476 



RECREATION 



suddenly throwing his galloping pony back 

 on its haunches, tossing the reins over its 

 head, landed on the ground beside me. 

 It was a lightning change from a galloping 

 steed and rider to a horse at pasture and a 

 man on foot. He was too spectacular for a 

 real Indian, and beneath the veneer of cos- 

 t time and hair was a New York boy. There 

 was a jangling of spurs and another horse- 

 man dismounted beside us. In five minutes 

 we were chatting like old friends. The last 

 comer had escaped from a Chicago office, 

 the walls of which had become to him the 

 walls of a cell, and a strike for freedom had 

 landed him here. In eight months the 

 mantle of Eastern convention had fallen 

 from his shoulders, and he had absorbed 

 much of the breeziness of the West. He 

 showed me his ponies, talked of their good 

 points and then gave me an illustration of a 

 hobbled pony outrunning a man and snatch- 

 ing mouthfuls of grass between jumps. 



Our method of traveling was determined 

 by the fact that six-by-eight cameras are 

 bulky and fragile, while glass plates are 

 heavy and breakable. When we left the 

 railroad, with wagon and team, the long- 

 haired New York boy was our driver. 



After negotiating fifteen miles of sand and 

 sagebrush, past endless cacti and curious 

 rock formations, we reached a trader's tent 

 and a white man, a German. Outside his 

 tent premature civilization was typified by a 

 stranded traction engine, while inside the 

 walls of his shelter were lined with the tin 

 can abomination. Here the Indians came 

 to trade corn for flour, Navajo blankets for 

 hideous-patterned calico, mutton on the 

 hoof for beef in the can, luscious water- 

 melons for tobacco, coffee and sugar. The 

 trader's eyes must always be open, for the 

 average Indian seems to consider it a virtue 

 to steal, although he is a consummate bar- 

 gainer. Here Hans lived with the Painted 

 Desert behind and the Arizona plains 

 around him — "Alone, alone; all, all alone." 

 Yet this loneliness of the endless plain, like 

 the solitude of the great woods, is a health- 

 giving, nerve-restoring tonic. Tired in body 

 you stretch yourself on the sand, or sink 

 gratefully to a couch of leaves. Tired in 

 mind, your eyes wander to the far-off hori- 

 zon and you muse on the beyond, or the 

 infinite behind the great blue canopy, or 



gaze on the trees of the forest and drowsily 

 listen to the murmur of the wind through 

 the branches. Far away is the brick walled, 

 granite paved city with its cold conventions 

 and heart-breaking emptiness to the stranger 

 within its gates — millions of faces, yet not 

 one of a friend ; on every hand greetings for 

 others, only silence for him. But here the 

 warm earth has a mother-touch, and every 

 soft breeze a caress. There in Hans' tent 

 we ate our lunch, talking and listening to 

 our host. We racked our brains for news 

 of the world we had left in exchange for 

 tales of the life we were entering. We lis- 

 tened to stories of Indian shrewdness, of 

 Indian deviltry, of Indian friendliness, of 

 Hans' loneliness, and of his plans for re- 

 lease. 



"Whoo-oop!" The horses were har- 

 nessed and our driver was calling to us that 

 the sun would soon set. We traveled for 

 miles over the rolling plain with its many 

 lizards, its few rattlers, cotton-tail and jack- 

 rabbits and occasional coyote, until the sun 

 went down in a bank of clouds beside the 

 San Francisco mountains, and the stars 

 appeared. A light gleamed through the 

 darkness; there came to us the barking of 

 dogs. A trader's hearty welcome soon fol- 

 lowed, and our day's journey was ended. 

 Our thirty-mile drive lent equal attractive- 

 ness to the supper-burdened table, and the 

 pile of Navajo blankets in the trader's house. 

 We stayed with this trader friend for 

 many days, sleeping in his house with its 

 stone and adobe walls, roof and floor, 

 making friends with his Indian customers, 

 and sometimes visiting their settlements. 



One day as I was using my camera an 

 Indian boy by my side made signs that he 

 wanted to see. With his head under the 

 focusing cloth he looked for a long time at 

 the ground glass, and then asked what made 

 things go upside down. Upon this I had the 

 model before the camera stand upon his head. 

 The Indian looked again at the ground glass, 

 then at the model, then again at the ground 

 glass, and shook with laughter. Several 

 Indian women followed his example and the 

 merriment became general. Incidentally one 

 of the women made disparaging remarks 

 about pocket cameras where you saw noth- 

 ing and never received the promised pic- 

 tures. 



