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I punched cattle down on the Hassayampa and in the Mogollons. Then I drifted up to Alaska. But I always came back to Arizona. New Mexico is mighty interesting, and so is Colorado. California is really the most wonderful State of all, but somehow I can't keep away from Arizona." "Shake! I never been out of Arizona, except when I was a kid, but she's the State for me."
At noon, however, it was known that Willett's wagon stopped but a few moments on the plaza in the little mining town and capital, then shot away southward on the Hassayampa road. Three days later the array of "Casually at Post" on the morning report of Fort Whipple showed an increase of something like a score.
He moved and killed by night. Pigs were his favorite food, and he had also killed a number of men. But Pedro's Grizzly was the most marvelous. "Hassayampa," as the sheep-herder was dubbed, came one night to Kellyan's hut. "I tell you he's still dere. He has keel me a t'ousand sheep. You telled me you keel heem; you haff not. He is beegare as dat tree. He eat only sheep much sheep.
"There is another old saying about the Hassayampa, son," he said kindly, "with even more truth to it than in that old dicho. They say that whoever drinks of the waters of the Hassayampa must come to drink again." He bent his brows at Francis Charles. "Good guess," admitted Boland, answering the look.
As the sheep-herder enlarged on the marvelous cunning of the Bear that had a private sheep corral of his own, and the size of the monster, forty or fifty feet high now for such Bears are of rapid and continuous growth Kellyan's eye twinkled and he said: "Say, Pedro, I believe you once lived pretty nigh the Hassayampa, didn't you?"
Boland's face clouded. "Well, I'm going out with you and have a good look at him," he said gloomily. "If I'm not satisfied with him, I'll refuse my consent. And I'll look at your mine if you've got any mine. They used to say that when a man drinks of the waters of the Hassayampa, he can never tell the truth again. And you're from Arizona." Pete stole a shrewd look at the young man's face.
This does not mean that that is a country of great Bears, but was an allusion to the popular belief that any one who tastes a single drop of the Hassayampa River can never afterward tell the truth.
Lieutenant Blake, to his disgust, had been sent scouting up the Hassayampa where the Apaches had been seen some days before, but couldn't be found now it being the practice of those nimble warriors to get far from the scene of their deviltries without needless delay, and the rule of the powers that were, until General Crook taught them wiser methods, to promptly order cavalry to the spot where the Indians had been, instead of where they had presumably gone.
Only once each year, until of late, had he been able to visit them, usually at Christmas-tide, but by every runner, courier, stage or post there came to them his cheery letters, bearing such old-time, outlandish post-marks or headings as "Lapwai," "Three Forks, Owyhee," and later "Hualpai," or "Hassayampa," until finally it became mild, civilized, pacific, even "Almy."
It was a pitifully insignificant little packet of letters the young officer found on his desk the morning of his return from the Hassayampa road. It contained only the pages he had penned to his Lily of the Desert. The earlier ones were fond, endearing, sweet as girl could ask, and had been rapturously welcomed, read and reread, kissed and fondled and treasured.
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