During a lull I took a cautious look around. There they sat, lined up like schoolboys, on the dresser, trying to get at the impudent squirrels in the glass!

Failing in that, they investigated the bottles and boxes. They didn't care much for the smell of camphor, but one poke-nosey fellow put his nose in the powder jar

and puffed; when he backed away, he looked like a merry old Santa Claus, his

whiskers white with powder and his black eyes twinkling.

Once the Chief gave them some Eastern chestnuts and black walnuts. They were

bewildered. They rolled them over and over in their paws and sniffed at them, but made no effort to cut into the meat. We watched to see what they would do,

and they took those funny nuts out under the trees and buried them good and deep. Maybe they thought time would mellow them.

But the worst thing those little devils did to me happened later. I had cooked dinner for some of the powers-that-be from Washington, and for dessert I made

three most wonderful lemon pies. They were dreams! Each one sported fluffy meringue not less than three inches thick (and eggs eighty cents a dozen). They

were cooling on a shelf outside the door. Along comes greedy Mr. Bunty looking

for something to devour.

"You go away. I'm looking for real company and can't be bothered with you!" I told him, and made a threatening motion with the broom.

He went—right into the first pie, and from that to the middle one; of course he

couldn't slight the third and last one, so he wallowed across it. Then the horrid beast climbed a tree in front of my window. He cleaned, and polished, and lapped meringue off his gray squirrel coat, while I wiped tears and thought up a suitable epitaph for him. A dirty Supai squaw enjoyed the pies. She and her assorted babies ate them, smacking and gabbling over them just as if they hadn't been bathed in by a wild animal.

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Chapter V: NAVAJO LAND

Indians! Navajos! How many wide-eyed childhood hours had I spent listening to

stories of these ferocious warriors! And yet, here they were as tame as you please, walking by my door and holding out their native wares to sell.

From the first instant my eyes rested upon a Navajo rug, I was fascinated by the gaudy thing. The more I saw, the more they appealed to the gypsy streak in my

makeup. Each Navajo buck that came to my door peddling his rugs and silver ornaments was led into the house and questioned. Precious little information I was able to abstract at first from my saturnine visitors. As we became better acquainted, and they learned to expect liberal draughts of coffee sweetened into a syrup, sometimes their tongues loosened; but still I couldn't get all the information I craved regarding those marvelous rugs and how they were made.

Finally the Chief decided to spend his vacation by taking me on a trip out into the Painted Desert, the home of this nomadic tribe. We chose the early days of

summer after the spring rains had brought relief to the parched earth and replenished the water holes where we expected to camp each night. Another reason was that a great number of the tribal dances would be in full swing at this time. Old "Smolley," an antique "navvy," had just disposed of a supply of rugs and was wending his way homeward at the same time. Not choosing to travel in

solitude, he firmly fastened himself to our caravan. I would have preferred his absence, for he was a vile, smelly old creature with bleary eyes and coarse uncombed gray hair tied into a club and with a red band around his head. His clothes were mostly a pair of cast-off overalls, which had not been discarded by the original owner until he was in danger of arrest for indecent exposure.

Incessant wear night and day by Smolley had not improved their looks. But Smolley knew that I never could see him hungry while we ate; consequently he

stuck closer than a brother. Our hospitality was well repaid later, for he took care that we saw the things we wanted to see in Navajo Land.

The first day we rode through magnificent groves of stately yellow pines which

extended from Grand Canyon out past Grand View and the picturesque old stage

tavern there which is the property of Mr. W. R. Hearst. Quite a distance beyond

there we stopped for lunch on a little knoll covered with prehistoric ruins. I asked Smolley what had become of the people who had built the homes lying at

our feet. He grunted a few times and said that they were driven out on a big rock by their enemies and then the god caused the rock to fly away with them somewhere else. Interesting, if true. I decided that my guess was as good as his, so let the subject drop. It must have been a long time ago, for there were juniper trees growing from the middle of these ruins that the Chief said were almost three thousand years old. (He had sawed one down not much larger than these,

polished the trunk and counted the annual rings with a magnifying-glass, and found it to be well over that age.) Among the rocks and débris, we found fragments of pottery painted not unlike the present Zuñi ware, and other pieces

of the typical basket pottery showing the marks of woven vessels inside of which they had been plastered thousands of years ago. I fell to dreaming of those vanished people, the hands that had shaped this clay long since turned to dust themselves. What had their owner thought of, hoped, or planned while

fashioning this bowl, fragments of which I turned over in my palms aeons later?

But the lunch-stop ended, and we moved on.

That night we camped at Desert View and with the first streak of dawn we

prepared to leave the beaten path and follow a trail few tourists attempt. When we reached the Little Colorado, we followed Smolley implicitly as we forded the

stream. "Chollo," our pack mule, became temperamental halfway across and bucked the rest of the way. I held my breath, expecting to see our cargo fly to the four winds; but the Chief had not packed notional mules for years in vain. A few pans rattled, and later I discovered that my hair brush was well smeared with jam. No other damage was done.

All day long we rode through the blazing sun. I kept my eyes shut as much as possible, for the sun was so glaring that it sent sharp pains through my head. In front the Chief rode placidly on. Outside of turning him into a beautiful brick red, the sun seemingly did not affect him. Smolley was dozing. But I was in agony with thirst and heat and weariness. My horse, a gift from the Chief which

I had not been wise enough to try out on a short journey before undertaking such a trip, was as stiff as a wooden horse. I told the Chief I knew Mescal was knock-kneed and stiff-legged.

"Oh, no," was the casual reply, "he's a little stiff in the shoulders from his fall."

"What fall?"

"Why, I loaned him to one of the rangers last week and he took him down the Hermit Trail and Mescal fell overboard."

"Is he subject to vertigo?" I wanted to know. I had heard we should have steep trails to travel on this trip.

"No; the ranger loaded him with two water kegs, and when Mescal got excited on a steep switchback the ranger lost his head and drove him over the edge. He

fell twenty feet and was knocked senseless. It took two hours to get him out again."

"Some ranger," was my heated comment; "who was it?"

"No matter," said the Chief. "He isn't a ranger any more." The Chief said Mescal did not suffer any from the stiffness, but I'll admit that I suffered both mentally and physically. Anyway I had that to worry about and it took my mind off the intolerable heat.

Almost before we knew it a storm gathered and broke directly over our heads.

There was no shelter, so we just kept riding. I had visions of pneumonia and sore throat and maybe rheumatism. In fact I began to feel twinges of rheumatics, but

the Chief scoffed. He said I should have had a twelve-inch saddle instead of a fourteen and if I wasn't so dead set on a McClellan instead of a Western Stock I would be more comfortable. He draped a mackinaw around me and left me to my fate. I wasn't scared by the storm, but Mescal was positively unnerved. He trembled and cringed at every crash. I had always enjoyed electrical storms, but I never experienced one quite so personal before. Cartwheels and skyrockets exploded under my very nose and blue flame wrapped all around us. The Chief