THE PAINTED DESERT

Julie had spoken to Mrs. Vernon about writing to Ranger Sanderson and the Captain wisely advised: “No harm in writing, Jule, as long as you stick to general topics of interest. Eliminate personalities and any form of endearing terms.”

Julie had laughed as she answered: “No fear of any swain being able to produce a letter from me in which I have called him anything more intimate than the ‘dear sir.’ I’m not wasting any emotions on them, because I need to conserve my soul-power in accomplishing my main ambition in life. When I am a successful writer, Verny, then I may dabble in human emotions in order to be better able to transfer them to paper.”

This was the first time Julie had actually spoken of her choice of a profession in life, and Mrs. Vernon smiled as she patted her on the head. But she was not aware that Julie was sensitive over her choice of writing and feared the ridicule or amused smiles of her friends, in case of failure, or partial success.

Consequently, Julie wrote friendly letters to the Ranger, but used discretion in her manner of addressing him, as well as in her signature. Before leaving St. Michael’s, therefore, Julie left a long letter addressed to Sanderson, in which she told of the visit in Gallup and the subsequent trip and visit to the Mission.

The cavalcade of scouts left their hosts filled with gratitude for the donation of a check to advance the splendid work in the Mission.

Tally had secured three fine pack-horses, and a Navajo guide as well, for the Desert trip, and now all rode forward with eager spirits.

“It doesn’t seem a bit like the Desert as I pictured it,” remarked Hester, glancing at the park-like vista of yellow pine and patches of wild flowers through which the trail ran.

“If you consider how high we are up on these mesas, you’ll not wonder at the springs we feel inside us—springs that make us want to jump up and down in very lightness,” said Joan, comically.

“Talking of springs—I notice there aren’t many to be seen along the trail,” remarked Mr. Vernon.

“And the lack of water accounts for the absence of birds and beasts, the guide just told me,” added the Captain.

“I’m glad we followed Lorenzo’s advice and filled our thermos bottles, as well as the water-bags, before we left the Mission,” said Mr. Gilroy.

That noon they all were glad for that water. After many miles had been reeled off by the horses’ hoofs on the trail, the Navajo guide, whose name was Lorenzo shortened to Lo, led the way down from the high mesa. Down, down, they rode, until, finally, the trail came to an arroyo bed, where, a short distance ahead, the scouts saw a typical village.

“This call Ganado trading-post. We mek good camp there for night,” said Lo, riding up to the adobe settlement.

“What a picturesque hamlet,” said Mr. Gilroy, gazing at the graceful natives—the women in their gay blankets, the children in Mother Nature’s garb.

“A hamlet without Hamlet,” giggled Joan.

“Hamlet without the ham, you mean,” retorted Julie, laughing. “I see only goats and sheep.”

It now became apparent why their Navajo guide had chosen the name of Lorenzo in place of a Navajo name—it was because of the esteem in which the Indian held the “Great White Man,” Lorenzo Hubbell, the well-known settler who has made history for Arizona during his life on the edge of the Desert. Rightly this man has been called “King of Northern Arizona,” but, unlike many monarchs, this one is beloved and reverenced by his people, the Navajos.

That night, the second in Navajo Land, the scout party was entertained by native dances and songs by the Indians in Ganado, and then they retired to the hospitable Mission House owned by the “King.”

Early the next morning the tourists set out, carrying a pair of water-kegs slung across the back of one of the pack-horses. The air was as “heady” as champagne, though the scouts were not acquainted with the effect of that wine, taking Mr. Gilroy’s word for it that it was a stimulant that immediately induced the drinker to feel full of life and free of care, but later would leave traces of wormwood in his soul. Not so this atmosphere of the mesa.

“No wormwood as an aftermath here,” said Mr. Vernon.

As the trail dropped down from Ganado, the scouts rode past hogans where the sheep were corraled in the most primitive manner. Navajo children were seen driving their flocks of sheep to the water and back again.

After riding for a time, Lo pointed out to his party a rim of distant peaks which looked a lilac and green with snow at the tips—“Them San Francisco Mountains,” said he.

The scouts traveled over the miles and miles of gray sea of sage-brush, the delicate perfume of the sage-blossoms greeting their nostrils in a haunting scent. After riding for hours across the mesa, the wonders ever increasing, the tourists came to a forest of cedars. Still going on through these woods that appeared to stretch out and onward forever, the trail continued to descend without the riders realizing the fact. Finally Lo reined in his horse at a spring which was guarded by a wall of stone; upon the face of the stone were stern rules and laws cut in by “first tourists” regarding the value of water in the desert.

“This water-pool ha’f-way to Keam’s,” said Lo, as Tally and he started the dinner.

“Where will you camp to-night, Lo?” asked Mrs. Vernon.

“Mek camp here, Captain; plenty water, good shelter for hoss; early mornin’ we go on trail to Keam’s CaÑon. Not to-day. Hard ride all day, better good rest for scout and beast.”

After dinner the scouts started to explore this wonderful spot, but that night the scouts found to their surprise that they were muscle sore.

“This is funny, Captain, because we never felt stiff or sore when we first started on the trail at Raton,” remarked Julie.

“And the three green Tenderfeet—they never seemed to mind the riding at all; but now look at them limping around like ‘Mrs. Jarley’s Wax Works,’” commented Joan.

“I know why!” said Hester. “Lo said it was the aftermath of living at such altitudes in New Mexico, and now coming to lower levels once more.”

The scouts slept out on the open desert that night, the soft purplish-blue sky seeming to come down to blanket them, and the stars apparently near enough to be reached and their light switched off, as one does to the electric lights in a Pullman berth.

But shortly after midnight the air became so cold that Tally and Lo got up to build a fire, around which the shivering scouts could crowd, and finally go to sleep again.

After an early breakfast, where the hot coffee proved to be the most acceptable item on the menu, the scout-party resumed the ride across the Desert.

They were about ten miles along the trail when Lo reined in his horse and consulted with Tally in a low tone. The two dashed their horses up to the crest of a rock and gazed anxiously across the waste to the lavender-tinted horizon.

“Shure’s shootin’ he’em comin’,” said Tally to his companion.

The scouts had halted their horses to see and hear why the guides had acted so strangely.

“Lo say one big sand-storm blow up. We get ready queek for he’em. Scouts get goggles and caps out of bags, ’en we ride far as we can get to rocks ahead,” said Tally, as soon as he came within hearing.

“Oh, goodness me! I hope this isn’t going to be another experience like that one on the Bad Lands in the Colorado Rockies!” cried Anne, who claimed that she never did get over the effects of all the alkali dust she inhaled that day.

“It may be necessary for us, Anne,” replied Julie, hoping to encourage the girls. “We’ve not eaten our usual peck of sand this year, you know. Now we have to have it all in one swallow.”

Meanwhile every one was busy getting ready to battle with the simoon, or sand-storm, as the Indians call it.

Finally it began to be felt. The wind, which had been increasing in its velocity ever since the guides returned from the lookout crest, now blew the dust-like grains of sand across the desert and soon obliterated all trails and other land-marks. But the horses battled on, urged by their riders to reach the upthrust of mesa which was now but half a mile ahead.

Before the scouts could more than hope to reach the scanty protection of this irregular formation of rock and yellow pumice, the storm was blowing in all its fury. Several times the horses, first one, then another, lost footing and slithered half-over in the drifting sand.

Joan’s horse heretofore had been considered one of the best mounts in the group, but in the test of endurance it failed to measure up to the Indian ponies bought at the Mission, or with the raw-boned animals the other scouts were riding.

Every scout was now fighting a single-handed battle with the hurricane, fighting the stinging, blinding sand while trying to guide the horse after the Indians who led the way. The great billows of dust were caught up in clouds and were kept driving over the waste-lands in such volume as to create a panic in any heart.

Then came the unexpected. From somewhere near by—possibly the whirling gale brought it from the very same rocky haven they were seeking—something as large as an orange struck Joan’s horse on the side of the face. The half-crazed animal failed to respond to his driver, and, in one leap, was away from the rest of the riders.

Down a hilly declivity dug out by the gale went the mad horse, sliding upon its haunches with Joan almost standing upright in the stirrups. Then up a sand-dune, staggering and pulling on the reins till his rider was dizzy with the swaying. Finally the beast reached a gravel-pit whence the covering of sand had just been swept up and the next blanket of sand had not yet been deposited. Momentum sent him sliding down into this yawning pit.

Instantly Joan saw she must force the breathless animal up out of this hollow or they both would be buried alive. Her breath came like blasts from an exhaust pipe, her eyes flamed as with a thousand fiery sparks, the blood pounded in her head with triphammer regularity, still the scout could think, and think she did!

With a mighty effort she pulled on the tightly gathered reins and fairly lifted her horse up the bank of the hollow. His hoofs slipped in the shifting sand, but at last he stumbled up to the edge. Here, for a sickening moment, he tottered uncertainly in the blast of the simoon. Joan leaned far over his neck and commanded. He obeyed. In another minute he was galloping at the end of the line of horses which was now turning to the left to the mass of rock.

No one had missed Joan, as the heavy sheets of wind-driven sand had been so persistent that each rider was fully occupied with his or her horse. Not until after the storm had blown over were the scouts aware of Joan’s narrow escape.

Resuming the trail, and gazing again at the wonderful colorings of land and sky, the scout-party rode on until they hailed the Navajo children, with their goats and sheep, taking them to drink, and then entered Ream’s CaÑon, where they rested the weary horses and spent the night in the hospitable shelter provided by the white trader.

The following morning the scouts visited the monument commemorating Kit Carson, the famous pioneer in the west; they attended the school where several hundred Navajo and Moki Indian children are taught, and they secured the necessary permits to continue the trail across the Painted Desert. Obtaining the permit was not difficult, because every one in Ream’s CaÑon knew Lorenzo and he vouched for his party.

After a visit of a day and the second night with the friendly citizens, the scout-party rode on to the last lap of the trip over the Desert. As they rode they discussed the wonderful rugs they had seen in the making, and the still more wonderful specimens of baskets woven by the Old Navajos. They spoke of the beautiful filigree silver work these Indian craftsmen make, and they admired without stint the odd pottery which is molded, ornamented, and baked by the Indians.

Although a description of the beauties and the ever-changing colors of the Painted Desert might give a faint idea of what it is like, the scouts felt that it would be a hard task to try to present to others what they themselves had seen.

“Julie, how are you going to write it up for the Record?” asked Betty, as they jogged along the trail and heard the girls exclaim at this or that beauty.

“I shall not even try, Betty. It beggars all description.”

Mr. Gilroy had just come alongside in time to hear Julie’s reply, and he laughed.

“Julie, ever read Cobb’s book on traveling de luxe to the Grand CaÑon?” asked he.

“No, Gilly; I’ve never even heard of it,” said she.

“You reminded me of it just now, when you told Betty it beggars description. Cobb’s answer to that was, ‘Well, then, I shall not try it.’ In your case, you’d better follow the suit of such a clever writer and thus remain affluent in descriptions.”

Julie laughed heartily, but declared she would risk descriptive poverty rather than be deprived of the joy of telling the folks back home all about the adventure.

During the last few days of that trip the scouts passed the great towering rocks of gypsum and yellow tufa on the tops of which the Moki Indians build their villages.

“Why under the sun do they select the top of the crags for their homes?” queried Hester.

“Some say, to enable them to fight off any raiders. Only a Moki can skip up and down those bald sides of rock as they do, and cart all supplies up there as well,” said Mr. Gilroy.

Lo asked if the scouts wished to visit the towns. Julie had already taken pictures of the naked children running up or down the steep pathways, and the Captain rode over to the spring where a Moki woman was filling a heavy water-urn before placing it upon her head to carry it up to her home, but Mr. Gilroy decided they would move on, and perhaps visit the last of the three villages.

“You say you go through Petrify Fores’ after you through Painted Desert?” asked Lo.

“Yes, we plan to ride there next, and thence on to the Grand CaÑon of the Colorado. Could you remain with us as far as Flagstaff?” said Mr. Gilroy.

“I like it, but I no go so far from my own country,” replied Lo, smiling wisely.

His words, more than anything Lo had said or done since he accepted the position as guide across the Desert, impressed the scouts with the fact that for Lo there was but one world, and one country of that world—and that was Navajo Land!

It was, therefore, with regret that the scouts, also Tally, said good-by to Lo and watched him ride back on his lonely trail to St. Michael’s Mission. But Lo would not consider himself lonely; he would have the music of the desert wind, the company of stars at night, and the close companionship of the Great Spirit to go with him on the home trail.

So eager were the scouts to reach the Grand CaÑon now that they were daily coming nearer to it, that many beauties and unusual sights on the trail to Adamana were merely given divided attention by the girls. But once they had reached Adamana, named after the man who had brought the public interest to these unique forests, the scouts quite forgot the Grand CaÑon for the time being.

As the trip along the Painted Desert had been long and continued, Tally said the horses must have a day’s rest.

“Great Scott, Tally! We bought the pack-horses for use, not for resting. And the rented horses have rested more than they have worked. I’ll bet a new hat your friend who owns them would have worked them much more than we have this past month.”

“I onny say so ’cause Boss like good hoss to ride to Grand CaÑon,” argued Tally.

“If that means we lounge around Adamana and lose a whole day while the animals are recuperating, then we’ll ride them to the Petrified Forest, and after we come back we’ll take the train to Williams instead of riding through the San Francisco Mountains as we had planned.”

Tally said nothing more, but saw to it that the horses were well fed and bedded for the night. The scouts were only too thankful to rest upon real beds once more, and not one of them objected when the Captain proposed that they retire early in order to be up at sunrise and get a good start for the day.