bounced up on the step and into the kitchen. I shoved him off the cabinet, and he jumped on top of the stove. That wasn't hot enough to burn him but enough to
make him good and mad, so he scrambled to my shoulder, ran down my arm,
and sank his teeth in my hand. Then he ran up to the top of the shelves and sat there chattering and scolding until the Chief came home and gave him the bum's
rush. This same fellow bit the Chief, too; but I always felt he had it coming to him. White Mountain had a glass jar of piñon nuts, and he would hold them while the squirrels came and packed their jaws full. They looked too comical with their faces puffed up like little boys with mumps. When "Bunty" came for his share, the Chief placed his hand tightly over the top, just to tease him. He wanted to see what would happen. He found out. Bunty ran his paws over the slick surface of the jar two or three times, but couldn't find any way to reach the tempting nuts. He stopped and thought about the situation a while, then it seemed to dawn on him that he was the victim of a practical joke. All at once he jumped on the Chief's hand, buried his teeth in his thumb, then hopped to a lumber pile and waited for developments. He got the nuts, jar and all, right at his head. He side-stepped the assault and gloated over his store of piñons the rest of the afternoon.
It had been an off year for piñons, so boxes were put up in sheltered nooks around the park and the rangers always put food into them while making patrols.
I carried my pockets full of peanuts while riding the trails, and miles from Headquarters the squirrels learned to watch for me. I learned to look out for them also, after one had dropped from an overhanging bough to the flank of a sensitive horse I was riding. The Fred Harvey boys purchased a hundred pounds
of peanuts for the little fellows, and the animals also learned to beg from tourists.
All a squirrel had to do in order to keep well stuffed was to sit up in the middle of the road and look cunning.
One day a severe cold kept me in bed. Three or four of the little rascals found an entrance and came pell-mell into the house. One located a cookie and the others
chased him into my room with it. For half an hour they fought and raced back and fourth over my bed while I kept safely hidden under the covers, head and all.
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,
