“My arm was big with muscle and sinew, and I could shoot an arrow farther than most of the braves; but I was yet counted as a boy by many of them.
“I learned one day that the Cave Dwellers had ridden into our country and established a camp there in great numbers. I crawled to the place by night and listened secretly as they talked around their fire. I learned that they were preparing a great surprise for us. Our tents were to be surrounded by them, and the Navahos would be destroyed forever, so that they could enter into possession of our hunting grounds and no longer be obliged to live in their desolate caves.
“I hastened back to camp with this startling intelligence, and asked to see Scared Coyote, who, as usual, was in his wigwam with his squaws.
“‘Tell the dog of a boy,’ was his message in reply, ‘that the chief will see him to-morrow, because he is too busy now mixing his paints with which he adorns himself.’
“I told the messenger that my mission was most important, and that the fate of the tribe depended on my seeing him.
“I waited over an hour for the reply to the second message, and then Scared Coyote—who was jealous of the prowess I had gained in hunting—sent out another messenger to say that he was a man who did not change his mind. He had said that he would not see me until to-morrow, and therefore he would not see me, whatever I might have to say. With the pride of an ignorant, foolish youth, he added that the word of a great chief was not lightly given and could not be lightly taken back.
“‘Tell Scared Coyote,’ I said, with my heart hot with anger within me, ‘that his word is the word of an infant in swathing clothes. Even a chicken just hatched by his mother hen would have the sense to flee from danger, but he will stay here and die. Then let him die!’
“I turned on my heel and walked to the tents of the other braves, on whom I knew I could depend, and whom I knew were disgusted, like myself, with their young chief.
“I told them what I had learned, and we held a war council.