A car halted in the road before the superintendent’s house,—for Shiprock is a Navajo agency,—and as we stopped, a man and his wife exchanged names and destinations with us in the darkness. They were from California, going to Yellowstone. When we told them our home town they said the usual thing. We discussed plans for the night. They had none, neither had we. It was nearly midnight.
“That’s the agent’s house,” he said, pointing to the only light in town, “but they won’t take you there. We just asked. The lady’s all alone, but she might give you directions for a hotel.”
As we went toward the house, an Indian policeman in uniform shadowed us, wearing the kind of helmet the police used to wear in Boston and rural plays. He seemed to alternate between a desire to protect us against Shiprock, and Shiprock against us, his grave manner signifying he would do justice to both parties.
The agent’s wife directed us to a hotel, which she refused to indorse, and when we left, she called after us,—“You aren’t alone?”
“Yes,” I answered, “all alone, ever since we left Boston.” And then, to save time, “We’re a long ways from home.”
“I don’t know what accommodations you’d find at the hotel,” she said. “You’d better stay here. Being alone, I didn’t want to take in any men, but I’d be glad to have your company.”
“Did you find a hotel?” asked the kind man in the road, as we returned for our baggage.
“Yes,—here,” we said, “not having a man with us.”
“You have the luck,” he answered, and his wife groaned, and asked him as wives will, what good it did her to have him along.
Our kind hostess gave us a pleasant room, and carte blanche to the icebox, for I believe we had no supper that night. It may have been partly our kind reception, but not entirely so, that made Shiprock seem, when we inspected it next day, one of the most attractive and sensibly conducted agencies we had visited. It is beautifully situated where our old friend the San Juan river joins another stream, and turns the desert into the greenest of farm lands. Roses bloomed about each neat, white-picketed house, big trees shaded the road, and the lawns were like velvet. Happy looking Navajo children in middy blouses played about the schoolyards or splashed in the big swimming pool devoted exclusively to them. The teachers and agents whom we met lacked that attitude of contempt for their charges we had sometimes observed in other Indian schools. I have heard teachers who could hardly speak without butchering the President’s English sneer at their Indian charges for reverting to their own tongue.