Weekly journal-miner., 1920-06-16
All Trails Meet at the
 Lonely Pioneers GraUe

A good many years ago the War Department had all its soldier dead removed from the abandoned posts and early camps to Angel Island and MT. Lee of the American ranch, fath- CT of the Lee boys, and himself a pioneer Indian fighter, had charge of the removal of bodies in Yavapai. No man knew better. than Mir Lee where all the battles had taken place and he was extremely careful that no one should be overlooked. Three very early soldier graves ill Peoples Valley are the only ones that l have been able to trace in this county.
 For many years l took particular pains to visit every graveyard near the abandoned military camps and mining camps and the early towns that were later abandoned, seeking to make a record of the graves of our pioneers as well as of the victims of Indian wars. From the Mexican bor- der to the Utah line and from New Mexico 10 the Colorado river 1 fol- lowed these forgotten camps of the dead
 l photographed them and by care ful records tried to help preserve some memory of those who broke the trails for us. For years 1 sought help in this work and even now am always eager to learn where our pio- neer dead lie buried. I was so deeply inprtssed by the need of just such care as the American legion purposed giving the supposed soldier graves at Dewey and by the dreary desolation of most of these forgotten graveyards that l wrote the following verses and Illustrated them with one of the pho tographs of an abandoned graveyard. In the early frontier days the grave yard was called Boot HilI'-because most of it's inmates died literally with their boots on"-in gun fights or Indian raids.
 think l had particularly in mind the old graveyard at La Paz, in which, by the way, William Brad shaw, one of the brothers for whom the Bradshaw mountains were nam ed, lies buried, but Arizona has still many q
 BOOT HILL. Go softly, you whose careless feet Would crush the sage brush, pungent,
 sweet,
 And brush the rabbit weed aside From burrows where the ground
 squirrels hide,
 And prairie dog his watch tower
 keeps
 Above the ragged gravel heaps Year long the wind blows up and
 
 Each lessening mound, and drifts the
 brown
 Dried wander-weed there at their Who no more wander, slow or fleet. Sun-bleachcd, rain-warped, the head
 boards hold
 One story, all too quickly told: That here some wild heart takes its
 rest
 From spent desire and fruitless quest. Here in the greasewood's scanty
 shade
 How many a daring soul was laid Boots on, full-garbed as when he
 died; The pistol belted at his side; The worn sombrero on his breast To prove another man the best, Arrow or knife, or quick-drawn gun The glad, mad fearless game was
 done A life for stakes-play slow or fast Win-lose-yet Death held trumps at
 last.
 Some went where bar-room tinsel
 flared, Or painted dance-hall wantonsI
 stared; Some, where the lone, brown ranges
 barred Their parchcd length to a parching
 sky And God alone might hear the cry From thirst-dricd lips that, stiff and !
 cold,
 Seemed still to babblc: Gold, gold,
 gold"
 Woman, or wine, or greed, or
 Chance A comrades shot; an Indian lance; | By camp or canyon. trail or street. Here all games end; here al trails |
 meet
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