After inspecting the ruins and the hieroglyphics in the immediate vicinity, we were driven for a mile or so beneath the mighty cliffs along the river. At intervals additional carvings were to be seen, often high up on the rocks. Returning, we passed near the scene of the round-up, where a few cowboys were still engaged in branding the calves—a scene which none of the ladies of the party wished to linger over. It was nearly dark when we recrossed the river—if we may use the name for the wide strip of sand where the Puerco rages at rare intervals. The wind had slightly subsided, though the sand was still disagreeable enough.
We were quite ready for a substantial dinner, but things were still badly disarranged at the hotel. A dance always follows a round-up and of course none of the hotel girls were willing to miss such an event. Even the cook had disappeared and the guests had to be satisfied with the efforts of Mr. Campbell and wife, who rose to the occasion in a very creditable manner.
After dinner the guests lounged about the comfortable lobby of the hotel; there was little to attract one to the rooms until he was ready to go to bed. I don’t know whether it was a representative petrified-forest crowd or not, but it was certainly cosmopolitan. There was a Dutch doctor and his wife from Java—exceedingly non-committal on the subject of the European War; a middle-aged English lady, professing to be an invalid but doing the hardest “stunts” everywhere—she even ate the cowboy dinner at the round-up—accompanied by a very intelligent Danish lady as a companion and manager; and several plain American citizens like ourselves from widely scattered sections of the country. The conversation, as may be imagined, was varied and generally interesting. The proprietor, who joined us later, told many entertaining anecdotes of his experiences in the Indian country to which he made frequent visits to purchase blankets for his store. He said that he made it a rule never to decline the hospitality of the Indians or traders, no matter how filthy they might be, since they were sure to resent any squeamishness on part of a visitor.
“I was invited to eat in one shack,” he said, “where conditions beggared description (I fancy the principal dish was dog); and where the table was simply black with flies, but I joined in as if it had been a repast at the Waldorf-Astoria. That’s the only way to get the confidence and the genuine friendship of these people. Of course, I was situated differently from the ordinary tourist, for I have regular dealings with both the Indians and the traders.”
The guests generally joined in expressing the hope that circumstances might not arise to put their good manners to such a test.
Mr. Campbell has occasionally outfitted and conducted parties to the various Indian reservations and particularly to the Moki Snake Dance. On his last excursion to Moki-land he conducted a party of some thirty people at a round rate of two hundred and fifty dollars per head, and the general impression prevailed among them that he was coining money a la Rockefeller. The fact was, he assured us, that so great were the difficulties in securing supplies and especially forage for the horses, that his profits on the trip were negligible.
The round trip to the Navajo country can be made via Ford in two days and Gulliver had orders to be ready to take the “invalid” English lady and her companion on this excursion the following day, but it was deferred on account of the wind storm which raged in even greater fury than the day before.
Campbell is an expert on Navajo blankets, of which he has a very large collection in the little store which he runs in connection with his hotel. There are blankets of all degrees, ranging up to three hundred dollars in price. During the holidays he does a considerable mail-order business in all parts of the country by means of a magazine advertising campaign.
At breakfast we found the serving girls again on the job, looking a little blase after the dissipation of the round-up and dance. They declared the latter a disappointment; it was too tame and uneventful. “Why, there wasn’t even a fight,” said a blonde-haired German damsel who brought our coffee and hot cakes. To elucidate her remark, Mr. Campbell explained that while “gun toting” in Arizona is entirely obsolete and bloodshed quite as uncommon and unpopular as in any part of the country, few dances in Adamana end without a fist-fight between some of the cowboys. Naturally, the men greatly outnumber the maidens and contests for favors are almost sure to result in warlike demonstrations. The ladies have doubtless come to consider these collisions between rivals as in some degree a tribute to the popularity of the female sex and when a dance passes off too peaceably they feel as if their charms have not been adequately appreciated.
We boarded the California Limited about noon to resume our eastward journey. We agreed that the Petrified Forests are well worth while; we are sure that if the traveling public was generally aware how easily these strange stone trees can be reached and how well visitors are taken care of by Mr. Campbell and his helpers—not forgetting the efficient and entertaining Gulliver—a far greater number of passengers would “drop off” for a day or two at Adamana.