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.