Page 29 - Ninety Miles From Nowhere

flashlight up into the trees instead of aiming it down so I could see what I was doing.
We harnessed, fed and watered the mules, and tethered them (thinking we’d be back in about an hour), and drove over to Gibson’s. Peggy’s nephew, Leon Renfro, was staying with them then and that night Earl and Garrett Cornelius, other homesteaders, were spending the night because the following morning the four men were leaving for a several-month trapping trip down on the Gila River, back into the deep forest.
When we told them we were starting out to look for George and Tom, because they had gone to the sawmill but hadn’t returned, Dick and Earl insisted that we stay there in the warmth and let them go. They left in Dick’s car and returned in about an hour with the two men. They had found them at the truck, which, loaded with lumber, would not pull up one of the steep hills. George and Tom were unloading the lumber and carrying it up the hill by hand — a little at a time.
Dick fed the cold hungry men, and insisted we all stay there that night. In a house with sleeping arrangements for three people, it is often difficult to find room to bed down six extra people. We solved the problem by having the three women sleep on the one double bed, and Leon and Dick slept on Leon’s single bed. The other four men slept in bedrolls on the floor in front of the fireplace. Of course having the men prepared for a camping trip helped, for their bedrolls were there handy.
The next morning when we got up (Saturday), Dick had already prepared breakfast (after all he was a chef), and
George and Tom were ready to take Tom’s car back to camp and get started with the wagon and mules to get the lumber. Sally and I were going back with them, but Peggy said she’d take us as soon as the men all left. So George and Tom set off in one direction and the trappers in another and after we three ladies had dawdled for a while, we started out for the Howell camp in Peggy’s car.
Only a few hundred yards from Peggy’s cabin, her motor died and we couldn’t get it started again. Since there was no anti- freeze in the car, we thought we’d better drain the radiator. Then we discovered that the water was already frozen. We couldn’t leave the car because the block would burst, so — can you believe it? We built a fire under the radiator until the water thawed out. The motor started again and we went on to Sally’s where Peggy spent the night with us.
When we reached camp, there was a note from George saying that the mules were gone when they arrived — had gone back home. They had an ingenious way of crossing the many cattle guards on the road back — they stepped on the very ends of the metal rods where they rested on the ground instead of being suspended over a hole in the ground.
George and Tom had gone on to Ed’s in Tom’s car. Since the mules could not be ridden, George borrowed a horse to bring them back, arriving late Saturday night. The next morning the men took the mules and wagon to the truck to get the lumber and bring it to the camp. Finally on Monday they used the team to pull the logs onto the walls, also for part of Tuesday. Then Tuesday afternoon Sally and I rode