He nodded. "Me savvy. Shoz-Dijiji no kill until he find his people. If they on war trail Shoz-Dijiji fight with them. Shoz-Dijiji a war chief. White warriors kill. Apache warriors kill. That is right."
"But you must not kill white people at all."
"All right--you go tell white warriors they must not kill Apaches. They stop, Shoz-Dijiji stop. Now you go get pony for Shoz-Dijiji. Big talk no good now--no can eat--no can ride. Go."
The girl could not but smile as she turned away and rounding the summit of the hill dropped down toward the ranch house in full view of those gathered there. At sight of her they all arose and several started in her direction, her father among them.
"Where in all tarnation you been, Chita?" he demanded when they were close enough for speech. "I thought I told you to stay in town until this fracas blowed over."
"Well, it has blowed over, hasn't it?" she asked. "We heard yesterday that the hostiles was all headed for the border, So I thought I'd come home. I'm sure sick o' them tin-horns in town."
"I go a little way--where I can watch you. Mebbyso bad men around; mebbyso hostiles. Shoz-Dijiji go little way and watch."
Through the hills he went with her, walking ahead as a brave should, until they came within sight of the ranch house. Some cavalry mounts were tied to a corral fence; troopers were lolling in the shade of the bunk house swapping lies with the cowhands. An officer leaned in a back-tilted chair beside the doorway of the ranch house talking with Billings. Only Shoz-Dijiji's eyes and forehead showed above the top of the last hill above the wagon road where it entered the little flat in which stood the main ranch buildings, and they were screened from view by a small bush.
"Go," he said to the girl. "You will be safe now."
"Where will you wait?" she "Here?"
"Yes." She hesitated, her brow puckered in thought. "If I bring you a horse you will return at once to your tribe?" she demanded.
"Yes."
"If you meet any lone whites on the way will you promise me that you will not kill them?"
"Why?"
"I cannot bring you a horse to use in murdering my own people," she said.
He nodded. "Me savvy. Shoz-Dijiji no kill until he find his people. If they on war trail Shoz-Dijiji fight with them. Shoz-Dijiji a war chief. White warriors kill. Apache warriors kill. That is right."
"But you must not kill white people at all."
"All right-you go tell white warriors they must not kill Apaches. They stop, Shoz-Dijiji stop. Now you go get pony for Shoz-Dijiji. Big talk no good now--no can eat--no can ride. Go."
The girl could not but smile as she turned away and rounding the summit of the hill dropped down toward the ranch house in full view of those gathered there. At sight of her they all arose and several started in her direction, her father among them.
"Where in all tarnation you been, Chita?" he demanded when they were close enough for speech. "I thought I told you to stay in town until this fracas blowed over."
"Well, it has blowed over, hasn't it?" she asked. "We heard yesterday that the hostiles was all headed for the border, so I thought I'd come home. I'm sure sick o' them tin-horns in town."
"Where's Buckskin? Why in all tarnation you hoofin' it?"
"Pitched me off a mile or so back yender!" she explained. "I was takin' a short cut through the hills."
"You saw no sign of hostiles, I take it, Miss Billings?" suggested the officer, a young cavalry lieutenant.
"Nary hostile," she replied. The young West Pointer thought what a shame it was that such a pretty girl should pronounce the 'i' long; doubtless she said "masakree" too. But how pretty she was! He could not recall having seen such a beauty in a month of Sundays. He hoped the C. 0. would keep his detachment at the Billings ranch for a long time.
He had heard Billings and some of the cowhands mention Chita and he had expected to see, if he saw her at all, a raw-boned slattern with large, red hands, and so he was not prepared for the dainty beauty that burst upon his astonished vision. God, what a mother she must have had, thought the lieutenant, appraising Billings; but he felt that he could have enjoyed her more had he been deaf, for he had not yet been of the West a sufficient length of time to accustom his ears to the naive pronunciation of the frontier, so different from his native Bostonese.
The young lieutenant to the contrary, not withstanding, it may not be truthfully said that Wichita Billings was dainty; she was beautiful, yes, but with a certain strength and robustness, a definite self-reliance, that does not perfectly harmonize with the truest conception of daintiness. She was entirely feminine and her hands and feet were small, but they were strong looking hands and she stood squarely upon her two feet in her little high-heeled boots. Her well-moulded jaw was a strong jaw and her laughing eyes were brave without boldness.
No, dainty was not the word; but then, perhaps, Lieutenant Samuel Adams King was influenced not by the Back Bay background of yesterday so much as he was by that nearer background composed of rough cavalrymen and pipe-smoking, tobacco-chewing women of the old frontier. By comparison with these the girl was as dainty as a violet in a cabbage patch, especially when she was pensive, as she often was, or when she was smiling, and she was smiling quite as often as she was pensive, in fact, at almost any time when she was not talking. Then the illusion was shattered.
However, strange as it may seem, Lieutenant King found himself drawing the girl into conversation even though every word, or at least every other word, jangled discordantly upon his cultured nerves. It seemed beyond the pale of remotest possibility that any human being could mispronounce so many words, at least so it seemed to Lieutenant King, and at the same time possess such tonal qualities of voice that it became a pleasure to listen to per murder the English language; and so, when they had reached the ranch house he managed to monopolize her.
Her father had wanted to send a couple of men out after her horse, but she had objected, saying that "the ol' fool" would come in at feeding time, and if he didn't it would be good riddance anyway; but while they were discussing the matter the horse suddenly appeared galloping down the very hill from which Wichita had come a few moments before.
"What in tarnation's the matter with thet cayuse anyways?" demanded Billings. "Acts most like he'd seed a silver tip, or a ghost."
The horse was running rapidly toward the ranch, occasionally casting a backward look toward the hilltop. Wichita Billings knew perfectly what Buckskin had seen.
"Reckon as how you fellers better ride up there," said Billings to the two hands, "an' see what all might be there."
"They ain't nothin' there," said Wichita. "Didn't I jest come from there? The ol' son-of-a-gun's been actin' thet away all day--he's jest plumb loco."
So that was the end of that, much to the girl's relief, and Wichita resumed her talk with the officer; an experience which she enjoyed, for she was avid to learn, and she knew that the average man or woman of the frontier could teach her little along the lines toward which her ambition lay. On several occasions she had met cultured men--men who had stopped at her father's Kansas farm, or at the ranch since they came to Arizona--and she had been vividly conscious of a difference between them and the sort of people to whose society she was accustomed.
From them she had derived her first appreciation of the existence of a thing called conversation and a knowledge of its beauty and its value and its rarity. She had been quick to realize her own lack of conversational ability and ambitious enough to dream of improvement; but dreaming was about as far as she could go. What few books and magazines and newspapers filtered to her remote home she devoured eagerly and they taught her many things, though usually overdrawn. She learned new words, the meanings of which she usually guessed shrewdly enough, for she possessed no dictionary, but there was nothing or no one to teach her how to pronounce either the new words or the old, so that she was never actively aware that she mispronounced them and only vaguely disturbed when she listened to the conversation of a person like Lieutenant King. In truth, when she gave the matter any thought, she was more inclined to regret his weird pronunciation of such common words as "Injun" and "hoss" than to question her own. It was the things he spoke of and the pleasant intonation of his cultured voice that delighted her. Lieutenant King was asking her about herself, which didn't interest her at all, and how long she had lived in Arizona. "Goin' on five year," she replied, "an' I reckon you jes' come out with that last bunch o' shave-tails at the post, didn't you?"