Page 249 - TheHopiIndians

MESA FOLK OP HOPILAND 241
sand. By night he rolled himself in his blanket and
after his orisons slept under the brilliant stars, while
his fellow Mexicans snored in strangely assorted heaps
among the sage-clumps.
The rails came down the treacherous Puerco and
along the banks of the Little Colorado. To the north
the dark blue Hopi Domes reared their fantastic sum
mits, signifying nothing to this expatriated Indian,
though the mother who bore him and sold him into
bondage waited for him there. To the west the San
Francisco peaks stood always in view, but Wupa was
ignorant of the traditions of his tribe that cluster
around them. The rails left the river, stretched
across a flat country, and halted at the edge of a tre
mendous chasm, whose presence could not be suspected
until it yawned beneath the feet. Here the camp halt
ed for months, while a spider's web of steel was spun
across the Devil's Canyon.
One day several Hopi came to the camp, and after
staring, open-mouthed, at the labors of the white man,
wandered about, as if looking for someone. Soon they
ran across Wupa, and the leader spoke to him in Hopi
language to this effect: "You are a Hopi; we come
to bring you to your house." A doubtful shake of
the head from Wupa, who did not understand the
tongue of his people.
"Yes, come: they sit up there waiting for you."
This ought to have stirred in Wupa a desire to go at
once, but he "no sabe. " Finally, after parleying1 in