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Show TIE ID) E E wf C LT 1 By LAWRENCE WADS WORTH ;! .Editor's Note: Following is a ilU of the story "The Desert I fr written by J. L. Wads- th Mr- Wadsworth has re- 'rd favorable comment from ; uhcrs on his manuscript and lNioWs is delighted to present ijjs synopsis to its readers). u'.en the Mormons settled in ,,Lr Valley in what afterwards Lame Lincoln county in southeastern south-eastern Nevada, they were happily ' mrised to find a band of wild "es in possession of the moun-j moun-j jale. Leading the band was , " 0ijen yellow stallion. As the 'tilers fenced the native mea-"w-s with hopes of turning them profitable cattle ranches, the hjautiful stallion often stood on ,he din and snorted defiance at !hfm. Believing him to be a Perfect "throwback" to his Arabian progenitors, the ranchers ade hopeful plans for his cap-in cap-in economical anticipation of the wonder horses they would rise from such a sire. But their jest laid plans went awry, for iith Indians on the rampage and ,-inter hiding behind an August ojn. their efforts turned to self-nervation. self-nervation. They were many siles from the nearest trading centers. Nor would they have jeen excited had they known that he silver bonanzas of Pioche were ,ir.lv 30 miles from their doors. They had been well schooled by their leader, Brigham Young, in :he wisdom that farms and cattle iere more important to the successful suc-cessful colonization of the moun-ain moun-ain valleys than the discovery of gold and silver. Before the intrepid ranchers had thoroughly esablished them- selves and their herds on the mea- tavs of Clover Valley, Bill Ham-blin Ham-blin rode into their .cow camps ad shouted, "Silver!" The magic word took wings and flew to the far corners of the earth. While the Mormons watched, confused, j nation rushed to their back yards. The hills and valleys became be-came peopled with men who designated desig-nated to take what they wanted. During the hectic boom that followed, fol-lowed, men carried the law on their hips. The ranchers were :'orced to give up the quest of the stallion and to guard their stock, both horses and cattle, with drawn revolvers, for the fast-riding, fast-riding, straight-shooting rustlers played havoc with their herds. The silver-lured adventurers rush-si rush-si into a land, rich beyond the Ireams of Midas in precious metals but almost devoid of human hu-man sustenance except for the ranches and cattle herds of the Mormon pioneers. To make matters mat-ters worse, the yellow stallion, 'hom the cowboys called "Old King Yellar", joined forces with 'tie rustlers and the Indians and ured many a prize filly away 'rem the ranches and added it to lis harem. Among these "sheik-rf" "sheik-rf" fillies was Bell, a thoroughbred thorough-bred race mare, for which one of te ranchers had traded a yoke 'f oxen and a span of horses to ' stranded party of gold seekers tfi their way to California. 7 One day, while her proud owner as away from home, his son, fant, who had learned to ride :wking mustangs, and Nita, a aghbor's daughter, attempted to Bell. But when the youthful bronco buster placed his foot into '"P stirrup and reached for the ;3ffle horn, he grabbed a hand- ! of dust instead. Bell, free of t m and frightened of the sad-stampeded sad-stampeded to the steep hills, want and Nita gave chase. They not catch her, but they gave I a scare which, mixed with born nervousness and speed, her the wildest of the wild t ranged the hills surrounding Hover Valley. Although the rancher grieved atly over the loss of nis loroughbred filly, he was too oc-with oc-with the defense and the Election of his property to go "immediate pursuit of her. The 7 filly, having shed herself ,' the hated saddle, which soon jjj1 from her back to hang neath her trim muscular belly, deliberately kicking it to aJS'- tramPled the hackmore Lmt0 snreds as it; dragged hh the trail between her II fcr g"like hoofs as she sped r a new, but protecting range, Olv" added t0 the harem of kv i!ng Yellar"- Nor could she f !irj f band wnen sne grew I ), ' "' the semi-arid ranges and H ' o for the tender grasses of Yelar,?me Pastures. "Old King V i!n Deat her into submission ,ll , !"ariy an angry kick and lit nto w as he raced her back ,r ';aCiand which ne guarded ?i frm other wild stallions ' -"iatf r S from the swirling ' of l1"1 "ist'ors. Bell was ros beautiful of all his a ;il sr"ine. Bell foaled S- u' splotched colt. Before about" h v what ' wa? a" 'j ' Was runnine at her Wf ?, lnpF lariats. When the J e"' "Old King Yellar" led his band into lower Bull Valley where both mares and colts thrived through the warm winter When they came out on top in the spring. Bell's yearling turned to bright bay, splotched with gold, and Nita, realizing that he was the most beautiful animal she had ever seen, called him the Desert Colt. The name fit him like a glove. When the swirling lariats again pursued the band, the Desert Colt led the escapes so easily that experienced ex-perienced horsemen knew him to be a superior animal. His exceptional ex-ceptional beauty and speed instigated in-stigated many heated arguments among his pursuers, some of whom maintained that his sire was no ordinary mustang, even though they could not give a scientific argument for his color and speed. It is unique in this connection that the Nevada State Penitentiary Peniten-tiary is built in a natural bowl of lime and sandstone. The prisoners, while excavating the floor of the bowl, have unearthed fossil remains of what are thought to have been prehistoric horses. They have also found perfect imprints im-prints of horses' hoofs in the solid sandstone which forms the floor of the prison grounds. These well preserved hoof prints, it is presumed, were made when the once native horses came to an ancient water hole to allay their thirst or to forage among the vegetation which, at one time, grew around the water hole. During Dur-ing the transitional period which completely changed both the geological geo-logical and climatic conditions of our continent, horses, once indi- tinct. It is entirely probable that our western wild horses are the descendants des-cendants of the first Arabian horses brought to this country by Cornado and other Spanish explorers ex-plorers of Mexico and our own southwest. It is a fact that Padre Escalante brought the first Arabian Ara-bian horses north of the Grand Canyon in 1776. Some of these noble animals were lost, and others were driven off by unfriendly un-friendly Indians. These horses formed the nucleus of the wild bands roaming the Escalante Desert region which embraces portions of northern Arizona, Utah and Nevada. While most of these horses are of the ordinary, mustang type .ill shaped, small and sometimes ugly, but strong and hardy, there are, also, pintos, yellows and varied colored ones among them. And, too, there are "throwbacks" whose color and confirmation might be traced back to the fine Arabian horses which the Spanish explorers brought to our shores. Such a "throwback" was Old King Yellar, the sire of the Desert Colt. It is entirely probable pro-bable that the Arabian horses lost by the Spaniards inbred so naturally that perfect specimens of their breed were developed. After the discovery of silver at Pioche. both steers and horses jumped to unheard of prices. Suddenly Sud-denly the ranges around Clover Valley were filled with riders who designed to make easy money catching the offsprings of the horses and cattle that had been liberated on the trails to California Cali-fornia by the Forty-niners who perished along the trail. These animals, lert to wanner ai men will, had found water holes in sheltered places and had thrived and increased even as they grew wild amid their now native haunts. But prior to the Gold Rush of '49, which scattered its wreckage in human toll and animal ani-mal life along its fatal thoroughfare, thorough-fare, were the Spanish explorers who' wandered, hopelessly lost, on the desert which received its name from Father Escalante. who led an ill-fated expedition in an attempt to cross a continent for religion's sake and who turned back, midway across the circular desert, because of lack of water to leave their dead and exhausted men and horses along their sun-oarched sun-oarched trail. A few of their Arabian horses survived the heat blast and their burning thirst until the shades of night had revived re-vived their desert-bred strength and had enabled them to find water in ' the dells of the surrounding sur-rounding mountains. These, left to themselves, had grown into large bands of wild horses with, here and there, a "throwback" among them such as "Old King Yellar". And this perfect Arabian stallion, crossed with a thoroughbred mare, m-oduced a superior horse which the ranchers called "The Desert Colt". The insistent riders turned their swirling lassoes to the Desert Colt whose lineage and environment environ-ment made him a priceless horse er- the desert byways. His bright. or with its splotches of --oliow which -seemed to rinnlc hup molten eold on his slick sides as he showed his heels to his -ursuers. made him the most -oveted horse on the far-flung range. Organized bands of horse chasers spent weeks and months in secret planning and fruitless chases after him, but his marvelous mar-velous speed and intelligence, legacies handed to him from the accidental breeding of a marvelous marvel-ous wild stallion and a thoroughbred thorough-bred dam, gave him all the advantage ad-vantage of the chase. It was not long before he learned to range on the higher cedar-covered ridges, where, like a seasoned buck, he could lead his pursuers into a maze of back tracks until they did not know whether they were trailing him or themselves. One hot day, after eluding his ruthless puruers, the colt staggered stag-gered into a water hole for a drink. Not knowing and, perhaps not even caring, for he was so weary, that Grant, whom his mother had thrown when she escaped es-caped and fled to the wild band, was in hiding near the water hole, the colt drank greedily and turned away bloated from the water hole. A leaping cowpony rushed at him, bearing a rider with a swirling lariat. In a few minutes, the struggle was over. The Desert Colt had surrendered to his master, man. It so happened that a group of Pioche sportsmen had brought a black thoroughbred from California, Califor-nia, with the avowed intentions of taking the cattlemen of the immediate im-mediate vicinity to a "cleaning". This famous race horse was kept at a charcoal camp in the hills for secret training. To further deceive the ranchers, they called him the "Coal Burner", implying that he was just a charcoal plug. These sportsmen saw to it that their friends were advised of the uoai curner s peaigree and track records and so fired them with hopes of winning a fortune that the Coal Burner's fame ran rampant ram-pant like the flow of silver from the mines of Pioche in '72. And so hundreds of men were not only willing, but anxious, to place their last dollar on the Coal Burner to win against any and all challengers. chal-lengers. Now the Mormon settlers who j came into southeastern Nevada, I prior to the discovery of silver at Pioche, had supposed that they were in the Mormon Territory of Deseret, but, when the immensely rich deposits of gold and silver were discovered along the western border of Deseret, the wealth-lured wealth-lured thousands who rushed to the bonanzas were so prejudiced against Mormonism and particularly particul-arly their practice of polygamy, that they refused to be governed by Brigham Young, who was the territorial governor of Deseret. They persuaded a prejuidced congress con-gress to cut one degree of territory terri-tory from the western side of Deseret, Utah, and tack it onto eastern Nevada with a wilful disregard of natural boundaries, religious affiliations or political aspirations. In due time, the patriotic miners organized the county of Lincoln and began to institute law and order. In their enthusiasm enthusi-asm to raise revenue for the administration ad-ministration of the new political subdivision, they conceived the idea of attempting to collect several years of back taxes from the Mormons, who awoke one fine morning to find themselves citizens citi-zens of the new state of Nevada and subject to the newly-elected officers of Lincoln county, who made no effort to protect them from rustlers and land grabbers but complicated their struggle by harassing them with scheming attempts at-tempts to collect unfair and illegal il-legal back taxes. Many of the Mormons revolted and refused to pay the taxes which were acceptable only in gold coin. Gold was as scarce among them as teeth on a cow's upper jaw. The dispute went on and on and led to many unfair practices on the parts of both the official tax collectors and the taxed. Many of the ranchers, being be-ing both unable and unwilling to pay the taxes, left the state of Nevada and trekked back into Deseret, leaving their lands and. in some instances, their herds, to he gobbled up by the influx of land grabbers. But some few of the more determined ones remained re-mained and fought the tax collections, col-lections, which proceedings, under the direction of the "Gambling Sheriff", frequently took on the semblance of ordinary rustling Sometimes, cattle and horses, ranging across the obscurely marked state line in the territory of Deseret, were rounded up by deputized riders, driven to Pioche. and sold under the sheriff's hammer. ham-mer. Lincoln county's first sheriff could turn a card' across the noker table with the best of the dvpntu"ers who stampeded intr-"ioeh" intr-"ioeh" in the 70s. and very fre-auent'v. fre-auent'v. he nicked a winner on (lie tracks. In such a gambling atmosphere, horse racing became the soort of gentlemen. During the heydays of silver, for no one had thought of burying it aeair the opportunity for great riches I turned men's heads and thoughts into hazardous risks for life and fortune. And so the Coal Burner was brought into Pioche to deceive de-ceive the Mormon ranchers who imbibed the recklessness of the times and were so proud of their fleet cowponies that they often backed them to win against any and all comers. When the Desert Colt proved to be a natural racer, the angered ranchers thought they saw a way to recover part of the money they had paid in back taxes to the Gambling Sheriff who had collected col-lected much of the disputed taxes on a percentage basis and had swelled the amounts to be collected col-lected by adding 30 cents a mile for several official visits to the ranches. These traveling expenses were added to the delinquent taxes the Mormons were to pay or lose their land and cattle. Hostilities grew tense. The prejudiced pre-judiced and unfair dealings to which they had been subjected prompted the Mormons to wager huge sums on the Desert Colt against the Coal Burner. They hoped the sheriff and his associates as-sociates would be victimized by their own trickery. The Gambling Sheriff had boasted too frequently that no mustang, whatever his lineage, could be a match for the Coal Burner. Suddenly, an eccentric character, charac-ter, who limped on a wooden leg, the reward for a raid on Mormon horses and whose oath-punctuated sentences rang with reckless challenge, chal-lenge, appeared on the streets and in the barrooms and bragged about a Mormon mustang that could run wide circles around the "God damned Coal Burner". And to further egg him on, Sport gloated the sheriff with, "By God, them Mormons ain't got no more gold for back taxes, but by God, they got plenty which says their Desert Colt can run the heels off the Coal Burner". The sheriff and his associates fell for his boastful clatter like green horns for a new gold strike. True to Sport's predictions, gold flowed to him across the tables in the barroom, where he made his booking headquarters, in streams of yellow coins which held experienced gamblers agape. It is said that the largest stakes ever placed across the tables in Pioche were not on the turn of a card nor the whirl of a wheel but on a matched race between the Desert Colt and the Coal Burner. And, too, another erratic character, char-acter, the mention of whose name had but recently incited the Mormons Mor-mons into blood-spilling consternation, conster-nation, for he was the kingpin of all rustlers, both legal and lawless, law-less, joined forces with Sport and backed him to the skyline with gold, some of which he had brought from his banditry amid the gold fields of California and the Comstock district of Virginia City, but most of which was loot taken from the Wells-Fargo Express Ex-press which plied between Pioche and the mint at Carson City. It was generally known that this same Ben Tasker carried a price on his head from the gold fields of Sutter's creek through the Mother Lode Mines of California Cali-fornia into the Comstock Lodes of Virginia City and down into the hectic Seventies of Pinrhp Tho "Gambling Sheriff" did not attempt at-tempt to capture him for his former for-mer depredations but actually made him a deputy tax collector. When these two renouned bad men joined forces with the Mormons and backed the Desert Colt, the sheriff and his associates became obsessed with a desire to win their gold in retaliation for their double-crossing hypocrisy. Ben Tasker and the oath-ejecting Sport knew horses, and so they did not claim any philanthropic motives if they appeared to champion cham-pion the Mormons in the tax dispute. When the Desert Colt appeared on the Mathews Race Course at Panaca, experienced horsemen studied his perfect confirmation. His thin, pointed ears, his soft, distended nostrils, his wide, inquisitive in-quisitive eyes, his deep chest and round barrel, together with his round, muscular legs and shiny, loose skin, made them wonder if they had not been tricked. Many of them realized, too late, that he was no mustang, in the literal meaning of the term, but a wonder won-der horse sired by a wild, yellow stallion which was, undoubtedly, a "throwback" from the Arabian horses which Father Escalante's narty had lost on tho dese'"' scarcely less than 1TO years before be-fore the Mormons souatted on a tiny strip of meadow land in southeastern Nevada, and foalod bv a runaway, thoroughbred filly lie had entiod away from the ranchers and had added to hic hand. Brt yet. these fame experienced ex-perienced horsemen held to a last hone. Thev could not make themselves them-selves believe that a wild three-voiT-ol stallion, .o matte- wha' his breeding and conformation J proved him to be, could be gentled, trained and raced to win in two short weeks after his capture from a wild band by a youthful Mormon whose experience experi-ence with horses consisted only of training them for cowponies, against a thoroughbred that had been born to the track and trained train-ed to the nth degree. The race was started amid the frenzy of two groups of men, each of which endeavored to deceive the other. When the starter's gun barked the signal, true to the hopes of those who knew race horses, the Coal Burner got 20 feet the start. The youthful Mormon, Mor-mon, who rode the Desert Colt, had been so obsessed with the excitement of the adventure and so worried with the possibilitt of losing, that he was caught asleep at the post. But, when he came out of his daze, amid the hoots of his annoyed friends, and chirped the Desert Colt forward, the colt ran with the easy grace and speed of his rangeland escapes. Leap by leap, he closed the gap between him and Coal Burner, even as he had widened the space between be-tween himself and the swirling lariats of the cowboys who had endeavored to lasso him on his native range. In spite of the fact that the Coal Burner was urged into his top speed by whip and steady rein, the Desert Colt gained gain-ed on him. Just as they ran side to side, and it seemed that the Desert Colt could do no better, and his backers were making ready to count their losses, an angry voice bellowed, "If you're heeled, draw, you double-crossin' Mormon hater". Trim "A'e" havto avifl mn candidates for Boot Hill fell face forward. The wild-eyed, wide nostriled Desert Colt blew a terrified ter-rified snort from his nostrils and leaped into a burst of speed that held men breathless. During the awe-impelling silence, Sport's "By God, I told you so'! rang out in insulting sarcasm. "45's" leaped into steady, but itchy, hands, and devils danced in the eyes of scores of losers. As narrowed eyes watched the Desert Colt literally run the heels off the Coal Burner, revolvers slipped back into holsters hols-ters and men stood in silent admiration ad-miration while the colt ran to victory and filled the Mormon's saddle bags with gold. There were those who said that it was this humiliation, together with the loss of his gold, which caused one of the sheriff's grudge-nursing grudge-nursing deputies to shoot his superior officer to death in a fair and square gun-drawing contest shortly after the race. With the passing of the Gambling Sheriff, the back tax collections were discontinued. Ben Tasker and Sport romped up and down the gold and silver fields of the battle-born state and raced the Desert Colt into fame and themselves into fortune. And Mormon Mor-mon pioneers and the wealth-lured wealth-lured thousands who came to the bonanzas of Nevada lent to and poured a stream of gold and silver into the coffers of the Federal Treasury which helped to prevent national bankruptcy during the chaotic days which followed the Civil War. When Sport and Tasker grew tired of their wanderings, Sport rightful owner and settled in Pioche where the name, Sport, stuck to him like a memory of the past until his dying day. And, strange as it may seem, Ben Tasker wandered into San Francisco Fran-cisco and became an honored and feared member of that Barbary Coast's police force. There are still cowboys and cattlemen, sons of the original pioneers in southeastern Nevada, who ride desert-bred cowponies and attempt, with pride, to trace their lineage back to Old Kint? Yellar and the Desert Colt. And Pioche, with the advent of Boulder Boul-der power, promises to surpass even the productiveness of its hectic Seventies. |