He was five feet tall, quick of motion. Hands and feet small. Skin soft and surprisingly fair. Muscles hard as bull quartz. With a mask of ignorance he concealed a fine intelligence reserved for intimate friends in moments of repose.
It is regrettable that since Shorty's death, writers who never saw him have given pictures of him which by no stretch of the imagination can be recognized by those who had even a slight acquaintance with him. Authors of books properly examine the material of those who have written other books. In the case of Shorty this was eagerly done--so eagerly in fact, that each portrayal is the original picture altered according to the ability of the one who tailors the tale. All are interesting but few have any relation to truth.
Shorty Harris was so widely publicized by writers in the early part of the century that when the radio was invented, he was a "natural" for playlets and columnists. It was natural also that the iconoclast appear to set the world right. He employed Shorty to guide him through Death Valley. "I want to write a book," he explained, "and I have only three weeks to gather material."
The trip ended sooner. "What happened?" I asked Shorty when I read the book and was startled to see in it a statement that Shorty became lost; had never found a mine; and never even looked for one.
"Well, let's let it go for what it's worth.... He bellyached from the minute we set out."
Those who knew Shorty best--Dad Fairbanks, Charles Brown, Bob Montgomery, George Naylor, H. W. Eichbaum, and the old timers on the trails had entirely different impressions. There was, however, around the barrooms of Beatty and other border villages a breed of later comers--"professional" old timers always waiting and often succeeding in exchanging "history" for free drinks. Though they may have never known Shorty in person, they were not lacking in yarns about him and rarely failed to get an audience.
There were also among Shorty's friends a few who had another attitude. "What has he ever done that I haven't?" the answer being that nothing had been written about them.
With variations the original pattern became the pattern for the succeeding writer. In the interest of accuracy it is not amiss to say that Shorty Harris was not buried standing up. The writer saw him buried. It is not true that he ever protested the removal of the road from the site of the place where he wished to be buried, because he never knew that he would be buried there. Nor did he have the remotest idea that a monument would be erected to him, because the idea of the monument was born after his death, as related elsewhere.