Show the old settler my dear san Jua ners since one terrible day in my childhood the colorado river has I 1 been a strange influence in my realm of thought its mighty tide the merciless majesty of its boiling surface the solemn and I 1 never endings of its moan meanings ings between its echoing walls walis all this and more has been indelibly etched on the matrix of my fancy it arrests my vagrant rant thoughts by day and looms big and sometimes terrible in my dreams at night the events of that one day when I 1 was eleven years old were I 1 sufficiently intense to leave their permanent impress on my mind 9 even if other days since then had not given the picture still more positive color on that day I 1 was left alone on the east side of the driver river to guard an outfit of horses I 1 and tend a pot of beans hung over the fire while contact was made with men and a bunch of cows on the west side cows which we were t receive the ne next at day at first the day was simply uneventful the old stream sent its murmurs up along the echoing loneliness while the hours became longer and longer late in the afternoon it came into my capricious imagination that something had gone wrong on the west side of the river that I 1 was left there alone to wait indefinitely or go back to bluff miles away what should I 1 do it was a tremendous emergency for a boy with no previous experience who up to then had been at horns home with I 1 his is i mother and sisters I 1 looked at the big stream surging past with a scum of mush ice on its surface did I 1 dare to creiss it it had a most wicked look but after all it might have but a little way in the middle middie mid die where a horse would have to swim I 1 knew a horse could swim better without a saddle so pulling that off my pony I 1 climbed on his bare back and urged him out into the cur nt when he got out where it began to be deep and swift he refused to go and came back in bad humor to the bank I 1 was in bad humor to toe and continued on page ten the old settler continued from page 1 getting a switch I 1 warmed his nide end sent him again into th tha river having one hand firmly locked in his thick mane and the other busy keeping him headforemost and going strong toward the tha west side when the rapid cur rent re nt was making me dangerously dizzy and about to carry him away I 1 clung on with both hands while he be struggled back to the east bank we had in the outfit a tall mare and getting myself astride her I 1 always bony back I 1 rc acde de in again I 1 i she was an ill natured brute carrying lier her ears pinned backs back ready to bite or kick with svery every opportunity and when I 1 got her out in the current and tried to urge her i beyond her depth she tried to and failed but by a narrow margin of pitching me off into the water I 1 clung on in desperation I 1 saw the great rushing surface of the wide stream more terrible a thousand times than it could appear from the bank I 1 knew that if I 1 lost my grip on the old mares nione mane I 1 would be swallowed up in the boiling fury having given me something else Is to do than head her into th the stream she came back to the bank I 1 slid weak and terrified to the ground struck her with my whip and sank I 1 down on a log weak and trembling I 1 have no idea how long I 1 sat there letting the experience jcak in but I 1 began to see things from a new angle and to r realize that something had happened to me and something still more terrific ha has had S almost happened to me the whole scene is so vivid that it can materialize on short notice in my dreams like a picture thrown on the screen ALBERT R LYMAN |