Part 5 (1/2)

From his tone I scented a story, and as we strolled back to Headquarters he told me something of the quaint old character. In the days that followed, I heard his name often. Travelers who had not been at the Canyon for several years invariably inquired for ”Cap” as soon as they arrived. I always felt a sense of personal shame when I heard a ranger directing them to his grave. He had begged with his last breath to be buried in the Canyon, or else on the Rim overlooking it. ”G.o.d willing, and man aiding,” as he always said. However, his wish had been ignored, for the regular cemetery is some distance from the Rim.

This Captain John Hance was the first settler on the Rim of the Grand Canyon. The Hance Place is located about three miles east of Grand View Point. Here he built the old Hance Trail into the Canyon, and discovered numerous copper and asbestos mines. Many notables of the early days first saw the Canyon from his home, staging in there from Flagstaff, seventy miles away. He had an inexhaustible fund of stories, mostly made up out of whole cloth. These improbable tales were harmless, however, and in time he became almost an inst.i.tution at the Canyon. The last years of his life were spent at El Tovar, regaling the tourists with his colorful and imaginary incidents of the wild and woolly days.

He was quite proud of his Munchausenian abilities. Another old-timer at the Canyon, W. W. Ba.s.s, who is still alive, was Cap's best friend. Cap Hance was often heard to declare: ”There are three liars here at the Canyon; I'm one and Ba.s.s is the other two.”

Romantic old ladies at El Tovar often pressed him for a story of his early fights with the Indians. Here is one of his experiences:

”Once, a good many years ago when I was on the outs with the Navajos, I was riding the country a few miles back from here looking up some of my loose horses. I happened to cast my eye over to one side and saw a bunch of the red devils out looking for trouble. I saw that I was outnumbered, so I spurred old Roaney down into a draw at the left, hoping that I hadn't been seen. I got down the draw a little piece and thought I had given them the slip, but the yelling told me that they were still after me. I thought I could go down this draw a ways and then circle out and get back to my ranch. But I kept going down the canyon and the walls kept getting steeper and steeper, and narrower and narrower until finally they got so close together that me and Roaney stuck right there.”

At this point he always stopped and rolled a cigarette. The ladies were invariably goggle-eyed with excitement and would finally exclaim:

”What happened then, Captain Hance?”

”Oh, they killed me,” he'd say simply.

Another time he was again being chased by Indians, and looking back over his shoulder at them, not realizing that he was so near the Rim of the Canyon, his horse ran right up to the edge and jumped off into s.p.a.ce.

”I'd a been a goner that time,” he said, ”if I hadn't a had time to think it over and decide what to do.” (He fell something like five thousand feet.) ”So when my horse got within about fifteen feet from the ground, I rose up in the stirrups and gave a little hop and landed on the ground. All I got was a twisted ankle.”

A lady approached him one day while he stood on the Rim gazing into the mile-deep chasm.

”Captain Hance,” she said, ”I don't see any water in the Canyon. Is this the dry season, or does it never have any water in it?”

Gazing at her earnestly through his squinty, watery eyes, he exclaimed:

”Madam! In the early days many's the time I have rode my horse up here and let him drink _right where we stand_!”

The old fellow was a bachelor, but he insisted that in his younger days he had married a beautiful girl. When asked what had become of her he would look mournful and tell a sad tale of her falling over a ledge down in the Canyon when they were on their honeymoon. He said it took him three days to reach her, and that when he did locate her he found she had sustained a broken leg, so he had to shoot her.

As he grew feeble, he seemed to long for the quiet depths of the gorge, and several times he slipped away and tried to follow the old trail he had made in his youth. He wanted to die down at his copper mine. At last, one night when he was near eighty years old, he escaped the vigilance of his friends and with an old burro that had shared his happier days he started down the trail. Ranger West got wind of it and followed him. He found him where he had fallen from the trail into a cactus patch and had lain all night exposed to the raw wind. He was brought back and cared for tenderly, but he pa.s.sed away. Prominent men and women who had known and enjoyed him made up a fund to buy a bronze plate for his grave. Remembering the size of his yarns, whoever placed the enormous boulders at his head and feet put them nine feet apart.

Halfway between my cabin and the Rim, in the pine woods, is a well-kept grave with a neat stone and an iron fence around it. Here lies the body of United States Senator Ashurst's father, who was an old-timer at the Canyon. Years ago, while working a mine at the bottom of the Canyon, he was caught by a cave-in and when his friends reached him he was dead.

They lashed his body on an animal and brought him up the steep trail to be buried. While I was in Was.h.i.+ngton, Senator Ashurst told me of his father's death and something of his life at the Canyon. He said that often in the rush and worry of capitol life he longed for a few peaceful moments at his father's grave.

I never saw Senator Ashurst at the Grand Canyon, but another senator was there often, stirring up some row or other with the Government men. He seemed to think he owned the Canyon, the sky overhead, the dirt underneath, and particularly the trail thereinto. His hirelings were numerous, and each and every one was primed to worry Uncle Sam's rangers. As dogs were prohibited in the Park, every employee of the Senator's was amply provided with canines. Did the tourists particularly enjoy dismounting for shade and rest at certain spots on the trail, those places were sure to get fenced in and plastered with ”Keep Off”

signs, under the pretense that they were mining claims and belonged to him. We used to wonder what time this Senator found to serve his const.i.tuents.

Uncle Sam grew so weary of contesting every inch of the trail that he set himself to build a way of his own for the people to use. Several men under the direction of Ranger West were set to trail-building. They made themselves a tent city on the north side of the river and packers were kept busy taking mule loads of materials to them daily. Hundreds of pounds of TNT were packed down safely, but one slippery morning the horses which had been pressed into service lost their footing, slid over the edge of the trail, and hit Bright Angel again a thousand feet below.

The packers held their breath expecting to be blown away, as two of the horses that fell were loaded with the high explosive. It was several minutes before they dared believe themselves safe. They sent for White Mountain, and when he reached the animals he found they were literally broken to pieces, their packs and cargoes scattered all over the side of the mountain. They dragged the dead animals a few feet and dropped them into a deep fissure which was handy. Fresh snow was sc.r.a.ped over the blood-stained landscape, and when the daily trail party rode serenely down a few minutes later there was nothing to show that a tragedy had taken place.

Later an enormous charge of this high explosive was put back of a point that Rees Griffith, the veteran trail-builder, wished to remove, and the result was awaited anxiously. About four in the afternoon Rees called Headquarters and reported that the shot was a huge success. He was greatly elated and said his work was about done.

It was.

An hour later Ranger West called for help: Rees had climbed to the top to inspect the shot at close range, and a mammoth boulder loosened by the blast came tumbling down, carrying Rees to the rocks below. He was terribly crushed and broken, but made a gallant fight to live. In looking over some notes I found a copy of White Mountain's report, which tells the story much more completely than I could hope to:

”In accordance with instructions, accompanied by Nurse Catti from El Tovar I left Headquarters about 6:30 P.M. bound for Camp Roosevelt, to be of such a.s.sistance as possible to Rees Griffith, who had been injured by a falling rock.