for ten minutes up a dry wash filled with bowlders and dry brush. I
stepped high and wide, fully expecting to be struck by a rattlesnake any
minute. I knew if I said anything the Chief would laugh at me, so I
stayed behind him and looked after my own safety. We reached a little
mesa at the head of the coulee and found Indians of all shapes and sizes
assembled there. Two or three huge campfires were crackling, and a pot
of mutton stewed over one of them. Several young braves were playing
cards, watched by a bevy of giggling native belles. The lads never
raised their eyes to the girls, but they were quite conscious of
feminine observation.

Three men, grievously ill indeed, and probably made worse by the long
ride to the scene of the dance, were lying in a hogan built of
cottonwood branches. Outside, standing closely packed together, were the
Navajo bucks and the medicine men. When an Indian is sick he goes to the
doctor instead of sending for the doctor to visit him. And then
invitations are sent out all over the Reservation for the singers to
come and assist in the cure. The Navajos had responded loyally on this
occasion and were grouped according to location. One group would sing
the weird minor wail for half an hour and then another bunch would break
in for a few minutes, only to have still a third delegation snatch the
song away from them. So closely did they keep time and so smoothly did
one bunch take up where another left off that we, standing less than
twenty feet away, could not tell which group was singing except when the
Tuba City crowd took up the plaint. Their number was so small that they
couldn't get out much noise. The Indians had discarded their civilized
garb for the occasion and were clad mostly in atmosphere helped out with
a gee-string of calico. Some had streaks of white and black paint on
them. I fell to dreaming of what it would have meant to be captured by
such demons only a few years ago, and it wasn't long until I lost