One of my earliest visits to Oraibi was made in the congenial company of Major Constant Williams, who was then the United States Indian Agent, at Fort Defiance, for the Navahoes and Hopis. We had driven across the Navaho Reservation from Fort Defiance to Keam's Canyon, and then visited the mesas in succession. We drove to the summit of the Oraibi mesa in his buckboard, a new conveyance which he had had made to order at Durango, Colo. The road was the same one up which the soldiers had helped the horses drag the Gatling gun at the time of the arrest of the so-called "hostiles," who were sent to Alcatraz for their refusal to forsake their Oraibi ways and follow the "Washington way." It was a steep, ugly road, rough, rocky, and dangerous. The Major's horses, however, were strong, intelligent, and willing, so we made the ascent with comparative ease. The return, however, was different. There were so many things of interest at Oraibi that I found it hard to tear myself away, and the "shades of night were falling fast"--far too fast for the Major's peace of mind--ere I returned to the buckboard. By the time we had traversed the summit of the mesa to the head of the "trail" part of the descent, it was dark enough to make the cold tremors perambulate up and down one's spine. But I had every confidence in the Major's driving, his horses, and his knowledge of that fearfully precipitous and dangerous road. Slowly we descended, the brake scraping and often entirely holding the wheels. We could see and feel the dark abysses, first on one side and then on the other, or feel the overshadowing of the mighty rock walls which towered above us. I was congratulating myself that we had passed all the dangerous places, and in a few moments should be on the drifted sand, which, though steep, was perfectly safe, when we came to the last "drop off." This can best be imagined by calling it what it was, a steep, rocky stairway, of two or three steps, with a precipice on one side, and a towering wall on the other. Hugging the wall, the upper step extended like a shelf for eight or ten feet, and the nigh horse, disliking to make the abrupt descent of the step, clung close to the wall and walked along the shelf. The off horse dropped down. The result can be imagined. One horse's feet were up at about the level of the other's back. The wheels followed their respective horses. The nigh wheels stayed on the shelf, the off wheels came down the step. The Major and I decided, very suddenly, to leave the buckboard. We were rudely toppled out, down the precipice on the left,--I at the bottom of the heap. Down came camera cases, tripods, boxes of plates, and all the packages of odds and ends I had bought from the Indians, bouncing about our ears. Like a flash the two horses took fright and started off, dragging that overturned buckboard after them. They did not swirl around to the left down the sandy road, but to the right upon