“Colonel” Oldhouse, who had about reached the retirement age, suspected all new-fangled methods. Behind his desk rested an old hand-made army-chest, strapped and locked to withstand the strains and bruises of frontier travel. The Colonel dated from those days when the stage ran “to the States,” and Santa Fe was an outpost of progress. In that chest reposed his warrants and accounts, neatly arranged, jacketed, and briefed. He could go to it in the dark and instantly find Voucher 137 for the second quarter of 1889. “Colonel,” said a very young man, “Why don’t you order some files for your papers, with sliding drawers, and rods, and—” The Colonel snorted. “They’re no good,” he snapped; “the damned things are made by machinery!” Exactly, Colonel; you have accurately described the ineffectiveness of a filing-case. XXIII THE RED BOOTLEGGERS And I will make it felony to drink small beer.—King Henry VI The heart of the Enchanted Desert, consisting of the Hopi Reserve and a wide strip of Navajo country surrounding it as a frame, was not troubled by the liquor problem among its natives so long as the State of Arizona remained generously wet. The Hopi Indians have no use for liquor, and will not tolerate it. On one occasion men of the mesas, who were without authority to act as policemen, arrested and brought in a Navajo who had simply exhibited a suspicious bottle; a very singular thing for Hopi to do, since they are not bold, even when commissioned. For years Hopi and Navajo freighters packed Government stores from the railroad town of Holbrook, distant eighty miles from the Agency and nearly fifty of them outside the reservation, without engaging in sprees or bootlegging. The Navajo rather likes his beverages, and they do not improve him as a neighbor; but drunkenness was rare even among the Navajo in those days. When the State went dry, the acquisition of liquor presented something of adventure to those who were naturally lawless. And it was not long before cargoes of cheering fluids began to arrive in the Navajo country from New Mexico. The town of Gallup became a point of interest for Indians who never before had visited it. Gallup is one hundred and five miles from the Hopi Agency, and of course contraband is not packed along highroads. When the “special officers” of the Indian Liquor Service descended on Gallup, the Navajo organized relays to serve the back country; and the special officers did not follow into the lonesome places. One might be sure that at every Navajo gathering there would be boozing, and at points one hundred to one hundred and fifty miles from the source, and that same distance from special officers. The smugglers would hide the liquor beyond the great circle of campers, in the black of some thicket, and along in the early morning hours, when chance visitors had departed and watchers were tired out, the bibulous would appear in various stages of intoxication. They were then dangerous.