Bisbee daily review., 1908-11-12
.OLD, OLD STORY OF JOHN
 HAUSE AND GRAND CANYON

The two biggest things about the biggest hole. in tue ground On the American continent, the Grand can yon of the Colorado, a. e John Hanse and the Bright Angel traiL The trail hasn't 1t over old Jonn a bit on depth, but for general nigness, Hanse sec onds nobody's motion. Hanse is an old guide living near the rim of the canyon who consents to take any oi the initiated down the trail to the river a mile below, at so much per capita. paid in advance.
 This, and story telling, is Johns business in life, while whisky drink. ing is his chief and only pastime. lie has been around the canyon so long that the memory of man runneth not to the contrary. at least this Is true of the Fred Harvey aggregation of em. pioyes at the canyon. He has been there So long that he Is considered one of the sights of the big gorge, along with Marble canyon, Steeple rock wonders. Hanse's trail is one of the ways of getting down onto the floor of the canyon, Bright Angel trail IS another, and a running jump the third.
 Sam Blythe. the big-fisted "Hurrah'' writer for the Saturday Evening Post, who does the Who's Who. Why, and Their Whiskers," tells a good story on old John Hanse-everyone calls him "oId John Hanse" with the same feeling of familiarity that a bunch of office boys have for the old man an the office. Blythes story runs thar the old guide had party of leather. squeezing tenderfeet on a trail trip and, tiring of their fool questions, the leading one being as to the safety O. the trip, old Hanse handed out a his torical one to an cid sister who sin qufred to know" as Togo says, if any one ever went over the biuff.
 Hanse took fresh chew of "Cid Kentuckky," spat ever the side of the brink contemptuously, and replied Yes. mum. Sometimes we do have a little trouble with these here mules. !" pointing disparaglng thum towards the nearest Rocky mountain canary. One day the old woman fMrs. Hanse) was coming down the trail with me, wen her critter slipped and fell 5O feet to the next turn in the cork screw. Broke both their off legs, concluded the old man, with a snap of his jaws.
 But how did you ever get your wife back to camr?" the timid little school teacher inquired Didn't 2 gurbled old John. '.just took my gun and shot 'em both; then pitched 'em over the cliff into the river'
 Now, that was a good story, the way Blythe told 1t, and it got laugh around the world when it appeared Tn the Post, but, like the mother-in-law and Adam and Eve joke, the Hanse joke seems destined to be with us al ways.
 Going up from Williams on the can yon sleeper, the Pullman conductor, a little squab of a fellow, who wore a bartender's vest and spoke with a German accent, started to describe the beauty of the canyon to the car full of passengers whose only wish was to be left alone. The next morn ing, when the train was puffing up the last lap of the 5000 feet climb to the rim of the canyon, the negro porter started in on the same story of Jonn Hanse's reply to the Yankee school teacher
 At the Fl Toyar hotel. the clerk asked if this was the first trip to the canyon and had we seen old Jonn Hanse, who told the school teacher about having to shoot hiB wife on the