soaring spires and wide-spreading branches of the trees, the shadows they cast, and the changes they underwent as the seasons progressed, the scudding or anchored clouds in their infinitude of form and color, the graceful arch of the rainbow, the peculiar formation and dissipation of the fogs, the triumphant lancings of the night by the gorgeous fire-weapons of the morning sun, the stately retreat of the king of day as evening approached,--all these and a thousand and one other things of beauty in Nature the Indian soon learned to know, and from all these mental images he can readily draw when a design is needed. [Illustration: AN EXQUISITELY WOVEN YOKUT BASKET SHOWING ORIGIN OF ST. ANDREW’S CROSS, FROM THE DIAMOND OF THE RATTLESNAKE.] Is it not well that the white race should learn to observe the things of Nature? We have a few nature writers: Thoreau, John Burroughs, Olive Thorne Miller, Elizabeth Grinnell, John Muir, Ernest Seton Thompson, Wm. J. Long, and Theodore Roosevelt, but why should we need nature books? We have the whole field of Nature for our own; every page is open to us, and the need of these books is proof that we have not, and do not, take the trouble to read Nature for ourselves. The Indian does better than this. He is a personal student. He finds joy and mental development in the results of his own observation, and until the white race learns his lesson, it will be behind him in its joy in Nature, its wisdom gained from Nature, in the physical health, vigor, and strength that Nature always gives to her devotees, and in the true art development that alone can come from familiarity with Nature in all her varying moods. CHAPTER XXV THE INDIAN AND RELIGIOUS WORSHIP [Illustration: THE DIGNIFIED AND SOLEMN ROW OF SNAKE PRIESTS IN THE HOPI SNAKE DANCE CEREMONIES.] [Illustration: HOPI INDIANS AT THEIR FLUTE CEREMONIES. THIS IS A PRAYER FOR WATER TO FLOW INTO THEIR DESERT SPRINGS.]