The Newtown bee., 1904-03-18

Streaked with pink and amber and rose, up through the shades of smokey topaz to blood red, and purple streaked with black. Some have called it the "jewel forest" and indeed it lis good name for it. The only imaginable col or not represented is green. After long looking we found one large trunk with green tinge in it. One could spend hours and days, even weeks here, going about and never tiring of the specimens, every one of which seems the last. No one can describe it, for no one can imagine it who has not seen it. The most famous of the logs is the "Natural bridge" It is a huge log, from beneath which the sand has washed away until it spans gorge 60 feet deep. It is 40 feet from end to end, and the log is estimated to weigh about 1900 pounds to the foot, for it is very heavy. Its own weight alone | would make one fear it's breaking. l Last April pillar of masonry was erected under the middle of it so that l
 
 crosses it of course. We ate, our din ner in the gorge beneath this bridge. How long it has stood there no one knows. From some things is is esti- mated towards 5000 years. There was one of the dwarf evergreens growing at the foot of the chasm beneath, that
 when cut last year was estimated to be 2O0O years old. The trip in itself
 was delightful and made doubly so by our having for driver and guide man
 who has lived in the west for years, and he spent the whole day in telling us stories, some funny and some other wise, and all vastly interesting. He ran away from his home in Virginia when he was ten years and came west,
 Nebraska and Dakota first, then Mon- uana and southward. He was cow boy for years, mixed up in all sorts of rumpuses from fights over dogs to reg ular Indian battles He;isr rather slow of speech, so slow as to almost drawl,
 but he knows how to tell good story.
 The "Forest Hotel," as the place where we are stopping .is called, is not in reality hotel, but long, low, one storied ranch house. The sitting room is delightful. There is sort~of sale carpet on the floor but it is almost covered with Navajo blankets. Two big roomy sofas are covered with same, and two of the most beautiful blan- kets l ever saw hang on the walls.
 Most of the wall ornaments are h. dian. On one side are Indian baskets and mats. On another an Indian bow, in beautiful case of deer skin. On a silk covered cardboard are mounted
 Indian arrow heads. In the middle of
 the cardboard at the bottom is faSten- ed the largest of the lot, between four and five inches long, its point up.
 Around this, horseshoe fashion are ar
 ranged the next in size, then the next,
 and so on, tips all pointing upward
 and outward. It is fine scheme for
 mounting the arrow heads. Many of
 them are of dark flint, similar in color
 to those that Will had, but quite
 number of them are of petrified
 wood, very beautiful indeed. Besides
 these things are curious Indian neck
 ]aces, made of queer mixture of
 things. Some times tn ere will be per.
 haps half dozen bright red beads,
 such as were given to them by the ear
 lY traders, then tiny piece of bone,
 with a hole through it, then few
 pieces of shell worn smooth by long
 rolling about on the beach, then a
 bright colored, irregular piece of stone,
 likewise with hole through it, and so
 on throughout the necklace. The
 ceilings of the rooms are low, and the chairs are mostly low, comfortable rockers. Taken all in all it is de-
 lightful room. Most of the rooms open off from the veranda, so that one has
 the somewhat novel experience of go ing out of doors to reach his bedroom , However it is not so bad as in the Mexican adobe house, where, in case there is a second story, it is reached by a ladder from outside. No interior , stairways being built. The country about here is often referred to as the ''bad lands," and it is an appropriate
 name. In the water courses few cottonwoods grow, but beyond these
 and a few dwarf cedars on the higf mesas, nothing but ''greasewood," {
 low spreading bush and turpentine
 weed, which not even mountain goat will touch, it is so bitter. On the higher mesas are few dwarf ever
 greens, and on the plains once in 8 while tuft of grass. You would not
 dream that anything could live here Yet there are quite number of horses and cattle, all in good condition, not ] one of whom are fed by their owners About 60 miles south they say ante lope are plentiful, and rabbit hunting good. In the banks I noticed small holes which the guide tells us are made by sand rats, rat with long hind legs which belongs to the Kangaroo rats. "
 saw only one small. bird, little fel low, bit smaller than our sparrow, o1 SAVEn FR0M THE KNIFE