Another vivacious Hopi is Wupa, whose name means "great." The fatherly interest which Wupa takes in the white man was sufficient recommendation to attach him to our camp as man-of-all-work, and a closer acquaintance brought to view other sides of his character in which the gay features far outnumber the grave. Faithful to the extent of his lights, though averse to steady work, he managed to earn his bread and a small stipend, but considering the entertainment he furnished, his pay should have been equal to that of the end-man in a minstrel show. So it happens that the memories of Wupa bring forth a flood of pleasing recollections. The merriest of all that merry race of laughing, joking, singing Hopi, his presence around the camp-fire diffused an atmosphere of cheerfulness which does not always prevail amidst the discomforts of roughing-it in the desert. Short of stature and bandy-legged, possessed of a headpiece wrinkled and quizzical, one cannot by any stretch of the imagination make him out handsome; but he is so loquacious, witty, and full of tricks that it is not possible to doubt his fitness for the position of king's jester. Wupa has his moods, though. Sometimes an air of preternatural gravity and unspeakable wisdom enwraps him; very close behind this mask, for such it is, lurks a mirth-provoking skit and boisterous laugh. Like other humorists Wupa has the fatality of being most amusing when serious. Still, in the iridescent interworld between smiles and tears Wupa has a romantic and sad history. The _dramatis personae_ woven into this history are white men, Mexicans, Zuñi Indians, and his fellow Hopi. The first misfortune that befell Wupa was to be born at the time when famine harried the Peaceful People in their seven villages to the north of the Little Colorado. Famine is an old story with the Hopi. For two years no rain had fallen, and neither the Snake nor the Flute dance availed to bring the good will of their gods. The sacredly reserved corn laid up to tide over a bad year had been eaten, and the Hopi were in distress. They gathered the wild plants that seem to be independent of drought, and tried to keep soul and body together till the rain-clouds should again sweep across the Painted Desert; but many were those who never saw the time of ripe corn. Many deserted the pueblos and cast their lot among the Navaho shepherds, the Havasupai of Cataract Canyon, and other more fortunate tribes of friendly people.