Weekly journal-miner., 1920-06-16
BY SHARLoT M. HALL


 from Legion officer not long ago thinking of it partly because it illus trates how many fine and intimate things the Legion will be doing ill every little community-and thinking of it because it illustrates how easily fantastic stories can start from no visible source and grow into gener- ally accepted local tradition.
 This Legion officer had been shown eight unmarked graves in the cemetery between Dewey and Hum boldt and had been told that they con- tained the bodies of eight soldiers who had been killed by Indians in the early days He wrote me hoping that 1 could supply their names, regi- ment, or some data by which they could be identified, as the Legion wished to mark the graves and hold memorial service over them.
 This was fine idea-a beautiful tribute from our soldiers of today to their comrades of the past-it made me feel the warmest interest in the Legion and its future and sure that it is going to fill a real need ill every community-only l bad 10 spoil all those nice plans because there were no soldiers killed by Indians in those eight unmarked graves. More likely they contain the remains of some wandering miners who were buried from Humboldt, men whose names are already forgotten.
 When I rode into this valley on a small Texas pony behind the covered wagons ill which we had made the journey from southern Kansas to Arizona there was just one grave on the low mesa. Later as 1 went to school and sometimes visited the children whose mother lived in the old stone house built by Colonel King Woolsey on what we then called the Bowers ranch" but what is now called the Shelter farm" we chil- dren would walk over to the one lone grave.
 I had just ridden the full length ot the old Santa Fe Trail on that same small pony-and day after day l had climbed out of my saddle to spell ont the faint lettering on many a weather-beaten head-board-o per haps, to raise the fallen board and brace ii with stones. 1 came from a region marked by the graves Of set tiers, killed by Indians and travellers who had sickened on the old immi- grant trails and been buried in the prairie while the wagon train halted few minutes and then pulled on to the west-so to me that lone grave had special interest
 It was in fact the grave of Civil War Veteran, man killed in all acct dent while driving from Prescott to his home near the present Dewey For many years no other person was buried there and not until the smell fer town of Val Verde was located on the hills beyond did the grave yard grow so big that we did ont all know just who was buried in each grave
 have never positively traced the beginning of this story of the un- marked graves, though know some thing of where many of the fantastic legends about the section originated. Probably the fact that three young nten conveying a freight team were killed very near the Silver Belt mine Cof today) and buried where they fell was the germ of truth, though these boys were not soldiers. There are still few old timers who will recall the death of Leroy Jay and his companions.
 Just to show how legends grow, have been amused to have people tell me that the ruin of the old Woolsey, 1 or Bowers house-thc frame upper | story was burned years ago-was a fort built by United States troops that a tunnel ran from it to the h. dian ruin on the hill to the right, passing under the present railroad and that this tunnel contained not i only modern gold coin and bars of bullion but also many curious images carved by the Indians. The old well used for watering the stage horses i'll the days when this was a station on the Black Canyon stage route be- tween Prescott and Phoenix have been made the center of fantastic tales and the hiding place of buried treasure, and even good Mrs. Lanes pig pen. on top of which we children used 10 climb and tease the pigs, has been made a jail, powder magazine, and pen for Indian captives.
 So legends grow-in fact, was once asked 10 decorate a group of