he
cottonwood booth or kisi, the size of a boy's wigwam, having a canvas
flap on the side opening close by the broad board over which the feet of
the priests will thump as they file past. A moving picture machine is
installed on top of a near-by house. The Boston, New York, Pittsburgh,
Cleveland and Chicago tourists and newspaper men are grouped about in
what they believe are advantageous positions. The costumes vary from
smart tailor made dresses worn by the tourist girls from Cincinnati to a
Hopi child's dress made of a piece of a gunny sack bearing the name of a
Minnesota flouring mill. Over all the jumble of old and new, modern and
ancient, the setting sun floods the medley of colour and language and
dress and Christian and pagan. And in the stillness that waits the
coming of the twenty-four priests out of the kivas, the town crier walks
out on the corner of a house top and cries aloud an announcement of a
service to be held that night in the little mission chapel out there on
the edge of the rock.

"What's that?" asked one of the tourists near Clifford.

"That's the town crier of Oraibi," said Clifford. "There are no
newspapers up here and the official village news purveyor is telling the
crowd to come over to the Gospel meeting to-night. He says Mr. Masters
is going to preach in three languages. Better come and hear him in one
of 'em."

The tourist stares at Clifford. "Well of all the places on earth for
preaching, this beats me. Do you mean to say a preacher will actually
hold a service up here after this snake dance and expect to get an
audience?"

"Will he?" says Clifford cheerfully. "You had better come early or you
won't get a seat. And as for preaching you'll hear a better sermon than
you ever heard in Cincinnati, Ohio."

"I guess that may be so," says the tourist. "For I haven't been to
church since I don't know when."

"You need preaching then, like the rest of these heathen," said Clifford
so simply that the Cincinnati man takes no offence but promises to go
over to the service if he isn't too tired.

The rim of the sun is an hour above the horizon and the crowd has ceased
its chatter. It is very quiet on the grey rock of Oraibi, although a
thousand people are looking intently at the openings of the two kivas.
Suddenly from the one nearest the Tolchaco party up the ladder the chief
of the Antelope priests appears. He holds the rattle box in his hand and
is followed by the eleven priests, the last