The red Indian is as brave as the next man, but he objects to getting killed if he can help it, and he will carefully avoid exposing himself to the aim of a dead-shot. These Navajos had all seen Stephens drive the nail.
Stephens's verbal threat, however, only provoked Mahletonkwa's derision. "Pooh!" he retorted jeeringly, "where are your friends now? It is getting time for them to come and save you. You'll see, though, they can't do it. We'll show you what we are. We are Tinné; we are men." The word Tinné means "men" in the Navajo language. They call themselves "the men" par excellence.
"Chin-music's cheap," rejoined Stephens, taunting him back. "Say, have you forgotten your time on the Pecos at Bosque Redondo already? You felt like 'men' there, didn't you, when you were grubbing for roots and catching grasshoppers and lizards to eat like a lot of dirty Diggers?"
"Hah!" replied the Indian indignantly, "I never saw Bosque Redondo. All the soldiers you could get couldn't take me where I didn't choose to go. I don't take orders from any agent or any general. Nobody ever commands me." There spoke the soul of the true son of the desert. Personal liberty was to him as the breath of his nostrils. Nevertheless, beneath his boastful assertions Stephens thought he detected an undertone that might indicate a willingness to treat, and he slightly altered his own tone.
"Mahletonkwa, you're playing the fool. Why don't you bring the girl back quietly?"
"Well, if you want her," answered the Navajo, "why don't you come out of your hole and talk business?"
"Yes, and get shot by treachery for my pains!" answered Stephens indignantly. "I haven't attacked you. Your men began; they've shot at me twice without warning."
"Well," said the Navajo, "you tell your men, if you have any, that they are not to shoot, and I'll tell mine not to shoot, and then you and I can talk together. I'm willing to treat."
An idea struck Stephens; he had already insinuated that he had Captain Pfeiffer—a name of terror to the Navajoes and Apaches—at his back; he would keep up that pretence, at least for a time. He turned and shouted aloud in English at the pitch of his voice, "O Captain Pfeiffer! O Captain Pfeiffer! Keep your soldiers back. Don't let them fire a shot." He paused, and then continued shouting again, but this time in Spanish, "O Captain of the Indian scouts," he would not give away the Santiago cacique in any wise by calling him by name, "let your scouts keep their posts and watch, but let them not fire a shot. Let them wait till I return. Peace talk."
The four Pueblo Indians heard him, and understood, and from their hiding-places they shouted back in assent.