d there was also a pretty strong smell of pipes of
tobacco, so that she saw nothing and was stifled and disgusted. She sent
Glover down, as people lower a dog into a mine where gases are suspected.
After a brief absence the skipper returned and reported.

"Pooty sizable room. Dark's a pocket 'n' hot's a footstove. Three or four
Injuns talkin' 'n' smokin'. Scrap 'f a fire smoulder'in a kind 'f standee
fireplace without any top."

"That's the sacred fire," said Aunt Maria. "How many old men were watching
it?"

"Didn't see _any_."

"They must have been there. Did you put the fire out?"

"No water handy," explained the prudent Glover.

"You might have--expectorated on it."

"Reckon I didn't miss it," said the skipper, who was a chewer of tobacco
and a dead shot with his juice.

"Of course nothing happened."

"Nary."

"I knew there wouldn't," declared the lady triumphantly. "Well, now let us
go back. We know something about the religion of these people. It is
certainly a very interesting study."

"Didn't appear to me much l'k a temple," ventured Glover. "Sh'd say t'was
a kind 'f gineral smokin' room 'n' jawin' place. Git together there 'n'
talk crops 'n' 'lections 'n' the like."

"You must be mistaken," decided Aunt Maria. "There was the sacred fire."

She now led the willing captain (for he was as inquisitive as a monkey) on
a round of visits to the houses of the Moquis. She poked smiling through
their kitchens and bedrooms, and gained more information than might have
been expected concerning their spinning and weaving, cheerfully spending
ten minutes in signs to obtain a single idea.

"Never shear their sheep till they are dead!" she exclaimed when that fact
had been gestured into her understanding. "Absurd! There's another
specimen of masculine stupidity. I'll warrant you, if the women had the
management of things, the good-for-nothing brutes would be sheared every
day."

"Jest as they be to hum," slily suggested Glover, who knew better.

"Certainly," said Aunt Maria, aware that cows were milked daily.

The Moquis were very hospitable; they absolutely petted the strangers. At
nearly every house presents were offered, such as gourds full of corn,
strings of dried peaches, guavas as big as pomegranates, or bundles of the
edible wrapping paper, all of which Aunt Maria declined with magnanimous
waves of the hand and copious smiles. Curious and amiable faces peeped at
the visitors from the landings and doo