were bringing the rain, if rain were really coming, but we could no more help sharing in their hopes and fears than we could help breathing. And we wanted rain as badly as they did, driving downpours of rain to put out the forest fires; to give life to our planted fields and the grass of our cattle range; and to put an end to the awful work of the fire-setters! A sudden shock of cold rain in our faces brought us to our senses, but increased the old men’s wild appeals to the sky, and our friend said to us: Go! Run to your little place over there. I will join you as soon as my old men go back into the kiva.”
We ran, circling past the old men and on along the crest up to the lookout, thunder and lightning booming and flashing all around us, and the rain becoming more and more heavy. We were quite wet when we got into the shelter of the station. I turned straight to the telephone, and when I reported the storm, the Supervisor shouted: ‘‘Good! Good! I hope it will rain a week!”
We built a fire in the little stove and waited for our Hopi friend to come to us. The thunder and lightning ceased; a great cloud rested upon the mountain and darkened the day; the rain came steadily down: it was killing the forest fires. We were very happy.
“Oh! Our bear skin: the rain will spoil it!” Hannah suddenly exclaimed.
“No, it is so well stretched that it will not be hurt — not if we keep the sun from it while it dries,” I told her. And, anyhow, I planned to cover it with what canvas we had.
The telephone was now every few minutes ringing the office, and we listened in. Green’s Peak, Nutrioso, Escodilla, Alpine, and the far-south stations of the Blue Range, were all reporting heavy rain. The storm was general, not local. It would surely last long enough to put out the fires. We waited impatiently for our Hopi friend to come, so that we could tell him the good news.
He came, a half-hour later, and smilingly stood and looked in at us through the open door: “Come in! Come in out of the wet!” I called to him.
“But I want to be wet!” he answered. “I want the rain to soak into me, for then I just feel that it is soaking into our gardens out there in the desert. Oh, are n’t my old priests powerful! They brought this rain: Rain God could not refuse their prayers and prayer offerings!”
“We have been listening to the telephone reports: rain is falling all over this great forest,” sister told him.
“Yes! Of course it is! Did you think that my priests prayed for just one little place? They asked for plenty for the whole country. They prayed and prayed Rain God to put out the forest fires as well as to give new life to our plantings! ”
“And what are they doing now?” I asked.
“Feasting, there in the kiva. Smoking sacred cigarettes. Singing their song of thanks to Rain God!” he answered.
“Well, let us go down to the cabin and feast, too,” Hannah proposed.
“But we have a lunch here,” I said.
“Oh, who wants to eat that dry bacon and bread! We shall have a real feast. I shall bake a cake; a chocolate cake!” she exclaimed.
So, out we went Into the rain, carefully closing the door behind us, and down the trail we ran, splashing through little streamlets of water everywhere cascading down the steep mountain-side, our Hopi friend pausing to dance a few steps in the larger ones, and singing the while a quaint and lively little air that was very pleasant in our ears. And then, coming to the clearing, we raced across it, and at the cabin porch came to a sudden stand and stared at the open door — that we had carefully locked that morning — and at a litter of odds and ends upon the floor.
Hannah ran to the corner of the cabin: “The bear hide is gone!” she shrieked.
We joined her and stared at the empty frame; at the cut rope lacings strewing the ground.
“Henry King has been here again! He is the one who has our bear hide, the mean deserter! Coward!” Hannah cried.
I was so angry that I could n’t speak. I turned and led into the cabin, and we stared at the wreck of it: not a sack of our flour, corn meal, beans, rice, and other things remained in the open food chest. The bacon and ham sacks were gone; the table had been swept clean of the eatables we had left upon it. All of Hannah’s blankets had been taken, and her canvas bed cover. Her comb and brush and little mirror, too, and my box of 30-30 cartridges. I ran outside to my bunk and found that it had been stripped!
‘‘One man could n’t have packed off all our stuff; no, nor two: those I.W.W. firebugs have done this and Henry King brought them here,” I said when I went back inside.
“One man could have loaded it all upon a horse,” said our Hopi friend.
“Yes. But that deserter, those firebugs, are not using horses. Horses leave tracks; they can easily be trailed,” I said.
“That is so. Those men would not use them. Well, what are you going to do?”
“We have no food but the lunch that we put up; what can we do but go home?” cried Hannah.
“That is the only thing for us to do. The rain has already washed out all tracks of the thieves, we can’t follow them, and we can’t stay here and starve,” I said.
“What? Go home! Let those bad men get away with our bear hide? Oh, no! no! We must have it back from them. You have no food, you say ? Why, there is plenty of food up here: my old men have quite a lot of corn meal and pinole, and there are plenty of deer: every evening I see them grazing at the edge of the timber under the north end of the mountain,” our Hopi friend exclaimed, and, oh, how his eyes were flashing!
“But if we have the food, what then? how can we get back the bear hide?” I asked.
“Wait! Let my old men talk to you about that,” he answered. “They said something the other day — only a few words — they were busy with their prayers, but I’ll bring them here. You shall hear them!” And with that he was out of the door and splashing up the little clearing.
Hannah proposed that we telephone the Supervisor what had happened to us, but I decided that we should not do so before hearing what the old Hopi men had to say. We had brought our lunch back with us from the lookout, and now each took a third of it, leaving the remainder for our friend. Soon after we finished eating — and the dry bread and bacon now sure tasted good — we heard the little party slopping their way to us across the clearing. Our friend led the old men up on to the tiny porch — where they dropped their various belongings, and then, old White Deer leading, they came inside, and one by one gravely shook hands with us.
And then the leader said to us, our friend interpreting, of course:
We are glad to shake hands with you, you two of good heart. We are glad to come into your house, now that we have brought the rain and are free to do as we please.”
‘‘We are very glad to have you here. But you must be wet through. Hang up your blankets along the wall to dry, and sit here before the stove,” I answered.
‘‘Yes. We will sit with you for a time,” the old man said; “but as to our blankets, we ourselves, we men weave them, and so tight that water does not go through them. We are dry enough.”
They took seats then, two upon the food chest and the others upon boxes, and Hannah and I perched ourselves upon the bunk. No one spoke for some time. The rain continued to beat upon the iron
