“Is our white brother Sam here?” asked the leader as he came up. “How comes he in the path of his red friend and brother?”
“Bao, the crafty fox, has met me because he came upon my tracks,” answered Sam.
“We thought they were the tracks of the red dogs we seek,” said the Fox in broken but perfectly comprehensible English.
“What does my brother mean?”
“The Apaches of the tribe of Mascaleros.”
“Why do you call them dogs? is there enmity between them and the brave Kiowas?”
“There is war between us and these scurvy coyotes.”
“I am glad to hear it. My brothers may sit down with us, for I have something important to tell them.”
The Fox looked at me searchingly, and said: “I have never seen this young pale-face; is he one of the warriors of the white men? Has he won a name?”
If Sam had told him my own name it would have made no impression, so he fell back on the name Wheeler had given me. “This is my dearest friend and brother, and though he is young he is a great warrior among his own people in the rising sun. Never in his life had he seen a buffalo, yet two days ago he fought with two bulls to save my life, and killed them, and yesterday he stabbed a grizzly bear of the Rockies with his knife, and received no scratch himself.”