WESTWARD HOBOES
[Illustration: THE SILVER BRACELET, WALPI. _Frontispiece_]
WESTWARD HOBOES
UPS AND DOWNS
OF FRONTIER MOTORING
BY
WINIFRED HAWKRIDGE DIXON
PHOTOGRAPHS BY
KATHERINE THAXTER AND ROLLIN LESTER DIXON
NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
1921
COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
Published October, 1921
Reprinted twice in December, 1921
PRINTED AT
THE SCRIBNER PRESS
NEW YORK, U. S. A.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. WESTWARD HO! 1
II. FROM NEW YORK TO ANTOINE’S 7
III. A LONG WAYS FROM HOME 15
IV. CHIVALRY VS. GUMBO 25
V. NIBBLING AT THE MAP OF TEXAS 35
VI. “DOWN BY THE RIO GRANDE” 47
VII. SANDSTORMS, BANDITS AND DEAD SOLDIERS 60
VIII. TUCSON 74
IX. TWENTY PER CENT GRADES, FORTY PER CENT
VANILLA 82
X. THE APACHE TRAIL AND TONTO VALLEY 98
XI. FRIDAY THE THIRTEENTH 121
XII. WHY ISLETA’S CHURCH HAS A WOODEN FLOOR 148
XIII. SANTE FÉ AND THE VALLEY OF THE RIO
GRANDE 160
XIV. SAYING GOOD-BY TO BILL 190
XV. LAGUNA AND ACOMA 204
XVI. THE GRAND CANYON AND THE HAVASUPAI
CANYON 220
XVII. FROM WILLIAMS TO FORT APACHE 234
XVIII. THE LAND OF THE HOPIS 244
XIX. THE FOUR CORNERS 258
XX. RAINBOW BRIDGE 270
XXI. THE CANYON DE CHELLEY 296
XXII. NORTH OF GALLUP 308
XXIII. ON NATIONAL PARKS AND GUIDES 326
XXIV. THE NAIL-FILE AND THE CHIPPEWA 346
XXV. HOMEWARD HOBOES 358
ILLUSTRATIONS
The silver bracelet, Walpi _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
Our first camp, Texas 52
San Xavier Del Bac, Tucson, and the Rapago Indian village 76
Doorway of San Xavier Del Bac, Tucson 78
Great rocks seem to float on the stream, mysteriously
lighted, like Böcklin’s isle of the dead 116
Natural bridge, Pine, Arizona 118
The church at Isleta 152
Her bread was baked, delicious and crusty, in the round outdoor
ovens her grandmothers used as far back as B. C.
or so 154
Against a shady wall, all but too lazy to light the inevitable
cigarette, slouches, wherever one turns, a Mexican 164
A Mexican morado, New Mexico 166
The museum of Santa Fé 166
Santa Domingo woman 176
Taos woman 176
Koshari: rain dance: San Yldefonso 176
Rain dance, San Yldefonso 178
Cave dwellings in the pumice walls of Canyon de Los Frijoles,
Santa Fé 182
Artist’s studio in Taos, New Mexico 188
Coronado was the first white man to visit this ancient pueblo
at Taos, New Mexico 188
The car sagged drunkenly on one side 200
Fording a river near Santa Fé 200
On the way to Gallup 200
Pueblo women grinding corn in metate bins 206
Pueblo woman wrapping deer-skin leggins 206
Acoma, New Mexico 212
Burros laden with fire-wood, Santa Fé, New Mexico 212
At the foot of the trail, Acoma 214
The enchanted mesa, Acoma, New Mexico 214
A street in Acoma, New Mexico 218
The Acoma Mission, New Mexico 218
In the Grand Canyon of the Colorado 222
A Navajo maid on a painted pony 222
The land of the sky-blue water, Havasupai Canyon, Arizona 224
Horseman in Havasupai Canyon, Arizona 226
Panorama of Havasupai Canyon, Arizona 228
Mooney’s Fall, Havasupai Canyon, Arizona 232
A trout stream in the White Mountains, Arizona 240
The village of Walpi 250
Oldest house in Walpi 250
Young eaglet captured for use in the Hopi snake-dance
ceremonies 254
Second mesa, Hopi Reservation 256
A Hotavilla Sybil 256
Navajo Mountain from the mouth of Segi Canyon 278
Rainbow Bridge Trail near Navajo Mountain 282
Crossing Bald Rock, on Rainbow Bridge Trail 284
Rainbow Bridge, Utah 286
Monument country, Rainbow Trail 294
Rainbow Bridge Trail 294
Entrance to the Canyon de Chelley 298
Quicksand; Canyon de Chelley 300
Near the entrance of Canyon de Chelley, Arizona 302
Cliff-dwellings, Canyon de Chelley, Arizona 304
Casa Blanca, Canyon de Chelley, Arizona 306
Navajo sheep-dipping at Shiprock 312
Cliff-dwellings, Mesa Verde Park, Colorado 316
Shoshones at sun dance, Fort Hall, Idaho 322
A Shoshone tepee, Fort Hall, Idaho 324
Camping near Yellowstone Park 328
Grand Canyon, Yellowstone Park 330
Glacier Park, Montana 332
Blackfeet Indians at Glacier Park, Montana 336
Two Medicine Lake, Glacier Park, Montana 344
Wrangling horses, Glacier Park, Montana 344
A Mormon irrigated village 354
The “Million Dollar” Mormon Temple at Cardston, Alberta,
Canada 354
WESTWARD HOBOES
CHAPTER I
“WESTWARD HO!”
Toby’s real name is Katharine. Her grandmother was a poet, her father
is a scientist, and she is an artist. She is called Toby for Uncle
Jonas’ dog, who had the habit, on being kicked out of the door, of
running down the steps with a cheerful bark and a wagging tail, as
if he had left entirely of his own accord. There is no fact, however
circumstantially incriminating, which this young doctrinaire cannot
turn into the most potent justification for what she has done or wishes
to do, and when she gets to the tail wagging stage, regardless of how
recently the bang of the front door has echoed in our ears, she wags
with the charm of the artist, the logical precision of the scientist,
and the ardor of the poet. Even when she ran the car into the creek at
Nambe----
At the outset we did not plan to make the journey by automobile. Our
destination was uncertain. We planned to drift, to sketch and write
when the spirit moved. But drifting by railroad in the West implies
time-tables, crowded trains, boudoir-capped matrons, crying babies
and the smell of bananas, long waits and anxiety over reservations.
Traveling by auto seemed luxurious in comparison and would save
railroad fares, annoyance and time. We pictured ourselves bowling
smoothly along in the open air, in contrast with the stifling train; we
previsioned no delays, no breakdowns, no dangers; we saw New Mexico and
Arizona a motorist’s Heaven, paved with asphalt and running streams of
gasoline. An optimist is always like that, and two are twenty times so.
I was half-owner of a Cadillac Eight, with a rakish hood and a matronly
tonneau; its front was intimidating, its rear reassuring. The owner of
the other half was safely in France. At the time, which half belonged
to which had not been discussed. It is now a burning question. I
figure that the springs, the dust-pan, the paint, mud-guards and tires
constituted her share, with a few bushings and nuts thrown in for good
measure, but having acquired a mercenary disposition in France, she
differs from me.
What I knew of the bowels of a car had been gained, not from systematic
research, but bitter experience with mutinous parts, in ten years’
progress through two, four, six and finally eight-cylinder motors of
widely varying temperaments. I had taken no course in mechanics, and
had, and still have, a way of confusing the differential with the
transmission. But I love to tinker! In the old two-cylinder days, when
the carburetor flooded I would weigh it down with a few pebbles and a
hairpin, and when the feed became too scanty, I would take the hairpin
out and leave the pebbles in. I had a smattering knowledge of all the
deviltry defective batteries, leaky radiators, frozen steering-wheels,
cranky generators, wrongly-hung springs, stripped gears and slipping
clutches can perpetrate, but those parts which commonly behaved
themselves I left severely alone. Toby could not drive, but a few
lessons made her an apt pupil. She paid her money to the Commonwealth
of Massachusetts for a license, and one sparkling evening in early
February we started for Springfield. We were to cover thirteen thousand
miles before we saw Boston again,--eleven thousand by motor and the
rest by steamship and horseback.
As I threw in the clutch, we heard a woman’s voice calling after us. It
was Toby’s mother, and what she said was, “Don’t drive at night!”
* * * * *
In New York we made the acquaintance of a map--which later was to
become thumbed, torn and soiled. A delightful map it was, furnished
by the A.A.A., with an index specially prepared for us of every
Indian reservation, natural marvel, scenic and historical spot along
the ridgepole of the Rockies, from Mexico, to Canada. Who could
read the intriguing list of names,--Needles, Flagstaff, Moab, Skull
Valley, Keams Canyon, Fort Apache, Tombstone, Rodeo, Kalispell,
Lost Cabin, Hatchita, Rosebud, Roundup, Buckeye, Ten Sleep, Bowie
and Bluff, Winnemucca,--and stop at home in Boston? We were bent on
discovering whether they lived up to their names, whether Skull Valley
was a scattered outpost of the desert with mysterious night-riders,
stampeding steer, gold-seekers, cattle thieves and painted ladies, or
had achieved virtue in a Rexall drugstore, a Harvey lunch-room, a jazz
parlor, a Chamber of Commerce, an Elks’ Hall, and a three story granite
postoffice donated by a grateful administration? Which glory is now
Skull Valley’s we do not yet know, but depend on it, it is either one
or the other. The old movie life of the frontier is not obsolete, only
obsolescent, provided one knows where to look. But the day after it
vanishes a thriving city has arrived at adolescence and “Frank’s” and
“Bill’s” have placed a liveried black at their doors, and provided the
ladies’ parlor upstairs with three kinds of rouge.
It was love at first sight--our map and us. Pima and Maricopa Indians,
Zuni and Laguna pueblos, the Rainbow Bridge and Havasupai Canyon
beckoned to us and hinted their mysteries; our itinerary widened until
it included vaguely everything there was to see. We made only one
reservation--we would _not_ visit California. California was the West,
dehorned; it possessed climate, boulevards and conveniences; but it
also possessed sand fleas and native sons. It was a little thing which
caused us to make this decision, but epochal. At the San Francisco
Exposition, I had seen a long procession of Native Sons, dressed in
their native gold--a procession thousands strong. Knowing what one
native son can do when he begins on his favorite topic of conversation,
we dared not trust ourselves to an army of them, an army militant.
What we planned to do was harder and less usual. We would follow the
old trails, immigrant trails, cattle trails, traders’ routes,--mountain
roads which a long procession of cliff dwellers, Spanish friars,
gold seekers, Apache marauders, prospectors, Mormons and scouts had
trod in five centuries, and left as they found them, mere footprints
in the dust. The Southwest has been explored afoot and on horse, by
prairie schooners, burro, and locomotive; the modern pioneer rattles
his weather beaten flivver on business between Gallup and Santa Fe,
Tucson and El Paso, and thinks nothing of it, but the country is still
new to the motoring tourist. Because a car must have the attributes
of a hurdler and a tightrope walker, be amphibious and fool-proof,
have a beagle’s nose for half-obliterated tracks, thrill to the tug of
sand and mud, and own a constitution strong enough to withstand all
experiments of provincial garage-men, few merciful car owners will put
it through the supreme agony. Had not the roads looked so smooth on the
map we wouldn’t have tried them ourselves.
And then, in New York, we met another optimist, and two and one make
three. It was not until long afterward, when we met the roads he
described as passable, that we discovered he was an optimist. He had
motored through every section of the West, and paid us the compliment
of believing we could do the same. When he presented us with our
elaborate and beautiful itinerary he asked no questions about our skill
and courage. He told us to buy an axe and a shovel, and carry a rope. A
tent he advised as well, and such babes in the woods were we, the idea
had not occurred to us.
“And carry a pistol?” asked Toby, eagerly.
“Never! You will be as safe--or safer than you are in New York City.”
Toby was disappointed, but I heard him with relief. By nature gun-shy,
I have seen too many war-dramas not to know that a pistol never shoots
the person originally aimed at. The procedure never varies. A pulls a
gun, points it at B. B, unflinching, engages A in light conversation.
Diverted, A absent-mindedly puts down the gun, which B picks up,
shooting to kill. I realized that as B my chances were better than as
A, for while I would surely fall under the spell of a western outlaw’s
quaint humor and racy diction and thus hand over the weapon into his
keeping, the chances were that he might be equally undermined by our
Boston r’s, and the appeal to his rough Western chivalry which we
intended to make. Toby held out for an ammonia pistol. We did debate
this for a while, but in the excitement of buying our tent we forgot
the pistol entirely.
Our Optimist directed us to a nearby sports’-goods shop, recommending
us to the care of a certain “Reggi,” who, he guaranteed, would not
try to sell us the entire store. Confidently we sought the place,--a
paradise where elk-skin boots, fleecy mufflers, sleeping bags, leather
coats, pink hunting habits and folding stoves lure the very pocketbooks
out of one’s hands. We asked for Mr. Reggi, who did not look as Italian
as his name. He proved a sympathetic guide, steering us to the camping
department. He restrained himself from selling the most expensive
outfits he had. At the price of a fascinating morning and fifty-odd
dollars, we parted from him, owners of a silk tent, mosquito and snake
proof, which folded into an infinitesimal canvas bag, a tin lantern,
which folded flat, a tin biscuit baker which collapsed into nothing, a
nest of cooking and eating utensils, which folded and fitted into one
two-gallon pail, a can opener, a hunting knife, doomed to be our most
cherished treasure, a flashlight, six giant safety-pins, and a folding
stove. The charm of an article which collapses and becomes something
else than it seems I cannot analyze nor resist. Others feel it too; I
know a man who once stopped a South American revolution by stepping
into the Plaza and opening and shutting his opera hat.
Only one incident marred our satisfaction with the morning’s work; we
discovered, on saying farewell to Reggi, that we had been calling him
by his first name!