Without the flicker of an eyelid, Charlie quickened, jumped for a cleaning rag and briskly polished the windshield. When he brought the tourist’s change he apologized for his slowness and begged him not to report it to Senator Brown. “Jobs are hard to get and I have a wife and ten children to support.” Touched with remorse, the tourist looked at the change. “Just give it to the kids and forget it.” When the Pacific Coast Borax Company built its swanky Furnace Creek Inn on the western slope of the Funeral Range overlooking Death Valley, it began to look about for places that would give the most spectacular and comprehensive view of the Big Sink as a means of entertaining guests, and far enough away to keep them from boredom. All the old timers who had wandered over the ranges were called in. Each suggested the place that had impressed him more than others. Each of these places was visited and after weeks of deliberation a spot on Chloride Cliff toward the northern end of Death Valley was chosen and the bigwigs started back to Los Angeles. When they stopped at Shoshone for gas and water, Clarence Rasor, an engineer of the company was still thinking of the chosen site and asked Brown, long his friend, if he knew of any view of the valley better than the one at Chloride Cliff. “I don’t pay much attention to scenery,” he told Rasor. “To me it’s all just desert or mountain. But I know one view that made me stop and look. Kinda got me. The chances are most folks would rave over it.” “Could you find it?” “Sure could....” Rasor called the others, repeated Charlie’s story and added: “You’re in a hurry, but knowing Charlie as I do, I believe we’d better turn around and go back if he’ll guide us.” Charlie agreed. It was a long, tortuous climb, even to the base of the peak. There Charlie went ahead and then beckoned them. Holding to bushes they walked or crawled to stand beside him; took one look and caught their breath. A mile below them lay the awesome Sink. White salt beds spread like a shroud over its silent desolation. Billowed dunes, gold against the dark of lava rock. Here a pastelled hill. There a brooding canyon. Beyond, the colorful Panamint under the golden glow of the sun. “This is the place,” they said. “... You can tell ’em too,” said Charlie pointing, “that right down there is Copper Canyon. If such stuff interests them, they can see the footprints of the camels and elephants and a lot of historic junk like that.” So you who thrill at Dante’s View may thank Charles Brown of Shoshone.