The night hush of the drowsy desert has succeeded all daylight bustle. The clatter of shops, the hum of machinery, the hiss of steam, have quieted. There are no more calls from children at play. One by one the lamps go out on campus and in quarters, and great Orion burns down the empty spaces to glimpse a scrap of feeble civilization gripped in the aged everlasting hills. Then, on the cold wind, stealthily, comes the eerie chant of a Navajo, riding across the mesa, calling on his gods.
“Will you accept … Moqui—”
That was the country of the Buttes and craggy mesas; of Old Oraibi; of the Second Mesa and its broad stairway to the dome-like pueblos; of ancient Walpi and its rocky ladder to the sky; the land of ruins dating from the misty dawn of history. Across it the Spaniards had marched, contemporaries of Columbus, their halberds gleaming in the sun; and there the early padres had ruled, their mission bells now silent. The “provinces of the Mohoce or Mohoqui,” as Coronado bade his poet-historian write it down. It was the very heart of the Enchanted Empire.
There were but two persons to give me a modern view of the situation. The Navajo interpreter at my present station was one of those half-educated, half-sullen returned students who would accept the meagre wage when the trader would not, a part of the economic system aimed at cheaply teaching grandfather through his unrespected grandson. He came from that northern country, and his [[99]]immediate family composed a most insolent gang—a mere detail I discovered later in time of stress.
“Lots of Navajo up there,” he said. “Those Black Mountain fellows—mean Indians, too. Down here, quiet, never any trouble, ’cause they liked the Chief; but up there, always something doing.”
Having little confidence in the fellow, I discounted his words heavily. But that afternoon came the missionary from down-river.
“Hello!” he called to me. “What’s this I hear? You going to Moqui? Well, well! I hope you handle that bunch of mean ones over beyond Oraibi—those Hotevillas. About every four years they flare up. The last was in 1906, so it’s about due. The present Agent hasn’t Christianized those Indians, and the one ahead of him was a bit mild. They need the fear of God put into them. Many Agents? Well, come to think of it, yes. I can recall several of them. One stayed four years; they average about two, as a rule. Let me hear from you sometime.”
A combined Indian Agency, half Hopi, half Navajo, and the two ancient enemies who fraternized on the surface when the Agent was strong enough to compel it. Ninety miles back in the hills. No telephone and no telegraph. And agents averaged about two years each of service. What happened to them? I wondered. Were they buried there, quietly and without fuss, or did they depart between suns, seeking more peaceful climes? The padres were not an excellent vision, and the Spaniards had abandoned the country as hopeless, notwithstanding their usual methods of domination. True—there was such a thing as having a chap on for the good of his soul, after the manner of whimsical Arizona.
I debated the matter seriously before answering that [[100]]wire. My plans were changing. From six months, my exile had been extended into a year; and the year was now up. Acceptance would mean a longer stay, an habitation enforced, as I would be under bond and no longer free to come and go, with the added chance of failure in an unsought position of responsibility. I had not envied my old Chief. I do not envy any Indian Agent to-day.
And yet—the Desert called to me from over beyond those blue-toned Buttes to come and find that intangible something “just around the corner.” So finally, like Kipling’s Pagan, I decided:—