built the third house in
Phoenix. Did you know that? And I burnt Indian grain fields in the Salt
River Valley long before anyone ever thought of building a city there.
Even a big city has had some time to be a small one."

That settled it; the Phoenix gentleman said no more.

I told him only the exact truth when I said that I built the third house
in Phoenix.

After I had started the Wickenburg restaurant came rumors that a new
city was to be started in the fertile Salt River Valley, between Sacaton
and Prescott, some forty or fifty miles north of the former place.
Stories came that men had tilled the land of the valley and had found
that it would grow almost anything, as, indeed, it has since been found
that any land in Arizona will do, providing the water is obtained to
irrigate it. One of Arizona's most wonderful phenomena is the sudden
greening of the sandy stretches after a heavy rain. One day everything
is a sun-dried brown, as far as the eye can see. Every arroyo is dry,
the very cactus seems shriveled and the deep blue of the sky gives no
promise of any relief. Then, in the night, thunder-clouds roll up from
the painted hills, a tropical deluge resembling a cloud-burst falls, and
in the morning--lo! where was yellow sand parched from months of
drought, is now sprouting green grass! It is a marvelous
transformation--a miracle never to be forgotten by one who has seen it.

However, irrigation is absolutely necessary to till the soil in most
districts of Arizona, though in some sections of the State dry farming
has been successfully resorted to. It has been said that Arizona has
more rivers and less water than any state in the Union, and this is
true. Many of these are rivers only in the rainy season, which in the
desert generally comes about the middle of July and lasts until early
fall. Others are what is known as "sinking rivers," flowing above ground
for parts of their courses, and as frequently sinking below the sand, to
reappear further along. The Sonoita, upon which Patagonia is situated,
is one of these "disappearing rivers," the water coming up out of the
sand about half a mile from the main street. The big rivers, the
Colorado, the Salt, the upper Gila and the San Pedro, run the year
around, and there are several smaller streams in the more fertile
districts that do the same thing.

The larger part of the Arizona "desert" is not barren sand, but fertile
silt and adobe, needing only water to make of