During the rush for the California gold-fields in the '50's a party took
the route by Gila River, and set across the desert. The noon temperature
was 120, the way was strewn with skeletons of wagons, horses, and men,
and on the second night after crossing the Colorado the water had given
out. The party had gathered on the sands below Yuma, the men discussing
the advisability of returning, the women full of apprehension, the young
ones crying, the horses panting; but presently the talk fell low, for in
one of the wagons a child's voice was heard in prayer: "Oh, good heavenly
Father, I know I have been a naughty girl, but I am so thirsty, and mamma
and papa and baby all want a drink so much! Do, good God, give us water,
and I never will be naughty again." One of the men said, earnestly, "May
God grant it!" In a few moments the child cried, "Mother, get me water.
Get some for baby and me. I can hear it running." The horses and mules
nearly broke from the traces, for almost at their feet a spring had burst
from the sand-warm, but pure. Their sufferings were over. The water
continued to flow, running north for twenty miles, and at one point
spreading into a lake two miles wide and twenty feet deep. When
emigration was diverted, two years later, to the northern route and to
the isthmus, New River Spring dried up. Its mission was over.




LOVERS' LEAPS

So few States in this country--and so few countries, if it comes to
that--are without a lover's leap that the very name has come to be a
by-word. In most of these places the disappointed ones seem to have gone
to elaborate and unusual pains to commit suicide, neglecting many easy
and equally appropriate methods. But while in some cases the legend has