“What do you expect to gain by talking to Jones, John?” Donovan asked once when the road became smoother for a few miles.
“I’ve been reading so much about summit conferences,” Hall answered, “that it just occurred to me we might set one up out here. I want to suggest to Jones that we get some of the more important chiefs of the two tribes to meet out here in the desert somewhere, where there are no reporters or members of the Land Resources Association hanging around. I’ll bet we could accomplish something.”
“Good idea,” Donovan agreed. “If the tribes weren’t continually stirred up by white men with axes to grind they’d soon be able to agree on that boundary line.”
“Don’t mind me, palefaces,” said Ralph as he spun the wheel to avoid a particularly hard-looking stone. “But I doubt it. I know both tribes, and....”
Crash! The jeep bucked like a pinto pony and the motor roared.
“There goes the second muffler in three months,” Ralph shouted, pointing backward to a heap of junk on the trail.
After that, all conversation was impossible until they pulled into the little town of Chinle—and learned at the trading post that Jones had already departed for Tuba City!
“Say, John,” Ralph said, as they were standing around waiting for a “shade tree mechanic” to dig a muffler that would fit out of a rusty pile of spare parts that leaned against his hogan, “we can’t possibly drive back to the well tonight. Why don’t we put up at the Canyon de Chelly camp so I can show Sandy where his great-uncle fit the Navajos?”
“Good idea,” said his employer. “You’ll have time to show Sandy the cliff dwellings tomorrow, too. Chief Quail lives over in the Canyon de Chelly neighborhood. I want to sound him out on my idea for a summit conference.”
The sun was sinking in golden glory behind thousand-foot-high red sandstone buttes when they drove up to the Thunderbird guest ranch at the entrance of the Canyon de Chelly National Monument area. There they obtained two pleasant double rooms furnished after the rugged style of the Old West. When they had showered most of the dust off themselves, they gathered for a fine meal in the timbered mess hall. Then, in the cool of the mountain evening, they went over to a big campfire where a National Park Service Ranger was lecturing to a group of tourists.