confounded dumb Indians swear it can’t be navigated. If boats can go down the stream, even during part of the year, the river bed belongs to the Federal government. If the stream can’t be navigated, the Navajos own the bed. That’s the law! While the argument continues, nobody can lease uranium or oil land near the river. Red says that, one of these days, he’s going to prove that—oops! I’m talking too much!”

Pepper clammed up for the first time they could remember. He said hardly a word until he dropped them off at Hall’s motel.

“I don’t get it,” Quiz said to his chum as they walked up a graveled path from the road to the rambling adobe building.

“Don’t get what?” Sandy wanted to know.

“This uranium hunting business Pepper’s got himself into. I read in Time a while back that the Federal government stopped buying uranium from prospectors in 1957. Since then, it has bought from existing mills, but it hasn’t signed a single new contract. Cavanaugh doesn’t own a uranium mill. So why is he snooping around, digging into state documents and antagonizing the Indians?”

“I only met him once, when he snooted our exhibit as a judge at the regional science fair,” Sandy replied. “Can’t say I took to him, under the circumstances.”

“There’s something phony about that man. If only I could remember ... something to do with football, I think.” Quiz scratched his head, but no more information came out.

They found Mr. Hall, dressed as usual in faded levis and denim shirt, sitting with several other guests of the motel on a wide patio facing the setting sun.

“Well, here are my roustabouts,” the little man cried with a flash of those too-perfect teeth. “I was beginning to be afraid that you had lost yourselves in the desert.”

He introduced them to the owners of the place, two maiden ladies from Minnesota who plainly were having the time of their middle-aged lives here on the last frontier. The Misses Emery, as alike as two wrinkled peas, showed the boys to their room, a comfortable place complete with fireplace and an air conditioner.

“Supper will be served in half an hour,” said one.

“Don’t be late,” said the other.

The newcomers scrubbed the sticky dust off their bodies and out of their hair, changed into clothes that didn’t smell of jeep, and were heading for the dining room when Mr. Hall overtook them.

“You may be wondering why I live out here on the edge of the desert,” he said quietly. “One reason is that I like the silence of desert nights. Another is the good cooking. The most important reason, though, is that some of the Farmington places are pretty nasty to Indians and Mexicans. Me, I like Indians and Mexes. Also, I learn a lot from them when they let their hair down. Well, here we are. You’ll find that the Misses Emery still cook like Mother used to. I’ll give you a tip. Don’t talk during supper. It isn’t considered polite in the Southwest.”

“Why is that?” Sandy wondered.

“It’s a hang-over from cowpunching days. If a ranch hand stopped to talk, somebody else grabbed his second helping.”

After a silent meal, the guests gathered on the patio to watch the stars come out.

“Folks,” said Mr. Hall, “meet Sandy Steele and Quiz Taylor. They’re going to join my crew this summer. Boys, meet Miss Kitty Gonzales, from Window Rock, Arizona. She’s going north in the morning to teach school in the part of the Navajo reservation that extends into Utah. Her schoolhouse will be a big trailer. Too bad you can’t be her students, eh? But sixteen is a mite old for Miss Kitty’s class.”

Kitty was slim, in her late teens, and not much over five feet tall. She had an oval face, black hair and eyes, and a warm smile that made the newcomers like her at once.

“This is Kenneth White,” Hall went on. “Ken works for the Bureau of Indian Affairs. When he talks, you listen!”

The white-haired man gave the boys handshakes that they felt for an hour.

“Chief John Quail, from the Arizona side of the Navajo reservation,” Hall said next. “The chief is here to talk over an oil lease.”

Chief Quail, a dark, heavily muscled Indian, wore a light-gray business suit that showed evidence of the best tailoring. He surprised the boys by giving them the limpest of handshakes.

“And Ralph Salmon, boss of my drill crew,” Hall concluded. “Ralph’s a southern Ute from Colorado. Do exactly as he says this summer if you want to learn oil.”

The lithe, golden-skinned young Indian nodded, but did not shake hands.

“So you’re off to your great adventure in the morning, Kitty,” White said to break the conversational ice. He lighted a pipe and leaned against the patio railing where he could watch the changing evening light as it stole over the desert.

“I’m so excited I won’t be able to sleep,” the girl answered in a rich contralto voice. “It’s all so wonderful. The oil lease money pouring in like this, after long lean years when starvation for the Navajos was just around the corner and it looked as though their reservation might be taken from them. Schools and hospitals being built all over. My wonderful new trailer with books and maps and even a kitchen and a shower for the children. Oh, my Navajos are going places at last.” She gave an embarrassed laugh at her long speech.

“One place your Navajos can go is to Salt Lake City,” Hall growled. “Get the state of Utah to settle that quarrel about who owns the land your schools and hospitals are being built on. Then I can get my hands on some leases up there.”

“I thought the Navajo reservation was in New Mexico and Arizona,” Sandy said.

“A small part of it is in southern Utah,” Hall explained. “That’s the part bounded by the San Juan River.”

“The argument over school lands is less important than our other disputes,” Chief Quail said carefully. He spoke good English but his words seemed to be tied together with string. Plainly, he had learned the white man’s language not many years ago. “The real problem—the one that is, how do you say, tying up millions of dollars of lease money—is to have a correct boundary drawn around the Hopi reservation.”

“The chief means,” Hall explained for the boys’ benefit, “that the Navajo reservation forms a large rectangle that completely surrounds a smaller square of land in Arizona where the Hopi Indians live.”

“Not a square, Mr. Hall,” Chief Quail objected. “The Hopis really own only a small triangle. Those primitive, stupid cliff dwellers claim thousands of Navajo acres to which they have no right. If I had my way in our Council, I would....”

“The Navajos and the Hopis are all grandmothers,” Salmon cut in angrily. “Squabbling over money like palefaces! Spending their royalties on things like schools and hospitals! When my tribe, the southern Utes, got its first royalty check, the Council voted to have some fun with the money. We spent it to build a race track for our fast horses!”

“Digger Indian!” The Navajo sneered at Salmon without moving a muscle of his broad face. “Fish eater! Soon you will waste all your easy money. When the oil runs out you will be running about naked again, living on roots and fried caterpillars like you used to!”

“Oh, no, John.” The Ute’s grin was just visible in the gathering darkness. “Maybe we’ll go on the warpath and take what we need from you fat Navajo sheep herders, as we did in the good old days. Or—” he added quickly as the chief lunged to his feet—“we’ll