The Coconino sun., 1921-09-23

was at one and the same time pro-
 bate judge and county superintendent
 of schools, the other day was telling
 some friends about the time he sent
 Joe Foutz to the state insane asylum
 at Phoenix.
 Foutz had been discharged from the
 asylum two years previously. He
 lived at Tuba City with his wife and children. That was before the government took over the land there
 for its Indian institutions; at which
 time it paid the various squatters generous sums for their holdings and improvement. The place where Foutz lived and planted his peach orchard is now occupied by the government nursery under Harold Linn.
 About Foutz' peach orchard. He planted lot of young trees; then, be- cause they didn't bear the second year, pulled them all up, dug new holes, and planted them all heads down with only the roots sticking out. He told them he guessed this would teach them to bear.
 Foytz is still at the asylum, where Judge Layton sent him 26 years ago. He is a trusty and does most of the plumbing. He is giant in size, about six feet and half tall, weighing 250 pounds, as powerful as he is big. | Shortly after leaving the asylum the first time Foutz became ugly. He gave several of his neighbors unmerci- ful thrashings, beating one of them nearly to death. Regarding the latter, who was a Mormon, he asserted that the reason he beat him up was that the man had plural wife whose pres ence the first wife resented, making it necessary for her husband to build his new wife a separate house. Short ly after she was established in her domicile her husband, so Foutz claim ed, spread the story that Foutz was unduly intimate with her. So Foutz took revenge.
 Foutz' great obsessioon was that his mission in life, one to which he was divinely ordained as well as commis- stoned by various governments, was to give military training to the Indian children. He wore German helmet as badge of his high office, though where he got the helmet was always mystery unless it was a souvenir of his early service in the German army.
 Fortunately for his wife and neigh bors, soon after beating up the Nor mon, Foutz wandered off into the neighboring wilds, armed with a rife, hatchet and long butcher knife and for several months no trace of him could be found. Ralph Cameron was sheriff then and had a warrant for his arrest, which his two principal depu- ties,. Fletcher Fairchild and Niles Cameron, vainly tried for a long time to serve.
 Then, about three months after Foutz' disappearance, Fairchild, Niles Cameron and another deputy were re- turning across the reservation with Al Garth (who was committed to the asylum not long ago by Judge J. E. Jones), who was wanted for alleged horse-stealing, who should they come across but Foutz, wearing his helmet and carrying all his weapons.
 Fairchild, who had the reputation of being absolutely fearless, announc- ed right then and there that he was going to get Foutz. Garth agreed to be good and help.
 But Foutz had learned in some way that the warrant was out against him and defied Fairchild to take him. He sat down on a big rock with his rifle trained on Fairchild. The latter got out of the blackboard, instructed the other three men to slip around and try to get Foutz from behind while he kept his attention riveted on himself.
 Followed two hours of ticklish work. Fairchild kept talking, trying to req son with Foutz, telling him stories and the latest news, and constantly drawing nearer. Foutz repeatedly warned him to keep his distance, as- suring him that he would not be taken. "You are damn good talker, Fair child" he would say, "but I'm on to your game; you can't take me"
 Then the other three got close up and all four jumped on Foutz, grab ping his arms and rifle. Followed a busy quarter of an hour, the four hanging like grim death to the man, who whirled them around like straws until he finally was winded, thrown and hog-tied. He was hoisted into the blackboard and brought in.
 Foutz was taken before Judge Lay ton. He asked the judge as many questions as the latter asked him. Then, when he was committed, he de- clared in picturesque language that he would "get" Layton some day.
 Fairchild took him to the asylum. He turned him over to the warden: Suddenly Foutz broke away, jumped on to the two men, overpowering them, took the commitment papers off Fairchild and dragged the two men across to the doctors office. "Here are two crazy men l have brought for you," he told the doctor. The latter, it chanced, had just taken his posi- tion and didn't know the warden. It was all the latter and Fairchild could do to make the doctor understand the true situation, Foutz vehemently de- claring that they were crazy.
 Finally Fairchild thought to hint to | the doctor to quiz Foutz about his | military training of the Indian child ren. The doctor did and it set Foutz to raving, whereupon the doctor got the tangle strengthened out.
 About four years ago, while MT.