Dominating the foreground was Squash Blossom Butte, an inverted bloom that the storms of æons had carved and a million rare sunsets tinted. The Indians reverence the squash blossom as a symbol of fruition, and perhaps—who knows—in its delicate bell-shaped flower they see more than the mere promise of a harvest. It is found in Navajo silver-work, strung into those massive necklaces of which they are so proud; and when one goes into Hopi land he finds it imitated in the dressing of their maidens’ hair. So they named this altar.
It was commanding in the morning light; it was the last thing seen down the valley, a scarlet head thrust into a sober sky, as that second night came on. The sunset lavished all its rainbow shades on it. Richest gold and lavender above, purple tones and lava-green below; bands of saffron melting into slatey shades; emerald and crimson deepening into jetty blacks when the afterglow had vanished. An aged throne of the gods. And clearly sweet, as desert music, came the half-hushed sound of sheep moving among the cedars; and a young Navajo girl paused at the edge of a thicket to gaze shyly at our cabin, then to hurry away, the tiny bells at her belt tinkling, having all the romance of the gypsies.
There is no finer landscape in the Southwest than this seldom-visited country of the Moqui Buttes where, according to the Hopi, the one-time giants had their dwelling places. The wondrous piles and pinnacles of the Grand Cañon present a chaotic struggle that has ceased in all its awesome disorder and aged grandeur. It makes man [[64]]gasp and wonder, but it does not invite the smile of reverie. This scene about the sunset throne had that serenity born of isolation. It was small enough to invite intimacy. Like the kingdom of a fairy tale, the tranquil valley encompassed its own world, dreaming, smiling in its sleep.
Many times since have I crossed the Butte country, seeing it frozen in winter and again broiling under a summer sun that scorched from the cedars their sweetest aromas. I have always found it a haven, full of peace.
Next day we returned to the Agency, an uneventful retreat, save for a jouncing box of dynamite that leaped like a thing fiendishly alive whenever the wheels slammed into a rut. My nerves were not in the best shape. I had been smoking powdered alfalfa in a pipe. And I would look back from the high seat, half fearing each time to catch that dynamite in the very act of going off. But luck was with us; we herded it safely into the Agency storehouse; and I rushed to the post for a can of real tobacco. [[65]]
VII
THE FIRST BALL OF THE SEASON
Of Harrison’s barn, with its muster