foothills and
collectin specimens and stakin out doz-
ems of claims which he never worked,
but ag'in which nobody made no pro-
test. l never knowed the old man
much, though / seed him frequent
when l was in the mountains, and !
heerd as how he had come from the
east to get rich. He was like lots of
others, and he ups and dies before he
had nothin more than them claims
which he had staked out, but which he
hadn't never properly entered.
when he died, he left that there girl
alone in the half 'dobe, half dugout,
he had made She was bout 10, l
guess, and we thought as how she
would go up to Albuquerque to live
provided she didn't go back east But
instead Of that she staid right along,
jill 6lOuc llC PldCC WACAC o1O A1lA0
lived with the old man. She had some
sort of an idea that by SO doin she
could hold the claims which he had
staked out. Some Of the men told her
as how she was wrong, but she thought
they was only tryin to get her to go so
they could jump the claims, and SO she
stuck 1t out. She was good shot, and
deer is still thick up that way, so be-
tween them and a few vegetables she
got along SO far as grub was concern
ed. But it must have been mighty
lonesome, for there want a white man
nearer than the stage station, and that
was good Is mile away.
"She had been there quite a few
years, and the people as knowed of her
had got to callin her the Girl of Wild
Horse Rum when goes up that way
with them eastern chaps. We stopped
to get water at the Run, and we told
her what part of the mountains we
was headin for, and it was a lucky
thing we did, for If she hadn't knowed
we would never have got out of the fix
we got into.
1--WE didn't know it when we started,
but the Navajoes had gone and got ram
FUNCTIONS again. They was always
more or less troublesome, but when
we left they had kind of quoted down,
and we want lookin for no outbreak.
Bein up in the mountains, of course,
we didn't know what was a-goin on.
"Well, we had done more prospectin,
and l was havin cinch with my job
of interpreter. There want nothin to
interpret, and so l was dom the cookin
and lookin after camp. We had pitch
ed it at the foot of the mountain
which they calls Simpsons Rest now,
after old man Simpson, who is buried
there. Things was a-goin nice and sat
lsfactory, when one night, just after
yrub, there comes a shot, and bullet
upsets the Etuff on the fire. None Of
us stopped to inquire where the bullet
come from. We knowed there want
nothin but Indians dom that sort of
business, and so we lit out.
''There was only one place to go, and
that was up the mountain, and so we
went up there. 1t amt high noun
tain, but up to the top it's kind of like
fort. The sides, except one OF them,
run straight up for 80 feet or so, and
no one can't climb them. The other
side slants down pretty steep, but so
you can get up all right. We had all
seed the place and had talked about 1t,
casuallike, before, sayin as how 1t
would be just the place to go II the In
dams got after us.
"They was after us now, and we was
there. The only trouble was that we
didn't have nothin with us but our
guns. We had lit out SO fast that all
the grub was left in camp. We knowed
that with the shape of the mountain
there want no danger Of the Indians
gettin to us, for we could stop them
as fast as they tried to come up. But
we was worried as to the grub ques-
ton.
&Indians amt no fools, even if they
act like it sometimes, and them Nava-
joes soon made up their mind that we
had mighty little grub with us. They
found that out from the looks of the
camp, and, as they knowed that noun
tain as well as we did, they didn't try
to come up it.
'For couple of days we got along
all right. We was hungry, of course,
but we amused ourselves poppin at the
Indians whenever they showed from
cover. and when we hit one, as we did
now and then, 1t was almost as good as
a meal. At least we tried to think It
was.
"But an empty stomach is pretty