guitar I knew they were getting sentimental. Pretty soon someone would
begin to hum: "When the dew is on the rose, and the world is all
repose." ... Those rangers lived close to danger and hardships every
day, but they had more real sentiment in their makeup than any type of
men I know. Maybe it's because women are so scarce around them that they
hold all womanhood in high regard. Most of them dreamed of a home and
wife and children, but few of them felt they had a right to ask a woman
to share their primitive mode of living. They might not jump up to
retrieve a dropped handkerchief, or stand at attention when a woman
entered a room, but in their hearts they had a deep respect for every
woman that showed herself worthy.
Now and then, a certain son of Scotland, Major Hunter Clarkson, dropped
in. He was a real musician, and while I sewed and the Chief smoked he
treated us to an hour of true melody. He used to play the bagpipes at
home with his four brothers, he said, and he admitted that at times the
racket they made jarred his mother's china from the shelves!
He had served with the British forces in Egypt, and if he could have
known how interested we were in his experiences, he would have given us
more than a bare hint of the scenes that were enacted during the defense
of the Dardanelles and the entrance into Jerusalem.
One night he was telling us something about the habits of the Turks they
fought, when the telephone rang and interrupted the narrative, which was
never finished. The Chief had to go and investigate an attempted
suicide.
It seemed that a lad under twenty, in Cleveland, had seen on a movie
screen a picture of Grand Canyon. He tucked that vision away somewhere
in his distorted brain, and when he had his next quarrel with his mother
he gathered together all his worldly wealth and invested it in a ticket
to Grand Canyon. There he intended to end his troubles, and make his
mother sorry she hadn't sewed on a button the instant he had asked her
to! That was a touching scene he pictured to himself--his heart-broken
mother weeping with remorse because her son had jumped into the Canyon.
But! When he reached the Rim and looked over, it was a long way to the
bottom, and there were sharp rocks there. Perhaps no one would ever find
him, and what's the use of killing one's self if nobody knows about it?
Something desperate had to be done, however, so he shot himself where he
fancied his heart was located (he hit his stomach, which was a pretty
close guess) with a cheap pistol he carried, hurled the gun into the
Canyon, and started walking back to Headquarters. He met Ranger Winess
making a patrol and reported to him that he had committed suicide!
Rangers West and Winess took care of him through the night, with Nurse
Catti's supervision, and the next day the Chief took him to Flagstaff,
where the bullet was removed and he was returned to his mother a sadder
and a wiser boy.
There is some mysterious power about the Canyon that seems to make it
impossible for a person to face the gorge and throw himself into it.
A young man, immensely wealthy, brought his fiancée to the Canyon for a
day's outing. At Williams, where they had lunch, he proposed that she go
on to the Coast with him, but she refused, saying that she thought it
was not the thing to do, since her mother expected her back home that
night. He laughed and scribbled something on a paper which he tucked
carelessly into a pocket of his overcoat. They went on to the Canyon and
joined a party that walked out beyond Powell's Monument. He walked up to
the Rim and stared into the depths, then turned facing his sweetheart.
"Take my picture," he shouted; and while she bent over the kodak, he
uttered a prayer, threw his arms up, and leaped _backward_ into the
Canyon. He had not been able to face it and destroy the life God had
given him. Hours later rangers recovered his body, and in his pocket
found the paper on which he had written: "You wouldn't go with me to Los
Angeles, so it's goodbye!"
Ranger West came in one day and told me that there was a lot of sickness
among the children at an Indian encampment a few miles from
Headquarters. I rode out with him to see what was the matter and found
that whooping-cough was rampant. For some reason, even though it was a
very severe winter, the Supai Indians had come up from their home in
Havasu Canyon, "Land of the Sky-Blue Water," made famous by Cadman, and
were camped among the trees on a hillside. The barefoot women and dirty
children were quite friendly, but the lazy, filthy bucks would have been
insolent had I been alone. They lolled in the "hewas," brush huts daubed
with mud, while the women dragged in wood and the children filled sacks
with snow to melt for drinking purposes. To be sure they didn't waste
any of it in washing themselves.
They would not let me doctor the children, and several of them died; but
we could never find where they were buried. It is a custom of that tribe
to bury its members with the right arm sticking up out of the ground. In
case it is a lordly man that has passed to the Happy Hunting Ground his
pony is shot and propped upright beside the grave with the reins
clutched in the dead master's hand.
I thought I might be able to reach a better understanding with the women
if the men were not present, so I told them to bring all the baskets
they made to my house and I would look at them and buy some of them.
Beautiful baskets were brought by the older squaws, and botched-up
shabby ones by the younger generation. Sometimes a sick child would be
brought by the mother, but there was little I could do for it outside of
giving it nourishing food. An Indian's cure-all is castor oil. He will
drink quarts of that if he can obtain it.
The Supai women are without dignity or appeal, and I never formed the
warm friendships with them that I did with women of other tribes. They
begged for everything in sight. One fat old squaw coveted a yellow
evening gown she saw in my closet; I gave it to her, also a discarded
garden hat with big yellow roses on it. She draped the gown around her
bent shoulders and perched the hat on top of her gray tangled hair and
went away happier than Punch. In a few minutes a whole delegation of
squaws arrived to see what they could salvage.
Wattahomigie, their chief, and Dot, his wife, are far superior to the
rest of the tribe, and when it was necessary to have any dealing with
their people the Chief acted through Wattahomigie. He had often begged
us to visit their Canyon home, and we promised to go when we could. He
came strutting into our house one summer day and invited us to accompany
him home, as the season of peaches and melons was at its height. He had
been so sure we would go that he left orders for members of the tribe to
meet us at Hilltop where the steep trail begins. We listened to him.
[Illustration]
_Chapter IX: THE DOOMED TRIBE_[1]
Wattahomigie reminded us the next morning that we had promised to go
with him, so we rushed around and in an hour were ready to follow his
lead.
It's a long trail, winding through forest and desert, up hill and down,
skirting sheer precipices and creeping through tunnels. And at the end
of the trail one stumbles upon the tiny, hidden village where the last
handful of a once powerful nation has sought refuge. Half-clad,
half-fed, half-wild, one might say, they hide away there in their
poverty, ignorance, and superstition. But oh, the road one must travel
to reach them! I hadn't anticipated Arizona trails when I so blithely
announced to White Mountain, "Whither thou goest, I will go." Neither
had I slept in an Indian village when I added, "And where thou lodgest,
I will lodge."
We loaded our camp equipment into the Ford, tied a canvas bag of water
where it would be air-cooled, strapped a road-building shovel on the
running-board, and were on our way.
The first few miles led through forests of piñon and pine. Gradually
rising, we reached the desert, where only cactus, sagebrush, and yucca
grew. As far as we could see the still, gray desert lay brooding under
the sun's white glare. Surely no living thing could exist in that alkali
waste. But look! An ashen-colored lizard darts across the trail, a sage
rabbit darts behind a yucca bush, and far overhead a tireless buzzard
floats in circles. Is he keeping a death watch on the grizzled old
"Desert Rat" we pass a little later? His face burned and seamed with the
desert's heat and storms, the old prospector cheerfully waved at us, as
he shared his beans and sour dough with a diminutive burro, which bore
his master's pack during the long search through the trackless desert
for the elusive gold. For us it would be suicide to leave the blazed
trail. The chances are that the circling buzzard and hungry coyotes will
be the only mourners present at his funeral.
Now and then we passed a twisted, warped old juniper that was doubtless
digging for a foothold while Christ walked on earth. The Chief said
these old junipers vie with the Sequoias in age. Nothing else broke the
monotony of the heat and sand, until we came to the first water hole.
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.
Big Jim welcomed us gravely, asking the Chief: "Did you bring my
_fermit_?" This permit, a paper granting Big Jim a camping location on
Park grounds, having been duly delivered, Jim invited us to share his
hewa, but after one look at the surroundings we voted unanimously to
camp farther up the stream among the cottonwoods. We chose a level spot
near the ruins of an old hewa.
While supper was being prepared an aged squaw tottered into camp and sat
down. She wailed and beat her breast and finally was persuaded to tell
her troubles. It seemed that she and her husband had lived in this hewa
until his death a year or two before. Then the hewa was thrown open to
the sky and abandoned, as is their custom. She disliked to mention his
name because he might hear it in the spirit world and come back to see
what was being said about him.
"Don't you want him to come back?" I asked idly, thinking to tease her.
Her look of utter terror was answer enough and shamed me for my
thoughtlessness. These Indians have a most exaggerated fear of death.
When one dies he and his personal belongings are taken to a wild spot
and there either cremated or covered with stones. No white man has ever
been permitted to enter this place of the dead. Any hour of the day or
night that a white man approaches, an Indian rises apparently from out
of the earth and silently waves him away. Until a few years ago the best
horse of the dead Indian was strangled and sent into the Happy Hunting
Ground with its owner, but with the passing of the older generation this
custom has been abandoned.
From a powerful and prosperous tribe of thousands this nation has
dwindled down to less than two hundred wretched weaklings. Driven to
this canyon fastness from their former dwelling-place by more warlike
tribes, they have no coherent account of their wanderings or their
ancestors. About all they can tell is that they once lived in cliff
dwellings; that other Indians drove them away; and that then Spaniards
and grasping whites pushed them nearer and nearer the Canyon until they
descended into it, seeking refuge. They are held in low esteem by all
other Indian tribes and never marry outside of their own people.
Ridiculous and unreasonable tales about their savage customs have kept
timid explorers at a safe distance, and thus little has been learned
about them. This last fragment will pass away within a few years and all
trace will be lost. Tuberculosis claims a dozen yearly; the children are
weaklings from diseased parents and the result of intermarriage, so they
fall victims of comparatively harmless ailments. A few years ago an
epidemic of measles swept through the tribe. Poor ignorant creatures,
trying to cool the burning fever they spent hours bathing in the cold
waters of the stream flowing through the village. More than eighty died
in one week from the effects, and others that lived through it are
invalids. This was almost too much for their superstitious minds. They
were for fleeing from that accursed place, but the old men said: "Where
can we go? We have no other place but this. Let us wait here for death."
So they spent hours in dancing and ceremonies to appease the angry gods.
They have no favoring gods, only evil spirits which they must outwit or
bribe with dances. The Peach Dance which we had gone to see was for the
purpose of celebrating good crops of melons, corn, and other products
and to implore the mercy of harmful powers during the winter months.
After the sun was out of sight we followed Wattahomigie to the scene of
the dance. There was no other light than that of the brush fires. A huge
circle of howling, chanting Indians had formed a wide ring in which a
dozen or more bucks and as many squaws were gathered. There seemed to be
no prearranged procedure. When one of the dancers would feel so
inclined, he, or she, would start a wild screeching and leaping about.
This would continue until the singer ran out of breath. Occasionally a
squaw would grow so enthused she would be quite overcome with emotion
and fall to the ground, foaming at the mouth. No notice would be taken
except to grab her by the hair and drag her to the edge of the circle.
The dance lasted until the gray dawn and was the most ghastly and weird
experience I ever went through. All I can compare it to is the nightmare
I used to have after too much mince pie.
Safely back at our camp with a brisk fire crackling under a pot of
coffee, I began to throw off the shivering sensation, and by the time
the coffee pot was empty I was ready for new adventures. Word had gone
forth that I would buy all the baskets the squaws brought to me. I hoped
in this way to get some first-hand information about the feminine side
of affairs. Squaws and baskets and information poured in. Baskets of all
sizes and shapes were brought, some good, some bad, but I bought them
all. If I hesitated a moment over one the owner put the price down to a
few cents. Just a dime or two for a whole week's work. Time has no value
to them, and the creek banks are covered with the best willows in the
world for basket-making. The basket-making art is the only talent these
squaws have, while the bucks excel in tanning buckskin and other skins.
These they trade to the Navajo Indians for silver and blankets. Then
they race their ponies or gamble for the ownership of the coveted
blankets. How they do love to gamble! Horses, blankets, squaws--anything
and everything changes hands under the spell of the magic cards. Even
the squaws and children gamble for beads and bright-colored calico. When
a few pieces of real money are at stake, all is wild excitement. How
the black eyes snap, and how taut is every nerve!