ee pot was empty I was ready for new adventures. Word had gone
forth that I would buy all the baskets the squaws brought to me. I hoped
in this way to get some first-hand information about the feminine side
of affairs. Squaws and baskets and information poured in. Baskets of all
sizes and shapes were brought, some good, some bad, but I bought them
all. If I hesitated a moment over one the owner put the price down to a
few cents. Just a dime or two for a whole week's work. Time has no value
to them, and the creek banks are covered with the best willows in the
world for basket-making. The basket-making art is the only talent these
squaws have, while the bucks excel in tanning buckskin and other skins.
These they trade to the Navajo Indians for silver and blankets. Then
they race their ponies or gamble for the ownership of the coveted
blankets. How they do love to gamble! Horses, blankets, squaws--anything
and everything changes hands under the spell of the magic cards. Even
the squaws and children gamble for beads and bright-colored calico. When
a few pieces of real money are at stake, all is wild excitement. How
the black eyes snap, and how taut is every nerve!

Their hewas are merely shelters of willow, and there is absolutely no
privacy about anything. Yet they are neither immoral nor unmoral. The
girls all marry very young. At the age of twelve or thirteen the girl is
chosen by some brave, who bargains with the father for her. A pony or
its value in buckskin will buy almost any father's favorite daughter.
But the girl is not forced to go with a lover whom she does not approve.
The marriage ceremony is not elaborate; after all preliminaries are
disposed of, the would-be bridegroom takes his blanket and moves into
the hewa of the girl's people. If two or three moons pass without any
quarrels between the young people, they move into a hewa of their own,
and thus it is known that they are married. Divorce is just as simple;
he merely sends her back to her father. An Indian brave of the Supai
tribe can have as many wives as he can buy according to the tribal law.
But since there is only about one squaw to every three braves, a man is
lucky to have any wife, and divorce is rare. When two or more braves
center their affections on one fair damsel, things are likely to happen.
But three Indian judges solemnly sit in council and settle the question.
Their solution is usually final, although two or three disgruntled
braves have j