On a hot afternoon in 1849 not far from the Yuma River Crossing, a small party of Army Topographical Engineers came upon a young Indian girl wandering in the desert. She was nearly dead from exposure, hunger and thirst. Many would have left the youngster to her fate. It was a tough, unforgiving land where the strong survived and the weak perished.

The officer in charge was a kind, thoughtful man from Massachusetts, named Amiel Weeks Whipple. He’d only been in the Southwest a short time but had already devel­oped a deep respect for the customs and culture of the native residents.

Whipple shared his canteen with the youngster, then gave her some food. Before she departed he presented her with a small mirror—a simple token of friendship and also something any young lady would surely cherish. She smiled and left to return to her people. Lieutenant Whipple went back to his job—that of surveying a boundary between Yuma and San Diego, marking the new land won in the recent war with Mexico.