I Married a Ranger

by Dama Margaret Smith

A lady approached him one day while he stood on the Rim gazing into the mile-deep chasm.

"Captain Hance," she said, "I don't see any water in the Canyon. Is this the dry season, or does it never have any water in it?"

Gazing at her earnestly through his squinty, watery eyes, he exclaimed:

"Madam! In the early days many's the time I have rode my horse up here and let him drink right where we stand!"

The old fellow was a bachelor, but he insisted that in his younger days he had married a beautiful girl. When asked what had become of her he would look mournful and tell a sad tale of her falling over a ledge down in the Canyon when they were on their honeymoon. He said it took him three days to reach her, and that when he did locate her he found she had sustained a broken leg, so he had to shoot her.

As he grew feeble, he seemed to long for the quiet depths of the gorge, and several times he slipped away and tried to follow the old trail he had made in his youth. He wanted to die down at his copper mine. At last, one night when he was near eighty years old, he escaped the vigilance of his friends and with an old burro that had shared his happier days he started down the trail. Ranger West got wind of it and followed him. He found him where he had fallen from the trail into a cactus patch and had lain all night exposed to the raw wind. He was brought back and cared for tenderly, but he passed away. Prominent men and women who had known and enjoyed him made up a fund to buy a bronze plate for his grave. Remembering the size of his yarns, whoever placed the enormous boulders at his head and feet put them nine feet apart.

Halfway between my cabin and the Rim, in the pine woods, is a well-kept grave with a neat stone and an iron fence around it. Here lies the body of United States Senator Ashurst's father, who was an old-timer at the Canyon. Years ago, while working a mine at the bottom of the Canyon, he was caught by a cave-in and when his friends reached him he was dead. They lashed his body on an animal and brought him up the steep trail to be buried. While I was in Washington, Senator Ashurst told me of his father's death and something of his life at the Canyon. He said that often in the rush and worry of capitol life he longed for a few peaceful moments at his father's grave.

I never saw Senator Ashurst at the Grand Canyon, but another senator was there often, stirring up some row or other with the Government men. He seemed to think he owned the Canyon, the sky overhead, the dirt underneath, and particularly the trail thereinto. His hirelings were numerous, and each and every one was primed to worry Uncle Sam's rangers. As dogs were prohibited in the Park, every employee of the Senator's was amply provided with canines. Did the tourists particularly enjoy dismounting for shade and rest at certain spots on the trail, those places were sure to get fenced in and plastered with "Keep Off" signs, under the pretense that they were mining claims and belonged to him. We used to wonder what time this Senator found to serve his constituents.

Uncle Sam grew so weary of contesting every inch of the trail that he set himself to build a way of his own for the people to use. Several men under the direction of Ranger West were set to trail-building. They made themselves a tent city on the north side of the river and packers were kept busy taking mule loads of materials to them daily. Hundreds of pounds of TNT were packed down safely, but one slippery morning the horses which had been pressed into service lost their footing, slid over the edge of the trail, and hit Bright Angel again a thousand feet below. The packers held their breath expecting to be blown away, as two of the horses that fell were loaded with the high explosive. It was several minutes before they dared believe themselves safe. They sent for White Mountain, and when he reached the animals he found they were literally broken to pieces, their packs and cargoes scattered all over the side of the mountain. They dragged the dead animals a few feet and dropped them into a deep fissure which was handy. Fresh snow was scraped over the blood-stained landscape, and when the daily trail party rode serenely down a few minutes later there was nothing to show that a tragedy had taken place.

Later an enormous charge of this high explosive was put back of a point that Rees Griffith, the veteran trail-builder, wished to remove, and the result was awaited anxiously. About four in the afternoon Rees called Headquarters and reported that the shot was a huge success. He was greatly elated and said his work was about done.