George Luke WHITNEY

                   George Fenton Whitney owned the ranch on Bunkerville Mountains and each year he would bring to St. Thomas, Nevada, produce he had raised in his orchard: currents, peaches, grapes, berries of different kinds and vegetables too.  He would drive his wagon around the littel towns and sell or trade his produce.

George Fenton Whiteny wrote and compiled many things on the Luke Syphus and Christiana Long Syphus family and on his parents.  He did a lot of research and wrote the first real history of those families.

The Ensign  (August 1980 Pages 48 - 49)
     MORMON JOURNAL
     THE WARNING WHISTLE

By Fenton Whitney, as told to Mary Noel Rigby
I was almost afraid to reach the great red-rock promontory where I would rest my team of horses and eat my lunch, for Quenho, a renegade Indian, could have been hiding there. This was 1925, money was scarce, and I had traveled this road from St. Thomas, Nevada, to the Bunkerville Mountains many times with my team and wagon, hauling cedar posts for the little money they brought.
The Paiute Indians were friendly and peaceful, but Quenho was a renegade and had no chief to answer to. The people in the area were fearful because of his recent attacks. I was nervous, restless, and cold from the stiff February breeze.
My sweet wife, Lettie, had bade me a tearful good-bye early that morning, holding our little daughter in her arms. "Fenton Whitney, if you see any signs at all of any Indians, you must turn Babe and Bess around and come right home. I know we need the money, but we need you more."
I had promised, and now as I looked toward the mountains I wondered if my decision to make this trip had been wise. The dream of a new house for my family urged me on. The twenty Mormon families at St. Thomas were hardworking farmers and cattlemen. Love welled up in my heart for the town and its honorable people, and I resolved to help build a place of peace and safety for my family and for the other children I hoped would bless our home.
The ascent had been slow, and my team was breathing hard. They welcomed their noonday rest and bag of oats. I scanned the road for recent tracks, and gazed into the distance for any sign of man or horse. The small fire I had kindled in the shelter of the huge red rock warmed me but could not dispel the inner fear of Quenho, that gripped me.
As I made preparations to start out again, I lifted my bedroll to the top of the water barrel and rearranged my gear. At this time of year my bedroll of homemade quilts and soft blankets was an absolute necessity. My dutch oven, heated in campfire ashes, would permit me to have good warm food, and the chuck box held flour and the "start" for sourdough biscuits, Dixie molasses from southern Utah to pour over them, dried fruit, and some side pork. I was well equipped.
The feelings of apprehension had never left me; and now before climbing the narrow dugway ahead, I looked again in every direction. I saw nothing, but I was wary and alert as I untied the lines and clucked for the horses to start. A cloud of loose dust followed my wagon wheels. Were hostile eyes following me into the lonely mountains? The sapphire blue of the heavens and the puffy white clouds seemed to hold peace. Yet the keen breeze warned of a penetrating cold for the coming 'night. I offered a fervent prayer for protection.
Then it happened. A long, keen whistle pierced the air. I stopped the team. In these empty spaces it was the usual thing for a man to draw another's attention with a sharp whistle. But I saw no one, though I scanned the countryside. Tying the lines, I climbed from the wagon and walked back to the gulch. There in the bottom of the gulch where it had rolled from the top of the water barrel, I saw my bedroll. In my anxiety, I had forgotten and left it on the barrel. I would have been in serious trouble in the cold mountains that night without it. Someone knew this and had stopped me.
After retrieving it, I climbed the high promontory, but I could not see anyone, nor did I hear anything again. Slowly it dawned on me that that whistle must have been heavensent, and in humble thankfulness I returned to the wagon. All restlessness, all fear had vanished, and a gentle peace filled my being -- the peace "that passeth understanding."   I knew the Lord was watching over me. He sees every sparrow that falls to the ground and every bedroll too.
That evening the soft wind in the mountain trees accompanied the singing in my heart as I unrolled my bed on cedar boughs. The stars leaned close to whisper, "God is near."  The peace of the Holy Spirit and testimony of divine love filled my soul.
Mary Noel Rigby, a seventy-three-year-old homemaker and mother of six, is an ordinance worker in the Provo, Utah, Temple.