“They don’t none of ’em look good to me,” said the other soldier. “This guy was out with Geronimo, and every time I lamp one of their mugs I think maybe it’s The Apache Devil. You can’t never tell.”
The first soldier took hold of Shoz-Dijiji’s arm as he was passing and stopped him; then from the bar he picked up a glass filled with whiskey and offered it to the Apache.
Shoz-Dijiji grunted, shook his head and passed on. The girl laughed.
“I reckon he’s got more sense than we have,” she said; “he knows enough not to drink ‘Dirty’s’ rot-gut.”
“You must be stuck on the Siwash, Goldie,” accused the first soldier.
“I might have a mash on a lot o’ worse lookin’ hombres than him,” she shot back, with a toss of her faded, golden curls.
Shoz-Dijiji heard and understood the entire conversation. He had not for nothing spent the months of Geronimo’s imprisonment at San Carlos in the post school, but not even by the quiver of an eyelid did he acknowledge that he understood.
At the closed door, unembarrassed by the restrictions of an etiquette that he would have ignored had he been cognizant of it, he turned the knob and stepped into the room beyond without knocking.
Two men were there—a white man and an Indian. They both looked up as Shoz-Dijiji entered. This was the first time that Shoz-Dijiji had been in “Dirty” Cheetim’s Hog Ranch. It was the first time that he had seen the proprietor or known who “Dirty” Cheetim was; but he had met him before, and he recognized him immediately.
Instantly there was projected upon the screen of memory a sun scorched canyon, bowlder strewn, through which wound a dusty wagon road. At the summit of the canyon’s western wall a young Apache brave crouched hidden beneath a grey blanket that, from the canyon’s bottom, looked but another bowlder. He was watching for the coming of the soldiers of the pindah-lickoyee that he might carry the word of it back to Geronimo.