Every basket as soon as begun is noted as carefully as every breeding of a thoroughbred horse or dog.

Also the date the basket is finished.

It is then numbered and photographed and either offered for sale at a certain price, which is never changed, or is put in the safety-deposit vault of the bank, to await the time when such aboriginal masterpieces will be eagerly sought after by the growingly intelligent and appreciative of our citizens, for their museums or collections, as specimens of work of a people--the first American families--who will then, possibly, have passed away.

The photographs, here reproduced, are of some of Dat-so-la-le's finest work.
[Illustration: Susie, the Washoe indian basket maker, and narrator of indian legends] [Illustration: Jackson, the Washoe indian, telling traditions of his people about Lake Tahoe and Fallen Leaf Lake] [Illustration: Lake Tahoe near Tahoe Tavern, looking south].