" ... Crusoe-like object... "

21st, March, 2018

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Desert Trails

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Chase recalls while spending the night at an old haunt,

an artifact encountered in a previous visit.

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" On my first visit here, some years before, I found an old scarecrow

of a fellow in possession, living in a kind of burrow or dugout. A

more Crusoe-like object I never expect to meet, weird as many of

these " desert rats " are to the view. 

 He could not be said to be clad, but antique rags were hung about

 him, and he wore a scrap of debris on his head, under the delusion

that it was a hat. His hair was snow-white, long, and plentiful, his

skin like that of a well roasted fowl, his eyes bright and very blue.

The blue eyes gave an infantile touch, and somehow half prepared

me for his proud announcement that he was a poet. 

 What more he was or had been I never fully knew, though I learned

that he had known such spheres of life as teamster, preacher,

prospector, with others perhaps less blameless. Once only I got a 

taste of his poetic quality but all that I recall is a frequent loud roar 

of  ' O Isrul! ' "

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