The Coconino sun., 1926-03-26

evitable, in any. event, that others
would follow who couldn't be stopped.
In such a party had been one Mooney,
an ex-sailor.
So far as knew, Mooney was the
first white man to attempt to pass
this point in Havasu canyon. He had
paid for his temerity with his life
His comrades had lowered him only
a few yards when the rope COM
menced to spin. Mooney lost his grip
upon it and was dashed to death on
the rocks not far from the foot of
the misty blue waterfall that bears
his name. Mooney, dead, was remem-
bered: the others who carried on were
nameless.
The mineral was there-almost
within stones throw-but apparently
as far from the touch of pick and
shovel as though it lay at the north
pole. The ore occurred only in de-
tached bedded deposits in the smooth,
perpendicular canyon walls from fifty
to nearly three hundred feet above
the rough canyon floor.
The situation was obvious and ad-
rnitted of only one logical answer: to
admit defeat and try somewhere else,
with no questions asked No ore, un-
less of phenomenal richness, could
possibly be recovered at a profit from
this inaccessible place. The-value and
extent of what had been found was
entirely problematical, the possibility
of reaching it at all equally ancer-
tain.
The reaction to these pitiless facts
was typical of the men who faced
them. They turned to their Winchest-
ers and shot off and retrieved enough
chips from an outcropping two hun
dred feet above to determine the pres
ence of lead and silver. Then they
worked out to the distant settlements,
acquired equipment and supplies,
packed them back to Mooney falls and
there erected a derrick to lower them
selves, their stock and their outfit
into the lower canyon.
For long time this derrick had
been the only way up or down, until
eventually the obstacle was partly
overcome by driving series of in
clined tunnels down through the ira
vertine formation.
The supreme test still lay ahead.
The main ore body on the Cataract
claim cropped out Of the cliff two
hundred and sixty feet above the
canyon floor.
1t was easy enough to picture the
drilling of the first few holes, the
setting of the first few pieces of pipe,
the rearing of the first few yards of
the ladder. At seventy-five feet it
was not so easy; at one hundred and
fifty, and two huQdred, it was harder
still. There WASN'T much to work with
and these men weren't professional
ladder builders, or steel workers, or
human flies. With every yard of adj
vance the red rock would hold the
glare and blaze of the sun longer;
every hole up there would mean
cramped, bitter, dangerous work to a
man lashed to the spike end of a crazy
ladder
1t seemed to me that l might have
been been man enough to do my share
up to that great bulge in the cliff,
but | knew well that right there
would have quit-cold. 1t gave me a
nasty feeling in the pit of my stomach
even to imagine that crazy contrap-
ton creeping outward, nearly two
hundred and fifty feet above the
rocks. Every dozen notwithstanding
strokes with a heavy hammer must
have put a terrific strain on leg and
back and arm muscles-a touch of
sun-vertigo.
No doubt in time these things be-
came part of the routine of life on the
Cataract claim. Men crawled to and
from their work above that ugly
bulge like flies, loaded with tools,
water and explosives; they attacked
the ore with sledge and drill, with
certain death the reward of nisstep.
| tried to picture the setting of the
first charge, the scramble for safety
where, in Gods name, did they 90
for safety and how long did the fuse
give them to get there THE crush
ing explosion, magnified and repeated
IN rolling thunder along the dull red
cliffs; the rain of fragments falling
like projectiles into the canyon.
At the head of the ladder a thirty
foot tunnel was sunk into ore that
would have been valuable elsewhere,
but here was worse than valueless.