b'Frederick Burnham of the Tonto Rim known as Los Angeles, California, where several years later,captivated by his stories, his wanderlust, and his dreams of the then-13-year-old Burnham went to work, hunting forexploring Africa. The neighbor\'s name was Blanche Blick, Remi Nadeau, one of the very first founders of the city andand Burnham never forgot her. He would return several a well-known businessman. It was on one of these hunts, uptimes to her side and they would eventually marry but not in the Verdugo Hills, not too far from what is now Griffithuntil Burnham had barely cheated death almost a half-Park, where Burnham, on a hunt for Nadeau, carelesslydozen more times!tethered his spirited black horse while he went on foot searching for game, only to find his horse missing when heAfter a couple of years working as a cowpuncher herding returned to his camp. Nearby Mexican woodcutters toldcattle in Texas, Burnham, who at 18 was still wholly naive him that a rider had absconded with his horse and he hadeven in the rudimentary ways of the West, was a fairly missed the rider by minutes. experienced scout, hunter, and Cowboy. It quickly showedwhen having arrived in Santa Fe on his way to Prescott, The rider was the notorious southern California bandito,Arizona, he had yet another horse stolen from right under Tiburcio Vasquez who was known to frequent the Verdugos.him! To be horseless in the deep, dark freezing cold of Knowing good horseflesh when he saw it, it was indeedwinter in the vast deserts and mountain ranges of New Vasquez who had stolen Burnham\'s mount but not for long. Mexico and Arizona, in the midst of Apache country, wastantamount to an automatic death sentence. Burnham, like Several months later, a Sheriff\'s posse cornered Vasquez at anfounder of Tombstone, prospector Ed Schlieffen, who at L.A. rancho, and as the bandito tried to escape, they riddledthe same time was himself warned not to go mining in the him with buckshot. Vasquez survived the buckshot but wasmidst of an Apache uprising in the hills of southeastern sentenced to hang. The adolescent Burnham was one of theArizona near that future "Too Tough to Die" town, chose curious who visited the notorious outlaw in his cell, andto travel at night and sleep during the day safely hidden in he inquired about his missing horse. It is said that Vasquezthose very mountains, until he had traversed the 500 miles laughed, then offered Burnham his own Pinto to ride around- ON FOOT - between Santa Fe and Prescott (Kemper, A the city, which Burnham gladly did, with the approval of theSplendid Savage, p. 34; Coddington, America: The Men and local Sheriff. Vasquez was extradited to Northern CaliforniaTheir Guns That Made Her Great, ibid.).Fortunately for where he had already been indicted on several charges ofpost-adolescent Burnham, he met two very experienced murder, and was duly hanged the following spring (Kemper,scouts. They were experienced not in just discerning tracks A Splendid Savage, pp.26-29; Boddington, Craig, America:and quite capable in the hunt but in the more important The Men and Their Guns That Made Her Great, PetersenBurnham taught Sir Robert Baden Powell his scoutingways of survival in dangerous terrain where if hostile Publishing Company, 1981, p. 78). methodology which came in good standing when BadenIndians didn\'t get you, the ways of the weather could veryPowell founded the Boy Scouts. well do you in.Burnham\'s father had passed on in the meantime, and hismother had moved back to Iowa despaired that her oldestcanoe, slipped away in the dead of night, and sailed acrossThe first "old-timer" Burnham came across was a man son was bereft of proper education. She urged his return tothe Mississippi, heading westward (Kemper, A Splendidnamed Holmes who had accompanied Kit Carson and the family fold and home along the Mississippi. BurnhamSavage, pp. 29-31; Coddington, America: The Men and TheirGeneral Fremont on their explorations of the West. His reluctantly returned but his dreams of an adventurousGuns That Made Her Great, p. 79). He had just turned 15. family was wiped out by hostile Indians. Holmes was a very life never left him. Less than two years later, after being crusty, bitter man who associated with few but somehow apprenticed by his uncles to a local merchant he didn\'t careBefore he left did the teenage Burnham made thetook a liking to the still quite green Burnham. Alternately for, Burnham loaded supplies, clothes, and foodstuffs into aacquaintance of a pretty neighbor who was enchanted andcontinued on page 32PRIME RIBSATURDAYArizonaRealCountry.com December 2019 31'