Hidden by brush, Geronimo lay motionless on a hilltop and riveted his eyes on the scene below.
He was watching a man, one of the strange white men whom Geronimo had first seen when surveyors came to mark the boundary between the United States and Mexico. The man was leading four burros, each with a pack on its back. He was approaching a bluff.
Hiding behind the bluff, Geronimo saw two other white men on horses. When the man with the burros was near enough, the two leaped their horses in front of him. Leveling pistols, they said something Geronimo could not hear but was obviously menacing.
The man dropped his burros' lead ropes and raised both hands. The horsemen dismounted. While one continued to point his pistol at the man with the burros, the other rummaged through the packs. Presently he turned to his companion and exclaimed:
"Gold!"
"So you made a strike, Pop?" the other man asked. "Where is it?"
"'Twas just a pocket," the man with the burro quavered.
"Better not lie to us, Pop."
He who had searched the packs encircled the prospector's throat with one arm and held tight while the other man tied him. Then they built a fire and in it thrust a knife.
Grimacing, Geronimo stole down to where he had left his hunting horse. Apaches tortured prisoners, but only when they seemed to have important military information that they would not reveal. Even then, Geronimo had seen battle-hardened warriors turn away because they could not look upon the prisoner's suffering.