The council broke up. Geronimo appeared rather downcast, too. The rest of the day he and his people kept by themselves. Even Nah-che did not come over again. It was an anxious period, for the Geronimo band were able to put up a hard fight still, and the camp was full of Chiricahuas.
“What do you think Geronimo will do, Micky?” asked Jimmie.
“He is a smart man, and likes to talk,” answered Micky. “He is a war-captain. But when he sees that he is talking alone, he will quit. Cluke’s words stung him, for no chief likes to be talked at like that. I looked for a fight right away, and so did Sibi. There was no fight—it would have been a good fight, though, with so many Chiricahua all around us. Now I think that if Geronimo is still here, in the morning, it means peace.”
Everybody—soldiers, scouts and packers—slept with one eye and one ear open, this night. But in the morning Geronimo asked the general for another talk. It seemed as though the decision had been made.
“I have thought deeply, and have talked with my people,” said Geronimo. “We were not well treated at San Carlos, but if you will be good to us we will do as you tell us to do. The white man does not see as the Apache sees, and yet you have made me feel that I have done wrong. I will go with you to the San Carlos. But first I ask you to order me to send out for the rest of my people. They are much scattered, and they have many ponies and cattle which belong to them; but if they see only signals they will think them to be signals set by your scouts, to fool them. And if I go away and leave them, then the Mexicans will kill them.”
“You must try to find the white boy,” reminded the general.
“I will do exactly as you say,” replied Geronimo.
“Is it peace, chi-kis-n?” inquired Jimmie, of Nah-che.
“It is peace,” answered Nah-che; but he did not smile.
“Hooray!” cheered Long Jim Cook. “That was a tall bluff on the gen’ral’s part, I reckon; but it worked. For a while we were in a bad box, with the camp runnin’ over with Chiricahua, an’ thirty or forty fightin’ bronc’s up on those cliffs, ready to rake us. I wouldn’t trust all these scouts, in a pinch, either. They’ve got too many kin, in the hostiles.”