The copper era., 1911-03-17
GENERAL ARIZONA NEWS.
tGleaned From Exchanges.) Papage Indian is Tied to Horse and
 Draeeed to Death.

tied to the tail Ot wild young horse the body of what has been identified as a Papago Indian was found today by detachment of the First United States cavalry on the edge of the Gila river near Mesa. The Indian was about 3 years old. In order to secure the body the horse had to be shot as the soldiers were unable to capture at as it darted about with it's ghastly encumbrance. The body was frightfully mutilated by having been dragged about.
 1t is believed the young Indian had been condemned to die in this man. ner because of having violated some law of his tribe. Members of the tribe are very uncommuuicative. and further, by the fact that the horse bore no brand, the officers do not expect to secure a history of the case. The only hope of securing i'm formation is from Mexican vaqueros.
 A number of similar cases were re- ported years ago when Mexicans caught Indian horse thieves. Physi- cans who exa mined the body say he had been dead about four days. The Papago Indian tribe, which is now very small, had camp eight mines up the Gila river from here.
 Tillio Reyes, l3 years old, accdent. ally shot himself in the right hand last Saturday with a revolver. Tillio was practicing and had kept it up till his gun got hot and while trying to put in another cartridge the shell was exploded by the heat of the gun and the shell is what did the injury. The she'll was driven back into the rigEt hand making an ugly wound. Sunday afternoon Tillio went to the Shannon Hospital in Clifton where the shell was removed.
 Samuel Edmund Roberts passed away this morning at 10 o'clock at the county hospital in Stafford after several years of invalidism. MT. Roberts came here from Boulder, Colo, about eleven years ago and took up his residence in the Gila Valley. He held the position of con stable and city marshall about six years ago and afterward became the editor of the Journal, weekly paper published iu Stafford and which is now styled "The Record" and published at Thatcher,
 The Daily Globe, of Globe, has re- ~eeived word from an authoritative source that the Southern Pacific had abandoned the low line survey through the Gila river box canyon and would build, whenever it got ready to com strut the Durango line, along the route laid out by the high line survey.
 Never in the history of Arizona has there been a more strenuous fight for a railroad right -of-way, the Southern Pacific being opposed by combin- ation of farmers of the Casa Grande valley, including a big syndicate, which has sought to obtain the box canyon for an irrigation project, which it has been claimed, would reclaim 2Jd, 900 acres of land
 The railroad company has held that the high line survey, orig inally made by the Murphy interests for the Santa Fe, was not practicable, and that if it were so, construction would cost several million dollars more than would be required to build on the bed of the canyon.
 The Sligh syndicate, to prove to the Interior Department that the contention of the Southern Pacific was wrongly based. had another survey made, and this, together with d very able brief, was presented to the Interior Department last fall.
 The railroad was given thirty days in which to answer, but it is under stood that this was never done, and it was announced that Secretary Ballinger would visit the canyon next June, prior to rendering his decision.
 The railroad Company has prOba ply ascertained that even if it costs more to build on the high-line survey, the benefits from the reclaiming of the desert lands under the proposed irrigation project would more than offset the additional cost.
 With gain of lO,3O4 acre feet at the reservoir since yesterday morn- ing, and d similar increase for the past two or three days, officials of the reclamation ser vice predicted to- day that the total contents of the reservoir will reach the 5OO,OO0 mark by the date of Colonel Theodore Roosevelt's arrival in Phoenix next Saturday morning. The elevation II o'clock this morning was l58. l5 feet, an indicated stored water supply of ATS, ,203 acre feet.