CHIEF WALKERS DOINGS tuscon arizona jan 29 1897 1827 not long after the settlement of paro wan walker came with his band one sunday about meeting time and was invited with ammon to the stand he spoke a while in utah dialect which ammon his brother interpreted but at the close he made a very strange request almost as a command he said he had heard the mormons cormons could dance very well and he wanted to see it and as s he was going away soon he wanted the congregation to go outside and dance for his men and to go at once As it was thought best to humor him the meeting soon closed and all went outside selected a level place on the sandy ground and danced several cotillions cot illions it was a hot summer baythe day the ground was very dusty clouds of dust arose which as it settled on perspiring faces and hands was anything but ornamental na As walker and his men did not seem much impressed our dancers redoubled their agility and displayed their best steps suddenly walker stopped stooped it said we were like papooses oses and did not know how to dance and that those who had told him the mor mons could do so had bad lied he would show us how to dance As we stepped to one side crestfallen and disgraced about sixty warriors formed a perfectly accurate circle facing inwards and a couple of old men began clapp dapping liag their hands and singing ayah A yah I 1 adahl a yahl ayah a yah in a monotonous chant in which all the dancers joined singing and s stepping with the most perfect union at first they circled slowly to the left for a few minutes then at a given signal all circled in the other direction changing thus time atter after time for about halt half an hour and all without the slightest jar or break in the time hav having ceas ceased ed he said to us dont dance IN tike i ke little children any more you have seen how men dance learn to dance like stabs and then you will not be ashamed in truth we were filled with amazement at the perfection of movement and time in their dancing it seemed the movement of a machine rather than that ot of sixty separate individuals vi duals with a perfect unity of motion which I 1 I 1 have never seen equalled equal led some Som years eyears later Wal walker kerwith with a party of his bis band lay near parowan carowan awaiting the tee return from southern california of a war party he had sent to steal horses his men at length arrived but with only about three hundred horses they said they had bad taken about twelve hundred head had traveled with them three days and nights without stopping to ca camp mp and then thinking they were safe from pursuit had stopped to rest themselves and their horses suddenly they found their mexican pursuers upon them and in the fight and confusion which ensued the mexicans recaptured most of their animals the utes escaping with difficulty with vath the few they retained words would feebly express walkers fury his whole frame shook and his eyes fairly shot fire he called the unlucky raiders squaws squads not men not warriors only papoose oses sl I 1 he would take away their guns they should have only oaly bows and arrows and go with the NOW boyst to be overtaken at all was a disgrace but to be caught asleep they all ought to be shot D i ant know enough to steal horses and get away with them he himself would go and show them how to steal horses but he would take men with him not boys they should remain with the squaws squads old men and papooses oses until he got back with great difficulty and after many hours ot of persuasion col W H dame finally dissuaded him bini from his purpose but walker felt that the professional honor of his tribe had suffered greatly thus although southern californians never knew it the mormons cormons in utah saved them from heavy loss ot of stock and perhaps life one thing more relative to this famous chief upon his return once from a raid upon the colorado river indians I 1 met him one day in parowan carowan Pa rowan and being well known to him he stopped me in the street and showed me two pieces of metal asking me if they were money adding that it if they were he knew where there was a plenty more he had found them in a cave near the colorado river I 1 examined them very carefully being much astonished at what I 1 saw one weighed as I 1 thought a little more than an ounce the other about halt half as much they were unmistakably metallic though discolored by time and resembled bronze but when I 1 took my knife to scrape and expose their true color he would not permit me and hastily and carefully put them away they were covered with clearly formed hieroglyph ics acs not cut into the surface but standing up in bold relief all things indicating that the metal had bad been melted and cast in a mould I 1 believed then and do now that they were money of the ancient Nep hites carried into the cave where they were found by some hunted who fled there for refuge at the time of the their ir last mournful and tragic retreat northward before their foes a retreat which ended only at the hill cumorah many times since then I 1 have wished that I 1 had realized more fully the worth of those ancient works of art for even it not old coins they were of great value as curiosities mementoes of an ancient race whose remains today puzzle the antiquaries antiqua ries of all the gentile world 1 I H MARTINEAU