Which we did. There were flour and meat, coffee and sugar, together with the all-necessary beck-a-shay nahto, cattle tobacco provided for distribution, and the people came. As usual, the men were diffident and modest, and no one offered himself for appointment as an officer of the realm. The nominations were made by head-men, and discussion followed as to individual merits, influence, bravery, and all those virtues that are supposed to animate the warrior. The Inspector was finally satisfied with the selections.
An old-timer sat on the platform with us, acting as interpreter. Ed had skinned mules across the Zuni Mountains in 1889, and he could take an old single-action forty-five and keep a tin can moving as if it were alive. He could roll a saddle-blanket cigarette with one hand, sing a puncher song, and play the guitar. He was one of the post-traders, and perhaps the best Navajo interpreter alive. He knew the Navajo Indian, having had the advantage [[73]]of a living dictionary in his early days. But Ed knew when to keep his mouth shut, and aside from faithfully interpreting from English into Navajo and from Navajo into English he said nothing at the time. But later:—
“It wasn’t for me, a mere uneducated Indian trader, to give my advice to a wise guy from the East who was pointing the trails out to a Nahtahni; but … every damned one of them new police has ‘medicine turquoise’ in his ears.”
It was true. Every one of them should have been in jail!
The Navajo are lithe and lean, for the most part, and their dress is picturesque. One could see all sorts of costume at this “sing.” There was the old fellow with trousers compiled of flour sacks, the brand having been arranged as a bit of decoration, and where “OUR BEST” would show to most advantage; and there was that one satisfied with a pair of cast-off overalls. But the majority were in rich-toned velveteen shirts, open at the neck, and with sleeves vented under the armpits; and desert trousers, loose and flapping garments, Spanish-style, split below the knee, made of highly colored and figured calico. One fellow’s legs were a riot of gaudy parrots. The twisted silk handkerchiefs worn about the head came from the Spanish too, no doubt. Their hair was drawn back from the forehead and corded in a long knot, a Mongol touch. Their moccasins were of red-stained buckskin, half-shoe, half-leggin, warm and noiseless. The young men wore gay shirts and neckerchiefs, store-bought, and their ponies showed more of decoration than themselves. Each had a good saddle, most necessary to a desert Romeo, and the headdresses of the ponies were heavy with silver bands and rosettes.
Now a middle-aged dandy would strut about, proud [[74]]of a crimson shirt, and the firelight would paint him as a figure from old opera. He would shine whitely of silver—a huge necklace, with turquoise pendants and many strands of shell and coral; bracelets, and the khado that is still worn, though the wrist no longer needs protection from the bowstring; silver rings and silver buttons, all studded with turquoise chips. Not less than five hundred dollars in metal and workmanship would adorn these old beaux, and an Indian valuation would be enormous.
Silver and turquoise are the jeweled wealth of the Navajo, the white metal contrasting with their sunburnt skins and the stone holding the color of their matchless skies.
The women wore velveteen bodices and curiously full skirts. They too were weighted with silver ornaments, one having the more of beads and bandeaux being the favorite wife or daughter. Some of the smaller girls moved about accompanied by the tinkling of little bells strung to their moccasins and belts.
All this in the brilliant flare of the cottonwood fire, above which fanned a mist of sparks like another Milky Way; and there was the incense of the smoking logs; and the star-pinned dome overhead; and all around the dark maw of the great lonely Desert.
Suddenly came a halt in these “singing” proceedings. The choir withdrew somewhere, and the centre of the stage was taken by another old man, who led a little girl. Other and older girls began to hurry around the circle, darting here, darting there, as if running something down. At first the little one seemed a trifle confused and stood in wide-eyed hesitation; but with a bit of urging from the elder master of the ceremonies, she made for Roberts. He would lead this german. Grinning, he permitted her [[75]]to pull him into the ring, his partner maintaining a solemnity that was comical.