wool of their sheep. They owned large herds of horses, beautiful
ponies, a crossed breed of mustangs and Mormon stock, which latter
they had stolen in their raids on the Mormon settlements in Utah. As
saddle horses, these ponies are unexcelled for endurance under rough
service.

Mentally the Navajo is very wide awake and capable of shrewd
practices, as shown by the following incident, which happened to my
personal knowledge.

A tall, gaudily appareled Indian, mounting a beautiful pony, came to
town and offered for sale at our store several gold nuggets the size
of hazelnuts. He took care to do this publicly, so as to attract the
attention of some Mexicans, who became immensely excited at the sight
of the gold and began to question him at once in order to ascertain
how and whence he had obtained the golden nuggets. They almost fought
for the privilege of taking him as an honored guest to their
respective homes. The Indian was very non-committal as regarded his
gold mine, but very willing to accept the sumptuous hospitality so
freely rendered him. He was soon passed on from one disappointed
Mexican to another, who in turn fared no better and invariably sped
the parting guest to the door of his nearest neighbor. When the
Indian had made the circuit of the town in this manner he looked very
sleek and happy, indeed, but the people were no wiser. The knowledge
of having been shamefully buncoed by an Indian and disappointed in
their lust for gold made the Mexicans desperate. They held an
indignation meeting and resolved to capture the wily Navajo and
compel him, under torture, if necessary, to divulge the secret of his
gold mine. Consequently, they overcame the Indian, and when they
threatened him with torture and death, he yielded and said that he