Beaver Gulch . . .
After the Nez Perce war
.. when the survivers of the Joseph band
…. were dying in "the hot country..."
Yellow Wolf got homesick,
.. returned from "the Queen's country"
….. and visited an old friend, A.C. Smith.
A.C., having sold his tollbridge at Minam,
.. and finding lawyering slow in the county
… took a contract to deliver rural mail.
Riding together, from Arkansas Hollow
.. to Winslow they had to sidehill a mile
…. and a half above solid beaver swamps.
As I travel that route, today, I note,
.. a beaver will have to pack tennis shoes
… to cover that same dry stream reach.
Trapped out for cash money, this stream
.. down-cut twenty feet of accumulated silts
….. and livestock have completed the job.
Inside historic stories, lie many
.. smaller tales of humanity and change,
… of ecological disasters and greed.
And I wonder how my days and toils,
.. might be chronicled by more than
….. the hawks and squirrels I have served.
--R.Anderson
