Stephen, as usual sat at his roll-top desk in the corner, his feet up on the slide, both hands in his pockets, the while he rocked his pipe gently up and down in his teeth. One of the clerks was telling with becoming modesty of his social triumphs in Phœnix at the “Elks” ball. The audience listened with the listless attention of those whose curiosity hangs heavy on their hands. “I was the candy kid, all right,” remarked the narrator. His fervid discourse was interrupted by a drawl from some one in the background. “I reckon that some time you must have drunk copiouslike of the Hassayampeh River.” A machinery drummer who was in the office cocked up his ears, thinking that perhaps behind the allusion lay a doubtful story. “What’s that about the river?” he asked. “I never heard of that.” “Why, they say,” answered the first speaker, “that whoever drinks of the Hassayampeh River can’t ever tell the truth again so long as he lives.” “And also,” added McKay; “that no matter where he drifts to, he is sure to wander back again to the old territory; that he’ll die in Arizona.” “How was that story ever started?” Loring asked. “The valley of the Hassayampeh was one of the first trails into the ore country,” answered McKay, “and the lies that emanated from the camps along that river was of such a fearful, godless and prize package variety that they made the old river famous. There was a fellow in camp here only the other day was telling me about prospectin’ down there in seventy-three. He said all they had to eat was fried Gila monster. I guess that was after he’d drunk the water though,” finished McKay reflectively. “The territory sure has gone off since those days,” said a cattleman who had ridden into camp for his mail. “Only last year down near Roosevelt I shot two Mexicans, and say, it cost me a hundred dollars for negligence,” he went on indignantly, “and the sons of guns warn’t wurth more than twelve dollars and two bits apiece.” “You are right about the way Arizona is going to hell,” said the mine foreman. “I don’t know as any of you fellows ever knowed ‘Teeth’ Barker. Anyhow, next to what his father must have been, he was the ugliest creature that ever lived on this earth. All of his teeth just naturally stuck out like the cowcatcher of an engine. Well, in spite of that, he always was a good friend of mine. Least he used to be. “About six months ago I was up to Jerome, and they was telling about an accident there. A man no one knowed at all was killed, but a fellow said he had the ugliest tusks he ever seed. I knew at once that must be Barker. They said they’d planted him up on the knoll, and so,” continued the foreman sadly, “and so, although it was a powerful hot day, I struggled up to the knoll with a nice piece of pine board, and a jack-knife, and I sort of located ‘Teeth’ with a handsome monument and an exaggerated epitaph.