"But his cayuse is gone," insisted Kreff.
"He may have taken his pony;" admitted the girl. "I don't say that he didn't do that. It was his; and he had a right to take it, but I don't believe that he killed Dad."
"Your Paw didn't have no use fer Injuns," Kreff reminded her. "He might have taken a shot at this Siwash,"
"No; his guns were both in their holsters, and his rifle was in its boot. He never saw the man that shot him."
Kreff scratched his head. "I reckon thet's right," he admitted. "It shore was a dirty trick. Thet's what makes me know it was a Siwash."
The girl turned away sadly.
"Don't you worry none, Miss," said Kreff; "I'll look after things fer you, jes' like your Paw was here."
"Thanks, 'Smooth,' "'replied Wichita. "You boys have been wonderful."
After the man had left the room the girl sat staring fixedly at the opposite wall. A calendar hung there and a colored print in a cheap frame, but these she did not see. What she saw was the tall, straight figure of a bronzed man, an almost naked savage. He sat upon his war pony and looked into her eyes. "Shoz-Dijiji does not kill anyone that you love," he said to her.
The girl dropped her face into her hands, stifling a dry sob. "Oh, Shoz-Dijiji, How could you ?" she cried.
Suddenly she sprang to her feet. Her lips were set in a straight, hard line; her eyes flashed in anger.
"Oh, God!" she cried. "You gave me love; and I threw it away upon an Indian, upon an enemy of my people; and now in your anger, you have punished me. I was blind, but you have made me to see again. Forgive me, God, and you will see that I have learned my lesson well."
Stepping through the doorway onto the porch, Wichita seized a short piece of iron pipe and struck a triangle of iron that hung suspended from a roof joist. Three times she struck it, and in answer to the signal the men came from bunk house and corrals until all that had been within hearing of the summons were gathered before her.
Dry eyed, she faced them; and upon her countenance was an expression that none ever had seen there before. It awed them into silence as they waited for her to speak. They were rough, uncouth men, little able to put their inmost thoughts into words, and none of them ever had looked upon an avenging angel; otherwise they would have found a fitting description for the daughter of their dead Boss as she faced them now.
"I have something to say to you," she commenced in a level voice. "My father lies in here, murdered He was shot in the back. He never had a chance. As far as we know no one saw him killed, but I guess we all know who did it. There doesn't seem to be any chance for a doubt--it was the Be-don-ko-he war chief, Shoz-Dijiji, Black Bear.
"If it takes all the rest of my life and every acre and every critter that I own, I'm going to get the man that killed my father; and I'm starting now by offering a thousand dollars to the man who brings in Shoz-Dijiji -- dead!"
When she had ceased speaking she turned and walked back into the house, closing the door after her.
The men, moving slowly toward the bunk house, talked together in low tones, discussing the girl's offer.
Inside the house, Wichita Billings threw herself face down upon a sofa and burst into tears.
Shoz-Dijiji slid from the back of the pinto war pony, Nejeunee, in the camp of Geronimo and stood before the great war-chief of the Apaches.
"Seven times, my son," said the old chief, "have I cast hoddentin to the four winds at evening since you rode away; seven times have I cast hoddentin to the four winds at dawn; twice seven times have I prayed to the spirits whose especial duty it is to watch over you to bring you back in safety. My prayers have been answered. What word do you bring?"
"Shoz-Dijiji went to the reservatiop at San Carlos," replied the young man. "None of our friends or relatives who went out upon the war trail with us is there. I heard many stories, but I do not speak of anything that I did not see with my own eyes or hear with my own ears.
"There are many soldiers scouting everywhere. There are so many that I think all the soldiers that were sent to Mexico after us must have been called back to hunt for us here.
"The reservation Indians say that now that Miles is after us we shall all be killed. They advise us to lay down our arms and surrender. I think that very soon the soldiers will find our camp here."
"You are a war chief, my son," said Geronimo. " Already you are very wise. At the councils even the old men listen to you with respect. What would you advise?"
"We are very few," replied Shoz-Dijiji, thoughtfuUy. "We cannot take the war trail successfully against the pindah- lickoyee in this country where we are. Sooner or later they will kill us or capture us. This is no longer a good country for the Apache. It is our country that Usen made for us, but we cannot be happy in it any longer because of the pindah-lickoyee. Shoz-Dijiji does not wish to live here any more. Let us go to Mexico. perhaps the soldiers of the pindah-lickoyee will not again follow us into Mexico. There we may live as we would wish to live and not as the pindah- lickoyee want us to live."
"And we can punish the Mexicans for inviting the soldiers of the pindah-lickoyee to come down to their country and kill us," added Geronimo. "I think you have spoken true words. I think we should go to Mexico. Perhaps there we shall find all of our friends and relatives from whom we became separated when the soldiers were hunting us in Sonora and Chihuahua. Perhaps we can even be happy again. Who knows?"
And so it was that when the troopers of "B" Troop rode into the camp of Geronimo a week later they found nothing but cold ashes where the cooking fires had been and the debris of a deserted Indian village that the Apaches had not taken their usual precautions to hide, since they expected never again to return to their beloved mountains.
Far to the south, below the line, frightened peons burned many candles and said many prayers, for they had heard stories. A man had found the bodies of three vaqueros, and he had seen the print of an Apache moccasin in the camp where they had been killed. They had not been tortured nor mutilated.
"The Apache Devil again!" whispered the peons.
A terrified freighter, a bullet through his shoulder, galloped an exhausted mule into a little hamlet. The wagon train that he had been with had been attacked by Apaches and all had been slain save he, and with his own eyes he had recognized Geronimo.
"Holy Mother, preserve us! the Apache Devil, both!"
Leaving a trail of blood and ashes behind them the renegades headed for the mountains near Casa Grande. Having committed no depredations north of the line they felt confident that the United States soldiers would not follow them into Sonora. Why should they? There was nothing for the soldiers of the pindah-lickoyee to avenge.
Thus the Apaches reasoned, since, in commonwith white men, they possessed the very human trait of easily forgetting the wrongs that they committed against others, even though they might always harbor those that were committed against them. So now they either forgot or ignored what the whites still considered just causes for righteous anger--burnt ranches, stolen stock, tortured men, women, and children, mutilated corpses that had emblazoned their trail through Arizona from San Carlos to the border over a year before, but the whites had no intention of permitting these occurrences to go brown in their memories.
From one end of the country to the other Geronimo and his bloody deeds occupied more front page newspaper space than any other topic, and to the readers of the newspapers of all the civilized world his name was a household word. For over a year the armies of two nations had been futilely engaged in an attempt to capture or kill a handful of men, women, and children. Geronimo and his renegades had outwitted, outgeneraled, and outfought them, and now, after again outwitting the army of the United States, they had come back to Mexico and were meting out punishment to those, whom they mistakenly believed were responsible for bringing United States troops below the border to fight them, and in carrying out this policy, they attacked every Mexican they saw after they crossed the border, all the way to Casa Grande. Nor did they desist then.