The silver state. [volume] (Winnemucca, Nev.) 1909-1925, 1922-05-13
One Minute Story

IL Is SAID tnat many OF Mark
Twain's funny stories had their
origin in the brain of Jim Town.
send, generally accounted Nevada's
best yarn spinner of all time. Ira
dition has it that the two bunked to-
gether in a western Nevada
mining camp that is now a
ghost city and Townsend's recount
ing left vivid ideas in the mind of
the humorist who capitalized them
to good effect from the standpoints
of amusing the reading public and
creating a money income for HIM
self. But Mark Twain never told
Townsend's story, nor was it ever
printed, about the mythical petri-
fled forest which he recited in a
contest down at Belmont about
forty years ago after a contem-
porary in lie telling had offered a
weird tale of a hidden river which
he claimed to have found as he
made his way over the country.
The hidden river story has been
told in one form or another many
times.
1t remained for Kize Lamb.
Winnemucca's sure shooting chief
of police, to bring the petrified for
est yarn to the fore again as he
sat in reminiscent mood in the
county Jail lobby a few days ago.
Before he became chief of police,
Lamb hunted wild horses. Not only
did he hunt them but he skinned
them after he unerringly brought
them down. The meat formed his
principal article of subsistence as
he spent his time in the Humboldt
county wilds.
1t was while he followed a band
of mustangs, as he recounts the
story. that he dropped into the
Owyhee bad lands country in the
northwestern corner Of Elko county.
Forbidding precipices bar the way
there to even the migratory sheep
man who is presumed to drive his
focks into the uttermost parts but
Lambs hardihood carried him into a
land that was plainly undefiled by
the touch Of man. Exploration was
undertaken by the horse hunter and
as the hours passed he found him.
self in a land of seeming verdancy,
yet all about was stone. A mag
nificent pine forest, CARRIED after
the fashion of prodigal nature
stood immobile and unswaying to
the winds. Avenues led here and
there and the illusion in this
wonderland was so complete that
Mr.. Lamb found himself in the for
est depths before he realized that
he walked among evidences of a
prehistoric age.
Yonder "burn" was stalked
across by the predatory redman
as he sought his quarry;
over there was a glade that stood
as natured erected it in the long
ago. He came to a purling brook,
crystal clear, and missed his footing
only to fall, but not to splash, for
the stream was petrified.
Mr.. Lamb looked to the tree tops,
majestic in their great height, and
there he saw myriads of bright
plumaged birds, plainly Of another
age. Bringing his rifle into play
he sent one tumbling to the ground
and when he picked it up he found
that the bird was petrified.
Sweet music smote his ears. That
too was petrified.
Mr.. Lamb retraced his steps and
as he made his way he saw man
scurrying hither and yon as he
sought his habitat.
Thinking him a draft evader of
the war period he followed him.
The man was petrified.
Now that Lamb has become a
gentle officer in a period of gentle
ness and likes the comforts and as
sociations of this metropolis he has
ceased the pastime Of wild horse
hunting, but he still longs to un-
ravel the mysteries that exist deep
in the petrifed forest of Nevada's
bad lands.