The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, April 7, 1901, Page 5

wedding this be celebrated ve, Arizona. -1t is s its' beginning where James ssie Shafter, an girl who iting friends in t rg prelude to a but it has an interesting, pecu- Arizona people. to the Savior iral appearance of he perishing na desert, or was her chimera of his fev- n Sar F met at is pu We was tion the friends of Jim hafter are asking now 1 the road to health and the calendar for on adventure is a weird s much of the super- hing in Pac or Hoffman. nown in n Francisco, he is connected with several an es, but for sevi 1 years een in busin i utheastern Of late years certain prospect ed seemed to waken up in ow the mining boom that has been sweep- ing over the Territory, and recently he has been devoting more attention to their spment. It was while looking after pent work on one of them that he e abandoned Carib mines he adventure where he al- and was saved only by res was “a real miracle,” who guided him was his Shafter. deve Jessie For Twenty=-Five| Years She | Has Not Spoken a| Single Word. | Richland County Infirmary ts a white faced wo- | ises her ey from third near | on s never n being. went out of her woman tith tumultuously for on Her father hated her give up all thought spoken a joy a youn: ver to see him again d on her knees, with down her cheeks, beg relent his comma nce. heavy cane insensible on the floor. of her was found by some cared for 1t ton had fled. Since then she mate of hospitals and asy- t years ago the Swank fam- ickson Township, in Rich- « t Oh from Pennsylvania of Jane's n wi nd whom the father hated. i whom she was very ng sit soon came out to Ohin his sweetheart. Jane him and a date was man with tc marry d engagement ring and avowals of love and hful, the two parted. sweetheart had gone Jane ¥ every day for his letters, for her father intercepted night he demanded of many mises to her d eag came y cne row away her ring and to pr give up her lover. When she re- f wept the father beat her until ijous at his feet. The the tragedy and a organized to hunt for bat > he was hid- s near his house during 1 on him and killed him. Jané had been en- p in the asylum in wearcerated and tried to But she did not when he came near w m amed ¢ Y went away a heart- r was the only thing in B y pleasure. During a | years ago it procured a ring in close mitation ad lost and gave it to her. t was her own ring and her it was pitiable. s with the gold he has done for[ and moans through thoughts of her | vears ago fighting | for a place in her poor demented | |nis e For twenty-five | | The father flew | nd beat the | was discov- | father in | to separate the girl from | e wedding. The young man gave | Mr. Wells would have been safe enough on his ride back to Tombstone if he hadn’t hit on the idea of taking a short cut across the neck of the desert and thereby trying to get back to his sweet- heart on the Atkins place, near Tomb- stone, two days zhead of time. She knew he was coming and was impatiently wait- ing for him. Perhaps the high pitch of expectation had something to do with the queer occurrence that followed. Weils knew the d landmarks as well as any “bad land settler,” but there’s something bout the ways of the desert, as any ime sand navigator will tell you. It has a way at times of knocking over old laws and signs and turning top: turvy the calculations of the most ex- perienced nd experts. And that's what it did for Wells. For four hours he pounded along that \sun-baked trail leading through a fur- nace, and then his pony went lame. He saw the limp coming on, but he rode along thinking it would wear off. Finally he lo- cated the soreness in a strained tendon, but nothing he could do seemed to help it, and he expressed in vehement lan- guage how foolish he had been to press over the last bit of rocky country where the table land pitched off into the desert. Two hours later when he led his hob- bling pony into the shadow of a big bowlder that gave him the semblance of relief from the racking rays of the blls- tering sun, he realized that his situation serious- He looked out over the un- se | { | | | | it i MANAGED TO | REACH A BOULDER | broken landscape, swelling in a haze that seemed to be getting hotter and hotter. Not a biade of grass, not a sign of life, not an object to break the dead, dreary monotory, save here and there a bowlder rising from the monotonous waste. Far in the distance through the dancing haze he could see the dark blue line of moun- tains. Wells knew they were mountains, but a stranger, mindful of the fleeting lakes of water t danced out now and then about the bowiders might have thought that that danrcing, dark blue line was also but a mirage. Any tenderfoot, looking out over that dreary prospect, would have thought he was in a fix where the odds were all against his ever get- ting out alive. But Wells had been over the trail before and knew where the water holes and best cave bowlders were located. The most toilsome and bother- some things to him were the heartbreak- ing tramp under the blistering sun and the delay in reaching his sweetheart. Jes- sie was his beckoning star; the alluring prize taat tempted him into this fool- hardy feat. Otherwise he would not have hesitated about turning back. But witk her ahead and eagerly waiting for him. well, he wasn't the kind of a man to re- fuse the chance, especially when he had a full water bottle left and a day's grub in sight. So he stripped his crippled pony ot bridle and saddle and left him to shift for himself. An hour later when the sun was well down grade he flung his saddle ba#g and water bottle over his shoulder and headed for the Lost Coyote well. Coyote was nothing but a patch of luke- warm molsture exuding from the clayey sand. By careful digging a thir., iuan vht get a drink there, ana more than vne exhausted sand tracker owed his life to its wet dirt. Weils reached Lost Coyote well and slept In a cave bowlder near by. That auch he remembers quite distinctly, and Sam Welch, who passed the place six days later picked up h's saddlebag there. It was some time next forenoon that Wells began to get as hazy as the surrounding atmosphere. He was aiming for 'Dobe ‘Water Hole, ten miles away, at the time, 1t he never reached it. Wells even now won't admit that he as thirst-mad and out of his head; he declares he simply lost his way and was trying to find the trail when the miracle transpired that saved his life. Wells says he left the Lost Coyote well all right, after half-filling his water bottle, for, scrape the wround as he would. he couldn’t squeeze another drop of water out of it. Ee also pitched away his sad- dlebags there, after stuffing the remain- -THE SUNDAY CALL. PONY TO SHIET FOR HIMOELE" Wells says that when he found no water there he turned back. for he still' had strength and sense enough to know he must keep pegging along the trail. But he never reached it. The sun came up a redhot ball of fire and caught him hunt- Ing for it. “1 was dying of thifst,” he said, in re- counting his experiences, “and T knew it was only a question of a little while be- fore I'd go loco unless I could get relief. Talk about nerve. I tell you it takes all a man’'s got when he finds himself in the fight to save himself from going crazy. Even my bones were baked in that savage heat, but I admit it sent cold shivers down my back when I thought that if I didn’t keep the hardest kind.of a grip on myself I'd go crazy for lack of a drink of water. “After I left McKenzie's I knew my only chance was to tumble, sprawl and creep some way to the next water hole, which was the Arroyo Capitan. It isn't any ar- royo, of course, but a little creek that springs up in several places in the lava and sinks again. It was a good sixteen miles from where I was lying panting in the shadow of a bowlder, but I knew if I could make that arroyo my fight for life would be as good as won. But sixteen miles seems as big as six milllon when your tongue's so swollen with thirst that you have to gasp for breath, and every step seems like the last of the blind stag- gers. It was a fight against the killing heat, and to save myself as much as pos- " sible I skirmished from the shade of one ““THERE WAS AFIGURE [N FLOATING WHITE DRAPERIES BECKONING TO ME” was the attitude and garb of a saint or angel, but the face was Jessie Shafter’s, and her blue eyes were full of pity and her brown hair hung in ripples over her shoulders, and her white hand beckoned me on. I seemed to walk, but she just floated by my side, and when I asked whither a voice softer than silence said, ‘To the Savior Spring.’ Vaguely I re- membered having heard of a spring of that name, but 1 could never have found my way to it unaided. Whenever I stumbled I heard a rustle as of wings, and there was that floating figure at my side, ever beckoning me on. At length I heard- the indistinct gurgle of a tiny spring and with a cry threw myself, face downward, to parch my maddening thirst. Still Jessie was at my side, but now the look of pity in those deep blue eyes changed to a smile. Then she bade me lie down and sleep. and with a whispered ‘Sweet Dreams’ from St. Jessie 1 went into dreamland. ‘Now coines the curious part of my ex- perience. When I woke up I was at Savior Spring all right, but there wasn't any blessed Jessie In sight; only three dirty Navajo Indians. I made 'em bring up their ponies and pack me over to Hin- mans station, where I ggt a buckboard to Atkins. Jessie was there, and she de- clared she had neVer left Atkins' place. But I'll swear she met me out there in the desert and guided me to the Savior Spring. It was either Jessie or her spirit, dead sure, and if that isn't a miracle I don't know what it is. That's why I'm going to call her St. Jessie.” A ing food into his pockets. \ All sandelooks alike to the thirst-mad desert wanderer, and he’d leave the safest county turppike ever built if he saw a mirage of water a mile on either side of it. According to Wells' story, he tried his mightlest to husband his water, but it gave out late ir the afternoon. Then he did what racking thirst will lure the wisest desert tracker into doing—he left the trail to trv and make a cool night rush to the McKenzie Water Hole. It was a desperate chance, and only a desperate man would venture it. It was a good eight miles off the trail, a sixteen-mile tramp on the desert, with a shadowy chanee of finding water. Sometimes there is water in the hole, and sometimes there isn't. McKenzie, who was lost in the fall of '78, found it there and saved his life. Two. dried, sunbaked forms have been found beside the hole since, showing that ail men haven't been as lucky as Me- Kenzie. s bowlder to the shade cf the next. Even that sometimes meant stumbling over the sands in the brolling heat for several miles. It was a killing pace even when I crawled, and I had to do that more than once through sheer weakness. “At last, after a hand-to-hand tussle, T managed to reach a bowlder and sink gasping in its shadow. Plain tuckered out would have been a siesta to the way I feit. I felt simply that the next gasp would wheeze out what little life was still hanging to my blistered hide. “I guess I must have taken a little nap, for when I came to I felt a bit better. The air felt cooler, and somehow I seemed to sense it that relief was coming, though for the life of me I. couldn’t tell from whers. I had promised to call on Jessie Shafter next day and I felt certain that T'd be able to keep my promise. Right in the midst of all this cheerful change I looked up: and there was.a figure in float- ing white draperies beckoning to me. It The Navajo Indlans who accompanied ‘Wells on their ponies told Billy Hinman that they found him lying asleep beside the Savior Spring. They could see he had been roughing it in a life struggle on the desert and they let him alone till he woke up, when they gave him something to eat. As for Jessie Shafter, she laughs when- ever Jim Wells addresses her as St. Jes- sie. Not because she regards the matter as a Joke, for there is a half sad, half mysterious light in her eyes all the time. IWith her acquaintances she won't even discuss the matter. To an intimate friend she said that her whole mind had been set on Jim's homecoming, because they were to be married on Easter day, and she was tearful he would meet with some accident or attempt some desperate feat in his rides about the Territory. On the night he was lost in trying to reach the arroyo she retired in an exceedingly nervous condi- tion. - A strange foreboding of evil preyed q “THE Sun CAME UP Like on her mind, and try as she would she could not shake it off. Later on she had a vivid dream and saw Jim Struggling across the burning desert. He was mad from thirst and heat. She hastened to him and by the aid of an unseen power guided him to a sSpring. Then she woke up in a semi-hysterical condition, firmly believing she had had a hideous nightmare. So overwrought was she that she went into Mrs. Atkins’ room, woke her up and told her of the dreadful dream she had had. ‘Mrs. Atkins did her best to comfort the girl, but the dream had made such an impression on Jesste that she could not go to sleep again that night. She remained in this highly nervous condition -till Wells was driven up to the house 'in the buckboeard of Billy Hinman. That's the story of Jim Wells' experi- ence and that's the reason his friends are asking each other: Was Jim guided to the Savior Spring by a vision of a saint or was he plum loco and just imagined that he saw her? On one point, however, they are agreed, namely, that Miss Jessie deserves to be dubbed St. Jessie on account of het pure goodness of heart, and this Easter they are going to dance at the wedding of St. Jessle and Jim Wells. —tee A curious source of wealth is reported by the French Consul at Mengtze, in up- per Tonkin. It lies in the wood mines. The wood originally was a fine forest, which the earth swallowed in some cata- clysm. Some of the trees are a yard In diameter. They lie in a slanting direc- tion and in sandy soils, which cover them to a depth of about eight yards. The wood furnished by these timber mines is imperishable, and the Chinese gladly buy it for coffins. > -+ What the Circus Man Had to Say About the ’s Bath Giant’s Baths. bout his baths?" sald the old circus A man. “Ch, dear me; that was as simple and easy as could be.” “In the house that I told you about, that the old man had bullt espe- clally for the glant, at our winter quar- | ters we had a bathtub built in the base- ment, the tub heing In shape and propor- tions not unlike a long section of very large sluice box, but, of course, very much larger. The bathtub was supplied with water from a beautiful clear stream of considerable size that ran close by one corner of the house. The only trouble about the bathtub at all was to put it at the right level, and, of course, that was the work of a civil engineer. We sent to the nelghboring town and got out an en- gineer and he ran the levels for the bath- tub, and then we went ahead and bullt it. “We connected it with the stream out- side by a pipe of sultable dimensions, with a cutoff gate at the Intake, this gate be- ing adequately weighted to carry it down into place again after it had been raised. It was lifted by means of a rope running (i !, 'v‘m;lll l (A ’rr"‘ll;‘{ st findiel i ((rg}.'\‘!,{ '[‘!Mh"‘ RED HOT BALL OF FIRE™ up over sheave wheels to a point Inside the house by the bathtub. When the giant wanted to take a bath he simply puiled the rope and Iifted the water gate, with the resuit practically of diverting the stream from its natural bed to a course through the giant's bathtub. But it was { auite a stream and the water supply was al always ample. “When the giant had finished his bath he would open a gate at the foot of the tub, which was bullt as any tub would be, with a slight incline, and the water ran out into a ditch that we had dug for it outside, and by this back into the channel of the stream below. “‘On the road it was almost as easy. If the show was near a canal the gilant would go before people were up in the morning and take a bath In the lock. We used to afrange with the lock keeper to fill the lock, the same as he would to let a boat through, and the giant would take his bath, and then they'd just open'the gate in the usual way and so empty the big bathtub. “Sometimes we found suitable rivers, or streams large enough for him to bathe in, and if everything else failed the glant could always get a shower bath, anyway. “He and the balloon ascension man were great friends, and the balloon man was always ready to oblige the giant in this way. He'd get feed buckets of water in the car and then his helpers would let the balloon up high enough above the groun. for that, and then the giant would come under, and so fast as he was ready for them the balloon man would pour down those buckets of water on him. “Oh, my: if we never had any more trouble about anything else than we did about his bath we'd have got along easy enough.”