“The doc’ has beat it,” said Roberts, dropping down. I raised to look around; and just then, from behind, I felt a very muscular hand grasping my belt. There was nothing to do but yield in the best humor possible. A wild shout from the Indians, men and women, even from the ungallant horsemen grouped in the rear, and I was thrust and pulled forward. They had appointed two of the small girls to me, and their hold on my belt was like grim death. And now the shuffle began. I endeavored to spin without entangling my feet, but there was something wrong with my action. I was no such success as friend Roberts had been. Now the master of ceremonies came forward, his wrinkled face having the benevolence of a grandfather, and with expressive gestures he explained his sorrow because of my inefficiency. He would give me a lesson. We used words that neither understood, and made signs at each other until wholesale laughter retired the teacher. But I was not retired. I was still in the ring. The gold-and-orange flares of the fires dazzled one’s eyes, and then one began to turn faster; the circle of bright figures in the full light lost outline, and then the wagons and horses and hogan and Roberts on his blanket blurred into and formed one jumbled merry-go-round of which I was the centre. A little more of this, and I cried “Enough!” and very nearly staggered into the fire. Solemnly my partners waited for and clutched at their two-bit pieces, and I weaved back to the blanket. The doctor was not captured that night. Perhaps he managed to hide until we harnessed the team and started for home; perhaps he walked into the Agency, as several accused. But this was a “running dance,” meaning a moving one. A second installment of it was held the next night at a point ten miles down the river. The doctor was compelled to go, and there they ran him down and forced his performance. His effort was not half bad, and I wondered if mine had been as funny. Affairs of this sort taught me that the desert Navajo are a good-natured and interesting people, in many ways like our own country folk at quilting-bees and huskings. They have their renegades and black sheep, with which the white race is as fully endowed; and my ugly experiences of later days could not be charged to the tribe. When a Navajo is ailing, they manage to combine exorcism of the evil spirits with the amusing dance, and whether or not old Beck-a-shay Thlani was improved physically, the girls had a good time. It often helps them to find a husband; and in this case, how were they to know that Roberts would desert them for an Albuquerque girl, or that in a few months I would be interested only in solemnizing the marriages of older sisters and the herding of the remainder into schools?