Among employees of the Desert Indian Service, the Marylander is a rarity. Back in Maryland the Indian Service is unknown, all readers of the Sun-paper believing that Indians were originally designed by Buffalo Bill.

So when a lad seated himself on my porch one night, and announced: “Why, Ah’m from Maheland too; yes, indeed!” it rather struck me where I ought to have lived. I was eating at the mess then.

He was out with an irrigation crew, surveying levels, and in a few months had become obsessed by all things Southwest Indian. He wore moccasins and a bracelet studded with turquoise, and he could chant like a cold Navajo on his way home from a Yabachai.

“Ah’m goin’ to get me a gourd-drum, an’ go in for ‘singing,’ ” he told me, when we had become better acquainted, and he demonstrated the eerie half-croon-half-yodel of the Medicine Man. “Say, Nultsose! have yo’ heard them?—Medicine ‘sings’?” [66]

This was my first intimation that a title attached to my position.

“Nultsose—”

He explained it as Navajo for paper or writing, hence; one who writes on or issues papers pertaining to the mysteries of white men’s wholly unnecessary accounting. Nearly all clerks wear spectacles, as I did, and one would think that the Indian, naming his own so often because of infirmities, would have seized on this defect for a name. But not so; the check, order, issue-script, permit, or warrant, the paper, the “nultsose,” is the important thing to him. It means money in hard dollars, authority perhaps, demand for goods, leave to go on a journey with recommendation or safe-conduct; or, if fortune has waned, summons to the Chief.

“And if yo’ go to a ‘sing,’ Nultsose, remember to take change, an’ don’t give the squaws more’n two bits at a time. Yo’ll have to dance with ’em, yeh know, an’ instead of thankin’ ’em, yo’ pay ’em. Hand out a dollar, an’ Good-night—they keep the change. Now old Beck-a-shay Thlani is inviting to one sometime soon. It’ll be a reg’lar hoe-down, an’ we’ll go.”

The doctor was present, and he grinned uncomfortably. The Nahtahni, stretched in his hammock, rubbed his wig and grunted.

“Ah! yo’-all come too,” urged Roberts; “It’ll be fun. They all know me, and I’ll do the interpreting. Every old shemah with a dotter has her eye cast my way, anyhow. They pick out the handsome boys for the weddings at ‘sings.’ I’ll have to get me a Piute wedding-basket, though, next pay-day. There’s a trader over at Red Lake who’s got my order for it.”

The doctor cautioned me later not to be too hasty in [67]this matter, and I perceived that he had reason for timidity.

“They’ll get you,” he declared. “They never fail to land a fellow; and then he has to prance like a fool before five thousand Indians. That’s all right for Roberts, ’cause he’ll wind up a squaw man; but I’m advising you.”

And one twilight, when we were again arranged on deck after supper, a half-dozen little Navajo boys from the school sidled up to the Chief, daring and timid by turns, their eyes snapping with the fire of hope. They hung around until he asked:—

“Ah-tish-ah?”

“Dence!” they exclaimed, breathlessly.

“Noki yisconga, epten,” the Nahtahni severely decided. “Doe-yah-shaunta! She-no-be-hosen. E-yah-tay.”

The Old Man was proud of his linguistic ability, and this was the complete extent of his Navajo on any topic. The last sentence but one he had made up, somehow, all by himself. It bore no semblance to anything any Navajo had ever enunciated; but he knew what it meant. A free—a very free—translation would run something like this: “Two days from now, nothing doing. Don’t you dare to do it. It’s bad for you. I know nothing about it. Yes; all right!”

The last was all the kids wanted. The scrub crackled as they disappeared into and through it, going as frightened rabbits.

Roberts spoke next.

“That’s old Beck-a-shay Thlani’s ‘sing.’ Say, boss, the Doc and young Nultsose here are both pinin’ for to shake a toe in that soiree. Let us have a team, will yeh?”

The Nahtahni grunted.

“You know the horses have worked hard to-day—” [68]

“Yes; let us have a team,” said his stepdaughter, who afterward married the doctor; and that settled it, and also bound the medico to the adventures of the evening. There are a few things no different in the Desert. The Navajo woman of the hogan, the Hopi dowager of the household on the height, the Pueblo wife of the lower vineyards, all settle these questions in much the same manner. Man proposes and begins to make a noise with words, and immediately thereafter attends strictly to the holding of his peace. Roberts knew this, and without further parley disappeared in the direction of the barn. Shortly came a farm wagon, drawn by two solid animals, and a dozen of us piled into it, the doctor noticeably lagging.

“Don’t forget your change, Nultsose,” called Roberts.

It was no great distance to the river, and soon we were splashing through shallow waters. Mounting the high farther bank, the wagon began tossing and rolling over an old desert road. Then the dark laid down its thick blanket, and the stars burned through overhead. From the next rise we noticed a faint glow, away off, and this grew larger as we blundered along. Now a whiff of pungent smoke came on the thin desert wind. Now the deep shadows began to dissolve into a golden gloom, and now gleamed the white-hot flare of burning cottonwood. Then a furious challenge from the dogs, and we saw the camp. As feudal lords were once accompanied by retainers and shock-headed varlets, so the nomadic lord of the Desert is followed by a multitude of canines. It seemed that a thousand of them started up to greet us, a fearsome, throaty bedlam.

Wagons loomed up, their canvas tops lending a touch of the pioneer days; and in the spaces between the poles were the little cooking-fires, around which women and [69]children huddled amid pots and pans, saddles and boxes and water-kegs and tangled harness—all the clutter of a desert camp. Beyond the huge central fire was a hogan, that queer house the Navajo builds of logs and plasters with adobe, domed like a beehive, and from its roof wreathed a thin column of smoke. There rested the sick man for whom all this preparation had been made, the cost of which would likely break old Beck-a-shay Thlani, or at least seriously strain his credit at the trading-posts.

Coarse Navajo rugs were spread close to the fire and, with grave salutations from the older men and smiles from mothers who convoyed a bevy of Navajo girls, we were invited to be seated in the place of honor. This would have impressed any blank-record Easterner, going about making notes, as rude but wholesome hospitality, and it was; but the courtesy also enabled the Navajo to indulge himself—and particularly herself—in a bit of fun. The doctor slipped away into the shadows; and I noticed that the young men of the Navajo, scores of them, sat their ponies, a long line of horsemen behind us. They eased in their saddles, reins hanging, their faces having the grave solemnity that marks a shy and diffident people.

That is, shy of strangers, before whom they draw on the mask of gravity, mistaken since the days of Fenimore Cooper for stoicism. But no one was shy of Roberts; and especially had he friends among the ladies. Every old shemah greeted him with a smile and exclamations of pleased surprise. He held the confidence of these people; and well he might, considering the pains he had been to in acquiring a working vocabulary of their language, which is probably as difficult to master as Chinese. And I felt somewhat reassured in having him for sponsor. We lolled [70]comfortably on the rugs, and the fire burned our faces and lighted everything as at a play.

“The doc’ has vamoosed,” he said, grinning; “but that won’t do him any good. They’ll run him down in the scrub, and bring him in hog-tied. I’ve told a dozen old women that he is stingy with his dancing. Self-defense—otherwise you an’ me’d have to do it all.”

“Explain this dancing act,” I requested.

“Don’t worry,” Robert replied. “The squaws will attend to everything for yeh. Just yield gracefully—an’ pay ’em. Don’t forget that.”

Now from the hogan came a band of solemn-featured men, led by an old gentleman of the tribe who bore a strong resemblance to Rameses III, straight out of glass case No. 12, as you go down the east corridor, save that he was slightly animated. He bore a staff, to which a little gourd-drum was tied. The group formed a wedge behind him. Silently they swayed together, shoulders touching, for several seconds. Then the old one tapped the drum and intoned a howl, and with one accord they were off, like a flock of coon dogs on a cold night. In time with the curious rhythm they continued swaying, and occasionally did a hop-step without moving forward. The fire beat upon them and, as they warmed to the chanting, heads thrown back, mouths agape, and vocal chords never missing a note, the sweat beaded on their foreheads.

“This,” said Roberts to me, in solemn appreciation, “this is some singing—I never heard better.” And I agreed with him. It laid over anything I had ever heard, including a Mott Street theatre choir.

It is impossible to describe the nuances of the Navajo chants. At the farthest northern trading-post there lives a lady who can translate the Rain Song, the Prayer before [71]Day, and other of their invocations; and I know a white man who had a “medicine sing” held over him to comfort his Navajo wife; but until you meet up with Roberts, properly chaperoned nowadays in the great Jedito Wash, I pass giving any idea of that weird combination of sounds. A long sustained note at times, now a crooning melody, now a sad, half-wild cry, filled with minor effects that would be the delight and the despair of any jazz artist, it is indeed a song of the Desert.

And the most astounding thing of all was the endurance of that aged vocalist, the old Medicine Man. The pitch of his drum simply encouraged him in new effects. There was an energy, a sustaining confidence in his efforts that must have had a rare effect on the ailing one within the hogan. And for two mortal hours the others of the singing band followed his lead without once rivaling him. When one hesitated, as might be seen but not heard, the clamor of the pack smothered all defects; and the faltering one would cough, spit straight upward into the air, uncaring, and get a fresh start. But the old man was never headed; not once did he waver, hesitate, or fail in the key. He had begun with that first flat sounding of the drum, and he continued faithfully unto the end. He was an artist. I admired him. And when Roberts told me that the old charlatan would receive at least twenty sheep and five head of cows for his fee, I began to understand his unflagging spirit. He had a reputation to sustain.

The Regulations of the Interior Department, issued to Nahtahnis, state that all such interesting old comedians should be in jail for this offense against medical ethics. But, mark you! the Interior Department does not encourage Nahtahni to put him in jail. There are too many of him. The Navajo number between thirty and forty thousand [72]souls on the six Navajo reserves, and about every seventh man is a doctor of tribal medicine. While a lucrative calling, it is not always a desirable one for the neophyte, since failure to exorcise successfully the evil spirits enmeshed in the patient has been followed more than once by swift demise, and the blundering physician did not heal himself later, nor did he hear the singing.

Once to me came an Inspector from the Department, and he said:—

“Now you have been having trouble with these Indians, and I am surprised that you have dismissed all your Navajo policemen as unworthy. You must have a police force to keep the Navajo in line. We will call a council and select a new outfit to sustain you in this important work.”

Which we did. There were flour and meat, coffee and sugar, together with the all-necessary beck-a-shay nahto, cattle tobacco provided for distribution, and the people came. As usual, the men were diffident and modest, and no one offered himself for appointment as an officer of the realm. The nominations were made by head-men, and discussion followed as to individual merits, influence, bravery, and all those virtues that are supposed to animate the warrior. The Inspector was finally satisfied with the selections.

An old-timer sat on the platform with us, acting as interpreter. Ed had skinned mules across the Zuni Mountains in 1889, and he could take an old single-action forty-five and keep a tin can moving as if it were alive. He could roll a saddle-blanket cigarette with one hand, sing a puncher song, and play the guitar. He was one of the post-traders, and perhaps the best Navajo interpreter alive. He knew the Navajo Indian, having had the advantage [73]of a living dictionary in his early days. But Ed knew when to keep his mouth shut, and aside from faithfully interpreting from English into Navajo and from Navajo into English he said nothing at the time. But later:—

“It wasn’t for me, a mere uneducated Indian trader, to give my advice to a wise guy from the East who was pointing the trails out to a Nahtahni; but … every damned one of them new police has ‘medicine turquoise’ in his ears.”

It was true. Every one of them should have been in jail!

The Navajo are lithe and lean, for the most part, and their dress is picturesque. One could see all sorts of costume at this “sing.” There was the old fellow with trousers compiled of flour sacks, the brand having been arranged as a bit of decoration, and where “OUR BEST” would show to most advantage; and there was that one satisfied with a pair of cast-off overalls. But the majority were in rich-toned velveteen shirts, open at the neck, and with sleeves vented under the armpits; and desert trousers, loose and flapping garments, Spanish-style, split below the knee, made of highly colored and figured calico. One fellow’s legs were a riot of gaudy parrots. The twisted silk handkerchiefs worn about the head came from the Spanish too, no doubt. Their hair was drawn back from the forehead and corded in a long knot, a Mongol touch. Their moccasins were of red-stained buckskin, half-shoe, half-leggin, warm and noiseless. The young men wore gay shirts and neckerchiefs, store-bought, and their ponies showed more of decoration than themselves. Each had a good saddle, most necessary to a desert Romeo, and the headdresses of the ponies were heavy with silver bands and rosettes.

Now a middle-aged dandy would strut about, proud [74]of a crimson shirt, and the firelight would paint him as a figure from old opera. He would shine whitely of silver—a huge necklace, with turquoise pendants and many strands of shell and coral; bracelets, and the khado that is still worn, though the wrist no longer needs protection from the bowstring; silver rings and silver buttons, all studded with turquoise chips. Not less than five hundred dollars in metal and workmanship would adorn these old beaux, and an Indian valuation would be enormous.

Silver and turquoise are the jeweled wealth of the Navajo, the white metal contrasting with their sunburnt skins and the stone holding the color of their matchless skies.

The women wore velveteen bodices and curiously full skirts. They too were weighted with silver ornaments, one having the more of beads and bandeaux being the favorite wife or daughter. Some of the smaller girls moved about accompanied by the tinkling of little bells strung to their moccasins and belts.

All this in the brilliant flare of the cottonwood fire, above which fanned a mist of sparks like another Milky Way; and there was the incense of the smoking logs; and the star-pinned dome overhead; and all around the dark maw of the great lonely Desert.

Suddenly came a halt in these “singing” proceedings. The choir withdrew somewhere, and the centre of the stage was taken by another old man, who led a little girl. Other and older girls began to hurry around the circle, darting here, darting there, as if running something down. At first the little one seemed a trifle confused and stood in wide-eyed hesitation; but with a bit of urging from the elder master of the ceremonies, she made for Roberts. He would lead this german. Grinning, he permitted her [75]to pull him into the ring, his partner maintaining a solemnity that was comical.

“Get ready for the next set,” he called to me over his shoulder.

The social features were on, and the girls were hunting partners. Did the young men of the ponies vie with each other? They did not. They sat their steeds as if cut from granite. For it would seem that a young man would likely lose half his finery, certainly all his change, if captured, and might find himself later up against a breach-of-promise suit. On foot, he was at a disadvantage; mounted, it was the more difficult to drag him down. I cannot say that I noticed any chivalry among those young Navajo fellows.

But Roberts—there was a fine accommodating chap for you. One partner was not enough for him; he now had two of the tiny ones.

The dance seemed simple enough. It consisted in one’s acting as a pivot, around which the little squaw, or several of them, turned backward with rapid scuffling steps. Her one hand tightly gripped the man’s belt, the other held as tightly her blanket. Her expression was as sober as a Chinaman’s. But she accomplished the purpose of the business. After a few moments of that turning, the subject would be too dizzy to argue out of a donation. It kept up until Roberts was weaving; but when they stopped he protested that he was a poverty-stricken wretch—and promptly, without cracking a smile, they began again. He must shell out at least a quarter to each, which he did finally, and they scuttled back to their chaperons, who banked the money. And here he came unsteadily to the blanket we shared, while I suspected several of the old women casting menacing glances in my direction. There [76]sounded a scurry in the outer darkness, and a crashing of the greasewood.

“The doc’ has beat it,” said Roberts, dropping down. I raised to look around; and just then, from behind, I felt a very muscular hand grasping my belt. There was nothing to do but yield in the best humor possible. A wild shout from the Indians, men and women, even from the ungallant horsemen grouped in the rear, and I was thrust and pulled forward. They had appointed two of the small girls to me, and their hold on my belt was like grim death.

And now the shuffle began.

I endeavored to spin without entangling my feet, but there was something wrong with my action. I was no such success as friend Roberts had been. Now the master of ceremonies came forward, his wrinkled face having the benevolence of a grandfather, and with expressive gestures he explained his sorrow because of my inefficiency. He would give me a lesson. We used words that neither understood, and made signs at each other until wholesale laughter retired the teacher. But I was not retired. I was still in the ring.

The gold-and-orange flares of the fires dazzled one’s eyes, and then one began to turn faster; the circle of bright figures in the full light lost outline, and then the wagons and horses and hogan and Roberts on his blanket blurred into and formed one jumbled merry-go-round of which I was the centre. A little more of this, and I cried “Enough!” and very nearly staggered into the fire. Solemnly my partners waited for and clutched at their two-bit pieces, and I weaved back to the blanket.

The doctor was not captured that night. Perhaps he managed to hide until we harnessed the team and started for home; perhaps he walked into the Agency, as several [77]accused. But this was a “running dance,” meaning a moving one. A second installment of it was held the next night at a point ten miles down the river. The doctor was compelled to go, and there they ran him down and forced his performance. His effort was not half bad, and I wondered if mine had been as funny.

Affairs of this sort taught me that the desert Navajo are a good-natured and interesting people, in many ways like our own country folk at quilting-bees and huskings. They have their renegades and black sheep, with which the white race is as fully endowed; and my ugly experiences of later days could not be charged to the tribe.

When a Navajo is ailing, they manage to combine exorcism of the evil spirits with the amusing dance, and whether or not old Beck-a-shay Thlani was improved physically, the girls had a good time. It often helps them to find a husband; and in this case, how were they to know that Roberts would desert them for an Albuquerque girl, or that in a few months I would be interested only in solemnizing the marriages of older sisters and the herding of the remainder into schools?

But I have often wondered, when on those trails leading down into Beck-a-shay Thlani’s district, and coming suddenly on a shy Navajo maiden chivvying a band of sheep, if she were one I danced with that night on the Little Colorado River, when I was simply “Nultsose,” and the worries and responsibilities of Nahtahni had not been clamped to my shoulders. [78]