There were four of us in the car: the physician, the stockman, the Indian interpreter, and myself. Several policemen clattered their way over the shorter trails, but I did not feel that they would help matters much. On reaching the First Mesa we learned that a Hopi lad named Lidge Palaquoto, the son of Pah-lah, a widow, and who was aged about fourteen years, had been out with sheep in the upper Wepo Wash. He had carried a .22 rabbit-gun. When he did not return at nightfall, search developed that he was in the hands of the Black Mountain Navajo. He had somehow and for some unknown reason shot a Navajo boy, about two years older than himself. We would have to round the First Mesa and go through the Wepo Valley sand, but at that Henry’s contrivance would make better time than the traditional bronk. In a novel, requiring at this stage a thrilling rescue, we should have rushed to the corrals, subdued several chilly and resisting horses, and consumed four hours pounding through sand and greasewood, to arrive with a clatter and amid dust and revolver smoke. We should have dashed down on them, spattered a volley, swept the lad from the ground in passing, plunged on, and disappeared in a blaze of glory. Yes, I have written that sort of nerve tonic. But we didn’t do anything of the kind. We used a Ford. And despite all one’s imagination and nervous energy, there is no glory in a Ford. But in the more prosaic manner we could make the trip in two hours, without saddle-sores, carrying all the believed-necessary tools for any possible emergency. The doctor had his kit for his method of life-saving. There were two Winchester carbines, the stockman packed his cavalry-type .45, and I carried in a spring-sling under my left arm one of Mr. Colt’s automatic specials. It did not invite attention there, hampered no one, and could be withdrawn in less than an hour’s time. The Government officials at Washington consider these adjuncts altogether unnecessary, and often write words to that effect; and they are unnecessary in Washington, where the writing officials who frown on them are usually to be found at desks, nursing plans for future campaigns. This affair was not billed for Washington. It did not concern auto traffic. It was to be staged in the upper Wepo Wash, and Ed’s note had stated that Billa Chezzi stood peevishly at the head of his gang. One should keep in mind that the Navajo go armed. There would be plenty of forty-fives and a few heavy rifles in that crowd. I had prevented their procuring ammunition from the licensed traders of the reservation, but no one prevented their procuring it off the reservation, from unregulated traders and in the railroad towns. Both Federal and Arizona State law decree against the furnishing of either arms or ammunition to Indians, and despite numerous murders in the Navajo country, these laws have been the deadest of defunct letters.