“Geronimo is war chief of all the Apaches. Geronimo loves his people. He loves his land. He hates the pindah lickoyee. But Geronimo is old and he has the wisdom of the old, he knows when there is no longer hope. My son, for the Apaches there is no hope. Geronimo will never again fight against the pindah lickoyee. Geronimo has spoken.”
“Geronimo is right,” replied Shoz-Dijiji. “There is no hope. They have taken our land from us; they have taken the game we hunted that we might live; but one thing they cannot take from us—the right to die and to choose the manner of our dying. I, Shoz-Dijiji, choose to die fighting the pindah lickoyee. I shall go out upon the war trail with Na-chi-ta and the Cho-kon-en. I have spoken.”
“You have spoken well, my son. You are a young man. Young men should fight. Geronimo is old and tired and very sad. He would rather lay down his weapons and rest.”
Great was the activity in the camp of the Cho-kon-en when Shoz-Dijiji returned accompanied by Gian-nah-tah and several of the other younger braves of the Be-don-ko-he. Chief Co-si-to was there with a band of his Chi-e-a-hen warriors; but there was disappointment in the voice of Na-chi-ta when he told that the other tribes had refused to join them.
Nan-ta-do-tash headed the izze-nantans who were preparing big medicine for use against the enemy, and with his own hands he prepared a phylactery for Shoz-Dijiji, calling down many blessings upon it.
The feast and the war dance aroused the braves to the highest pitch of excitement, to which the women added by their savage denunciation of the enemy and their demands upon their braves to go forth like men and slay the hated white-eyes; and when the dance was over the squaws accompanied the war party for several miles out of camp toward the point the chiefs had chosen for attack upon the morrow.
CHAPTER XIX
WHITE AND RED
IN a ranch house on the banks of the Gila, between Fort Thomas and the San Carlos Indian Agency, Wichita Billings awoke early on a beautiful, bright April morning.
She had ridden down from Thomas on the previous day with a Signal Corps detachment that was repairing the line of government telegraph, for a day’s visit with the wife of the rancher. Tomorrow they would be back and she would return to the post with them.
Hearing her hostess already in the kitchen the girl dressed quickly and joined her. It was very early, yet already the rancher and his men were busy with the feeding and the chores. The daily life of the ranch had commenced, as it always did, in the cool of the morning, for one soon learns to take advantage of any respite from the intense heat of Arizona’s middays.