“I am sorry,” she said. “I never thought of it from your side. I can see that in some ways you are right; but in others you are wrong. All white men are not bad.”
“All Indians are not bad,” he replied quickly, “but the pindah lickoyee treat them all alike—bad.”
For some time they sat in silence, the Apache watching the girl’s face, his own expressionless. What was passing behind that granitic mask? Once he extended a hand toward her as though to touch her, then he drew it back quickly and sprang to his feet.
“Come!” he said, almost roughly. “We go back to camp.”
Two days later Geronimo and Shoz-Dijiji thought that it would be safe to return Wichita to her home, and the young war chief and the girl set out upon the long journey, which was but a repetition of that which had ended at the camp of the Be-don-ko-he.
During the journey Wichita could not but notice that the brave scarcely let his eyes leave her face, a thing of which she had had a growing consciousness for at least two days before they left the camp. Had she not come to trust him so implicitly she would have found it difficult not to have acknowledged something of nervous apprehension as she felt his gaze constantly upon her; but he took no other liberties with her—just looked at her through those steady, inscrutable eyes.
Every journey must have an end and at last the two stood upon the very hill above her father’s ranch where they had stood upon another occasion. Shoz-Dijiji drew rein and dismounted. “I will wait here until you are safe in the house of your father,” he said.
“You are not coming down with me?” she exclaimed, surprised.
“No.”
“I want you to, Shoz-Dijiji. I want my father to know you, and thank you for what you have done for me,” she insisted.