Perhaps, trending along the lines of recent admonitions, we should have carried an outfit for the making of tea, together with several hymnbooks. However, I had other ideas on this subject. I recalled how this favored son of the Desert, to wit, Billa Chezzi, had held up Hubbell the trader, threatening him with a rifle, until disarmed, overpowered, and chained to a post. How he had started a war against a former superintendent. How another Arizona pioneer had been forced to beat Billa nearly to death in defense of his own life. This last affair had occurred at Fort Defiance. And, of course, to be fair to the chief, he had been drunk on all occasions; but could I be sure of his sobriety on this one? When the car swung around the point of the First Mesa, I counseled the doctor thus:— “Ed seems to think this Navajo boy will not live. Let us hope he is alive when we get there. You examine him and, at first opportunity, without inviting excitement, tell me about how long he will last. I shall have just that much time in which to settle things. I may need it.” “Suppose he dies?” said the doctor. “I am hoping he will not die until I have made arrangements. If he kicks in before that, I don’t know just what will happen.” And this did not appear to ease the physician’s mind. Half an hour later we saw them, a large party of Indians in the central flat. Some of them were mounted, but for the most part they had turned their ponies loose to graze and were grouped in a throng on foot. It would be there among them, probably haranguing, that I should find old Billa Chezzi, alias Crooked Fingers, with a black silk handkerchief swathed about his head, the perfect picture of a desert bandit. Old, wrinkled, and yellow-toothed, with bleary eyes that narrowed when he became sullen, Billa Chezzi was not the pleasantest of the Navajo chiefs. “When we get there,” I said to the stockman, “look around for that Hopi boy. If you see a Hopi boy, and you have an opportunity, put him in the car; and then you stay with him.” “What then?” he asked. “Well, if they want him that badly, compel them to climb into the car and take him out of it.” “Do you want me to bean one of those fellows, if they try that?” “No—that wouldn’t help any. Simply compel them to take him away from you by force. I’m afraid you will not have the chance. Keep your gun on the seat, but don’t use it.” “You mean—just let them see that it’s present?” “Exactly. But don’t make the mistake of pointing it at any one of them, even if he does clamber in.”