“I was the candy kid, all right,” remarked the narrator.
His fervid discourse was interrupted by a drawl from some one in the background. “I reckon that some time you must have drunk copiouslike of the Hassayampeh River.”
A machinery drummer who was in the office cocked up his ears, thinking that perhaps behind the allusion lay a doubtful story.
“What’s that about the river?” he asked. “I never heard of that.”
“Why, they say,” answered the first speaker, “that whoever drinks of the Hassayampeh River can’t ever tell the truth again so long as he lives.”
“And also,” added McKay; “that no matter where he drifts to, he is sure to wander back again to the old territory; that he’ll die in Arizona.”
“How was that story ever started?” Loring asked.
“The valley of the Hassayampeh was one of the first trails into the ore country,” answered McKay, “and the lies that emanated from the camps along that river was of such a fearful, godless and prize package variety that they made the old river famous. There was a fellow in camp here only the other day was telling me about prospectin’ down there in seventy-three. He said all they had to eat was fried Gila monster. I guess that was after he’d drunk the water though,” finished McKay reflectively.
“The territory sure has gone off since those days,” said a cattleman who had ridden into camp for his mail. “Only last year down near Roosevelt I shot two Mexicans, and say, it cost me a hundred dollars for negligence,” he went on indignantly, “and the sons of guns warn’t wurth more than twelve dollars and two bits apiece.”