I Married a Ranger

to stories of these ferocious warriors! And yet, here they were as tame a

ddling 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 le

," an antique "navvy," had just disposed of a supply of rugs and was wending his way homeward at the same time. Not choosing to travel in solitude, he firmly fastened himself to our caravan. I would have preferred his absence, for he was a vile, smelly old creature with bleary eyes and coarse uncombed gray hair tied into a club and with a red band around his head. His clothes were mostly a pair of cast-of

caused the rock to fly away with them somewhere else. Interesting, if true. I decided that my guess was as good as his, so let the subject drop. It must have been a long time ago, for there were juniper trees growing from the middle of these ruins that the Chief said were almost three thousand years old. (He had sawed one down not much larger than these, polished the trunk and counted the annual rings with a magnifying-glass, and found it to be well over that age.) Among the rocks and débris, we found

wed Smolley implicitly as we forded the stream. "Chollo," our pack mule, became temperamental halfway across and bucked the rest of the way. I held my breath, expecting to see our cargo fly to

Outside of turning him into a beautiful brick red, the sun seemingly did not affect him. Smolley was dozing. But I was in agony with thirst and heat and weariness. My horse, a gift from the Chi

ly, "he's a little stiff in

t fa

rs last week and he took him down the

to know. I had heard we should have

a steep switchback the ranger lost his head and drove him over the edge. He fel

s my heated comme

ot suffer any from the stiffness, but I'll admit that I suffered both mentally and phy

dead set on a McClellan instead of a Western Stock I would be more comfortable. He draped a mackinaw around me and left me to my fate. I wasn't scared by the storm, but Mescal was positively unnerved. He trembled and cringed at every crash. I had always enjoyed electrical storms, but I never experienced one quite so personal before. Cartwheel

away the air was as cool and pure and sweet as in a New England orchard in May. On a bush by the trail a tiny wren appeared and burst into song like a vivacious firecracker. Rock

of the warm, brackish water and lay back on the saddles to rest. The Chief came into camp and put a can of water o

k while you were gone,

get it? The can

of course"; I was impatien

look at the oasis. Sure enough, horns and a hoof protruded from one end of the mudhole. I sank back weakly and wondered why I had ever thought I wanted to visit the Navajos. I hoped my loved ones back in the Virginias would not know how I died. It sounded t

the dull glow of the Chief's cigarette, but the air was so quiet that not the faintest odor of tobacco drifted to me. While we lolled there, half waking, half dreaming, Old Smolley stepped noiselessly int

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 cra

g 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 atm

The orchestra was vocal, the bucks again furnishing the music. After circling around the spectators a few times the squaw decided on the man she wanted and with one hand took a firm grasp of his shirt just above the belt. Then she galloped backward around him while he was dragged

or partners. These, mostly cowboys and trading-post managers, were wary, and only one was caught napping. I

, and so, firmly bidding good night to Smolley, we went back to ca

ng down his ample gullet. It was fatal, for while I was spellbound the last one disappeared and I had to make myself some more or go without breakfast. When Smolley had stilled the first fierce pangs of starvation he pulled a pair of moccasins out of the front of his dirty shirt and tossed them to me. (The gesture had somewhat the appearance of tossing a bone to an angry dog.) Anyway the dog was appeased. The moccasins had stiff rawhide soles exactly shaped to fit my foot,

ine for two hours trying to get her to talk. Finally I gave her ten dollars for the rug when it should be finished and little by little she began to tell me the things I wanted to know. We made no real progress in our conversation until I learned that she had been a student at Sherman Indian Institute for eight years. When she found that I knew the school well and some of the teachers, a look of discontent and unhappiness came over her face. She said that she had been very, very happy at Sherman. With a wave of her slender brown hand she said: "Look at this!" Her eyes rested with distaste on the flock of sheep grazing near, turned to the mud-daubed hogan behind us, and swept on across the cactus-studded desert. "They teach us to sleep in soft, white beds and to bathe in tile bathtubs. We eat white cooking. We cook on electric stoves. We are white for years, and then they

er and they are divorced instantly. The father keeps the wedding gifts and sells her again for more sheep and horses. The flocks really belong to the women, but I can't see what good they do them. The women tend them and shear them and even nurse them. They wash and dye and card and weave the wool into rugs, and then their lordly masters take the rugs and sell them. A part of the money is gambled away on pony races or else beat

me of his mother's rebellion and discontent, but it appeared on his small face as wistfulness. He was very shy, and when I offered him a silver coin he made no move to take it. I closed his finge

ready. I admired her forethought, for only the night before I had lost a cake of soap, one garter, and most of my hairpins. Of course the rat was honest, for he had left a dried cactus leaf, a pine cone, and various ass

race his mare against the visitors. I took his picture on the mare, and he told me where to send it to him after it was finished. "I hope you win. I'm betting on you for Mollie," I told him and gave him some money. He did win! Around the smooth hillside the ponies swept, and when almost at the goal he leaned forward and whistled in the mare's ear. She doubled up like a jackknife and when she unfolded she was a nose ahead of them all. Every race ended the same way. He told me he won two hundred silver