The Coconino sun., 1926-12-03

1876, near the Clark ranch spring is
of historical value; yet in my opinion,
the name came from the Beal staff
that was on such prominent knoll
for so many years, while the Clark
spring staff raised was not in such
commanding position.
| was told by Bill Hull that the
Clark spring staff had been taken
down soon after for the five dollar
gold piece that was supposed to have
been placed at the bottom of the
staff. The coin, however, proved to
be a quarter of dollar when found.
Looking back those forty years, /
can't say whether it was by accident
or by Providence | happened onto
Flagstaff Our party had started
out from Dodge City, Kansas, for
California. At Pueblo, Colo, we were
to meet John Youngberg's sweetheart.
She had come from Sweden to be
married to John and to continue on
with US. Upon our arrival at Pueblo
we were shown her newly made
grave-she having died the day be-
fore. We continued westward. Hav-
ing heard so much about the sand
deserts of Arizona, we tried to avoid
passing through them by leaving the
Santa Fe trail to the south of us.
We soon found, after dry camp or
two, that the watering places that we
were expecting to find had gone dry.
SO we headed south until we struck
the Atlantic and Pacific railroad and
stuck to it, and to our surprise found
no sand on the entire trip.
By the time we arrived at Albu-
querque my father began to show
signs of inconsistencies. The three of
US plotted to cheer him up bit. 1t
was my duty to buy the provisions,
so | took father with me on shop
ping tour. We had two or three glas-
ses of beer.
BY that time my brother had come
to us from caring for the mules. He
took father in hand. They had few
glasses more, while made the nee
essary purchases of canned goods and
bacon. Youngberg soon showed up
and he came in to take up the third
relay in cheering up father, while
Frank and / returned to camp to ar
range it for remaining over night.
We decided to relieve Youngberg, ex-
pecting to hear father singing the
Marseillaise. But this is what we
found: Youngberg, with his hat in
one hand and jug of whiskey in the
other was "whooping 'em up" in
Swedish lore, while father was lead
ing him toward camp and big fat
marshal was following behind, shooing
him along. We found it necessary to
break camp at once and get out OF
town as Johns vocal exertion did not
seem to fit in with the peace and dig
nity of Albuquerque. In passing over
the bridge John threw both his hat
and the Jug of whiskey into the river.
The following day ] got into trou-
BILE myself In passing through an
Indian settlement ] saw a huge rat
tier coiled up very near some indian
children. I took my Bat Masterson
and shot the snake into three pieces.
About the time | was congratulatlng
myself for being hero, was told by
a sort Of Indian policeman that had
killed sacred pet, and he said some
thing about paying for it, but as none
of US could understand we managed
to get along on our way.
On the entire trip, up to the time
we reached Turkey Tanks, the ground
was almost bare of flowers or grass.
Yet we were thankful there were no
sand deserts as we had expected to
find. You can imagine our surprise
when we reached Price and Kings
camp, nine miles east of Flagstaff,
to find the grass above the knees OF
our mules, and the pine forest yet
untouched by the axe, excepting the
poles that were being used for the
construction gangs shacks. We saw