Now it is not good for the Christian’s health
to hustle the Aryan brown,
For the Christian riles, and the Aryan smiles,
and he weareth the Christian down.
—Kipling
If you seek information on an Indian Reservation concerning things
outside the line of routine, never ask the Agent in charge. He will
have the important papers locked away from prying eyes, and will likely
comment that it is none of your business. Why invite this rebuff? Go to
the mess-cook, the farrier, or the seamstress. They will have had all
the essential details from some other post, from a mess-cook, a
farrier, or a seamstress, who will have zealously garnered it from some
leaky official, or mayhap from the telegraph operator. Who told Sitting
Bull that Custer had divided his command? By long odds, it was a camp
cook.
And when the school disciplinarian asked me one morning, as he was
checking his watch with my chronometer, “When do you expect the
troops?” I knew that an unusual order had issued. He was correct in his
assumption, for the laundress had been notified. Now I do not presume
to assert that the Secretary of the Interior had notified the
laundress—but she knew. Perhaps some other laundress had found the
order in the Colonel’s wash. Anyway, the column arrived just when she
predicted.
It made a striking picture filing down the long Cañon hill-road, black
riders against the sky and yellow sand, the field flag and troop
pennant fluttering; and there was about it a certain campaign note that
caused as much consternation throughout the back country as if war had
been declared, with Kit Carson back in the saddle.
Those of the wavering Hopi who lived apart from Youkeoma but leaned
toward his policies when they dared, and who had been awaiting
developments, began to rush their belated children to the schools. The
smiling “friendlies” industriously continued minding their home
affairs. And the Navajo, after one excited survey from the opposite
mesa-wall, completely disappeared from the landscape. Not a Navajo was
to be seen about the Agency for a very long period. Their old chiefs,
such as Hostin Nez and Billa Chezzi, could recall the captivity at the
Bosque Redondo, and the younger men had heard them tell of it. This was
no time for argument with the Nahtahni, and while they had lost nothing
in the back country, still it invited a peaceful hegira far from the
tents and bugles of that column.
The whole affair was against all tradition. Three former Agents had
argued and threatened and waited in vain, and the third had lingered
helplessly at his post until revolt blazed out to singe his beard. Now
this new Nahtahni had said very little; in fact, he had seemed
depressed and a trifle bewildered. But here came the soldiers, a very
different sort of Se-lough from those three uniformed natives he was
thought to depend on. The effect was immediate and lasting. And more
than one official, having actual knowledge of conditions among the
isolated Navajo, has agreed with me that such a column should file
through that country every little while. There would be in both Indians
and white men more of respect for the orders of the Government, and
fewer murders in lonely places.
And then I found the famous Colonel Scott seated at one end of my desk.
I apologized for being so ignorant, having received no Departmental
orders, and supposed that he would be thoroughly informed. Aside from
the request that he coöperate with the Agent in this little frontier
squabble, it appeared that his mission was a survey, and action would
await further instructions. Quarters were arranged for the officers and
a camping-place for the men, and then the Colonel and I sat down to a
discussion of conditions among the Indians of the reserve. Having read
of his career among the warriors of the Plains, I felt that the less I
said to this experienced soldier and tribal expert the better would be
my chances for making no mistakes. I hoped to create an impression of
wisdom by keeping my mouth shut.
But Colonel Scott would have none of that. He had then and has to this
day a most disconcerting method of propounding a question, and then
boring one completely through and through with a pair of gimlet-like
blue-gray eyes that pierce as if made of steel. He could see that I was
very green and young at the business of being an Indian Agent, but he
would not permit me to retreat before his age and superior rank.
“I propose first to go among these Indians, and learn something of
their reasons for this refusal to obey the wishes of the Department,”
he said.