The Indians Were Too Loyal.
Thereare but few oases in the great Arizona desert, and that part of our glorious country offers few allurements to the American youth. Hence it was a surprise to the friends of young Clarence Vincent when he took his departure from the fleshpots of San Francisco to take up his line of march to Maricopa Wells, where he accepted the position as manager for the telegraph company at that point.
Besides the white inhabitants of Maricopa, which numbered twelve men and one woman, there were a goodly number of Indians who, following a migratory inclination, made the Wells a starting, as well as a finishing point, in their junketings on box cars and flat cars throughout the territory of Arizona.
These native sons and daughters were ardent admirers of the telegraph and sometimes of the operator of the telegraph, and male and female would cluster around the tiny office, watching young Clarence as he sat at work at his key.
Many of these aboriginies were interesting characters, and as the weeks glided by, Vincent acquired enough of the Indian tongue to make himself intelligible to the pretty maidens of the cactus territory. These shy maidens were not unlike their white sisters, and a little flattery was gratifying to their vanity, and when Vincent in his Indian monosyllabic dialect told Miss Mahala that her new pink blanket was very becoming, and when he assured Mahala’s cousin, Cahecha, that the blue ribbons in her hair made her look like a queen, he entirely won their hearts.
During the two years and more that Clarence Vincent tarried at Maricopa Wells, he made the acquaintance ofpretty nearly the entire Indian tribe in that section and when he left to accept the managership of the Phoenix office he was given a genuine Indian farewell.
A year or so later Clarence Vincent had become one of the leading citizens in Arizona’s metropolis; he had renounced the frontier garb worn by the denizens of the Wells, and donned in its stead a faultless tailor-made suit, and he was quite a Beau Brummel in Phoenix society, where he was thought the “proper caper” by the young ladies.
The Indians of Maricopa Wells still took advantage of the indulgence of the railroad company and pursued their migratory practices. One day Clarence Vincent started for lunch and noticed at a nearby fruit and confectionery store a crowd of some twenty-five Indians, mostly squaws with papooses swung over their backs and some young Indian maidens. He passed them by without giving them any attention, but not so the Indians; they had recognized in him the telegraph operator of Maricopa Wells, and with many guttural “Ugh, Ugh, Ugh’s” they followed him down the street single file to his favorite restaurant, where they stood on guard on the outside, varying their watch by pressing their noses to the window panes in true Indian style.
Young Vincent was greatly chagrined with so much attention and consideration from his former playmates of the oasis, but he was reluctant to introduce these simple children to the select society in which he moved, and he compromised the matter by buying them one and all, a box of bon bons at the nearest confectionery store.
This incident occurred many years ago, but Mr. Vincent, now the dignified and courteous manager of the Western Union Telegraph Company, of Oakland, Cal., loves to linger over the memory of the happy days he spent in Arizona.