"I hope your faith is not misplaced."
"It is not. Mendoza, I have been for ten years among these fierce tribes. From them I learned the moods of the desert and the paths that conquer the mountains. Their tents were mine, and they shared their food with me. I came to know the Indian heart, and was willing to become blood brother with their chiefs. Yes, I trust them absolutely."
"Blood brother?"
"It is a covenant of friendship. I am as sure it will not be broken as I am that Kit Carson will keep word and meet me beyond the high mountains a month hence."
"But this covenant of friendship—this becoming a blood brother—how did you manage it?"
"By transfusion of blood from their veins to mine. The medicine men are surgeons—of a kind; the arm veins supply the blood."
Mendoza looked closely at the frontiersman. "You are, then, an Indian leader."
"I have the long hair of a chief, as you see. I allow my beard to grow, also, which the natives cannot do, to show I am a chief of chiefs."
"A chief of chiefs! What of Yoscolo? Is he included in this unique brotherhood?"
"No; decidedly no. Yoscolo disdains Indian virtues, replacing them by white men's wickedness."