The Daily Alaska empire., 1931-01-12
FURNACE CREEK WASHINGTON,

LOS ANGELES, Cal, Jan. 10.- It's getting to be a great game here, just to disappear for while
 If you are in need of a rest, and great deal of publicity, just vanish into the desert. A couple of years ago Aimee McPherson did it.. When she turned up again she said she had been kidnapped and then excitement was even wilder. But when her Kidnapping story tottered under the bombardment of skeptics and there were strong in dications that her disappearance was flor love alone" the author ities who had directed the search for her and hunted the kidnappers were peeved.
 Men in public office don't like to be used in that way. The law objects strongly to being used, either for publicity purposes or as blind for any other purpose.
 But recently California has fall en just as bad for another trick disappearance.
 When a gentleman named Ralph Farnum, who earns his bread and butter by managing stage and screen stars, decided to put his name on the front page and give his wife little scare into the bar gain, he got himself Host" in Death Valley.
 Ralph Farnum lost in Death Valley was one screaming head line.
 And the account went on to la ment, Determined to escape the blare of Broadway, Ralph G. Far mum, theatrical producer, sought solitude in the perilous alkali des- ert wastes of Death Valley, and his bones may now lie there bleach ing under the pitiless sun" { While these shivery lines were being written MT. Farnum was peaceably living with tribe of Piute Indians. He Was eating three meals day and lying on nice soft blanket in an Indian hut, am- ply shaded from the "pitiless sun. y
 Farnum wandered alone into Death Valley, riding burro, lead- l ing another carrying campi g equipment. His wife, the former Maybelle Griffith, accompanied him as far as Coffin Creek and then turned back.
 1 Later one of the burroS Farnum I had taken with him into Death Val I ley was discovered in an emaciated condition near Furnace Creek. Sher- if Copper, of Death Valley Junc- tion, was worried He telegraphed Los Angeles, asking that city to notify New York authorities.
 One editor chartered an airplane to search Death Valley. Posses under the direction of Sheriff Copper rode exhaustively through the re- zion. And all the time-the story lasted for three days-nobody could find Mrs. Farnum. If she was wor- ried when she read of her hus- bands desire to escape the frantic life of Broadway and seek peace among the desert mountains, she gave no sign.
 When Farnum was 'located" and told of the scare he had created by his disappearance, he appeared surprised. He said he knew Death Valley well and was staying with the Indians because he liked them
 But it was reported that there had been a tiff" between the two and that the disappearance hao been calculated to scare her into a reconciliation A trip into Death Valley ought to be enough to scare anyone.
 Back in the days of the covered wagon, in 1850, a party of emi- I =
 grants, California bound, perishet from thirst in the arid wastes O Death Valley.
 This strange land, about PFC fee below sea level, is so hot durint most Summers that even the liz ards and horned toads are unabl to exist there and have to depar for other habitations.
 In 1925 less than half an incl of rain fell in the Death Valle sink, which is the lowest dry Ian in the Western Hemisphere. It about 50 miles long and betwee 20 and 9 miles wide.
 All in all, it is not a nice plac to get lost in, and hardly a nic