“Then how do you know that Sageny is the thief?”
“Went to corral; saw his tracks. Yisconga dahtsi” (to-morrow perhaps)
“I bring in Sageny.”
“You mean the trail will lead to his hogan?”
“No, No! Went to corral; see his tracks—Sageny’s feet. No two Navajo
have feet alike.”
And when Sageny was brought in, although he had many excuses and
claimed that he had raised the animals, he did admit taking animals
having another’s brand; and he occupied the guardhouse for a period as
a guest of the Empire. Several of my Navajo police graduated later into
the same rest-room, which seemed a humorous proceeding to many, and was
not altogether different from the experiences of some white
lieutenants.
It was when I discovered that Tewa could be depended on that better
police-work followed. The point of view was different. One day I
summoned the tall and spare Tewa chief of police, and said to him:—
“Nelson, I want Hostin Chien Bega. You know him?”
“Yes; me know him—call him ‘Bull-Neck.’”
“‘Bull-Neck’ it is. Can you bring him in?”
“Dahtsi.”
“Well, here are handcuffs. Suppose you try it.”
He took the cuffs and walked away. A short time after he returned, and
I saw that he had buckled on his guns.
“You want ‘Bull-Neck,’” he commented. “He mean Navajo—carry two guns
all the time. Sometimes bring in whiskey. Now, how bad you want him?
You want him dead?”
Well, to be plain about it, I did not want Hostin Chien Bega, alias
Bull-Neck, as a morgue exhibit. He was mean enough in the flesh. And I
foresaw the later experience of a brother superintendent who ruled the
reservation on my west line. His domain was if anything a trifle wilder
than mine, reaching to the Grand Cañon and the most remote places of
the Utah border. Its area was a trifle more than five thousand square
miles, inhabited by at least six thousand Navajo, many of whom had
never touched civilization. One Taddytin had graduated from the police
force into a bully of the countryside, and it became necessary to
impose on him a bit of his own medicine. Taddytin was a giant in
physique and quite the meanest man of that territory. Messages
summoning him to the Agency were of no avail. He pleaded illness, that
cover to which retreat all those who do not wish to testify. Taddytin
not only resisted the persons sent to arrest him, but did his level
Navajo best with a .45 gun to get them before they subdued him. The
Navajo is quite handy with a gun at close range. Most of them go armed
from the time they make money enough to purchase a heavy weapon at the
nearest trading-post—a trade permitted by the Indian Office, although
in utter defiance of both Federal and Arizona State law.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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