“When they went on a hunt, they dressed in buffalo hides, and made themselves smell like, walk like and even think like buffalo. The animals didn’t believe they were men.”
“Can you still do that—think like a buffalo, I mean?” Quiz gasped.
“Oh, sure. Just find me a herd of wild ones and I’ll prove it.”
“Ralph’s talents sure are being wasted on drilling for oil,” Donovan said, knocking out his pipe against the jeep’s side for emphasis.
“All very amusing,” Hall grunted. “But crooked white men have taken advantage of your sporting rivalry with the Navajo to rob both of you blind during the past century. The same thing will happen again, I warn you, if you don’t stop playing Indian and begin working at it.”
“Yes, boss,” Ralph agreed shamefacedly. “You’re absolutely right. But—I forget everything you’ve said when that Quail character starts getting under my buffalo hide!”
The car whined merrily down the road past the little towns of Newcomb and Tohatchi while Ralph sulked and Hall and Donovan talked shop which the boys couldn’t understand. They turned left on Route 68 in the middle of the hot afternoon, crossed the line from New Mexico into Arizona, and a few minutes later pulled into Window Rock.
The town, made up mostly of low, well-kept adobe and stone buildings, lay in a little valley almost surrounded by red sandstone cliffs. It had received its name, obviously, from one huge cliff that had a round hole in it big enough to fly a plane through. One of its largest buildings was occupied by the Indian Service. Another, built like a gigantic hogan, was the Navajo Tribal Council, Hall told the boys. They passed a brand-new hospital and a school and pulled up at a motel where a large number of Cadillacs and less imposing vehicles were parked.
“Looks as if everybody in the Southwest had come to bid on or sell equipment,” said Mr. Hall as he studied the array of cars and trucks. Some of the latter bore the names of well-known companies such as Gulf, Continental, Skelly and Schlumberger. Others belonged to smaller oil and uranium firms that Sandy had never heard of.
“Donovan, Ralph, and I had better go in and chew the rag with them awhile,” the oilman continued. “Why don’t you fellows look the town over until it’s time for dinner? You’d just get bored sitting around.”