Frank Tenney Johnson received his first exposure to art in Milwaukee, while taking lessons from Richard Lorenz, who influenced him to a large degree in terms of western subjects. Soon he was making occasional trips to the Indian country of South Dakota to sketch the inhabitants. Like many beginning artists of his day Johnson hoped to travel to New York to study at the Art Students League, which he was able to do in 1895. A few years later he enrolled in classes at the New York Art School under Robert Henri and William Merrit Chase, which further shaped his art.

In 1903, Johnson began a profitable association with Emerson Hough, the editor of "Field & Stream" magazine, who sponsored a formative trip west for the artist the following year. At Hough’s suggestion he journeyed to Hayden, Colorado and spent a period of time with the cowpunchers and cattle outfits in the vicinity, sketching, taking photographs, and writing lengthy account of his observations. He gained invaluable first-hand experience by participating in the area roundups and riding with numerous old hands who shared many stories with the attentive artist. In 1904, he witnessed a “Frontier Days” celebration in Cheyenne, and at its close traveled down to the Southwest to observe the Navajos and their country.

The desert country of the Southwest entranced Johnson. He was particularly interested in the isolated Indian communities where he stayed to record his impressions. One such place was Manuelita, about twenty miles from Gallup, New Mexico. “There is a find old picturesque trading post here, where the Navajos are constantly coming and going, particularly at night,” Johnson wrote in a letter to his wife. “The do a lot of their traveling across the desert at night, to avoid the intense desert heat during the daytime. But seeing these people in the moonlight or even the magic light of just the stars has impressed me very deeply. What paintings I can make of some of the scenes around the trading post.” In the years between Johnson’s first western trip and the completion of this painting, he had accomplished many things, but he never forgot his initial impressions of the southwestern desert.