For more than a week we had seen, be-
sides ourselves and our animals, only such living
things as rattlesnakes and horned toads. In an Ari-
zona desert one does not long coexist with only such
creatures as these: one must have pack animals, sup-
plies, arms--'an outfit.' And all these imply com-
rades. It was perhaps a doubt as to what manner
of men this unceremonious stranger's comrades
might be, together with something in his words in-
terpretable as a challenge that caused every man
of our half-dozen 'gentlemen adventurers' to rise
to a sitting posture and lay his hand upon a weapon
--an act signifying, in that time and place, a policy
of expectation. The stranger gave the matter no
attention and began again to speak in the same
deliberate, uninflected monotone in which he had
delivered his first sentence:
'Thirty years ago Ramon Gallegos, William Shaw,
George W. Kent, and Berry Davis, all of Tucson,
crossed the Santa Catalina mountains and travelled
due west, as nearly as the configuration of the coun-
try permitted. We were prospecting and it was our
intention, if we found nothing, to push through to the
Gila river at some point near Big Bend, where we
understood there was a settlement. We had a good
outfit, but no guide--just Ramon Gallegos, William
Shaw, George W. Kent, and Berry Davis.'
The man repeated the names slowly and distinctly,
as if to fix them in the memories of his audience,
every member of which was now attentively observ-
ing him, but with a slackened apprehension regard-
ing his possible companions somewhere in the dark-
ness that seemed to enclose us like a black wall; in
the manner of this volunteer historian was no sug-
gestion of an unfriendly purpose.
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