Thus a Wall of China was prepared in America nearly four centuries ago, and through “spirit and curiosity,” male and female wearing pants, tourists seek it to-day. When the clans have all gone back to the Underworld, leaving their educated young to jazz and evangelists, the wall will retreat northward to the silent cavern-cities and the monuments of the Utah border, to Betatakin, and Kitsiel, and Inscription House. When a Service station desecrates the beautiful Laguna Cañon—the Tsegi—the wall will make a last stand at Rainbow Bridge—Nunashoshe—that great archway of the triumphant desert gods.
Tourists! Age does not wither them. I remember a very old lady, traveling alone. Alone she arrived on the mail-stage, obsessed by a mission, quite as Kim’s lama. Having viewed one hundred miles of desert beauty from the mail car, she caught a little sleep, and then aroused me Sunday morning, quite early, with determined cries. Thinking that someone had been injured, I very nearly greeted her in pajamas, to learn that her search must be continued, and that it required an automobile or other conveyance. I referred her to the local trader, who also slept late of Sundays, and he sleepily turned her over to Ed. Ed told me of it later. He said that he “packed” her about sixty miles farther, hither and yon, around the Moqui cliffs and through the tinted valleys. She granted him not a croak of interest. And when he was thoroughly tired out, with the gas “about all,” and the hour late enough to suggest a return to the post, she halted him with:—
“Now, my man, I’ve seen this, and it is very fine indeed; but—I came to see the Painted Desert.”
“And we had been a-trompin’ it all day!” said Ed.
Nor does their curiosity decay. I recall a party that [[242]]came upon us one evening, just at twilight. They erected tents, and stretched around them the fetish of a hair-rope, though no snake would have ventured near that camp for many gophers. Their cook banged his pan, and they came and “got it.” The mail-stage pulled in late that season, and my miscellaneous collection of letters, newspapers, and books from everywhere would be dumped in the trader’s private office, a combined place of business, art gallery, and Agent’s rest. By the open fire I would dissect this mail, and reduce its bulk to ashes. But this night “dudes” filled the room and wrangled over a pile of Navajo blankets. An old man of the party pestered me with searching questions.
“Is this a good blanket—worth forty dollars?” he asked.
“Quite good. You may depend on Mr. Hubbell’s prices.”
“I would rather deal directly with the natives.”
“May I advise you not to? The trader is regulated, the Indian is not. Many persons have lost their eyeteeth in a rug-deal with the Navajo. Besides, you have no guaranty from them. That blanket is guaranteed.”
“And by whom?”