"I pointed to where the old Indian was squatted in a corner, sulking; he walked right over to him and motioned to him, and the Hopi got up and they went into the kiva together. I do not know what passed between them—certainly no words passed—but in about ten minutes the Shriner came out, and he had a puzzled look on his face.
"'I've just had the most wonderful experience,' he said to me, 'that I've ever had in my whole life. Of course that Indian isn't a Mason, but in a corrupted form he knows something about Masonry; and where he learned it I can't guess. Why, there are lodges in this country where I actually believe he could work his way in.'"
Not being either a Mason or a Hopi, I cannot undertake to vouch for the story or to contradict it; but Smith has the reputation of being a truthful man.
The Navajos are the aristocrats of the Southwestern country. They are dignified, cleanly in their personal habits, and orderly; and they are wonderful artisans. In addition to being wonderful weavers and excellent silversmiths, they shine at agriculture and at stock raising and sheep raising. They are born horse-traders, too, and at driving a bargain it is said a buck Navajo can spot a Scotchman five balls any time and beat him out; but they have the name of being absolutely honest and absolutely truthful.
This same Mr. Smith, who has lived several years on the Navajo reservation and who is an adopted member of the tribe, took several of us to pay a formal call upon a Navajo subchief, who spends the tourist season at the Grand Cañon. The old chap, long-haired and the color of a prime smoke-cured ham, received us with perfect courtesy into his winter residence, the same being a circular hut contrived by overlapping timbers together in a kind of basket design and then coating the logs inside and out with adobe clay.
The place was clean and free from all unpleasant odors. In the middle of the floor a fire burned, the smoke escaping through a hole in the roof. At one side was the primitive forge, where the head of the house worked in metals; and against the far wall his squaw was hunkered down, weaving a blanket on her wooden loom. A couple of his young offspring were playing about, dressed simply in their little negligee-strings. The mud walls were hung with completed blankets. Long, stringy strips of dried beef and mutton—the national dishes of the tribe—were dangling from cross-pieces overhead; and on a rug upon the earthen floor lay a glittering pile of bracelets and brooches that had been made by the old man out of Mexican dollars. When we came away, after spending fifteen minutes or so as their guests, the whole family came with us; but the old man tarried a minute to fasten a small brass padlock through a hasp upon his wattled wooden door.
"Up on the reservation, away from the railroads and the towns, there are no locks upon the doors," Smith said.
"Why is that?" I asked.
Smith grinned. "I'll tell the old man what you said and let him answer."
He clucked in guttural monosyllables to the chief, and the chief clucked back briefly, meanwhile eyeing me with a whimsical squint out of his puckered old eyes. And then Smith translated: