I Married a Ranger

of it; he turned it into a National Anthem. It came with such irritating regularity I could have sworn he timed it on a knotted string, sort of "Day-by-day-in-every

asted that three weeks of the program he had laid out for me would be plenty to send me back where I came from and then he would have a regular place again. But I really didn't mind the

, and, attended by the entire ranger force, I drove out the nine miles from Headquarters. We found the house crowded with guides, cowboys, stage-drivers, and their girls. Most of the girls were Fred Harvey waitresses, and

d for the floor, and rock benches covered with bearskins and Navajo rugs. Many distinguished guests from all parts of the globe have been entertained in that room, but we forgot all about distingu

ne most of the time. The poor lady had a mania for selling discarded clothing at top prices. We used to ask each other when we met at supper, "Did you buy anything today?" I refused point-blank to buy her wreckage, but the rangers were at a disadvantage. They wanted to be gentlemen and not hurt her feelings! Now and

box cars? They cost me six bucks and I'

s. I kept one and he the other. Not long after that he was burned to death in a forest fire, an

of reducing. One day she went for a ride on a flop-eared mule; he got tired and lay down and rolled over and over in the sand. They had some trouble rescuing her before she go

jamas instead of skirts, because she thought it "more genteel," she explained. When a favorite horse or cow

ay, but she carried on for the entire family. As Ranger Fisk said, "She turns her voice on and then goes away and forgets it's running." She told us all about the last

ike fifty," she said. We b

hat service poked into most of the queer seaports on the map. He had long since lost track of his kinsfolk

and forgotten as soon as another arrived. He played his big guitar, and sang and danced, and made love,

s. I have heard old-timers say he was the best man with horses they had ever known. He was much more interested in horses and tobacco than he was

were known as the "Three Musketeers."

duty for cleansing purposes it went to water the flowers. We never wasted a drop of water. It was hauled a hundred miles in tank cars, and cost accordingly. I sometimes wondered if we paid extra for the red bugs that swam around in it so gaily. Anyway, my flowers didn't mind t

lying more than a hundred miles southeast of the Canyon. As I had been working exceptionally hard

there on past Flagstaff and eastward to Holbrook. Eighteen m

s and came to the Government Museum where unique and choice specimens had been gathered together for visitors to see. It is hard to describe this wood, that isn't wood. It looks like wood, at least the grain and the shape, a

about what I learned: "These trees are probably forty million years old! None of them gre

log that was covered with what looked t

an outside crust of melted sand, et cetera, that for

dn't seen any water aro

oughly impregnated with the mineral water, doubtless hot water. When the drainage took place, they were covered by silt and sand to a depth of perhaps two thousand feet. Here the petrifaction took place. Silica was present in great quantities. Manganese and iron provided the coloring matter, and through pressur

azes found in the center of the logs. Formed probably by resin in the wood, these jewels are next hardest to diamonds and hav

beautifully for jewelry, book-ends, and table tops. The ra

s, each one disclosing new beauties in color and formation; but

indows stood between me and all sorts of animals I imagined prowled the surrounding forest. The cheesecloth couldn't keep the noises out, and the cry that I heard might just as well have been the killing scream of a co

attraction. A great, gaunt cow had taken the last delectable bite from my pansy bed and was sticking out a greedy tongue to lap in the snapdragons. Throwing on my bathrobe, I grabbed the broom and attacked the invader. I whacked it fore and aft! I

oined me on my

he is a killer. I've been out on Tony after him, but he charged us and Tony bolte

nees knocki

k like?" I inq

ite face. Branded with a Dollar Mark. H

night

er pile, for I felt limp all over. I told the ranger about chasin

e from my daily tramps through the pines, an

pelled instead of attracted. I seemed to see its barrenness and desolation, the cruel deception of its poisonous springs, and its insurmountable walls. I could visualize its hapless victims wandering frantically about

most a century ago, the Indians made their homes and raised their crops, watering the fields from the clear, cold spring that gushes out of the hillside. As the light faded, the soft mellow

, and I wanted to cross over and see what it was really like. White Mountain advanced the theory that if we were married we could go over there for our honeymoon! I had to give the matter