entertain important guests.

General Diaz of Italy and his staff were coming, soon to be followed by
Marshal Foch with his retinue. And in the meantime Tom Mix and Eva Novak
had arrived with beautiful horses and swaggering cowboys to make a
picture in the Canyon. What was a mere honeymoon compared to such
luminaries?

Tom and Eva spent three weeks making the picture, and we enjoyed every
minute they were there. Ranger Winess was assigned to duty with them,
and when they left the Canyon he found himself with the offer of a
movie contract. Tom liked the way the ranger handled his horse and his
rifle, and Tom's wife liked the sound of his guitar. So we lost Ranger
Winess. He went away to Hollywood, and we all went around practicing:
"I-knew-him-when" phrases. But Hollywood wasn't Grand Canyon, and there
wasn't a horse there, not even Tom's celebrated Tony, that had half as
much brains as his own bay Tony of the ranger horses. So Winess came
back to us, and everybody was happy again.

While the picture was being made, some of the company found a burro
mother with a broken leg, and Ranger Winess mercifully ended her
suffering. A tiny baby burro playing around the mother they took to camp
and adopted at once. He was so comical with his big velvet ears and wise
expression. Not bigger than a shepherd dog, the men could pick him up
and carry him around the place. Tom took him to Mixville and the movie
people taught him to drink out of a bottle, so he is well on the road to
stardom. Ranger Winess, visiting in New Jersey a couple of years later,
dropped into a theater where Tom Mix was in a vaudeville act. Mix spied
the ranger, and when the act was over he stepped to the edge of the
stage and sang out: "Hey, Winess, I still got that burro!"