Captives of the Desert. Zane Grey

gods. Soon they gathered at the entrance to the kisi, in no particular formation, but dancing the tapping step of the antelope men. One among them stood before the kisi, and at once Katharine realized that the great moment had come. Now the purpose of the kisi was revealed. It housed the snakes, and the priest who stood there was to dole them out. He was welcome to his office, Katharine thought. She did not envy him. He lifted the curtain part way and thrust in his arm. Never could he know how prayerfully a certain young lady regarded his movements. In another moment he withdrew his arm, and there, suspended from the firm grip of his fingers in the paralyzing hold of which Curry had spoken, was a rattlesnake fully five feet long, which, quick as a flash, he passed along to the nearest dancer. Skillfully the dancer grasped the snake without giving him an instant’s freedom. What followed filled Katharine with such intense horror that at first she could not believe her own eyes. The man newly possessed of the snake lifted it to his mouth, snapped his lips hard over the place where he had taken the finger hold, and slipping his hand down over the full length of the writhing reptile, looped it up free of the ground. In this manner he held it, tight fast in mouth and hands, the head a few inches from his cheek, but powerless to turn and use its fangs.

      Meanwhile the man at the kisi had doled out another snake, and a second dancer seized it in his mouth; and the performance was repeated again and again until each dancer had a snake, even the small boys, who were given the shortest ones.

      Now the place swarmed with antelope dancers again, they too participating in this most formal procedure of all. Each snake dancer had an antelope man as a sort of custodian partner who took his place behind him, one hand resting lightly on his shoulder, the other gently stroking him with the feather-tipped rod he held in his hand. Advancing in a circuitous route, they danced a hopping step, four beats on the ball of one foot, the last being accentuated, then four on the ball of the other with a strange swaying motion accompanying the change. As they swayed the snakes swayed, and on and on and on. There was no drum, no music, just the beat of feet. Occasionally a dancer liberated a snake, why Katharine could not tell, and the first time it happened it appeared an accident. But quickly she saw that the extra antelope men on the outskirts of the court were there on guard to catch the liberated snakes, pouncing on them much like a cat on a mouse and even more sure of their strike. The snake dancer, unmindful of the snake he had freed, would go directly to the kisi for a fresh one.

      The four boys were brave and apparently tireless. They clung fiercely to their snakes and their small feet beat hard upon the ground. Katharine, following the leader with her eyes, saw two forms slip quickly before him and leap to a place on the walls—the Blakely girls, making their belated appearance.

      The dance went on—the beat of feet continued. It grew monotonous. The Eastern girl felt that fatigue must surely be creeping over the dancers. Yet she had been so interested that she had not noticed the sun dropping low, withdrawing its heat and flinging shadows across the court.

      “This performance will end with the sunset,” said Mary, which made Katharine aware that day was drawing to a close.

      She pitied the little boys. “Are they watching the sun?” she wondered. And in the next moment she rejoiced that they were still dancing safely. No dancer had been struck. Was it because they had believed they would not be? Was it more desert faith? More desert magic?

      Presently the dancers hesitated, the sound of feet lost momentum just as the tick of a huge clock that is suddenly stopped; then came a stir of action and high cries, and every snake man, raising his snake aloft, fled from the court and out beyond the village upon the open spaces of the mesa. The long-awaited ceremonial dance was ended.

      Everyone seemed eager to rise, to exercise cramped limbs. Katharine and Mary slipped easily to the ground. Mrs. Weston, who was perched up on a high wall, signaled Curry for assistance.

      “I see the Blakely girls arrived,” said Mary.

      That they had was unmistakable. They were scrambling over roofs in high glee, attracting solemn stares from the Indians.

      Katharine recognized the trend of Mary’s thoughts. “But Wilbur has not come yet.” Then she added hastily, “Yes, they’ve been here quite a while.”

      This brought a strange, quizzical smile to Mary’s eyes. “Katharine, you’re a dear,” was all she said.

      Mrs. Weston descended upon them suddenly. “Whatever happened to Mr. Newton?” she asked. “He sure wanted to see the Snake Dance bad enough. I’ll kidnap the two of you if he doesn’t show up soon.”

      “Do please kidnap us temporarily,” suggested Mary. “I think we have been passed on to you, anyway.”

      With a word and a nod here and there, Mrs. Weston gathered together her friends and the professor and his sisters, and led them on a tour of the village, while Curry and Mr. Weston went off to bring up the horses. To study the village was to understand how primitively the desert-bound Hopis lived, yet Katharine was half-ashamed to poke around, uninvited, in their homes. It seemed audacious to her. Because they were white, they assumed the privilege was theirs, but that in nowise made it right.

      On the outskirts of the pueblo Curry met them with the horses. By the time he came over to the girls, he found Mary already mounted. A frown puckered his forehead.

      “Mrs. Newton, I don’t like the way that horse of yours lays his ears back and shows his teeth,” he said. “I’m afraid he’s a mean cuss. Perhaps you better ride him around a little before we try the trail.”

      “Make her be careful,” he said aside to Katharine as he helped her to mount. “See she walks that horse.”

      The horse did not want to be walked, but Mary, who had always been perfect in command on a horse, held him in. They rode out slowly beyond the village, single file, Mary in the lead, along a footpath worn deep by generations of Indians. It was the trail the snake men had followed. They saw the Indians far ahead assembled on the plain.

      “We had better not get too far away from the others,” Katharine suggested.

      Mary turned in her saddle. “I am trying to get away from Wilbur,” she said in a low tone which only Katharine could hear. “He was coming up over that rocky trail with Hanley when we left. I don’t believe he saw us, and I want to avoid any insulting remarks to me and possibly to Mr. Curry. When Mrs. Weston sees Wilbur, she won’t expect us. People are not stupid. No one here, except Hanley, really desires Wilbur’s company.”

      Mary was right, so all Katharine added was, “He’ll see us now. Let him follow. He’ll hardly drag Hanley along.”

      In their direction came an Indian rider who had detached himself from the group of snake men. As he approached the girls, he checked his horse and turned him sidewise to block the trail. He gesticulated and uttered strange words, and then at the very moment when it dawned on Katharine that he was trying to tell them that they must go no farther, he swung from his saddle, grasped Mary’s bridle and with a sharp lash from his quirt turned her horse and sent him through the brush and cactus, racing madly back toward the village.

      Immediately Katharine wheeled her horse. Memory of Curry’s warning made her fearful of the sight of Mary clinging to the infuriated horse. She tried to keep pace. Her own horse, spurred on by a desire to race, sped swiftly in pursuit; but Mary’s horse plainly was running away. He tore cross-country, heedless of the cruel growths that snatched at him. He was making straight for the rim trail. Or was it for the rim itself? Katharine’s blood froze. The distance widened between them. She urged her horse to greater speed, beat at him frantically with her quirt. Out of the tail of her eye she saw the pueblo village approaching nearer. But all of her attention was on Mary, hatless now, and bent low over the neck of her runaway horse. Soon he would strike the trail. Would he turn? The alternative was too horrible to consider. . . . But what was that ahead? Katharine felt her eyes straining wide in their sockets. A rider, racing from Mary’s left to head her off at the rim! Now they were almost at the mesa rim! Katharine fought to hold back a shriek of terror. She could not tell which of the racing horses was gaining. Already the rim with its jagged edge seemed only a few steps from either rider.

      Then