“Let us understand this,” I told Billa Chezzi. “This shooting was not like a fight between two men, enemies. These were boys—children. They may have been playing together. It was an accident. Of course, that is a careless boy, and Washington doesn’t want him loose in this country. Sooner or later, he would likely hurt someone else. And I will send him to a place where he cannot hurt any more people. We have such places for bad boys.” “But what will this poor woman do for a son?” he whined. “You will have to find her a son from among the Navajo. She wouldn’t want a Hopi boy. Every time she looked at him she would think of this happening and be sad. That wouldn’t do. This is what I will do for the father and mother: I will get money from these Hopi, and what is lacking I will pay in cattle.” There was a consultation among them. Some grumbled, but I knew that most of them would regard cattle as better property than a Hopi lad who would have to be watched. They saw too that the Hopi stockmen were busy rounding up the herd. Then they talked a bit with the trader, who was a man of good advices. Ed spoke to me:— “They want to know if you will stay with the wounded boy until he dies—you and the doctor; and then will you have him buried?” “Yes, we will attend to that.” “And they want to know if you will pay them now, to-day?” “Just as soon as the steers are cut out from the bunch.” Then I drew out the money. They eyed it covetously. We agreed on approximately five hundred dollars in cash and stock at the current prices. A dozen Navajo rode off to assist in cutting out the animals, and I sent a Hopi to make the count. The crowd began dwindling away. Something had been settled, and they wished to be off before Death stalked across the plain. The Navajo have an awesome fear of the dead; but they would rally again at the mourning feast. Just then the woman raised her wail,—a long, quavering cry. I have related before in this chronicle that the Navajo shun funerals. We buried the lad in the sand-dunes close by, and carried Lidge off to the Agency, giving notice to his mother, en route. A short time after this I sent him to a non-reservation school. It would be well for him to be out of the Desert for a few years,—five would be none too many,—otherwise, he might be found along the trail some morning, gone to join that other lad he had so strangely hurt. It was not possible to get from Lidge a connected story of the shooting. It is my opinion that the Navajo boy rode up, saw the gun, and wanted it. “When a Navajo sees a Hopi with anything he wants, he takes it.” Lidge was on foot. No doubt the Navajo boy threw himself off his pony and came around under the horse’s neck, stooping. Lidge, more in fright and dismay than in anger, let him have it in the skull.