It was dry now, for the summer rains were long overdue, and bogged firmly in

the red adobe mud was a gaunt long-horned cow. The Chief was too tender-hearted to shoot her and drive on, as he knew he should. Instead he stopped the

car and got out to see if he could possibly "extract" her. Failing to frighten her into pulling herself out, he goaded her into a frenzy by throwing sharp stinging rocks at her. One landed on her tender flank and she tossed her horns and struggled. The Chief stooped, with his back to her, for another rock, just as she pulled out.

"Look out. She's coming for you!" I yelled.

Straight at her rescuer she charged with an angry rumble. Round and round a stunted piñon they raced, hot and angry. I was too helpless with mirth to be of

any aid, and the Chief's gun was in the car. Still, an angry range cow on the prod is no joke, and it began to look serious. At last the impromptu marathon ended

by the Chief making an extra sprint and rolling into the Ford just as her sharp horns raked him fore and aft.

"Well!" he exploded, and glared at me while I wiped the tears out of my eyes.

"Shall we drive on?" I inquired meekly. We drove on.

A few miles along the way a piteous bawling reached us. Since even Arizona cattle must drink sometimes, a cow had hidden her baby while she went to a distant water hole. Three coyotes had nosed him out and were preparing to fill up on unwilling veal. He bobbed about on his unsteady little legs and protested

earnestly. The sneaking beasts scattered at our approach, and we drove on thinking the calf would be all right. Looking back, however, we saw that the coyotes had returned and pulled him down. This time the Chief's forty-five ended the career of one, and the other two shifted into high, getting out of range without delay. The trembling calf was loaded into the machine and we dropped

him when the main herd was reached. Here he would be safe from attack, but I

have often wondered if the mother found her baby again. At the next water hole a lean lynx circled warily around with his eye fixed hungrily on some wild ducks swimming too far from shore for him to reach. It seemed that the sinister desert mothered cruel breeds.

We had reached the "Indian Pasture" now, where the Indians kept their ponies. A score of Supai bucks were digging a shallow ditch. Upon being questioned they

said the ditch was a mile long and would carry water to the big dam in their pasture when the rains fell. They were finishing the ditch just in time, for the first of the season's storms was closing down upon us. There was an ominous stillness, then the black cloud was rent with tongues of flame. And the rains descended—more than descended. They beat and dashed and poured until it seemed that the very floodgates of heaven had opened over our unfortunate heads. It was impossible to stay in the glue-and-gumbo road, so we took to the

open prairie. Since this part of the country is well ventilated with prairie-dog holes, we had anything but smooth sailing.

"Stop," I shouted, trying to make myself heard above the roar of the storm.

"No time to stop now," was the answer.

We pulled under a sheltering juniper and slowed up.

"What did you want to stop there for? Don't you know we have to keep on moving if we reach a shelter tonight?" inquired the pilot of our ship. He had evidently been brooding over my unseemly mirth at the mad cow episode.

"Oh, all right," I agreed, "but the bedding-roll bounced out and I thought you might want to pick it up." The fugitive bedding recovered, we resumed our journey.

The storm ended as suddenly as everything else happens in that topsy-turvy land

and in the eastern sky hung a double quivering rainbow. I rubbed my eyes and

looked again. It was double! The Chief explained that this was due to a mirage, but I placed it to the credit of altitude, like all other Arizona wonders.

At Hilltop we found Indian guides with trail ponies to take us the rest of the way.

They had been waiting two days for us, they said. Strolling to the Canyon's brink I encountered a fearful odor. "What in the world is that?" I asked Wattahomigie (which by the way means "Good Watchful Indian"). "Him pony," was the stolid reply. "But—?" "Buck and fall over trail," explained my Indian brave. I fled to

the Chief for comfort and change of air. He investigated and found that when Wattahomigie had brought the ponies up from the village one had become unruly

and pitched over the Rim, landing squarely across the trail a hundred feet below.

It was the only trail, but it never occurred to the Noble Red Man to remove the

dead horse. No indeed! If it proved impossible to get around the obstacle, why,

stay off the trail until Providence cleared the way. In other words let Nature take its course. The Chief procured a few pounds of TNT from the Government warehouse located there, and with the aid of that soon cleared the trail.

"That good way to clear trail," approved Wattahomigie. "No pull, no dig, no nothin'." I hoped no TNT would be left roaming at large for promiscuous experiments by Wattahomigie while we were natives of his village.

We camped there at Hilltop that night, and after a supper of fried sage-rabbit, corn cakes, and coffee, I rolled into the blankets and fell asleep without worrying about the morrow. Something awakened me. I certainly had heard something.

Inch by inch I silently lifted myself from the blankets and peered into the shadows. Standing there like a graven image was a beautiful doe with twin fawns playing around her. Curiosity had conquered caution and she was

investigating our camp. Just then a coyote's wild cry sounded from the distance.

She lifted her sensitive nose and sniffed the air, then wheeled and glided into the deep shadows. Other coyote voices swelled the chorus. Hundreds it seemed were

howling and shrieking like mad, when I dropped to sleep to dream I was listening to grand opera at the Metropolitan.

Morning dawned clear and crisp. "Will it rain today?" I asked an Indian. "No rain; three sleeps, then rain," he told me; and this proved correct.

Wattahomigie had provided a long-legged race horse for me to ride. "Will he carry her all right?" the Chief asked him. Wattahomigie looked me over carefully and one could almost see him comparing me mentally with a vision of his fat squaw, Dottie. His white teeth flashed a smile: "Sure, my squaw him all time ride that pony." That settled the matter. "Him squaw" weighs a good two hundred pounds and is so enveloped in voluminous skirts that the poor horse must feel completely submerged.

This trail does not gradually grow steeper—it starts that way. I had been told that all other trails we had traveled were boulevards compared to this one, and it was well that I had been warned beforehand. My place was near the center of the caravan, and I was divided between the fear that I should slide down on top of

the unwary Indian riding ahead and the one that the Chief's horse directly behind would bump me off the trail. It was a cheerful situation. The Canyon walls closed in upon us, and the trail grew worse, if that could be possible. The firm rock gave way to shale that slipped and slid under the feet of the horses. It was so narrow that one slip of a hoof would send the horse crashing on the rocks hundreds of feet beneath. Still this is the only path it has been possible to make down to the Indian retreat. It was carved out by a past generation when they crept down into the valley far below to make their last futile stand.

We rounded a point and came out near a sparkling pool of clear, inviting water

fed by a stream bursting out of what appeared to be solid rock. I knelt to drink, but was jerked to my feet sharply by a watchful Indian. The water is unfit to drink on account of the arsenic it contains. I noticed that none of the hot, tired horses even dipped their dusty noses into the pool. Safely away from this unhealthy spot we came into Rattlesnake Canyon, so named for obvious reasons,

where the riding was much easier. Twelve miles onward and two thousand feet

farther down found us among bubbling springs and magnificent cotton woods.

This is where the Thousand Springs come into the sunlight after their rushing journey through many miles of underground caverns. New springs broke out from the roots of the trees and along the banks of the stream until it was a rushing little river.

We were evidently expected, for when we reached the village the natives all turned out to see and be seen: brown children as innocent of clothing as when they first saw the light; fat, greasy squaws with babies on their backs; old men and women—all stared and gibbered at us.

"Big Jim" and "Captain Burros" headed what seemed to be the committee of welcome. Big Jim was clad in a full-dress suit and silk hat donated to him by Albert, King of the Belgians, and with that monarch's medal of honor pinned to

his front, Jim was, speaking conservatively, a startling vision. Captain Burros wore the white shirt of ceremony which he dons only for special occasions, with

none of the whiteness dimmed by being tucked into his trousers.