— a sentence or two at a time as the interpreter nodded to him to proceed:
“Generous youth and girl: From day to day our young helper has told us of your troubles, but, busy with that we have come so far to do, we had no time for more than a few words together, now and then, about what we learned. It was with sad hearts that we looked out upon the great fires below, set by bad white men with intent to destroy this great forest, Rain God’s garden. Yes. These mountain slopes are his garden, these great trees his plantings, their fine growth the result of his plentiful waterings. When our long-ago fathers came here every spring to pray and sacrifice to Rain God, they would no more have destroyed one of these trees than they would have destroyed themselves. And so we feel about it, and have prayed that the bad fire-setters be themselves destroyed.
“When our young helper told us that he was to have a share in the selling of the hide of the great bear that you killed, he made us very happy. We said to one another that the money he would get from that would be clean money, and enough, perhaps, for him to pay his way when he goes to ask the great white chiefs to free us, to ask that we be no longer slaves. And now that valuable bear hide is gone, gone with your food and your blankets, taken by these same destroyers of Rain God’s beautiful garden!
‘‘Can the hide, and your different things be recovered ? Perhaps they can. When our young helper told us that white seizer-men, and Apache seizers, were hunting day after day for the fire-setters, and could not find them, we did not say much, but we kept that in mind. Morning after morning when we came up out of the kiva and saw fresh fires, and still more fires burning, we said that the fire-setters were in hiding somewhere near them, and in a place where the blaze of their own fires, their cooking fires, could not be seen, nor they themselves be caught while they slept, as sleep they must, at times.
“In our kivas out there in the desert, the old priests are ever instructing the new ones, not only in religion, but in the whole history of our people. So it is that we knew just how to come to this sacred mountain, knew the trail as well as though we had traveled it many times. And we know, just as well as though we had seen them, many places along this range of mountains that our people visited in the long ago. One of those places is a great cave; a cave so large, running so far into the mountain slope that, without a light, one could easily become lost in it and never find his way out. That cave is down there where those fires are burning. We believe that it is about halfway between the farthest east fire and the one farthest west. Now, perhaps you two know that cave?
‘‘Let me question you,” he went on. “North from here, and not far from the edge of the desert, is a long, double butte, bare on top; and west of it, and also near the desert, is a higher butte with a very sharp top. Is that not so?”
“Yes. The one farthest west is Green’s Peak, the other is Poll Knoll.”
“Good. We have our own names for them, but that does not matter now. I ask you: About halfway between those buttes is there not a small creek running out from the forest and ever being swallowed by the thirsty desert?”
“There is. We call it Conaro Creek.”
“And just after it runs out of the forest does it not go down over three broken ledges of rock quite a ways apart, the middle ledge much the highest of the three?”
And when that had been interpreted to us, Hannah and I sure stared at one another, and at him: he had described the place exactly. We both cried out: ‘‘Three ledges are there!” —“The center ledge is the highest!”
The old men all smiled, nodded to one another, and White Deer concluded: “At the foot of the center ledge, a short distance — a hundred steps — west of the creek, is the entrance to the cave.”
“But we have been there many times! There is no cave hole in the ledge. There can’t be, or we should have seen it!” I said.
“No, you would not have seen it unless you were carefully hunting for it. The entrance is small, only one man can pass in at a time, and it is well hidden: willows grow thickly all around it.”
“But if we have never found it — we nor our people who have always lived here — it is n’t likely that the fire-setters have found it,” I said.
“They are just the kind of men that would find it,” the old man answered. “The growth of willows near the water, the bare rocks all around to hold not the least trace of their goings and comings, why, they would have run to it as soon as they saw it, and, once into the willows, of course they found the cave! Do not laugh, do not doubt: We just know that those bad men have their hiding-place in that cave! ”
“And if that is so, what then?”
“Trap them! Roll two or three big rocks into the entrance and trap them!” he answered.
And just then Hannah gave a little cry and pointed to the shelf on the wall above the table: “Look! Our lamp is gone, and our candles!” she said.
I sprang from the bunk and looked behind the food chest: “Yes, and our can of coal oil too!” I cried. “The thieves are living in the cave: in the open, a fire would give all the light they want!” I turned to our young friend: “We are a weak outfit — shall we try to trap them?” I asked.
“Let us find out if they surely are in the cave,” he answered.
“That’s a go! We’ll do it!” I told him.
Chapter X.
Catching the Firebugs
Right then and there we held a council of war, and decided that I was to tell as little as possible of our troubles and our plans. I then went to the telephone and called the Supervisor: “How about it — I suppose the rain has already killed the fires?’’
“All but the dead, pitchy trees and logs; they are still burning,” he answered.
“But they will soon burn out. We are out of provisions. May I have a couple of days off, to go for some?”
“Yes! Sure! The forest is already so well soaked that those firebugs can’t do any more damage for a time, two days, anyhow.”
“All right! We’ll leave here early in the morning. I don’t have to ring you up again, do I? ”
“No. This is Tuesday. I give you off from now until Friday evening. You be back to your station at that time and ring me up. Good-bye!”
So, there we were, free from that moment, and for three days. When the old men were told what had been said. White Deer remarked that my forest chief must be a good man. None but men of good heart would be watchers of Rain God’s gardens. And there were others: the whites who studied the work of the people of the long ago, and those who raised crops of grain, and raisers of cattle and horses. They were just like the Hopis: they attended strictly to their own business; were never telling others how they must live, and what gods they must worship!
The rain showed no signs of stopping, and as the afternoon wore on, we told the Hopis that they were welcome to remain in our cabin for the night. They refused to do that, saying that they would make a shelter of brush under a spruce tree and be dry and comfortable. They then opened their sacks and gave us a good portion of their corn meal and pinole, and went out to build their shelter. Later
