And that is called paying the Dane-geld; But we’ve proved it again and again, That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld You never get rid of the Dane. —Songs from English History For seven long years I lived in a two-penny house at the Agency, the rooms of which were nine by twelve, and the floors not level. I decided to increase the size of it, so that three or four visitors might arrange themselves in one room without compelling their host to step outside. This necessitated removing several walls, and for months I slept in a draughty place, surrounded by broken plaster, piles of lumber, mortar-boards and paint-pots. If one wished to call, he scrambled up a long plank having cleats nailed to it, fell over the débris, and projected himself into my bedroom. It was literally all doorway, and it opened on the Desert. One morning, about three A.M., I was aroused by a resounding crash. Some one called earnestly for Moungwi. I turned on a flashlight, and rescued an Indian policeman from a trap of metal-lathe and scaffolding. It was one of the Tewa who had ridden in. “What’s the trouble?” I asked him. “There’s a man shot in the Wepo Wash—Navajo; and they’re holding a Hopi for it. Billa Chezzi says must kill him pronto. Come right away and stop it. Here’s a letter.” The note he handed me had been hurriedly written by an Indian girl of the mesa, and she had been so filled with the necessity for my coming “to stop it” that she had failed to give all the facts. It appeared however that an unfortunate Hopi, held a prisoner by the Navajo of the North, was to be butchered by sundown; and the sun had gone down and was about to come up again. I aroused the physician and the big stockman from their slumbers. “We’ll start at daylight, so get ready.” The stockman routed out the Navajo interpreter, and they began adjusting a Ford car, in the hope that it would hold together through a nervous experience. Just at daybreak a range Navajo rode in with another note. This was from the redoubtable Ed, trading now in the Bakidbahotzne country of the central North, and who kept me advised from that distant station. Billa Chezzi and his gang have a Hopi boy up here, and all last night they argued to kill him. I advised them to send for you. They are not in the best of humors. Seems that this Hopi boy shot a Navajo boy. Bring the doctor. The Navajo is not dead yet. Now this looked a trifle better, but there was an ominous possibility in his last sentence. “The Navajo is not dead—yet.”