“We do not wish to see a white man’s roof from our pueblo!”
They declared that all such buildings would be burned. Guards were necessary whenever the workmen left the camp. The school was built, however, and the smaller children rounded up and into it. Two dozen men managed what had required a troop of cavalry; but do not think that we approached it in a spirit of indifference. The town held about one hundred husky men, and one never knew what might happen. Once again I had to crawl through the corn-cellars of the place.
The old Chief was not to the front, and his body-guard of elders was conspicuous by its absence. Great credit [[184]]was given them for keeping their word. I flattered myself that the contentious Hopi spirit and the backbone of rebellion had cracked together. But he was simply waiting for a more propitious date, in strict accord with prophecy, perhaps. The fire in the kiva had not burned with a flame of promise; the cornmeal had not fallen in a certain sign; the auguries were not auspicious. A little later and these things must have strengthened him, for one night he appeared at the door of the field matron’s quarters, accompanied by his cohort, the whole band evidencing an angry mood.
“It is time,” he said, wrathfully. “You have been here long enough. We will not drive you away to-night, but in the morning do not let us find you here. There will be trouble, and we may have to cut off your head.”
The field matron was alarmed, but she did not leave as directed. She waited until they had gone away, and then slipped across the half-cleared desert space to the school principal’s home. He promptly saddled a horse and came into the Agency that night. There were no telephones across the Desert then. Next day he returned with definite instructions.
It is not wise to permit Indians of an isolated place to indulge themselves in temper of this kind. One bluff succeeds another, until finally a mistake in handling causes a flare-up that is not easy to control, and one is not thanked in Washington for fiascos. I have pointed out how quickly Washington moves itself to aid when there is revolt.
A capable field-matron or field-nurse is a good angel among such people. She supplements daily the work of the visiting physician, dispensing simple remedies according to his direction; she is foster-mother to the little children of the camps and to the girls who return from the [[185]]schools. All social ills have her attention. She maintains a bathhouse and laundry for the village people, and a sewing-room for the women. In times of epidemic, these field matrons perform extraordinary labors, and have been like soldiers when facing contagious disease. With one other, Miss Mary Y. Rodger at the First Mesa, Miss Abbott of Hotevilla ranked as the best in the Service; and having ordered her to remain on that station, I determined that she should live at the pueblo of Hotevilla in peace, if every one of the ten-thousand sacred traditions reaching straight back to the Underworld went by the board.
It is necessary first to catch your rabbit.
Whenever wanted and diligently sought for, Youkeoma was somewhere else, and an unknown somewhere. While it was said that he and the other old men spent their time in the kivas, I had failed to find them there. Like the coyote that scents gun-oil, he smelt business from afar; and this time it was business, and I wanted him.
Summoning the Indian police, I dispatched them under two white officers to attend a Navajo dance in a distant cañon, forty miles east of the Agency. Hotevilla was directly west from the Agency and about the same distance removed. Having placed eighty miles between my police and the scene of action, I informed my office force that I intended visiting the railroad town on business. This would take me eighty miles to the south. Others of the white men were sent to work at different range points. No one suspected a Hotevilla mission. We went our several ways.