First by the stars and later by the pink east Jimmie knew that they had been traveling toward the north. Now Red-head explained. Some of his talk was Apache and some was Spanish-Mexican. He used whichever language came the easier.
“We will not go straight to Camp Apache in the country where the White Mountains are,” he said. “It is better that we go round-about. If the Chiricahua see that we are going to Camp Apache that might make trouble. They would say that the White Mountains stole you, and some time they might capture me. Now if they try to follow us, we will fool them.
“I will tell you about the soldiers. There is a new American comandante. He has come to Tucson, to fight the bad Indians. He is leading out a great lot of horse soldiers and white scouts and tame-Indian scouts—Navahos and Papagos and Yaquis and Apaches, too—and wagons and pack-mules. He has been at Camp Bowie, and he is marching north to Camp Apache, but he may not stay. The White Mountains have heard this from runners. The runners say that he is a wonderful comandante, who knows everything but asks many questions. Shall we try to find him, Boy-who-sleeps? I think that now is a good chance, while the Chiricahua are hiding.”
“I don’t want to live with the Chiricahuas,” asserted Jimmie. “I hate them. They kill my friends. I’m not an Indian. I’m white.”
“I don’t know whether I’m American or Mexican or Indian,” grinned Red-head. “I can be anything. What is your American name, Boy-who-sleeps? I will call you by it. We will quit being Apache.”
“James MacGregor Dunn, but everybody called me Jimmie.”
“Inju (good),” grunted Red-head, in Apache. “I am called Micky Free by the soldiers at Camp Apache. You shall call me Micky, and I shall call you Cheemie.”
“How did you lose your eye, Micky?”
“By a deer. Three or four years ago I shot a deer with an arrow, and knocked him down. I thought I had killed him, but when I ran and grabbed his head he fought me and struck me with his horn in the eye. Old Miguel has only one eye, too. He lost that in battle.”