MUIRHEAD`S MYSTERIES: The Wizick,mystery creature of New Mexico

 The following story appeared in the Denver Post,March 28^th 1908, about some weird lizard capable of flight,which at one point escaped and was later re-captured.

LIZARD NOT A BEAR,SO MUST BE THE WIZICK

Strange cries are heard emanating from mysterious recess.

THE WIZICK!

Read this letter to Wolfe Londoner from Marcus Wright, an entire stranger:

“Mr Wolfe Londoner:
Dear Sir – I remember that you were robbed of a peculiar animal – a wizick. I saw it in the Post some years ago, and I read all about it. I also learned that it was wandering about New Mexico. Now,I think I have your wizick hemmed in so that I can get at him and save him for you, if you want him, but he`s awfully big now. As I remember it, the wizick was sent to you from California by one of your old friends of the days of California Gulch and the gold craze at Leadville.

“At the time you received it,according to my recollection, the animal was some two and one-half foot long and half a foot high. This beast we have cornered in one of the recesses in a cliff in a canyon of the Rio Grande, back of the old cliff dwellers, is nearly as large as a grizzly bear, but doesn`t resemble a bear at all.

LEGS LIKE LIZARD

It crawls low on the ground , has legs like a lizard, but instead of a lizard it has a peculiar pendant about two feet long. The mouth opens something like that of an alligator, its reddish hide is scaly and devoid of hair, and altogether it more nearly resembles an immense gila monster than anything else. The way this strange beast was discovered was this:Many of the Mexicans about here had been losing their young lambs. They would find the lambs lying all crushed, each bitten close through the back and sucked like a lemon. Now a coyote takes a lamb by the throat,and the Mexicans couldn`t work out what was doing the damage. One of them in great fright came running late one evening and reported having seen the monster. From the description he gave I was reminded of the wizick, to secure which your store was broken open, and I thought of what I had read of its subsequent escape and its having been seen in New Mexico.

BLOOD SUCKER TRAILED

Not long after this I found three of my own lambs crushed and killed exactly as the Mexicans had described. Then I determined to track down this mysterious blood-sucker. Two of us watched all night for him and in the dim light of morning we saw the huge thing gliding rapidly toward the sheep fold. We fired and the thing squalled low. Frightened ,I suppose,  he ? and made for the cliff (?) ,we following as fast as we could. We saw the thing scramble up and disappear in the crevice I have described. We didn`t feel safe to go in,and all we could see were two big bulbous eyes glaring at us, while a sound something between a hiss and a growl came continuously,and I tell you it wasn`t pleasant to hear. I realised right away that this was  the famous wizick, grown to enormous size. We barricaded the place and I have had two Mexicans standing guard ever since. Now, if you want the wizick ,and are willing to pay the expense, I and my men will undertake to find some means of `capturing the animal alive,caging it and sending it up to you by freight. Of course I will expect to be reimbursed for my own trouble and expense.

Let me hear from you

MARCUS WRIGHT

ONLY LIVE WIZICK    

Now what do you think of that.The Wizick turned up again, alive and entirely too well to suit the New Mexico sheep ranchers. Any reader of the Post will remember the strange little animal sent to Wolfe Londoner by his old California Gulch compatriot Henry Wallis, four or so years ago ,in recognition of the aid given to him in the days when Colorado was a baby. It was the only live wizick ever seen and when it was found and captured it was only about two and a half feet long. Mr Londoner was very proud of it and kept it securely in a chilled steel cage specially prepared for it and he had in contemplation the creation of a more commodious home for it, so disposed to allow the public to have a better view of it but the fact of its peculiarities and its whereabouts excited the cupidity of some ? ? and the back door of his store was broken open and the cage and its contents were stolen,

ESCAPES FROM VANDALS

How it ever got away from the thieves is not known, but it was next heard of in New Mexico, up about Taos, whee it was chased for miles, though nobody was able to capture it. It was given up for lost by Mr Londoner until he received the letter of today. “I hardly know what to do about it” said Mr Londoner today. Of course such a rare curiosity is worth all kinds of money, and from the description I am sure that this is none other than my wizick, grown to its full dimensions, or maybe it hasn`t done growing yet. “I would be willing to donate the wizick to the park board for exhibition in City park, if the city will pay the expense of getting it up here. I am going to try to see Mr Fallun today and will take the mater up with him.”