thus in the curious position of opposingrnthe mistreatment of womenrnand yet advocating their participationrnin an economy in whichrneveryone is mistreated.rnFor passages like that, and for other reasonsrnas well, Wendell Berry has earned arnspecial place as a sage. Better than anvrnone of his contemporaries, he has identifiedrnwhat is wrong with the way we livernand pointed to ways to make it right.rn].0. Tate is a professor of English atrnDowling College on Long Island.rnGathering the Desertrnby Gregory McNameernThe Wilderness of the Southwestrnby Charles SheldonrnEdited by Neil Carmony andrnDavid BrownrnSalt Lake City: University ofrnUtah Press; 256 pp., $14.95rnIt is ironic that the modern environmentalistrnmovement was founded bvrnmen with whom most modern environmentalistsrnwould have nothing to do today:rngame hunters, many so avid for thernchase that thev would spend fortunes torncollect antlers and skins and skulls fromrnfar-off places. Theodore Roosevelt, tornname one distinguished early conservationist,rnwas responsible for setting asidernvast tracts of land for national parks andrnLIBERAL ARTSrn’iA\[NGRicnrsrn. loniicr iniii.ilf of llic llii>h Cjoinihrn{[iidi.iii.i.i J;iil is sums; llic anintsrnfor fniliiiii 1(1 provide him «illi tanningrnsessiiini., reported tlic Clmdi^)rnIrihune I;ist Dtcciiibci. Tim Sputlmgrn.seeks SiOO.’KlO from the ccnuity.rn1M f.iiisc it’s loiiiMiisMoncT!. refused torn])inlia<.can iiltiaviolet t.niTiin^i.iniprnto treat liis psoriri.sis.rnwildlife preserves; he also traveled to thernArctic Circle, to China’s TaklimakanrnDesert, to the Serengeti Plain to addrnrare specimens to his collection of kills,rnwhich already numbered countlessrnspecies from fields and streams that layrncloser to home. Charles Sheldon (1867-rn1928) garnered a smaller reputation thanrnthat of the bully-pulpit President, butrnhe filled the hunter-conservationist rolernjust as well; his efforts substantially enrichedrnthe American public domain, andrnif few moderns have heard of his work,rnthey have their remedy in The Wildernessrnof the Southwest.rnA Yale graduate from a once well-todornfamily gone broke in the recessions ofrnthe 1880’s and 90’s, Sheldon scrappedrnhis plans for a grand tour of Europe, tookrnto the woods with a shotgun and pointer,rnand set about exploring North Americarnfrom Alaska to the high Sierra Madrernof Mexico. I le began his career, as literaryrnarchaeologists Neil Carmony andrnDavid Brown tell us in their edition ofrnSheldon’s unpublished field notes, asrnthe junior manager of a Midwestern railroad.rnBy dint of Yankee virtues Sheldonrnrose quickly through the ranks, and otherrnrailroad tycoons began to take note ofrnhim. In 1898 Dean Sage, a New York entrepreneur,rnhired Sheldon to develop arnrailroad line through northern Mexico sornthat Middle American freight could bernmore efficiently shipped to the Pacific—rnLos Mochis, Sonora, lies 300 milesrncloser to San Louis than docs San Francisco.rnThe business eventually failed,rnbut it has as its legacy the railroad linernthat snakes through Chihuahua’s Barrancarnde Cobre, carrying thousands ofrntourists annually through what is knownrnas Mexico’s Grand Canyon.rnNow jobless, Sheldon turned to Yaliernfriends for help. One eventually introducedrnhim to C. Hart Merriam, the directorrnof the U.S. Biological Survey, whornhired him as an assessor in 1903 and sentrnhim to central Alaska. He was not therernlong before he began to press for therncreation of a national park to protectrn20,322-foot Denali from mining claims.rnI lis campaign did little to endear him tornAlaska’s commercial interests, but itrnhelped launch the present state’s vastrnecotourism industry, a primary sourcernof revenue. After recruiting Rooseveltrnand the game-hunting Boone andrnCrockett Club to his side, Sheldon finallyrnprevailed in 1919, but to his lastingrndisappointment, as Carmony and Brownrnnote, North America’s tallest peak andrnits associated park were named MountrnMcKinley.rnAlaska did not hold Sheldon for long.rnSuddenly interested in the biota of thernarid Southwest, Merriam dispatchedrnhim to Arizona where at the same timernthat he hunted pronghorn antelope {Antilocaprarnamericana) and desert bighornrn{Oyis canadensis) he became concernedrnwith their continued health as a species.rnCarmony and Brown ha’e chased downrnSheldon’s gracefully written notes describingrnone such hunting trip into thernheart of the Grand Canyon, in whichrnthe self-taught naturalist offers stillusefulrnobservations on the ways of the indigenousrnHavasupai Indians and on thernpeerless beauty of their homeland, whichrnhad only just come under federal jurisdictionrnas a national park. Subsequentrnexpeditions took Sheldon into the harshrnPinacate and Lechuguilla regions ofrnwestern Arizona and Sonora, of which hernwrote: “This desert is certainly amongrnthe most arid regions of America, but itrnteems with life. The sands in thernwashes show the tracks of the small animals.”rnWorking there, he continued,rnwas a fine tonic: “I am getting in betterrncondition daily.”rnWhen forest ranger Aldo Leopoldrnkilled a Mexican gray wolf atop Arizona’srnMogollon Rim, he experienced thernepiphany that would make him one ofrnAmerica’s foremost champions ofrnwilderness: wolves, he concluded, arernnecessary to a healthy landscape; everyrncreature that does not harm a place belongsrnthere. Charles Sheldon underwentrnno such transformation, and animalrightsrnactivists may cringe at his accountrnof a prize taken while he explored the remote,rnimposing Tuseral Mountains ofrnSonora. He shot and killed a particularlyrnbattered desert bighorn. “A veteran oldrnram, scabby with hair almost gone, frontrnknees bare and calloused, one horn badlyrnbroken in the middle from butting,rnthe skin on his face scarred from fighting.rnHis ears were full of ticks and almostrnstopped up. He was in exceedinglyrnragged condition and had had hardrnfighting. It was a romantic spot to kill anrnold ram.” Anyone recounting such anrnadventure today—or confessing an admirationrnfor barbarians like Hemingwavrnand Turgenev—would earn more wrathrnthan admiration.rnSheldon came to know many such romanticrnspots, and his explorations of therndesert put him in rare company. As withrnhis Ha asupai contacts, his dryland tra’-rn40/CHRONlCLESrnrnrn