had asked about a Navajo, who not long ago went
locoed right in Cincinnati station and began stabbing murderously right
and left.

"In the first place," answered the Franciscan, "that Indian ought not to
have been in Cincinnati at all. In the second place, he ought not to
have been there alone. In the third place, he had great provocation."

Here is the story, as I gathered it from traders and missionaries and
Indians. The Navajo was having trouble over title to his land. That was
wrong the first on the part of the white man. It was necessary for him
to go to Washington to lay his grievance before the Government. Now for
an Indian to go to Washington is as great an undertaking as it was for
Stanley to go to Darkest Africa. The trip ought not to have been
necessary if our Indian Office had more integrity and less red-tape;
but the local agency provided him with an interpreter. The next great
worry to the Navajo was that he could not get access to "The Great White
Father." There were interminable red-tape and delay. Finally, when he
got access to the Indian Office, he could get no definite, prompt
settlement. With this accumulation of small worries, insignificant
enough to a well-to-do white man but mighty harassing to a poor Indian,
he set out for home; and at the station in Washington, the interpreter
left him. The Navajo could not speak one word of English. Changing cars
in Cincinnati, hustled and jostled by the crowds, he suddenly felt for
his purse--he had been robbed. Now, the Navajo code is if another tribe
injures his tribe, it is his duty to go forth instantly and strike that
offender. Our own Saxon and Highland Scotch ancestors once had a code
very similar. The Indian at once went locoed--lost his head, and began
stabbing right and left. The white man newspaper told the story of the
murderous assault in flare head lines; but it didn't tell the story of
wrongs and procrastination. The Indian Office righted the land matter;
but that didn't undo the damage. Through the efforts of the missionaries
and the traders, the Indian was permitted to plead insanity. He was sent
to an asylum, where he must have had some queer thoughts of white man
justice. Just recently, he has been released under bonds.

The most notorious case of wrong and outrage and cowardice and murder
known in Navajo Land was that of a few years ago, when the Indian agent
peremptorily ordered a Navajo to bring his child in to the Agency
School. Not so