This little expedition for peaches I thought would mark my whole acquaintance with the Hopitu, the “peaceful” wrangling ones. In 1907 I had written several stories for Harper’s Magazine, one of which concerned these people. The ethnological facts I had exhumed from the library of the Indian Office at Washington, and the skeleton on which I strung these fancies was produced from that fearful thing known as the writer’s imagination. God forgive me! I have always believed that I was given charge of the Hopitu as a punishment for that crime against the verities.
And then, when we were about to confess that the stupid team had taken the wrong road, to the end that we were strayed, lost, and would probably be stolen, the well-rig loomed up as a tall gallows at the roadside. There were calls and hearty greetings.
“Shorty,” a minor water-witch of the Empire, had laid aside his wand for the day, which is one way of saying that the rig-tower no longer trembled, the cable no longer jerked, and the drill did not pound in its hole. Shorty was ready to receive visitors and to relate how he shot the mountain lion. [[89]]
It matters not in that country how shabby the guest, how poor the host, or how wild the place of meeting, there is always a welcome and entertainment of the board, to be followed by talk of the Empire. A veteran of the garrison days told me that in his time, on reaching a post-trader’s, it would be impossible to escape for a week. Every item of news from the outside would be demanded and paid for in a liquid coin that is no longer circulated. Then the bowl flowed freely when the pipes were lit, and the company gathered around a roaring fireplace in the evening.
“We would gossip and swap lies until we could not see, and then tumble into the nearest bed to sleep it off. Next day, if he had had enough, a fellow would call for his horse. Consternation would follow. Everyone would regret, with much language, that Bonehead Bill had left the corral-gate open last night, and now not a hoof in all that valley.
“ ‘’Fore Gad! pardner, they’re clear t’hell an’ gone over into Palisade Cañon by now. It’ll take two wranglers to git ’em up. Make yourself t’homelike, ’cause to-morrow’s another day.’ ”
So there would be no means of travel until the great exchange of ideas was exhausted, and the whiskey out, when they would speed him onward. Said the veteran, “Them was times!”
But in Indian country to-day one has to be content with the ensemble without the olden stimulus.
At this well-camp there were no extra beds, so for the first time I slept on the open range. We had packed a dozen thick blankets, six for the ground and three apiece for wrappings. By the time bed was made, the contrast between that day’s noon and three hours after sunset was a trifle more than bitter. To remove one’s clothing in that [[90]]extraordinary boudoir of a thousand square, open, and draughty miles was a shrinking bit of business.