your doodlebug up in an airplane and spot a radiation halo surrounding any oil deposit. Right? I read the trade papers, too, you know. May I ask you a question?”
“Why, of course.” Cavanaugh’s chest and neck had begun to sweat.
“Do you have a Ph.D degree in electronic engineering?”
“Why, uh, naturally.”
“Well, I don’t, unfortunately, Mr. Cavanaugh. But I know enough about the science to understand that the gadget you are selling isn’t worth a plugged nickel unless it’s operated by an expert, and unless it’s used in connection with other methods of exploration. I have told you several times at Farmington that this outfit can’t afford another scientist at present, so I wish you would please go away.”
“Now, Mr. Hall—” Cavanaugh turned to the grinning oilman—“can’t you make your man listen to reason?”
“He’s not my man. He’s my partner,” Hall answered mildly. “What he says goes. Now, if you and your, ah, man will have a bite of lunch with us, I’d be mighty pleased, providing you stop this high-pressure salesmanship.”
“Well…” Cavanaugh seemed on the verge of an explosion. “Well, thanks for your invitation, but Mr. March and I are due up at Cortez in half an hour. We’re delivering several of my gadgets, as you call them, to smart oilmen. Come on, Pepper.”
“John,” said Donovan after they had watched Cavanaugh’s plane roar away, “I think I’ll have to sock that big lug the next time I meet him.”
“He’d make mincemeat of you,” Mr. Hall warned.
“I doubt it. He’s soft as mush. Anyway, I don’t like him and I’ll have nothing to do with the equipment he peddles. He knows that, so I think the real reason he came here was to spy on us—to find out whether our well had come in yet.”
“Oh, he’s not that bad,” Hall objected. “Boys, you know something about him. What’s his reputation in Valley View?”
“He acts rich,” Sandy answered after a moment of deep thought.
“The people who work in his lab say he’s not as smart as he makes out,” Quiz added. “I agree with Mr. Donovan. There’s something phony about him. I’ve a hunch it’s connected with those three touchdowns he’s always bragging about. If I could only remember… Some day I will, I bet.”
“Well, let’s all simmer down and forget him,” said Hall. “It’s time for lunch.”
CHAPTER FIVE
A Light in the Window Rock
The morning after Cavanaugh’s unwelcome visit, Hall, Donovan, Salmon and the boys set out on their 150-mile drive south to the town of Window Rock. The jeep wallowed and bounced as usual over the dusty trail to Shiprock. There Ralph turned right onto US 666, pushed the accelerator toward the floor board and relaxed.
“We don’t have a Bonanza, boss,” he said, “but a loaded jeep on a good paved road is the next best thing.”
“I’d prefer a helicopter, equipped with a supercharger that could lift it over the ranges,” Hall answered. “Maybe, if Number Two comes in, we can buy a whirlybird, along with a portable drill rig truck.”
“A portable rig sure would come in handy for drilling test wells,” Ralph agreed. “Maybe we could make it come true by putting an offering on that Navajo wishing pile.” He nodded toward a mound of small brightly colored stones that stood where an Indian trail crossed the highway.
“Nuh-uh,” the oilman said sharply. “And don’t you ever try that stunt, boys. The Navajos don’t want white men thinning out their luck by putting things on their wishing piles. By the same token, never take any object from the piles that you will see scattered through the reservation. If you’re caught doing that, you’ll be in for real trouble.”
“Yep. The braves will get mad as wet hens,” Salmon said, chuckling.
“Ralph,” said Quiz, “why do you poke fun at the Navajos?”
“Well, pardner, did you ever hear a UCLA man say anything good about the Stanford football team?”
“Oh, but that’s different. It’s just school rivalry,” Sandy objected as he crossed his long legs the other way in an effort to keep his knees from banging against the dash.
“Well, you might say that the Navajos and Utes have been traditional rivals since the beginning of time. Nothing very serious, you understand. We’ve raided each other’s cattle, and taken a few scalps now and then, when a Navajo stepped on a Ute’s shadow, or vice versa. The Navajos are Athapascans, you see. They’re related to the Apaches, and think they’re the lords of creation. But Utes are Shoshoneans. We belong to one of the biggest Indian ‘families’ in North America. The state of Utah is named in our honor and there are Shoshones living as far north as Alaska. Maybe you’ve heard of Sacagawea, the Shoshone ‘Bird Woman,’ who guided the Lewis and Clark Expedition all the way to the Pacific Coast.
“The Hopis are our brothers, and the Piutes are our poor relations. The Piutes did eat fried caterpillars and roots in the old days, I guess, but that was only because they lived out in the western Utah desert where there wasn’t much else to eat. We southern Utes lived mostly on buffalo meat. We were great hunters. Our braves would creep right into the middle of a herd of buffalo and kill as many as they wanted with their long knives, without causing the animals to take fright and stampede.”
“How could they do that?” Sandy asked.
“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
