Yarns of the Southwest
Will Henry Robinson
eBook
This volume was published in 1921.Excerpts from the Foreword:THE TENDERFOOT The impressions that greet the tenderfoot upon his arrival in the American Southwest crowd each other in rapid succession. One of the first convictions to sink into his mind, and perhaps one that never leaves it, is that its denizens are as friendly a people as are to be found upon the face of the earth. The true native will share al- most anything with him especially his climate, his dinner, his debts and his favorite story. Naturally the Southwest flaunts much that is strange and unfamiliar. The newcomer asks many questions; the Arizonan, Texan or New Mexican is more than glad to answer them. He answers some questions before they are asked. Usually after about the third day the tenderfoot's thoughts crystalize into some such formula as follows : "If a native tells you anything, it's a lie." A week later he changes it. "If the story sounds like the truth, it undoubtedly is a lie; but if it sounds like a lie, it may be true." However, along toward the end of the month, the man from Elsewhere, if he is of the elect, begins to have his ears quickened by the real heart-beat of the West, and is ready to accept that article in the creed of the Hassayamper averring that sometimes the hyperbole of the ra- conteur may contain more truth, which after all is often only relative, than the exact numerals of the statistician.THE HASSAYAMPER But perhaps exactly what a Hassayamper may be needs explanation. Just as the gold-seekers of California were called "Forty-niners" and the pioneers of the Yukon are "Sourdoughs," so those hardy souls who came to the deserts and mountains of the Southwest when one still trav- eled in stage coaches, when flour and bacon and beans were brought overland in sixteen-mule freight wagons, when national banks were scarce and faro banks were plentiful, when springs of amber-colored fluid gushed perennially at such moist oases as the "Palace" or "Congress Hall" these were the Hassayampers. Now be it known that the Hassayampa is a river, sparkling, beautiful and picturesque in its upper reaches in the pine-covered mountains of Yavapai, but later losing both sparkle and char- acter in flat, torrid sands of the desert south- ward where it joins the Gila. In the early days painted savages fought many a battle along its bed, Spanish friars used its crystal drops in holy baptism and miners drew from its depths water for their arrastras; and from then until now, along its banks, men have toiled and quarreled, gambled and loved.In time legends were born about the mystical qualities of its waters. Some say that he who drinks above the ford can never tell a lie, while the antithesis of this is true of one who drinks below. Others turn the saying around, only notwo will agree upon which is the proper ford! The legend, though, that has the sound verifi- cation of time as well as the sanction of antiquity- is that any one who drinks from any place along the river will never know either the extremes of poverty or riches, in thought will always be the most incorrigible of optimists, in speech the most graceful of romanticists, and should he ever be so unfortunate as to leave Arizona, he will always come back.THE YARNS The following yarns have been collected from many sources. To get the true flavor, imagine them told in golden sunshine on a winter after- noon by some ancient Uncle Noah in an old-time Tucson, Phoenix or Albuquerque corral where stages stopped, where freighters rested their stock between trips and where, on Sunday after- noons, a young man could rent a shining "side- bar" runabout from "Back East" to take his best girl buggy riding. Others of the yarns were doubtless first related around a camp-fire at night, at the spring round-up, at a chance meet- ing of a couple of prospectors or on a hunting expedition.
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