-36-

said that he would have liked to remain there forever in the peace and beauty of their life, but they bade him return and use his new knowledge for his people."

   I could not help but ask the inevitable.

   "Do you believe this story of the chief?"

   His eyes studied the wisps of smoke for some minutes before he answered.

   "I do not know. When a man is lost in Tomesha, and the Fire-God is walking across the salt crust, strange dreams like clouds, fog through his mind. No man can breathe the hot breath of the Fire-God and long remain sane. Of course, the Paiutes have thought of this. No people knows the moods of Tomesha better than they.

   "You asked me to tell you the legend of the flying ships. I have told you what the young men of the tribe do not know, for they no longer listen to the stories of the past. Now you ask me if I believe. I answer this. Turn around. Look behind you at that wall of the Panamints. How many giant caverns could open there, being hidden by the lights and shadows of the rocks? How many could open outward or inward and never be seen behind the arrow-like pinnacles before them? How many ships could swoop down like an eagle from the beyond, on summer nights when the fires of the furnace-sands have closed away the valley from the eyes of the white-man? How many Hav-musuvs could live in their eternal peace away from the noise of white-man's guns in their unscalable stronghold? This has always been a land of mystery. Nothing can change that. Not even white-man with his flying engines, for should they come to close to the wall of the Panamints a sharp wind like the flying arrow can sheer off a wing. Tomesha hides its secrets well even in winter, but no man can pry into them when the Fire-God draws the hot veil of his breath across the passes.