Our last night in this Eden known only to a few brown Adams and Eves, when the heat became too intense for sleep indoors, I took a blanket and spread it under the trees. The full moon made the little valley more of a Paradise than ever. I lay and watched the light climb the massive cliffs that wall in the canyon entrance, till it reached the two grotesquely shaped pillars surmounting either cliff. The Havasupai have a legend concerning these monoliths, so oddly perched that they command oversight of the whole village. They are not really rocks, but gods,--the tutelary gods of the tribe. One the Havasupai call the Old Lady, while the other is naturally the Old Man. For centuries they have guarded their people. Yes, but the breath of scandal touches even gods,--and even gods of stone. For one morning, years ago, a chief of the tribe rose unusually early,--and saw,--don’t let it go any further, although I had it very straight,--he saw the Old Man returning hastily to his rock. At four o’clock in the morning, mind you! Easy enough to guess where he’d been. But I fell asleep watching, and when I awoke the Old Man and Old Lady were still sedately on their pillars. Well, that was a long while ago, after all, and gods will be gods. CHAPTER XVII FROM WILLIAMS TO FORT APACHE “Williams,” said the Old-Timer to us, as he directed us to that progressive but uninteresting little town, “when I first came west was a typical shoot-’em-up town, with thirty-six saloons;--thirty of them in tents,” he added emphatically, as if this made a climax of iniquity, I remarked later to Toby. “The drinking, I suppose, was more intense,” she replied. “Owing to more frequent drafts,” I retaliated. Williams, set in a sea of white dust, looked both modern and harmless, as if to make up for its youthful wild oats by a humdrum middle-age. Numerous drug-stores had replaced its three dozen saloons, and a Sabbath calm reigned on its dusty streets. We bought gasoline, and went on, not over-pleased with Williams. We felt it did not live up to its early rakishness. But appearances count for very little after all. Not five minutes later, a small man driving a small car, with a large blond woman beside him, approached and signaled us. We saw he was excited, and she, though normally florid, was the color of an uncooked pie. My prophetic soul caused me to say, “Shall we stop? It may be a hold-up,” when he called, “Stop! stop! We’ve just been held up, a mile back.” “When?” “Five minutes ago.” We had spent those same five minutes buying gasoline at Williams. “Canst work in the ground so fast?” I apostrophised our guardian angels. The woman broke in shrilly. “Two masked men with revolvers stood by the road. They took everything we had, then made for the woods.” “Did you lose much?” “Nine dollars,” said the little man. “If I’d had more they’d got it.”