George was not a drinker, but on one occasion he joined a party and went on a bender. He awoke next morning with a horrible hangover and was so humiliated that he left Shoshone and never returned. He went over to Sandy and died in the ’30s. One day George started to tell me a story as we sat on the bench. His burros were grazing in the nearby salt grass. Every time he reached the climax of his yarn, he would jump up to go after a straying burro. When he retrieved that one, another would wander off and George would leave me again. For one entire summer I listened to the beginning of that yarn and every morning would remind him of it. “Where was I?” he’d say. “Oh, yes, I was telling you about the girl climbing out of the fellow’s window just before daylight. Well, she went—” Then George would jump up and start for a burro, and I never learned what happened to the torrid romance after the girl crawled out of her lover’s window. Chapter XXI Roads. Cracker Box Signs Any resemblance that a Death Valley highway bore to a road was a coincidence prior to 1926, and few tourists traveled over them unless two cars were along. “Just follow the wheel tracks and keep your eyes peeled for the cracker box signs along the road,” was the usual advice to the novice who didn’t know that tracks left by Mormons’ wagons nearly a century before may be seen today. One of these led me to the bank of a mile-wide gash made by cloudbursts. To locate the missing link I climbed the nearest mountain and on a lonely mesa came at last upon a piece of shook nailed to a stake and stuck into the ground. But it had nothing to do with roads. A crude inscription read: Montana Jim July 1888 A dam good pal Reverently I stepped aside. Never again would I see a finer tribute to man. A few rocks bleached white in the sun outlined a sunken grave. Crossed upon it were Jim’s pick and shovel. It was not difficult to recreate what had happened there. Jim and his friend looking for gold. Jim’s faltering and the sun beating him down. Jim’s partner knowing that Jim’s moniker would identify him better than a surname to anyone who passed that way interested in Jim. Out in the desert 100 miles from human habitation he couldn’t call an undertaker, so he dug a hole, wrapped Jim in his canvas, rolled him in and hoped that God would reach down for Jim. At that period it was not an uncommon experience for the early tourist to lose his way by doing the natural thing at a crossroads and take the one which showed the sign of most travel. Often he would find later that he had followed a trail to a mine miles away. Often too, it led to disaster. The story of roads begins at Shoshone with Brown. In his trips in and around the valley, he erected signs to prevent the traveler from losing his way and his life. “I would like to see Death Valley country,” people would say to him, “but everyone tells me to stay out.”