Weekly journal-miner., 1919-12-10
(BY SHARLOT M. HALL)
THE PRICE OF THE STAR


 In the old geographies there was a picture of a woman in flowing white draperies floating in the air with a telegraph wire uncoiling from her hand. Over the plains behind her steamed a railroad train, and the late ly discovered prairies were dotted with farms and villages. In front the Indians and the buffalo fled before her and on her forehead burned a great white star. Below the picture was the legend, Westward the star of empire takes its way"
 It was some deep inspiration which embodied the westward progress of civilization in that floating woman. The plains behind her bore witness in many a little sod-walled home; and many a lower mound, sod-heaped in the creeping buffalo grass.
 Of the men who went into the un- tracked West of gold or advanture some found the first and many the last and all drank its wide freedom as an intoxicating wine. It was a good land to them; turning the sand of its streams and the grass of its hills into coin for their sakes, and its dark pines and gray sage into laurel
 But the women who for loves sake followed or went with the fore most, it was theirs to pay in blood and tears the price of the star and be for the most part forgotten.
 From the grim, drouth-scourged plains of the Kansas that once was the Kansas of blizzard and grass-hop- pers and Indian raids, westward to the very sea the new empire took its toll Ii waving corn and the smoke of cities sprang up in the track of the white man they sprang from a soil fertilized with the hearts of women and little children. Well may the land be rich, for rich in love and loyalty and fine patience were the lives it has taken into its bosom.
 There was a time when the West ended with New Mexico and began again with California; between lay mountain walled, deserted hedged tierra inCognita,-Apache Land, Ari- zona. Then someone whispered gold and she of the star floated up across tke horizon.
 Carleton and Greene and Chaffee and Crook, with their lair and in their chosen strongholds set adobe look out: Camp Verde, Camp Apache, Camp Mcdowell, and a dozen more; each with its handful of men in blue.
 Reluctantly the Indians turned southward from their last retreat in q t1, Tod. Garden. Over all these dark, sombre mountains under their forest cloak are the scars of old fires; brown rift ed lava streams, deep canyons black and smooth where the fiery flow dropped down, and craters from the bubbled funnel a yard across to the deep, dark Indian Garden where the little snow-fed lake at its bottom lies a thousand feet below the sun.
 Tall pines and mountain grass GOV CT the park around the lake and the beetling walls of the dead volcano are green with spice wood, elder Der ries, and the sour red squaw berries. Blackberries, wild entrants, and thorny gooseberries hang in the clefts; mescal and prickly pear dot the pum ace slopes and cinder beds, and in the grass below wild strawberries redden in their season. There are fish in the lake and deer and quail and wild tur- keys in the mountains above, and wild geese and ducks dip down for a grateful rest in their bi-yearly jour neViugS.
 An Indian paradise, reached only f, J .~1, 41, wiry ponies scrambled riderless and in single file. Here the Tonto-Apaches hid their women and children while l they raidcd the emigrant trains on the old wagon road that ran through the grim, castus-grown southern desert into California; or harried the weaker Supais and Hualpais to the northward; and here they came with their booty, or retreated when hard pressed, and drank tiswin and feasted on baked mescal till the furry was over and it was safe to venture out again.
 Their wiCkiups still stood in clust- l CTS under the pines when man and woman rode over the mountain rim and, haltiug their horses at the head of the trail, looked down. The girl, | for she was little more, laughed and raised up in the saddle, bracing her self with one hand on the shoulder of her taller companion as she peered oyer the edge.
 This must be the jumping-off place, Jont. You said we were going to heaven; it looks more like we were headed the other way" and she drop ped back into her seat, still laughing.
 Its the jumping-of place right enough Sis, and l guess you'll think it is heaven when we get to the bot tom" said the tall fellow slipping out of his saddle and holding his arms out to her. Come along, Honey; there hasn't been anything bigger than g bear over this trail since we chased the Tontos out last tall, and I reckon it's pretty rough. Put Dolls bridle over the saddle horn and let her follow me, and old Gray and you come behind so the rocks won't roll on you Forward, march We're going home. Feels good to get on the ground again, don't lt?'
 The boyish figure swung down the trail with the easy stride of one used to roads where silence and a sure foot are the price of life. His buck skin shirt and moccasins Contrasted