“It’s afoot, you know—and probably night marches. Will your leg stand it?”
“Will we strike the hostiles, captain?”
“Sure.”
“That’s all my leg needs, to lengthen it out, then,” laughed Jimmie.
He felt that he was as fit as Captain Crawford. The captain looked badly. So did the doctor; and old Concepcion the interpreter was about done.
The scouts seemed unusually solemn, as if the report by Chato and Ka-e-ten-na had much impressed them. They proceeded to make medicine. In the light of a small fire old No-wa-ze-ta the medicine man unrolled the strip of sacred buckskin that he carried; one by one the scouts kneeled before him; he mumbled over them and held the sacred buckskin to their lips. After that they held a council.
“Some of the soldiers chiefs at Bowie say maybe your Chiricahua will not fight,” said Jimmie, sitting beside Chato, in a blanket, and watching. “They say maybe you will pretend to fight, but all the time you will be sending word to Geronimo to keep away.”
“That is not true,” declared Chato. “We will fight. We are ready.”
About midnight camp was broken. Through the cold and the darkness Chato and Ka-e-ten-na guided. Each officer and man was in moccasins and packed his own blanket. Jimmie drove the four mules.