But strong as the signs of life are, the evidence of death and dying cannot be ignored. You hear the shrieks of some creature on the edge of a little meadow, watch a hawk come to circle the tree tops, wonder who has won that contest as the cries cease and the hawk flies off. You smell the pungent odor of pine resin and follow it to its source, a pinyon oozing crystal drops from dozens of holes. As the sticky stuff ages it turns yellow, and there, mired in the gum, is a small black beetle exactly as some fossil bee in amber. And here is a redberry juniper so strangled by pink tree-thief that the greenest thing on it is the mistletoe cluster. [Illustration: The mountain lion’s mystique explains the many park place names that bear its alias, panther. Most park sightings of these regal cats occur at Panther Pass, usually in May or June.] Quicksilver Mining Quicksilver, or mercury, the only metal that remains liquid at ordinary temperatures, was mined as cinnabar in the Big Bend country from about 1884 until after World War II. Cinnabar, red mercuric sulphide, was used as a pigment and medicine as early as the first century. Indians used it as pigment for war paints and pictographs. Today mercury is used in electrical apparatus, control instruments, thermometers, and medical and dental preparations. The United States once produced about one-third of all quicksilver. From 1910 to 1920 Texas mines produced about one-third the U.S. production. Locally, quicksilver mining began in 1884, but real production began after 1896. The park’s Mariscal Mine was opened as Lindsey Mine by D.E. Lindsey, an immigration inspector, about 1900. Production increased greatly about 1916, under the ownership of W.K. Ellis, as World War I pushed up quicksilver prices. The mine floundered again with postwar price declines and was not profitable anew until World War II. In the Mariscal Mine’s heyday between 1919 and 1923, from 20 to 40 men worked it. All were Mexicans except the manager, foreman, and a brick-kiln specialist. Wood for the furnaces came from as far as 80 kilometers (50 miles) away, by burro. These photographs show quicksilver operations at the Waldron Mine, just outside today’s park, in 1916. Laborers toiled 12-hour shifts for $1.00 then. [Illustration: Waldron Mine, entrance] [Illustration: Waldron Mine, buildings] [Illustration: Aplomado falcons once ranged this far north and east, but no longer. Now that the national park offers a large protected area, we hope these birds of prey will return.]