"You see," cried he to his wily foe, "my men are warned. Do you send your men back to your camp, and come out and meet me in the open, eye to eye."
"No treachery?" said the Indian.
"No treachery," answered the white man.
The Navajo called to his companions, and presently Stephens had glimpses here and there of stealthy forms slinking through the Lava Beds back in the direction of the oasis where their horses were grazing.
"Now you come out," called Mahletonkwa to the American.
"Come forward then, you, too," said Stephens.
"You first," returned the savage.
Stephens decided to take the risk and set the example. Grasping his rifle in his left hand, he held it across his body, while he raised his open right hand above his head in sign of amity, as he rose to his full height. Not twenty yards away, across the ridge of rock that had covered him on his right hand, he caught sight of Mahletonkwa's copper-coloured visage, with the watchful dark eyes fastened on him, as they peered through a loophole-like fissure in the lava, where he was crouching.
Stephens, his head a little thrown back, his breast expanded, braced himself to receive, and to return if he could, the treacherous bullet he more than half expected.