r cow
died, she carefully preserved the skull and other portions of the
skeleton for interior-decoration purposes.

Ranger Fisk and I took refuge in her parlor one day from a heavy rain.
Her husband sat there like a graven image. He was never known to say
more than a dozen words a day, but she carried on for the entire family.
As Ranger Fisk said, "She turns her voice on and then goes away and
forgets it's running." She told us all about the last moments of her
skeletons before they were such, until it ceased to be funny. Ranger
Fisk sought to change the conversation by asking her how long she had
been married.

"Ten years; but it seems like fifty," she said. We braved the rain after
that.

Ranger Fisk was born in Sweden. He ran away from home at fourteen and
joined the Merchant Marine, and in that service poked into most of the
queer seaports on the map. He had long since lost track of his kinsfolk,
and although he insisted that he was anxious to marry he carefully kept
away from all marriageable ladies.

Ranger Winess was the sheik of the force. Every good-looking girl that
came his way was rushed for a day and forgotten as soon as another
arrived. He played his big guitar, and sang and danced, and made love,
all with equal skill and lightness. The only love he was really constant
to was Tony, his big bay horse.

Ranger West, Assistant Chief Ranger, was the most like a storybook
ranger of them all. He was essentially an outdoor man, without any
parlor tricks. I have heard old-timers say he was the best man with
horses they had ever known. He was much more interested in horses and
tobacco than he was in women and small talk. But if there was a
particularly dangerous task or one requiring sound judgment and a clear
head, Ranger West was selected.

He and Ranger Fisk and Ranger Winess were known as the "Three
Musketeers." They were the backbone of the force.

Sometimes I think my very nicest neighbor was the gardener at El Tovar
Hotel. He saw me hungrily eying his flowers, and gave me a generous
portion of plants and showed me how to care for them. I planted them
alongside my little gray house, and after each basin of water had seen
duty for cleansing purposes it went to water the flowers. We never
wasted a drop of water. It was hauled a hundred miles in tank cars, and
cost accordingly. I sometimes wondered if we paid extra for the red bugs
that swam around in it so gaily. Anyway, my flowers didn't mind the
bug