“A pitiable business, chief!” he answered. “Men, women, children, all shot down to the last one! I suppose it had to be, since you would not surrender. The Army had its orders, you know.”
“Orders!” The chief drew himself up proudly. “The Apaches never surrender, to injustice!” he exclaimed. “I am Honanta, son of that Chief Chuntz who fell in that fight, white man!”
Sid glanced up at him, surprised. “I always understood that not one Apache escaped alive from that cave——” he began, wonderingly.
“No! Let me tell you. There was one humane officer among the white soldiers who entered that cave of death, after all was over. He came upon my mother, lying among the heaps of slain. She still lived, shot in three places. She held me, an infant, protectingly hid in her arms. A soldier raised his gun to end her life—a wounded squaw would be a mere nuisance, you know!”—the chief interjected with bitter sarcasm—“but that officer struck up his rifle. He had them take my mother to the ambulances. And, out of the kindness of his heart, that she might not die of starvation, he gave her—this.”
Honanta raised his hand again to the gold piece.
A curious sensation of excitement went through and through Sid. His own father, Colonel Colvin, had been a young second lieutenant of cavalry in that fatal fight of Apache Cave. But he had never mentioned the squaw who had survived, nor the twenty-dollar gold piece; in fact he had always been most reticent about that battle, regarding the whole subject with the most extreme distaste. Sid felt that even if Colonel Colvin were that humane officer, to attempt to establish his own relationship with him and so gain immunity would be regarded by this crafty chief as mere opportunism.
“The officer’s name, did she ever learn it?” he contented himself with asking.
The chief smiled enigmatically. “My son,” said he gently, “to-morrow I shall be able to give that Sun Dance that I vowed to the Great Mystery forty years ago. Is—is your father still living?”
“Yes,” said Sid. “He has a new ranch up in the Gila Cañon country. We came west again, after I settled down to work with your people. The lure of Arizona was always very strong with father. Here was the scene of his early active days; here, in that grand mountain region, he wants to live until his time comes. It’s a great country!”
“Once more, then, before I die, I must leave the Arms of the Great Mystery!” mused Honanta, more to himself than to Sid. Then his whole manner toward the youth changed and he motioned him courteously toward his large grass lodge.