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Show EARLY AMERICAN, RED Chapter XIII The brown and white pinto mustang drowsed at the hitching post outside the store. I noticed that its bridle was decorated with Indian beadwork. So was the saddle. Inside, Father sat writing at the post office desk. On the ledge of the desk leaned a squat, broad, powerfully made man with dark skin. He had high cheekbones and narrow eyes. He looked a little like a Chinese except that he was darker. The beaded band around his tall black sombrero linked with the beadwork on the pinto. This was my first live Indian outside of a Wild West Show. Imaginatively I'd stalked ghosts of redmen along trails through the brush. I'd found broken arrow and spear heads along those faint paths, even fragments of earthenware pots. Indians had hunted our valley for centuries. •a One scientist visiting Nada was4trifle contemptuous of these evidences-these aborigines were Johnnie-come-latelies, he declared. He'd found ruined villages of far more ancient natives who'd lived here when Old Lake Bonneville made an arm down the valley to the southern end. Those old-timers, he guessed, had fished the lake at least nine thousand years ago. Then muskoxen grazed the shores and fed on grass watered by frequent rains and snows. Under a cloudy sky glaciers had edged down the east mountains to help feed the lake. The brave at Father's desk felt my eyes. He turned and smiled. Then he turned grave. "Your Father writes for me. I stand here like a horse," he said sadly in deep musical tones. Young as I was I couldn't feel pride in my book knowledge, which was superior to his. I knew he must have a rich, lore about animals, woodcraft, tribal |