Thanks for the link. That was good. Through that whole thing, I kept seeing my grandfather. He was a rare earths miner from Alaska down to Central America, and wrote front page newspaper stories about his adventures.
Burros Had Much To Do With Building of the West1922
...The burro has been the real means of developing the desert West. Without the burro it would have been impossible to open up the great mining industry, which is the basis of all prosperity in the desert region. Occasionally one will hear of an alleged prospector who is quoted as saying that he has been in the prospecting business 30 years and 20 years of that time he has been chasing burros.
Put that man down as one who has no real understanding of the little animal he is so free to slander. There is not an old-time man in the hills who does not love and respect the little fellows who have been constant companions in the hardships and dangerous experiences of life in the unknown places.
Not one, but hundreds of prospectors have the burro to thank for their lives. When hungry, cold, thirsty or lost, it is always the burro that finds the way out to safety and comfort.
The burro is at once a barometer, and a guard aginst the four-legged and crawling menaces of the open. He is a foreteller of storms, and a leader whose judgment never fails. He will invariably guide one to water holes in the bleak places of the desert and will find shelter for his master in the vastness of the mountains. In such crises, that mean the very lives of himself and his packer, the burro never fails.
Nor does he arrive at all these things through intuition, but rather though common sense and actual reasoning power. Whether he turns explorer and thrusts his velvet muzzle into pastures that no other domestic animals has ever grazed upon, or whether he is made the salt-bearer for the flocks of the lowly Mexican herder, the burro is always the same - faithful to death and the chief friend of man in adversity. One thing he must have - companionship. One thing he fears - the bear. Once let him scent any kind of a bear and he will stampede his way through seemingly impassable places until he puts at least a score of miles between him and his one great enemy...