Kaydessa stirred and muttered a word or two to her brother. Hulagur's head came up, and he exploded into violent speech.
"What does he say?" Deklay demanded.
The girl replied: "He speaks of our father who aided in the escape of three and so afterward was slain by the leader as a lesson to us—since he was our 'white beard,' the Khan."
"We have taken the oath in blood—under the Wolf Head Standard—that they will also die," Menlik added. "But first we must shake them out of their ship-shell."
"That is the problem," Travis elaborated for the benefit of his clansmen. "We must get these Reds away from their protected camp—out into the open. When they now go they are covered by this 'caller' which keeps the Tatars under their control, but it has no effect on us."
"So, again I say: What is all this to us?" Deklay got to his feet. "This machine does not hunt us, and we can make our camps in this land where no Pinda-lick-o-yi can find them——"
"We are not dobe-gusndhe-he—invulnerable. Nor do we know the full range of machines they can use. It does no one well to say 'doxa-da'—this is not so—when he does not know all that lies in an enemy's wickiup."
To Travis' relief he saw agreement mirrored on Buck's face, Tsoay's, Nolan's. From the beginning he had had little hope of swaying Deklay; he could only trust that the verdict of the majority would be the accepted one. It went back to the old, old Apache institution of prestige. A nantan-chief had the go'ndi, the high power, as a gift from birth. Common men could possess horse power or cattle power; they might have the gift of acquiring wealth so they could make generous gifts—be ikadntl'izi, the wealthy ones who spoke for their family groups within the loose network of the tribe. But there was no hereditary chieftainship or even an undivided rule within a rancheria. The nagunlka-dnat'an, or war chief, often led only on the warpath and had no voice in clan matters save those dealing with a raid.
And to have a split now would fatally weaken their small clan. Deklay and those of a like mind might elect to withdraw and not one of the rest could deny him that right.
"We shall think on this," Buck said. "Here is food, water, pasturage for horses, a camp for our visitors. They will wait here." He looked at Travis. "You will wait with them, Fox, since you know their ways."