Q1: There’s an R. Musselman inscription in a cave in Spur Fork, 1928, and that’s why I asked if he’d ever been over there by the Biddlecomes or Ekkers.

K: Well, he had a brother named Ross Musselman and Ross Musselman run commercial tours. He started that in 1933. He moved from New Jersey out here and settled out here on Boulder, about ten miles east of Monticello. And he was Roy’s brother and then Roy took him around this country and showed him the country. So, he was something in connection with a school counselor or something. So he decided this would bre a good place to bring a lot of the young boys and their parents, young people and their parents, out here from New Jersey. So he run commercial horse trips out in this back country over to around through the Needles and down through there and come out at the Dugout Ranch. But he could have been travelin’ anyplace in later years when he got the Jeeps to travel in. So it could be… and see it could even be Ross Musselman or Roy Musselman. And then Ross Musselman had a boy and his name’s Rusty and he lives out here about six miles on the edge of Peters Hill here. He used to be the County sheriff too. He’s the son of Ross Musselman. And he was helpin’ his dad in connection with those commercial horse pack trips too.

Q1: You were taking people into Horseshoe Canyon. Were the Ekkers taking people in at that time or did that come later?

F: They was flying.

K: That came later. We were always good friends with Art Ekker and Hazel. And so anyway, later, Hazel got the idea that they would like to have a public service permit to haul people in motor vehicles. And so we went with them to the Public Service Commission and recommended that they give ‘em a permit for over there in that Robbers Roost country in connection with the ranch. We helped ‘em get that permit. I guess A.C. still does some tours out there, doesn’t he?

Q1: He hasn’t lately but he was for awhile.

K: Do they still have those wild burros running down in that canyon?

Q1: Uh-huh. Did you ever see any wild burros, by the way? You said you saw the two mules down there.

K: I only seen I think two burros one time down in that Horseshoe Canyon.

Q1: In Horseshoe? Did you ever see any in the Maze or Standing Rocks?

K: No.

Q2: Did you see any Bighorn Sheep out there anywhere?

K: No. The deer seem to migrate from this Elk Mountain and Blue Mountain country down and across the river at Spanish Bottom and go up in there in that country. I was there in November a couple of times and there was quite a lot of deer around the Doll House, Standing Rocks country.

Q2: Do you go along with the story of the Old Spanish Trail coming across at Spanish Bottom? I’ve read someplace that there was a ford on the Colorado River between the confluence and Spanish Bottom. Did you ever hear about that? Course I suppose it was used at low water to ride a horse across.

K: You mean a ford for fording the river?

Q2: Yeah, it was above Spanish Bottom, not too far from the confluence. I’ve seen it referred to a few times but it’s…

K: Well, no. There’s no place they could get livestock into that Green River Canyon, is there?

Q2: Well, it’d be on the Colorado, below the Confluence…somplace between Spanish Bottom and the confluence. There’s books that I’ve read a few times where there was a place during the low water that you could actually ford the river.

K: Well, yea, there’d have to be a place there you could cross if they did that. And, no, I don’t know right where its supposed to be. I never did know anything about that.

F: One time I took Kent and Goldman down to Mineral Canyon so he could make a raft and they could raft down the river to Spanish Bottom. He had truck inner tubes…

K: Yup, four truck inner tubes. Big ones.

F: Dynamite fuse, dynamite boxes…what else? But I was to take ‘em down there and they were gonna float down the river and visit all the side canyons as they went down to Spanish Bottom. So anyway, I took ‘em down. And I came up the hill there in Mineral Canyon. I didn’t like it very well but I did. And I came here to town. And they were supposed to be gone so many days. I was supposed to take, another guy and me, take two Jeeps down to Red Canyon [Red Lake Canyon] on this side of the river and leave a Jeep and then come out together in the other Jeep. So we did that. And one day I…. the sheriff’s name was King and he came up to me and he says, “Fern, is Kent used to leaving his wallet on the river bank?” I said “No, he’s not.” He says, “Well, some boys came up after being down at the junction of the rivers and said they’d found Kent’s wallet.” And I said, “Well, Max, “I says, “he’s going down the river and he’s visiting all the side canyons as he goes down, and so forth. And he’s supposed to be home this certain day and I’ve got a Jeep sittin’ down there for him. He’ll be back.” So anyway, what these kids had done was they got on down there and got into the bushes and found his raft that was stored while him and the Goldmans went up to the Standing Rocks and hiked around and then come back down. When he came back, he says it looked like somebody had been in his pack but didn’t do anything. They rafted across the river, come up and got the Jeep and come home. And I was supposed to think that his wallet was down there. Kent said “I had that wallet clear to the bottom of my pack and those kids had got in there and found it.”