Likewise the green covering of the earth, in all its beauty and meaning, soon occupied its place of supreme importance in his understanding–the grasses, green in the spring, bearded and seeding in the late summer, bleached white in the fall; the sages with their bitter-sweet fragrance and everlasting gray; the cacti, venomous yet fruitful, with their colors of vermilion and magenta; the paint-brush with its carmine; the weeds of the desert, not without their use and worthiness; the flowers of the deep canyons; the mosses on the wet stones by the cliff-shaded brook; the ferns and lichens; the purple-berried cedars and the nut-bearing pinons of the uplands; and on the mountains the great brown-barked pines, stately and noble, lords of the heights.

Next in order Nophaie learned the need and thrill and love of the hunt. By his own prowess as a hunter he must some day survive. The tracks and signs and sounds and smells of all denizens of his desert environment became as familiar to him as those of his hogan.

Nophaie wandered on with his sheep, over the sage and sand, under the silent lofty towers of rock. He was unconsciously and unutterably happy because he was in perfect harmony with the reality and spirit of the nature that encompassed him. He wandered in an enchanted land of mystery, upon which the Great Spirit looked with love. He had no cares, no needs, no selfishness. Only vaguely had he heard of the menace of the white race encroaching upon the lands of the Indian. Only a few white men had he ever seen.

So Nophaie wandered on with his flock through the sage, content and absorbed, watching, listening, feeling, his mind full of dreams and longings, of song and legend, of the infinite beauty and poetry of his life.

How lonely the vast sweep of purple sage-land that opened out from the red battlements of rock! How silent and dead the gleaming, beetling walls! How austere and solemn the day! But Nophaie was never lonely. He did not understand loneliness. The soft, sweet air he breathed was rich with the whispers of spirits. Above the red wall to the west loomed up a black-and-white dome–a mountain height, pure with snow, fringed by pine–and this was Nothsis Ahn, the home of Utsay, the god of the Indians. He dwelt there with Utsay Asthon, his woman, and together they had made the sun out of fire–they had made all. Utsay was the Great Spirit, and sometimes he communed with the medicine men through their sand-paintings. Nophaie that morning, as he turned from the sunrise to the looming mountain, had breathed a prayer to his Great Spirit.

“High chief of the mountain, the beautiful mountain, To me tell your secrets that it may be well before me as I go, Behind me tell me it may be well, Beneath me tell me it may be well, Above me tell me it may be well, Tell me let all that I see be well, Tell me that the Everlasting will be merciful toward me– Like the Chief of the Good, tell me that it is well with me. That the God of the medicine will let me talk well, tell me Now all is well, now all is well, Now all is well, now all is well.” And Nophaie believed all was well with him, that his prayer had been answered. The rustling of the sage was a voice; the cool touch of the breeze on his cheek was a kiss of an invisible and kindly spirit, watching over him; the rock he leaned a hand upon left a clinging response, from the soul therein. When a hawk sailed low over Nophaie’s head he heard the swish of wings driven by the power he trusted in. The all-enveloping sunlight was the smile of Utsay, satisfied with his people. Nophaie stepped aside to avoid crushing the desert primroses, thriving in the shade of the sage. Through those wide white blossoms looked the eyes of the departed relatives, who watched him from the Happy Hunting Grounds below. Would he walk straight? Would he talk straight? Their love lived on and was eternal. There was no death of spirit for Nophaie and his kind. There was no evil except what he thought, and to think evil of himself, of anyone, was a sin. To think evil made it true.

So Nophaie wandered on and on over the sage trails, proud and fierce as a young eagle, aloof and strange, dreaming the dreams conjured up by the wise men of his tribe. At seven years of age he had begun to realize the meaning of a chief, and that a chief must some day save his people. What he loved most was to be alone, out in the desert, listening to the real sounds of the open and to the silent whisperings of his soul. In the shadow of the hogans, among the boys and girls there, he was only Nophaie. They were jealous. They resented his importance. But out on the desert, in the cold, rosy dawns and the solemn, hot noontides and the golden sunsets, when the twilight stole down softly and white stars smiled at him from the velvet blue–then Nophaie could be himself, could listen and feel, and know how the four winds of heaven whispered of his future, of how he would make the medicine to save his people.

Nophaie did not walk alone.