The women wore velveteen bodices and curiously full skirts. They too were weighted with silver ornaments, one having the more of beads and bandeaux being the favorite wife or daughter. Some of the smaller girls moved about accompanied by the tinkling of little bells strung to their moccasins and belts. All this in the brilliant flare of the cottonwood fire, above which fanned a mist of sparks like another Milky Way; and there was the incense of the smoking logs; and the star-pinned dome overhead; and all around the dark maw of the great lonely Desert. Suddenly came a halt in these “singing” proceedings. The choir withdrew somewhere, and the centre of the stage was taken by another old man, who led a little girl. Other and older girls began to hurry around the circle, darting here, darting there, as if running something down. At first the little one seemed a trifle confused and stood in wide-eyed hesitation; but with a bit of urging from the elder master of the ceremonies, she made for Roberts. He would lead this german. Grinning, he permitted her to pull him into the ring, his partner maintaining a solemnity that was comical. “Get ready for the next set,” he called to me over his shoulder. The social features were on, and the girls were hunting partners. Did the young men of the ponies vie with each other? They did not. They sat their steeds as if cut from granite. For it would seem that a young man would likely lose half his finery, certainly all his change, if captured, and might find himself later up against a breach-of-promise suit. On foot, he was at a disadvantage; mounted, it was the more difficult to drag him down. I cannot say that I noticed any chivalry among those young Navajo fellows. But Roberts—there was a fine accommodating chap for you. One partner was not enough for him; he now had two of the tiny ones. The dance seemed simple enough. It consisted in one’s acting as a pivot, around which the little squaw, or several of them, turned backward with rapid scuffling steps. Her one hand tightly gripped the man’s belt, the other held as tightly her blanket. Her expression was as sober as a Chinaman’s. But she accomplished the purpose of the business. After a few moments of that turning, the subject would be too dizzy to argue out of a donation. It kept up until Roberts was weaving; but when they stopped he protested that he was a poverty-stricken wretch—and promptly, without cracking a smile, they began again. He must shell out at least a quarter to each, which he did finally, and they scuttled back to their chaperons, who banked the money. And here he came unsteadily to the blanket we shared, while I suspected several of the old women casting menacing glances in my direction. There sounded a scurry in the outer darkness, and a crashing of the greasewood.