An officer, saber raised, rode straight at Geronimo, determined to ride him down. Geronimo sidestepped, thrust with his lance, brought the officer out of his saddle, and lost his lance in doing so.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Armed with only a knife, he awaited the next horseman. He dodged beneath the soldier's saber, caught the arm that wielded it, and pulled the _rurale_ from his saddle. They rolled in a desperate struggle for the saber until a stray bullet, ricocheting across the battle-field, buried itself in the _rurale's_ brain and he went limp.

Geronimo leaped to his feet, grabbed the saber, and went on fighting with it until he took another lance from a dead Apache.

Before sunset, the battered remnants of the _rurales_ were trembling behind Arispe's walls. There would be wailing soon in some of the lodges of the Mimbreno, the Nedni, the Chiricahuas. But for every Mimbreno who had been slaughtered in the ma.s.sacre of Kas-Kai-Ya, and for every warrior who had died before Arispe, two _rurales_ lay dead on the field of battle.

CHAPTER SEVEN

_The White Men_

Hidden by brush, Geronimo lay motionless on a hilltop and riveted his eyes on the scene below.

He was watching a man, one of the strange white men whom Geronimo had first seen when surveyors came to mark the boundary between the United States and Mexico. The man was leading four burros, each with a pack on its back. He was approaching a bluff.

Hiding behind the bluff, Geronimo saw two other white men on horses.

When the man with the burros was near enough, the two leaped their horses in front of him. Leveling pistols, they said something Geronimo could not hear but was obviously menacing.

The man dropped his burros' lead ropes and raised both hands. The hors.e.m.e.n dismounted. While one continued to point his pistol at the man with the burros, the other rummaged through the packs. Presently he turned to his companion and exclaimed:

"Gold!"

"So you made a strike, Pop?" the other man asked. "Where is it?"

"'Twas just a pocket," the man with the burro quavered.

"Better not lie to us, Pop."

He who had searched the packs encircled the prospector's throat with one arm and held tight while the other man tied him. Then they built a fire and in it thrust a knife.

Grimacing, Geronimo stole down to where he had left his hunting horse.

Apaches tortured prisoners, but only when they seemed to have important military information that they would not reveal. Even then, Geronimo had seen battle-hardened warriors turn away because they could not look upon the prisoner's suffering.

Mounting his horse, Geronimo heard the prospector shriek as his captors used the red-hot knife to make him tell where the gold mine was. He put his horse to a run because he cared to hear no more screams, and slowed only when he was out of hearing.

Not once did he even imagine that the prospector's body would be found by other white men and the killing would be considered as another terrible crime of Apaches.

After a while Geronimo stopped beneath another hill. He tethered his trained hunting horse. Bow in hand and arrow-filled quiver on his shoulder, he crawled up the hill so carefully that even a stalking cat would have been more noticeable.

Reaching the top, he looked down upon fifteen antelope. Very slowly, for antelope have wonderful eyes that notice the least move, he took two arrows from his quiver. One he nocked loosely in his bow, then laid the bow where he could grasp it instantly. To the feathered end of the other arrow he tied a strip of cloth. He raised this second arrow so that the cloth appeared above the gra.s.s, and waved it slowly back and forth.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Every antelope swung at once to gaze at this wonder. They turned their heads this way and that, stamped their hoofs, and blew through their nostrils. Then they let curiosity overcome caution and walked forward for a closer look.

When they were well within range, Geronimo dropped the arrow. In the same instant he seized and drew his bow and rose to one knee. The antelope whirled to run, but the hunting arrow Geronimo loosed caught a fat buck in mid-leap and brought him to earth dead. Geronimo dressed his game, tied it behind the hunting horse's saddle, and rode on to meet Naiche. He found his friend, who also had a fat antelope, waiting near the rocky spire where they had agreed to meet.

"I saw a great herd of antelope," Naiche announced. "I might have killed several, but I need only one."

Geronimo said, "I found only a small herd of antelope, but I saw three white men. I could not attack because they have guns and I carry only a bow and arrows. Two of the white men tied the third and burned him with a hot knife blade."

"All white men are crazy," Naiche growled. "And there are far too many of them in land that belongs to Apaches."

"There are not as many as there were," Geronimo pointed out. "It has come to my ears that they could not find enough Indians to kill, so they started a great fight among themselves. I have heard they call it the Civil War, and all the soldiers who were in Apache country have gone to kill each other."

Naiche said, "Let us wish them great success in such a worthy undertaking. Now is the time for Apaches to kill the white men who remain and again be masters in our own land."

"We are fast becoming masters," Geronimo said. "The three men I saw today must be either great fools or of great courage. Most white men dare not leave their cities of Tucson and Tubac unless they are in numbers and well armed. Their stages no longer run, and their mail carriers no longer ride. The ashes of their wagons are blowing throughout Apache land. Their houses and stage stations are abandoned to the sun and wind. Their graves are more than one man may count."

"True," Naiche agreed. "But I worry."

"For what reason?"

Naiche spoke thoughtfully. "First came the men who measured land and drove stakes in the ground. They left and we Apaches rested easier.

Then came rock scratchers, gold seekers, to Pinos Altos, and again we had cause for anxiety.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

"Thinking to be rid of the rock scratchers, Mangus Coloradus himself went among them and offered to lead them south to rich gold mines in the Sierra Madre. Truly the gold was there. And truly Mangus Coloradus would have led them to it, for at that time we had not yet learned the worth of gold. But the miners thought your Mimbreno chief was lying. They overpowered and bound him. Then they flogged him more mercilessly than we ever flogged the most rebellious Mexican prisoner.

"I worry because Mangus Coloradus is growing old," Naiche went on. "He cannot forget that white men fought us with weapons better than our own.

When we won or stole such weapons for ourselves, they came with still better ones. Mangus Coloradus thinks that, when the white men are weary of killing each other, they will return with weapons even more terrible.

He thinks the only hope for Apaches is to seek peace. Yet he fights on."

Geronimo said, "The only hope is to fight for that which is ours."

"I agree, but I worry for another reason," Naiche said. "My father, Cochise, long kept the peace. He let the white men run their stages. He protected their wagons and mail carriers from renegades who would have destroyed them.

"Then, only a few moons ago, a white chief named Bascom came to Apache Pa.s.s with some soldiers. He summoned Cochise to his tent, saying he wanted to talk. Suspecting no treachery, Cochise went with five warriors. Bascom said we Chiricahuas had stolen a boy named Mickey Free and some cattle. He demanded their return."

Geronimo said, "I have not heard all this story."

"Cochise denied that Chiricahuas had stolen either the boy or the cattle," Naiche went on. "Bascom gave him the lie and ordered his soldiers to make prisoners of those who had come to talk. Cochise escaped by slashing the tent with his knife and running. But the warriors were captured. So we captured some white men."

There was a moody silence while Naiche pondered his words. He continued:

"Meanwhile a white chief named Irwin, who outranked Bascom, came to Apache Pa.s.s. We sent word to him that we would free our white captives if our warriors were freed. Instead, while we watched from surrounding cliffs, Irwin had them killed in the peculiar fashion of white men. He tied ropes around their necks and let them dangle from a tree until they were dead. In turn, we killed our white prisoners."

"I was raiding in Mexico at the time, for I have raided Mexicans at every opportunity since the ma.s.sacre at Kas-Kai-Ya," Geronimo said. "I wish that I had been present."

Naiche said, "If you had been, you would have seen for yourself why the Chiricahuas are at war with the white men. But, though no warrior is more courageous nor any chief more wise, I know my father. He wars with them now, but in his heart he, too, thinks that we must some day make peace with the white men."

"There is no peace at present," Geronimo said, "so let us return to the village, get guns, and kill the two white men I have just seen. We shall not find the third alive."