THE BASKET MAKER 



in the chaparral, Seyavi cut willows for 

 basketry by the creek where it wound to- 

 ward the river against the sun and sucking- 

 winds. It never quite reached the river 

 except in far-between times of summer 

 flood, but it always tried, and the willows 

 encouraged it as much as they could. You 

 nearly always found them a little farther 

 down than the trickle of eager water. The 

 Paiute fashion of counting time appeals 

 to me more than any other calendar. They 

 have no stamp of heathen gods nor great 

 ones, nor any succession of moons as have 

 red men of the East and North, but count 

 forward and back by the progress of the 

 season ; the time of taboose, before the trout 

 begin to leap, the end of the pifion harvest, 

 about the beginning of deep snows. So 

 they get nearer the sense of the season, 

 which runs early or late according as the 

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