JUNIOR KINGS BUSINESS
THE RESCUE
OF A LAMB
T h e w in d sweeping down from White Mesa blew cold against the Indian boy, Hosteen Nez, as he herded his sheep and started homeward. When he had penned up his sheep in the corral, he found that one was missing. Where had he lost it? He looked about the hogan, a round, low, one-roomed hut built o f logs and plastered with mud, the only home the boy had known during his fourteen years o f life. It looked very pleasant and com fortable to him now. His mother was just taking some Navajo bread off the fire. “Let me have it. Quick! I must go back; I have lost a sheep,” he said. The heavy clouds above White Mesa told him that a storm was already raging in the mountains and would soon be heading toward the valley. Where could that one sheep have strayed from the others? Surely it must have been in the wash where the boy had taken them to drink earlier in the day. The wind that had quickened to a gale seemed to cut through his clothing, and flurries of sand half blinded him. Oh, if he could only find his poor lost lamb! The clouds piled darker over the mountains. There was light ning and heavy thunder. He
longed to be at home, but a Nav ajo boy is not easily separated from his sheep, and so he plunged on and on toward the edge of the wash. Straining his eyes through the dark, he called again and again. Then there was a faint bleat that only an Indian’s ear could catch. Without thought o f danger to himself, Hosteen Nez struggled toward a helpless bit of life caught in the treacherous quicksand. Experienced as he was in the ways of the desert, all his strength and skill were need ed in that fight to save the lamb, but he won. Once again he strug gled wearily up the sandy bank with the lamb flung over his shoulder. The rain now came driving in sheets over the valley. It was not easy to carry the half- grown lamb with its wet muddy fleece in his arms, partly protect ed by his coat, but he knew it must have warmth soon or his labor would be in vain. In remem bering its helplessness, he some what forgot his own discomfort and fear and struggled on. More than two hours later, weary to the point o f exhaustion, dripping and shivering, the fear of the thunder still in his heart, he entered the shelter and wel come warmth o f the hogan. Near him, soon, in sleepy con tent, lay the lamb—its troubles
over, its strength renewed. He watched it, idly wondering at his feelings o f affection for it. Queer, what a fellow would brave and endure for a little helpless ani mal ! It was not worth much money, but somehow he liked it; he had paid a heavy price for its life. It was his before it was lost, but it was doubly his now. He had bought it back from death at the price of much labor and toil. Months later, Hosteen Nez lounged at the nearest Trading Post. The door opened and a mis sionary entered and began talk ing in Navajo. What queer ideas the white man had, and how funny some of his words sounded. But what was that? A God who sought sinful lost men as a Nav ajo would seek a lost sheep — “What man o f you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it? And when he hath found it, he layeth it on his shoul ders, rejoicing” (Luke 15:4, 5). Hosteen Nez leaned eagerly forward. Again he felt himself facing the bitter wind; he saw the pitiful, struggling lamb in the quicksand; he felt the joy of its rescue from the rain and dark ness and rushing of the waters from the mountain heights, that
SEPTEMBER, 1967
41
Made with FlippingBook - Online Brochure Maker