Tonopah bonanza. [volume] (Butler City [i.e. Butler], Nev.) 1901-1909, 1909-05-15
STORY OF THE
NEVADA DESERT

w. F. Ford, the former Tonopah
attorney, who was arrested Monday
in Berkeley at the request of Sheriff
Owens, and who was secretly indict-
ed by the Nye county grand jury. on
the charge OF defrauoing two Indians
out of a large sum or money, pub
fishes the following story in his mag
azine, THE Square Dealer The
title of the story is "Biawuz, the
Half Breed The story is thought
to be the history of Peavine Johnny.
a local Indian, as it is known he was
born at or near Cloverdale. The
story follows:
"Biawuz was born at Cloverdale
ranch, Nye county, Nevada. His
mother was a Reese river Shoshone
Indian squaw and his father a white
cattleman from Canada, who had
taken possession of a spring which
controlled many thousands of acres
of sand grass land surrounding it.
THE white man had many cattle
and a very comfortable home at
Cloverdale ranch, but he was lonely.
There were no white women near
so he loved and won the daughter of
a friendly Shoshone. She left her
people; came to his home to live
with him, and to them was born Bia.
wuz, THE Singing Frog"-for the
frogs in the spring sang with joy
when his mother gave him birth.
Pew white men respect a mar
riage vow to an Indian woman, who
knows no marriage ceremony except
the mere act of taking up her resi-
dence with the man of her choice in
his wigwam, or tepee, or house, as
the case may be. That to her, is mar
riage. She is constant and true. The
white man, as a rule, is glad to have
her until such time only as he is
ready to go back to civilization and
home. Then his vows, his wife, and
his children are forgotten; he goes
back home" and marries some pure
and innocent white woman who never
suspects that her husband has an
other wife who waits and walls in
the desert night for the father of her
children, who will never return.
ttTha nhfta fnkHou - Dgouu.u -
turned to Canada-alone; married a
white woman, and has raised a fam
lily. His Indian wife with her father
less boy lived among the willows of
Reese river, disowned and Stunned
by her W people, a broken hearted
outcast, clothed in the cast-off gar
ments of miners wives, gathering
pine-nuts and berries and such other
food as she could for herself and
boy, and begged scraps from the din
ner buckets of the miners at Grants
Vile to feed the son of the rich
eattleman who had made his pile,
gone home, and married according to
The rites and ceremonies of Chris
tian' civilization.
When Biawuz was about z years
old, his mother had wasted away to
a mere shadow Of her former beauty
and could nc longer gather food for
him or herself; she was starved and
sick and dying.
"One evening, by their camp fire,
which he made larger than usual be-
cause his mother was so cold, she
told Biawuz the sad story of her
life; Of her happy girlhood with her
people; of the white man with the
cattle at the big ranch; of her love
for him; OF her marriage to the white
man whom she lovVc, and of the an
ger of her people because she had
married a man of another race and
color. She told him that she had
left and forsaken her own people
that she might love and be loved by
this white man only and that his love
had repaid her for all the scorn Of
her people.
she told him OF the long and