He went--right into the first pie, and from that to the middle one; of
course he couldn't slight the third and last one, so he wallowed across
it. Then the horrid beast climbed a tree in front of my window. He
cleaned, and polished, and lapped meringue off his gray squirrel coat,
while I wiped tears and thought up a suitable epitaph for him. A dirty
Supai squaw enjoyed the pies. She and her assorted babies ate them,
smacking and gabbling over them just as if they hadn't been bathed in by
a wild animal.




[Illustration].

_Chapter V: NAVAJO LAND_


Indians! Navajos! How many wide-eyed childhood hours had I spent
listening to stories of these ferocious warriors! And yet, here they
were as tame as you please, walking by my door and holding out their
native wares to sell.

From the first instant my eyes rested upon a Navajo rug, I was
fascinated by the gaudy thing. The more I saw, the more they appealed to
the gypsy streak in my makeup. Each Navajo buck that came to my door
peddling his rugs and silver ornaments was led into the house and
questioned. Precious little information I was able to abstract at first
from my saturnine visitors. As we became better acquainted, and they
learned to expect liberal draughts of coffee sweetened into a syrup,
sometimes their tongues loosened; but still I couldn't get all the