Part 10

"The night was not very cold, rather balmy than otherwise, and the descent into the Canyon was made as quickly as possible, the factor of safety being considered. Had we been engaged in any other errand the mystical beauty of the Canyon, bathed in ethereal moonlight, would have been greatly enjoyed. We reached the packers' camp at Pipe Creek at nine o'clock and found hot coffee prepared for us. Miss Catti borrowed a pair of chaps there from one of the boys, as the wind had come up and it was much colder. We were warned to proceed slowly over the remainder of the trail on account of packed ice in the trail. We covered Tonto Trail in good time, but below the 1,500-foot level on down was very dangerous. The tread of the trail was icy and in pitch darkness, the moonlight not reaching there. However, we reached the bottom without mishap. Miss Catti never uttered a word of complaint or fear, but urged me to go as fast as I considered safe.

"When we reached Kaibab Suspension Bridge a ranger was waiting to take our mules. We walked across the bridge and found other mules there. We thus lost no time in crossing the bridge with animals.

"We arrived at Camp Roosevelt a few minutes after eleven and went immediately to where Rees had been carried. Examination showed that he had been dead probably fifteen minutes. He had been unconscious since nine-thirty. Two fellow-Mormons sat with the body the rest of the night.

"When morning came arrangements were made with Rangers West and Peck to pack the body out of the Canyon if it should be so ordered. (We would have mounted a platform on a mule's back, lashed the body in place, and packed it out in that manner.) However, we all felt that it would be much better to bury him in the Canyon near the place where he lost his life. After conferring with the Superintendent by telephone, Miss Catti, Landscape Engineer Ferris, Rangers West, Peck, and myself selected a spot considered proper from the point of landscape engineering, high water, surface wash, and proximity to the trail. This place is about five hundred yards west of the bridge in an alcove in the Archaean Rock which forms the Canyon wall. We dug a grave there.

"The carpenter made a very good coffin from materials at hand, and we lined it with sheets sent down by Mrs. Smith for that purpose. She also sent a Prayer Book and a Bible to us by Ranger Winess, who accompanied the coroner to the scene of the accident. An impaneled jury of six declared the death to be due to unavoidable accident. After the inquest the coroner turned the personal effects of Rees over to me. They consisted of a gold watch and two hundred and ninety dollars in a money belt. I hold these subject to instructions from the widow. The body was prepared for burial by wrapping it in white according to Mormon custom. The coffin was carried to the grave, and, while our small company stood uncovered, I said a few words to the effect that it was right that this man should be laid to rest near the spot where he fell and where he had spent a great part of his life; that it was fitting and proper that we who had known him, worked with him, and loved him should perform this last duty. Then the services for the burial of the dead were read, and we left him there beside the trail he built."

In the meantime I had been hovering anxiously at the phone, worried about the dark, icy trail White Mountain and Nurse had to travel, and fearing to hear that Rees was seriously injured. As soon as they reached camp they called and said he had gone before they could get there. He told me to wire the doctor at Williams and tell him he was not needed; also to see that a message was sent to the wife and children of the dead man telling them he would have to be buried in the Canyon where he was killed. These errands were to be attended to over the local phone, but for some reason the wire was dead. I was in a quandary. Just having recovered from a prolonged attack of flu, I felt it unwise to go out in several feet of snow, but that was my only course.

Dressing as warmly as I could, I started up through the woods to ranger quarters. The snow was above my waist, and I bumped into trees and fell over buried logs before I reached the building. The long hall was in darkness. I knew that most of the boys were out on duty. What if no one were there! I knew my strength was about used up, and that I could never cross the railroad tracks to the Superintendent's house.

I went down the long cold hall knocking on every door. Nothing but silence and plenty of it. I reached the door at the end of the hall and knocked. Instantly I remembered that room belonged to Rees. His dog, waiting to be taken down into the Canyon, leaped against the inside of the door and went into a frenzy of howling and barking. I was panic-stricken, and my nerve broke. I began to scream. Ranger Winess had slept all through my knocking, but with the first scream he developed a nightmare. He was back in the Philippines surrounded by fighting Moros and one was just ready to knife him! He turned loose a yell that crowded my feeble efforts aside. Finally he got organized and came to my rescue. I told him Rees was dead and gave him the Chief's message.

"All right. I'll get dressed and attend to everything. You better get back to bed."

I informed him I would not move an inch until I had company back through the darkness. He then took me home, and went to make arrangements.

I called the Chief and told him Ranger Winess was on the job. Then I tried to sleep again. Coyotes howled. Rees' dog barked faintly; a screech owl in a tree near by moaned and complained, and my thoughts kept going with the sad news to the little home Rees had built for his family in Utah.

Strange trampling, grinding noises close to the window finally made me so nervous I just had to investigate. Taking the Chief's "forty-five," which was a load in itself, I opened the rear door and crept around the house. And there was a poor hungry pony that had wandered away from an Indian camp, and found the straw packed around our water pipes. He was losing no time packing himself around the straw. I was so relieved I could have kissed his shaggy nose. I went back to bed and slept soundly.

Chapter VII: A GRAND CANYON CHRISTMAS

Funny how one can never get over being homesick at Christmas. Days and weeks and even months can pass by without that yearning for family and home, but in all the years since I hung my stocking in front of the big fireplace in the old home I have never learned to face Christmas Eve in a strange place with any degree of happiness. I believe the rangers all felt the same way. Several days before Christmas they began to plan a real "feed."

We had moved into our new house now, and it was decided to make a home of it by giving a Christmas housewarming.

The rangers all helped to prepare the dinner. Each one could choose one dish he wanted cooked and it was cooked, even if we had to send to Montgomery Ward and Company for the makin's. Ranger Fisk opined that turkey dressing without oysters in it would be a total loss as far as he was concerned, so we ordered a gallon from the Coast. They arrived three days before Christmas, and it was his duty to keep them properly interred in a snow drift until the Great Day arrived.

Ranger Winess wanted pumpkin pies with plenty of ginger; White Mountain thought roast turkey was about his speed. Since we would have that anyway, he got another vote. This time he called for mashed turnips and creamed onions. The Superintendent, Colonel White, being an Englishman, asked plaintively if we couldn't manage a plum pudding! We certainly managed one just bursting with plums. That made him happy for the rest of the day.

I didn't tell anybody what I intended to have for my own special dish, but when the time came I produced a big, rich fruit cake, baked back home by my own mother, and stuffed full of nuts and fruit and ripened to a perfect taste.

All the rangers helped to prepare the feast. One of them rode down the icy trail to Indian Gardens and brought back crisp, spicy watercress to garnish the turkey.

After it became an effort to chew, and impossible to swallow, we washed the dishes and gathered around the blazing fire. Ranger Winess produced his omnipresent guitar and swept the strings idly for a moment. Then he began to sing, "Silent Night, Holy Night." That was the beginning of an hour of the kind of music one remembers from childhood. Just as each one had chosen his favorite dish, now each one selected his favorite Christmas song. When I asked for "Little Town of Bethlehem" nobody hesitated over the words. We all knew it better than we do "Star Spangled Banner!" I could have prophesied what Colonel White would call for, so it was no surprise when he swung into "God rest ye merry, gentlemen, let nothing ye dismay." Fortunately, most of us had sung carols in our distant youth, and we sang right with the Colonel.

Someone suggested that each one tell of the strangest Christmas Day he or she had ever spent. For a while none of us were in Arizona. Ranger Winess was in a state of siege in the Philippines, while the Moros worked themselves into a state of frenzy for the attack that followed; Ranger Fisk scaled Table Mountain, lying back of Capetown, and there picked a tiny white flower which he had pressed in the Bible presented to him there that day; each sailor in port had received a Bible that day with this inscription: "Capetown, Africa, Christ's Birthday, December 25, 19--." White Mountain snowshoed twenty miles in Yellowstone to have Christmas dinner with another ranger, but when he got there he found his friend delirious with flu. "Did he die?" we questioned anxiously. Ranger Winess and the Chief looked at each other and grinned.

"Do I look like a dead one?" Ranger Winess demanded.

"I couldn't let him die," White Mountain said. "We had just lost one Government man, mysteriously, and hadn't any more to spare. So I got his dogs and sledge and hauled him into Headquarters."

Of course we wanted to know about the "lost" ranger. It seemed that there had broken out among the buffalo herd in the Park a strange malady that was killing them all off. An expert from Washington was en route to make a study of the ailment, and was due to arrive just before Christmas. Days passed into weeks and still he didn't show up. Inquiries to Washington disclosed that he had started as per schedule. Tracing his journey step by step it was discovered that on the train out of Chicago he had become ill with flu and had been left in a small town hospital. There he had died without recovering his speech, and had been buried in the potter's field!

"Well, then what happened to the buffalo?"

"Washington sent us a German scientist. We loved that nation just about that time, and on his arrival diplomatic relations were badly strained. He was too fat and soft to use snowshoes or skis, so we loaded him on a light truck and started for the buffalo farm. We stalled time and again, and he sat in lordly indifference while we pushed and shoveled out. We seemed hopelessly anchored in one drift, and from his perch where he sat swaddled up like a mummy came his 'Vy don't you carry a portable telephone so ve couldt hook it over the vires and call for them to come and pull us oudt?' One of the rangers replied, 'It would be nice for us to telephone ourselves to please pull us oudt. We are the them that does the pulling around here.'

"The old boy mumbled and sputtered but rolled out and put a husky shoulder to the wheel, and we went on our way rejoicing. He won our respect at the buffalo farm for he soon discovered the germ that was killing our charges, and he prepared a serum with which we vaccinated the entire herd."

"Wow!" Colonel White exclaimed. "I think I'd rather fight Moros than vaccinate buffalo." He, too, had spent years in foreign warfare; his experiences are graphically told in Bullets and Bolos.