The chief saw and recognized Shoz-Dijiji instantly. He was armed with bow and arrows and a knife. Shoz-Dijiji carried these and a revolver in addition. The carbine he had cached before he entered the Ned-ni camp.
“What does the Be-don-ko-he here?” demanded Juh.
“I, Shoz-Dijiji, have come to kill a great liar. I have come to kill a great coward who cannot protect his women. I have come to kill Juh.”
“You cannot kill Juh,” said the older man. “Strong is the medicine of Juh. The bullets of the white-eyes cannot enter the body of Juh—they will bounce back and kill you. Nakay-do-klunni made this medicine himself. Go away, before it kills you.”
“Nakay-do-klunni is dead,” replied Shoz-Dijiji. “His medicine is no good.”
“What he made for Juh is good.”
“Shoz-Dijiji will throw away all his weapons except his knife,” said the young warrior. “Let Juh do likewise. Then, with his knife, Shoz-Dijiji will cut the vile heart of Juh out of his breast.”
Juh was a big, strong man. He was afraid of no one in a hand-to-hand encounter, so the other’s proposal met with instant approval. With a sneer he tossed aside his bow and arrows and Shoz-Dijiji similarly discarded all his weapons but his knife. Like great fighting cats the two drew closer. Juh taunted and insulted his adversary, after the code Apachean. He applied the vilest epithets to which he could lay his naturally vile tongue to the mother of Shoz-Dijiji, to his father, to his grandmother, to his grandfather, to all his forebears back to the first one, whose dam, according to Juh, had been a mangy coyote; then he vilified the coyote.
Shoz-Dijiji, grim, terrible, silent, crept stealthily toward his lifelong enemy. Juh mistook his silence for an indication of fear. He rushed upon the son of Geronimo thinking to bear him down by the suddenness and weight of his bull-like charge. His plunging knife was struck aside and the two closed, but Shoz-Dijiji gave back no single step. With as great effect Juh might have charged one of the ancient pines that soughed above them.
Each seeking to sink his blade in the flesh of the other, they surged and strained to and fro upon the rocky shoulder of the mountain. Below them yawned an abyss whose sheer granite wall dropped straight a thousand feet to the jagged rocks that formed the débris at its base.