Part 10 (2/2)
”How many of your tribe know of this secret preparation?”
”Only two. Myself and my squaw. Should I die my squaw tell the secret to my son. When my squaw die he teach _his_ squaw.”
Probably because this dance is staged at the time of year the rains are due in Arizona, it is seldom that twenty-four hours elapse after the dance before a downpour arrives. Hopi Snake Priests are good weather prophets!
[Ill.u.s.tration]
_Chapter XI: THE TERRIBLE BADGER FIGHT_
When winter ends, spring comes with a rush at the Canyon, and flowers pop up over night. They follow the melting snow until the hills are covered with flaming paintbrushes and tender blue lupine. Greasewood and manzanita put out fragrant, waxy blossoms, and wild pinks and Mariposa lilies hedge the trails.
Encouraged by the glorious display of wild flowers, I planned, with more enthusiasm than judgment, to have a real flower garden beside our new house.
I built a low rock wall around the s.p.a.ce I had selected, and piled it full of rich black loam as fine as any green-house could afford. Father had sent seeds from the old garden at home, and various friends had contributed from their gardens in the East. These seeds had been planted in boxes which I kept near the stove until frost was gone. They were full of promising plants. Hollyhocks, larkspur, pansies, and foxglove were ready to transplant, when a terrible catastrophe occurred--a little neighbor girl called on me, and, finding me gone, was right peeved. She entertained herself by uprooting my posies. With a complete thoroughness she mixed plants and dirt together, stirring water into the mixture with my trowel. If her grown-up cake-making is done as conscientiously as was that job, she'll be a wonderful pastry cook! I discovered the mischief while it was still fresh, and out of the wreckage salvaged a few brave seedlings. They pouted awhile before they took heart, and root, but finally perked up again. Time healed their wounds and if an ambitious squirrel hadn't been looking for a place to hide a nut I might still have taken prizes in the state fair. As it was, only a very few st.u.r.dy plants lived to grace the garden. They flourished, and I had begun to look in their direction without crossing my fingers when a hungry cow and her yearling boy appeared on the scene.
”Help yourself, son!” Ma cow said, suiting her actions to the advice given.
Midsummer found a lonely cactus and a horned toad blooming in my garden.
The weather got hotter and more hot, and my bird bath was duly appreciated by the feathered population. They gathered there in flocks, and the news went far and wide that water was to be had at the Chief's house. All the birds that had been fed during the winter brought their aunts, uncles, and cousins seventy times seven removed, until all I had to do was lie in my hammock and identify them from a book with colored plates.
White Mountain's special pet was a tiny chickadee. This fragile little speck of birddom fluttered into the house one stormy day, and the Chief warmed it in his hands and fed it warm milk and crumbs. From that day on it belonged, brave soul and wee body, to him. As the days grew warmer it spent its time somewhere in the forest, but at mealtime when the Chief came home all he had to do was step outside the door and whistle. Out of the sky a diminutive atom would hurl itself downward to light on his outstretched palm. While we ate it would perch on White Mountain's shoulder and twitter and make soft little noises in its throat, now and then coming across to me but soon returning to its idol. There was something so touching in the confidence of the helpless bird, it brought a tight feeling into one's throat.
At the height of the drought a national railroad strike was called, and for a few weeks things looked serious for us poor mortals stranded a hundred miles from our water supply. Life took a backward leap and we lived as our forefathers did before us. No water meant no light except oil lamps, and when the oil supply failed we went to bed at dark.
Flashlights were carefully preserved for emergencies. We learned that tomato juice will keep life in the body even if it won't quench thirst.
There was one well four miles away, and rangers were stationed there to see that nothing untoward happened to that supply. The water was drawn with a bucket, and it was some job to water all the park animals.
Visitors were at that time barred from the Park, but one sage-brusher managed to get in past the sentry. He camped at Headquarters and sent his ten-year-old boy walking to Rowe Well to fill a pail with water and carry it back. Just before dark that night the Chief and I coming in from Hilltop met the little fellow, courageously struggling along eight miles from Headquarters and getting farther away every step. His bucket was leaky, and little of the precious water remained. We took him back to the well again, filled his bucket, and delivered him to his father.
The lad pulled a dime from his pocket and extended it toward the Chief.
”You keep it, son,” said White Mountain.
”Better take it, Mister. You hauled me quite a ways.”
The Chief leaned toward him confidentially. ”You see it's like this. I work for the Government and Uncle Sam doesn't like for us to take tips.”
And so the matter rested. The boy had discharged his obligation like a gentleman. He didn't know he had offered the Chief Ranger a dime for saving his life.
A few stray I. W. W.'s (”I Won't Works,” the rangers called them) came in to see that n.o.body did anything for the Santa Fe. Of course the rangers were put on for guard duty around the railroad station and power house, day and night, and the fact that they protected the railroad's property at odd hours did not relieve them from their own regular duties the rest of the time. For weeks they did the work of three times their actual number, and did it cheerfully. It finally became necessary to import Indians from the Navajo Reservation to help with the labor around the car yard and the boiler yard. These could hardly be described as having a mechanical turn of mind, but they were fairly willing workers, and with careful supervision they managed to keep steam up and the wheels turning. The shop foreman, however, was threatened with apoplexy a dozen times a day during their term of service.
When it seemed that we just couldn't endure any more, some boss somewhere pulled a string and train service was resumed. This brought in a ma.s.s of tourists, and the rangers were on the alert again to keep them out of messes.
One day as the Chief and I were looking at some picturegraphs near the head of Bright Angel Trail we saw a simple old couple wandering childlike down the trail.
”You mustn't go far down the trail,” advised White Mountain. ”It's very hot today, and you would not be able to make the return trip. It's lots harder coming back, you know.”
<script>