re
preparing to fill up on unwilling veal. He bobbed about on his unsteady
little legs and protested earnestly. The sneaking beasts scattered at
our approach, and we drove on thinking the calf would be all right.
Looking back, however, we saw that the coyotes had returned and pulled
him down. This time the Chief's forty-five ended the career of one, and
the other two shifted into high, getting out of range without delay. The
trembling calf was loaded into the machine and we dropped him when the
main herd was reached. Here he would be safe from attack, but I have
often wondered if the mother found her baby again. At the next water
hole a lean lynx circled warily around with his eye fixed hungrily on
some wild ducks swimming too far from shore for him to reach. It seemed
that the sinister desert mothered cruel breeds.

We had reached the "Indian Pasture" now, where the Indians kept their
ponies. A score of Supai bucks were digging a shallow ditch. Upon being
questioned they said the ditch was a mile long and would carry water to
the big dam in their pasture when the rains fell. They were finishing
the ditch just in time, for the first of the season's storms was closing
down upon us. There was an ominous stillness, then the black cloud was
rent with tongues of flame. And the rains descended--more than
descended. They beat and dashed and poured until it seemed that the very
floodgates of heaven had opened over our unfortunate heads. It was
impossible to stay in the glue-and-gumbo road, so we took to the open
prairie. Since this part of the country is well ventilated with
prairie-dog holes, we had anything but smooth sailing.

"Stop," I shouted, trying to make myself heard above the roar of the
storm.

"No time to stop now," was the answer.

We pulled under a sheltering juniper and slowed up.

"What did you want to stop there for? Don't you know we have to keep on
moving if we reach a shelter tonight?" inquired the pilot of our ship.
He had evidently been brooding over my unseemly mirth at the mad cow
episode.

"Oh, all right," I agreed, "but the bedding-roll bounced out and I
thought you might want to pick it up." The fugitive bedding recovered,
we resumed our journey.

The storm ended as suddenly as everything else happens in that
topsy-turvy land and in the eastern sky hung a double quivering rainbow.
I rubbed my eyes and looked again. It _was_ double! The Chief explained
that this was due to a mirage, but I plac