For a moment Juh was silent. "It shall be as Shoz-Dijiji says," he growled presently, "so long as no one knows of this thing that has just happened, other than Juh and Shoz-Dijiji. Juh has spoken--that is all!"
"Come forth, then, Juh, and go your way," said the boy; "but remember they must be good ponies."
He stood aside as the warrior strode from the hogan, and he was careful to stand out of the man's reach and to keep his weapon in readiness, for after all he had no great confidence in the honor of Juh.
III - YAH-IK-TEE
ANOTHER year rolled around. Once again were the Be-don-ko-he, the Cho-kon-en and the Ned-ni camped together and with them were the Chi-hen-ne, with Victorio, old Nanay and Loco. Together they had been raiding in Chihuahua and Sonora. It had been a prosperous year for the tribes, a year rich in loot; and for little Shoz-Dijiji it had been a wonderful year. Bright, alert, he had learned much. He had won a name and that had helped him too, for the other boys looked up to him and even the great chiefs took notice of him.
Cochise had developed a real affection for the stalwart youngster, for he saw in a lad who could face fearlessly a renowned chief such as Juh was, even at that time, a potential leader of his people in the years to come.
Often the old war chief talked to Shoz-Dijiji of the exploits of his people. He told him of the many wars with the Comanches and the Navajos, of raids upon the villages of the Pimos and the Papagos; and he filled his heart with yearning to emulate the glorious deeds of the great warriors who had made terrible the name of the Apaches, the Shis-Inday, the Men of the Woods, from the Arkansas River in Colorado on the north, south to Durango, Mexico, more than five hundred miles below the border; and from the California line on the west to San Antonio, Texas, on the east--an empire as large as Europe.
"And of all this, I, Cochise, am war chief," cried the old warrior. "Soon you will be a brave. So fight that you will fill our enemies with fear and our warriors with admiration so that, perhaps, you some day may be war chief of all the Apaches."
It was May. Flowers starred the rolling pasture land, green with grama grass on which the ponies were fattening after the grueling months of raiding south of the border. The braves loafed much about the camp, smoking and gambling. The squaws and the children tilled a little patch of ground, and once again some of the women brewed tizwin, for there was to be a great dance before the tribes scattered to their own countries. The crushed corn had been soaked and was fermenting; the mescal was roasting upon hot stones in its pit; a Yuma squaw, a prisoner of war, was making a paste of soaked maize in a metate. The paste she patted into thin, round cakes and baked.
Little I sh-kay-nay watched her, for she loved tortillas and wished to learn how to make them. Ish-kay-nay was eleven, very dirty, almost naked and entirely lovely. Her lithe young body approximated perfection as closely as may anything mortal. Her tangled hair fell over a mischievous, beautiful face from which laughing eyes, serious now, watched intently every move of the Yuma. The long, black lashes and the arched brows had not yet been plucked, for Ish-kay-nay still had three years of childhood before her. Her name means boy, and to see her romp and play was all that was necessary to make one understand why she was given that name.
Night had come. The sacrificial hoddentin had been offered to the evening and to the moon. The dancing, the feasting, the drinking commenced. Among the dancers moved the medicine men, the izze-nantan of the Apaches, tossing hoddentin, mumbling gibberish, whirling their tzi-ditindes to frighten away the evil spirits.
That night the braves got gloriously drunk. Perhaps the medicine of the izze-nantan was good medicine, for the Mexican soldiers who had come up out of the south to raid them made camp a few miles away instead of attacking that night. Had they done so the flower of the six tribes of the Apaches would have been wiped out, for even Cochise, the war chief, lay unconscious in the grip of the tizwin.
The following day the braves were tired and cross. They lay around the camp and there was much quarreling. Cochise was very sick. Go-yat-thlay, Victorio, Juh, Hash-ka-ai-la, Chief of the White Mountain Apaches, and C0-si-to, Chief of the Chi-e-a-hen, foregathered and discussed the wisdom of immediately separating the tribes before there was an open break. Well they knew the savage followers. Not for long could the tribes associate without squabbles, brawls and bloody duels. Tomorrow, at the latest, they decided, each tribe would take up its trail to its own hunting grounds.
Shoz-Dijiji, tiring of play with the other children, took his bow and arrows and his lance and started up the ridge above camp. Today he was a scout under orders from Cochise. The enemy was thought to be close and because Shoz-Dijiji had the eyes of itza-chu, the eagle, and was as brave as shoz-litzogue, the yellow bear, Cochise had sent him out alone to discover the whereabouts of the foe. Thus dreamed Shoz-Dijiji as he moved silently and swiftly up the steep mountain, taking advantage of every cover, noiseless, invisible. Thus learned Shoz-Dijiji the ways of his people--the ways of the Apache.
From the headwaters of the Gila far south into the Sierra Madre mountains in Mexico, Shoz-Dijiji already knew every canyon, every peak, every vantage point. He knew where water ran or stood the year round; he knew where it stood after each rain and for how long; he knew where one might discover it by scratching in the bed of a dry stream, and where one must dig deep for its precious boon. This was but a fraction of the countless things that Shoz-Dijiji knew about his own country. He knew nothing about Latin or Greek; he had never heard of Rome or Babylon; but he could take care of himself better at eleven than the majority of white men can at their prime and he had learned more useful things from actual experience than the white boy ever learns.
Therefore, this day, though he played, he played with judgment, with intelligence. He did not just fare forth and make believe that he was scouting for an enemy--he did scout. He moved to the best position within a radius of fifty miles, and when he reached it he knew just where to look for an enemy; he knew the trails they must follow to reach his people's camp; and the first thing that he saw when he looked toward the south, toward Sonora, toward the land of their hereditary enemies, brought a wave of savage exultation surging through his brown body.
There, on the plain, twenty miles away, moving steadily toward the camp of the Shis-Inday was a long column of dust. All the six tribes lay unsuspecting below him, so it would not be Apaches that were advancing toward them, and if it were not Apaches it must be an enemy. His eyes were keen, but the column was enveloped in dust; however, he was confident from the formation that he was looking at a body of mounted troops.
For just an instant longer he watched them, while he revolved in his mind the plan of action best to follow. The enemy was ten miles south of camp, Shoz-Dijiji was ten miles north. They were mounted but it would take them longer to ascend the rocky trail than it would take Shoz-Dljiji to descend the mountain and give the warning; otherwise he would have resorted to smoke signals to apprise his people of their danger. That he might still do, but the enemy would see the signals, too, and know that the Indians were near and aware of their presence. Shoz-Dijiji pictured instead a surprise ambush in a narrow canyon just below the Apaches' camp.
Already he was leaping swiftly down the mountain side. Speed, now, meant everything and he was less careful of concealment, yet neither did he entirely neglect it, for to the Apache it was second nature. He did not fear detection by the main body of the enemy, but he knew that they might have scouts far out in front, though his keen eyes had seen nothing of them. With streaming hair the boy flew down the steep declivity, as trailless as the Mountains of the Moon. If he could reach camp ten minutes ahead of the enemy his people would be saved. He knew that he could do so; there was no guess work about it.