I ignored her casuistry, for she was now rolling a cigarette with an air of insufferable probity.  I gave her up and played a new game of smashing horseflies as they settled on my mount.  Dandy Jim plays the game ably.  When a big fly settles on his nose he holds his head round so I can reach it.  He does not flinch at the terrific smash of my hat across his face.  If a fly alights on his neck or shoulder, and I do not remark it, he turns his head slightly toward me and winks, so I can stalk and pot it.  He is very crafty here.  If the fly is on his right side he turns and winks his left eye at me so the insect will not observe him.  And yet there are people who say horses don’t reason.

I now opened fifty more gates and we left the cool green of the fields for a dusty side road that skirts the base of the mesa.  We jogged along in silence, which I presently heard stir with the faint, sweet strain of a violin; an air that rose and wailed and fell again, on a violin played with a certain back-country expertness.  The road bent to show us its source.  We were abreast of the forlorn little shack of a dry-farmer, weathered and patched, set a dozen yards from the road and surrounded by hard-packed earth.  Before the open door basked children and pigs and a few spiritless chickens.

All the children ran to the door when we halted and called to someone within.  The fiddle played on with no faltering, but a woman came out—­a gaunt and tattered woman who was yet curiously cheerful.  The children lurked in her wake as she came to us and peered from beyond her while we did our business.

Our business was that the redskin, Laura, official laundress of the Arrowhead, had lately attended an evening affair in the valley at which the hitherto smart tipple of Jamaica ginger had been supplanted by a novel and potent beverage, Nature’s own remedy for chills, dyspepsia, deafness, rheumatism, despair, carbuncles, jaundice, and ennui.  Laura had partaken freely and yet again of this delectable brew, and now suffered not only from a sprained wrist but from detention, having suffered arrest on complaint of the tribal sister who had been nearest to her when she sprained her wrist.  Therefore, if Mrs. Dave Pickens wanted to come over to-morrow and wash for us, all right; she could bring her oldest girl to help.

Mrs. Dave thereupon turned her head languidly toward the ignoble dwelling and called:  “Dave!” Then again, for the fiddle stayed not:  “Dave!  Oh, Dave!”

The fiddle ceased to moan—­complainingly it seemed to me—­and Dave framed his graceful figure in the doorway.  He was one appealing droop, from his moustache to his moccasin-clad feet.  He wore an air of elegant leisure, but was otherwise not fussily arrayed.

“Dave, Mis’ Pett’ngill says there’s now a day’s washin’ to do over to her place to-morrow.  What think?”

Dave deliberated, then pondered, then thought, then spoke: 

“Well, I d’no’, Addie; I d’no’ as I got any objections if you ain’t.  I d’no’ but it’s all the same to me.”