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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 41630 ***
+
+                        THE STORY OF
+
+                          Geronimo
+
+                      By JIM KJELGAARD
+
+             Illustrated by CHARLES BANKS WILSON
+
+
+  PUBLISHERS Grosset & Dunlap NEW YORK
+
+[Illustration: SIGNATURE BOOKS GERONIMO]
+
+  © JIM KJELGAARD 1958
+
+  PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
+
+  Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 58-9837
+  _The Story of Geronimo_
+
+
+[Illustration: GREAT EVENTS IN THE LIFE OF GERONIMO]
+
+
+                           _For_
+                       Eleanor Gefroh
+    _who has been the dearest of friends to me and mine_
+
+
+[Illustration: _It seemed certain the two stallions must
+close with each other_]
+
+
+
+
+Contents
+
+
+  CHAPTER
+
+       I  Duel by Stallion                       3
+
+      II  Raiding the Papagoes                  13
+
+     III  Alope                                 28
+
+      IV  Massacre                              39
+
+       V  Flight                                51
+
+      VI  Revenge                               59
+
+     VII  The White Men                         71
+
+    VIII  The Battle of Apache Pass             80
+
+      IX  A Wounded Chief                       90
+
+       X  A Chief Dies                          99
+
+      XI  Geronimo in Chains                   108
+
+     XII  Flight into Mexico                   116
+
+    XIII  Fortress Paradise                    127
+
+     XIV  Chief Gray Wolf                      136
+
+      XV  The Discontented                     145
+
+     XVI  Hunted Like Wolves                   153
+
+    XVII  A Gallant Soldier                    163
+
+   XVIII  The Last Surrender                   170
+
+
+
+
+Illustrations
+
+
+It seemed certain the two stallions must close
+with each other                                           FRONTISPIECE
+
+The Papagoes saw him, raised their clubs and
+rushed forward                                                      19
+
+The horses snorted in alarm                                         35
+
+Geronimo brought the skins of puma                                  37
+
+He halted beside a Mexican                                          46
+
+The first shell struck the breastworks                              87
+
+The Mimbrenos carried him over mountains and
+across deserts                                                      95
+
+"Look! Usan has smiled upon us!"                                   122
+
+Geronimo had cut the wire with his axe                             151
+
+
+
+
+THE STORY OF Geronimo
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER ONE
+
+_Duel by Stallion_
+
+
+Geronimo crawled up the hill so carefully that no stalk of grass moved,
+and no bush quivered. A pair of crested quail, feeding on insects in the
+grass, merely glanced up when he passed and went on feeding. Geronimo
+reached the top of the hill and crouched down in the grass.
+
+Beyond were more hills, the near ones low, rocky, and given more to
+shrubs and grass than to trees. Geronimo's eyes strayed across the
+Arizona landscape to the east. There lay No-doyohn Canyon, where
+Geronimo had been born in 1829, just twelve years earlier. There his
+father had died when Geronimo was five years old. In the far distance
+beyond the canyon, tall, pine-clad mountains rose.
+
+Geronimo looked down the slope on a wickiup. This Apache house was built
+of poles thrust into the ground, with deer skin walls and a smoke hole
+in the center of the roof. It was the home of Delgadito, a mighty chief
+among the Mimbreno Apaches, the tribe to which Geronimo belonged.
+Delgadito was so mighty that only the great chief, Mangus Coloradus
+himself, outranked him.
+
+Delgadito owned many horses. Most of them grazed by day in pastures far
+from the village. But his black war stallion, his nimble-footed gray
+hunting horse, and the mare that his wife rode were only absent from
+their picket ropes when a rider was using them.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Now the gray hunting horse was gone, which meant that Delgadito was out
+after deer. But the mare and the stallion were still there. Geronimo
+had come to steal the war horse. This, however, was not the time to do
+it.
+
+The mare's presence proved that Delgadito's wife was home. If she saw
+Geronimo stealing the war horse she would tell her husband. The
+punishment sure to follow would be harsh and long remembered. Delgadito
+knew how to use a switch on headstrong boys. Geronimo crouched in his
+hiding place, waiting.
+
+Soon Delgadito's wife came from the wickiup, mounted her mare, and rode
+away. Geronimo rose and walked swiftly down the hill.
+
+The stallion raised its head and watched with eyes that were fearless
+and questioning. Geronimo grasped the buckskin tie rope, and was drawing
+the horse to him when--
+
+"You leave my uncle's war horse alone!"
+
+A girl had come from the wickiup. Geronimo was so interested in the
+horse that he did not even know she was near until she spoke. Her name
+was Alope, and she was Delgadito's niece. Geronimo thought she was so
+lovely that the most dazzling maidens of the Mimbreno or any other tribe
+were drab beside her. When grown, such a girl would be too good for any
+warrior. Only a chief would be worthy to have her as his wife.
+
+Geronimo said, "I must have this stallion, Alope."
+
+"Why?" Alope asked.
+
+"I must fight a duel of stallions with Ponce, the son of Ponce, and the
+only stallion among my mother's horses is too old to fight," Geronimo
+said.
+
+Alope asked, "Why must you fight such a duel with young Ponce?"
+
+"He gave me the lie!" Geronimo said angrily. "I killed three deer with
+my bow and arrows. Ponce said I _found_ them dead!"
+
+"Twelve-year-old boys are not supposed to be able to kill deer," Alope
+said.
+
+"I did!" Geronimo insisted.
+
+"I believe you," Alope said. "But these duels are dangerous. You know
+the elders have forbidden them."
+
+Geronimo patted the stallion's cheek.
+
+"If the elders do not know a duel is being fought," he said, "they can
+do nothing."
+
+"And if my uncle's war horse is killed," Alope told him, "he'll stake
+you out on an ant hill and let the ants devour you."
+
+Geronimo said, "I'll gladly accept any punishment after I have fought
+this duel, but I must fight!"
+
+"What if you are killed?" asked Alope.
+
+"I won't be. Among all his father's horses, the son of Ponce shall find
+no stallion to equal this one, and I am a much better rider!"
+
+Alope said, "My good sense bids me run and get my aunt, but my heart
+tells me to speed a warrior on his way. I'll not tell, but I'll tremble
+for what will happen to you should my uncle's war horse be killed or
+hurt."
+
+Geronimo slipped the tether rope, grasped the rein, and vaulted happily
+to the back of the mighty horse. Though the stallion wanted to gallop
+and Geronimo burned to test the speed and fire of such a mount, he held
+him to a walk. There was a fight coming up. The stallion must go into
+it rested.
+
+At the same time, it was a glorious feeling just to be on such a
+stallion. All Apaches could ride, but few were master horsemen. Geronimo
+had started riding the village colts when he was so small that it was
+necessary to lead his mount beside a boulder or stump from which he
+could scramble onto its back. He seemed born to ride. Not half a dozen
+men in the village could stay on the back of Delgadito's war horse. But
+Geronimo was riding him.
+
+After twenty minutes the Indian boy looked down on the secluded swale
+where the duel would be fought. He and Ponce had chosen a battle ground
+far enough from the village so that the elders would be unlikely to
+interfere. Young Ponce was waiting there with one of his father's best
+horses, a fiery bay that had already slain a half dozen rivals.
+
+Though the elders knew nothing of the duel, a crowd of boys ringed the
+chosen arena. They were tense with excitement, but they did not yell and
+shout as white boys would have. And all stood far enough away so that
+they could escape if either stallion charged toward them.
+
+As Geronimo rode down the hill, Delgadito's war horse caught scent of
+the other stallion and screamed his challenge. Ponce's bay answered, and
+the two stallions rushed each other. Quickly Geronimo planned his
+battle.
+
+Such duels were a common way for Apache boys to settle arguments. They
+often resulted in the death of a horse, a rider, or both. When they did,
+it was usually the rider's fault. Geronimo planned on using his riding
+skill to make a fool of Ponce, and he intended that nobody should get
+hurt.
+
+Just as it seemed certain the two stallions must close with each other,
+Geronimo turned Delgadito's war horse so expertly that they passed
+within inches. At this wonderful display of riding skill, an excited
+murmur of admiration rose from the watching boys.
+
+Geronimo turned back, this time wheeling right in front of Ponce's angry
+stallion. He swerved to come in to the side. Ponce's bay reared and
+pawed the air with skull-crushing front hoofs. The watching boys gasped.
+But just as it seemed certain that Geronimo would be killed, he leaned
+over and escaped by the width of a hair.
+
+Suddenly, to Geronimo's vast surprise, Ponce wheeled his stallion and
+galloped away as fast as his bay could run. Deciding to chase him on
+Delgadito's war horse, Geronimo was even more astonished when a shrill
+whistle split the air.
+
+The war horse whirled and trotted obediently to--Delgadito himself! For
+the first time Geronimo noticed that the watching boys had disappeared
+too. He alone had been so interested in the duel that he had failed to
+see Delgadito come. The chief's eyes blazed with anger.
+
+"Why do you fight a duel of stallions?" he demanded.
+
+"The son of Ponce gave me the lie!" said Geronimo, sitting erect on the
+war horse. "I killed three deer with my bow and arrows! Young Ponce said
+I found them dead!"
+
+"Come with me!" commanded Delgadito.
+
+He turned toward his gray hunting horse, which was rein-haltered near by
+and which had a buck strapped behind the saddle. Without a word or a
+backward glance the tall chief mounted and rode at a walk in the
+direction of his wickiup.
+
+Though he shivered inwardly, Geronimo did his best not to show it as he
+followed. Nor was he sorry that he had stolen the war horse. He had
+acted as a warrior should; he would take his punishment like a warrior.
+
+When they reached the wickiup, they dismounted and Delgadito tethered
+both horses. Then he removed his bow and quiver of arrows from the
+hunting horse, took a single arrow from the quiver, and gave the arrow
+and the bow to Geronimo.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"Killer of deer, I would see you shoot," the chief ordered.
+
+Geronimo fingered the unfamiliar weapon. "What target?"
+
+Delgadito nodded at a pine about twenty yards away. "The knothole."
+
+Geronimo nocked the arrow, raised the bow, and needed every ounce of his
+strength to draw it. This was a man's weapon, with a much heavier pull
+than the bow he had made for himself. But he did not shoot until he knew
+he was on target.
+
+The arrow's shaft quivered as its copper point bit deeply into the
+knothole.
+
+Delgadito said, "I saw you ride, and now I have seen you shoot. You told
+no lies. When the sun has risen three times more, I will lead a raid
+against the Papagoes, for we should steal more horses. You will ride
+with us."
+
+Delgadito turned and entered his wickiup to indicate that Geronimo was
+dismissed. But for a full two minutes the dazed youngster did not move.
+At last, at long last, his fondest dream was coming true.
+
+He was to be a true warrior.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWO
+
+_Raiding the Papagoes_
+
+
+Three days later, at sunrise, an excited Geronimo sat nervously on his
+mother's aging stallion and waited for the raiders to start. Besides
+Delgadito, who was the leader, and Geronimo, there were four braves
+named Nadeze, Sanchez, Tacon, and Chie.
+
+The dome-shaped wickiups where the villagers lived were softly beautiful
+in the early morning light. Here and there the embers of last night's
+cooking fire--for in this fine spring weather the Apaches did most of
+their cooking out of doors--glowed like a star fallen to earth. But
+except for the sentries who had been up all night, and the raiders about
+to set forth, the village slept.
+
+When all the raiders were mounted, Nadeze and Sanchez left the others.
+Presently they returned driving a dozen loose horses among which was a
+beautiful spotted apaloosa. This horse had belonged to a _shaman_, or
+medicine man, of the White Mountain Apaches and had been taken from him
+in a night raid.
+
+It was always necessary to have extra horses when going into enemy
+country for any reason. They could serve as remounts. If there was no
+other food they could be eaten, or they could be traded if there were
+any opportunities for trading.
+
+But Geronimo wondered why Nadeze and Sanchez had included the apaloosa.
+The spotted horse was famous throughout the land. Even the Papagoes and
+pueblo-dwelling Zuñi knew him, and whoever saw him would surely send
+winged words to the _shaman_.
+
+"Then a war party from the White Mountain Apaches will come to rescue
+their medicine man's horse," Geronimo thought. But he asked no
+questions. Surely Delgadito knew what he was doing.
+
+Nadeze and Sanchez drove the loose horses on at full gallop, for the
+sooner the animals were tired the sooner they would be willing to stay
+with the rest and the less trouble they would cause. The other raiders
+rode out from the village more slowly.
+
+An hour later they overtook Nadeze and Sanchez, and the driven horses,
+now too tired to run. They fell in at the rear and seemed satisfied to
+stay there. Geronimo felt a rising anxiety.
+
+He had always imagined raiding to be a stealthy business. These men
+laughed, shouted, and gaily mimicked a coyote that moaned from a nearby
+ridge.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Presently lithe, slim Tacon challenged fat Chie to a race. Whooping at
+the tops of their voices, they were off. Geronimo stopped worrying.
+Delgadito was too experienced a raider to do anything foolish. If he let
+the warriors act as though there were no enemies within twenty miles,
+then there were none.
+
+That night they camped on top of a rocky hill from which they could see
+in all directions, and they were careful to put all fires out as soon as
+darkness fell.
+
+"Fire may be seen for a long distance on a dark night," Geronimo said to
+himself. "That is why they were put out."
+
+The next morning the raiders rode on, and not until midafternoon did
+they make the slightest attempt to hide themselves. But when they
+finally halted under a cloud-ridden sky, there was a change in every
+man.
+
+This was desert country, and they stopped in a cluster of rocky hills.
+Delgadito and Chie dismounted and climbed the tallest hill to scout from
+its summit. Soon they returned and told the others to dismount too.
+Tether ropes were slipped about the necks of the loose horses, which
+were now led by the raiders as all went on quietly.
+
+A half hour later the raiders made a second stop in a dry wash. The
+banks of this desert creek bed were about four feet high and rimmed by
+cactus and palo verde trees.
+
+Sanchez and Delgadito felled one of these trees with copper hatchets,
+cut off two stout chunks, and tied either end of a long rawhide thong to
+them. Then they stretched the thong as far as it would reach, and
+buried the chunks in the earth, at the bottom of the creek bed. Careful
+to place a gentle horse between two quick-tempered mounts, they tied all
+animals to this picket line. This done, all got their weapons and
+started up over the wash.
+
+Geronimo ran happily for his own bow and arrows and followed. Suddenly
+Delgadito turned, put the palm of his hand against the youngster's face,
+and pushed so hard that Geronimo found himself seated in the bottom of
+the wash.
+
+"Stay here to watch the horses," the chief growled.
+
+"But I'm a warrior too!" Geronimo protested.
+
+Delgadito growled again, and amused smiles flitted over the lips of the
+others. The raiders melted into the desert.
+
+Flames of anger scorched Geronimo's cheeks, and rage ate at his heart.
+He had a fierce desire to pursue and kill Delgadito in revenge for being
+knocked down. But he knew that he must obey his chief. And he found it
+much more satisfactory to be guarding warriors' horses than to be
+playing children's games in the village.
+
+Geronimo pillowed his back against a boulder and for a while never took
+his eyes from the horses. Then it began to seem foolish to watch them at
+all. The animals were standing quietly, and the idea that an enemy might
+come into the creek bed seemed unlikely. Presently Geronimo went to
+sleep.
+
+Some time later he awakened. At first he thought he had been disturbed
+by the deepening clouds and a feeling that rain would soon fall. Then he
+peered down the wash.
+
+Two nearly naked Indians carrying war clubs were stalking the horses and
+were only about forty yards from the nearest animal. Their clubs, the
+way they wore their straight black hair, and their tattooed faces
+stamped them as Papagoes. It was plain to see that they intended to
+steal the horses.
+
+When he was certain that neither Papago was looking in his direction,
+Geronimo slung his quiver of arrows over his back. Taking his bow in
+hand, he crawled swiftly to and under the nearest horse.
+
+The horses were not in an even line, but all stood perfectly still
+because they were interested in the Papagoes, and their legs formed a
+rough tunnel. Geronimo crawled down it. Reaching the last horse, he
+stopped and licked dry lips.
+
+[Illustration: _The Papagoes saw him, raised their clubs and rushed
+forward_]
+
+He wished Delgadito or any of the others were there. It was one thing to
+dream of becoming a warrior and quite another to face the enemy. What
+should he do now? Then the Papagoes saw him, raised their clubs and
+rushed forward, and there was only one thing he could do.
+
+Geronimo plucked an arrow from his quiver, nocked it, drew his bow, took
+careful aim at the nearest Papago, and shot. The Papago was hit squarely
+in the heart. The only sound as the man fell was a jarring thud when he
+struck the ground. His companion turned to run.
+
+Forgetting to nock another arrow, Geronimo crawled weakly from beneath
+the horse and for a few minutes sat shivering. Then he remembered that,
+though he was still a boy, he would soon be not just a warrior but an
+Apache warrior. Forcing himself to rise, he walked over to look at the
+dead Papago, and told himself that he was glad he had put an end to
+another enemy of the Apache. But he was just as happy that he had not
+killed the second Papago too.
+
+Before long a black horse, flanked by a gray and four bays, jumped down
+into the wash, ran across it, and stopped. They stared back in the
+direction from which they had come, and the tethered horses raised their
+heads to stare too. Geronimo thought that the black was a wonderful
+stallion and was surely stolen from some Mexican _rancheria_ because no
+Papagoes bred horses so fine.
+
+Now more horses came galloping over the desert until there was a herd of
+about eighty milling around in the wash. For the most part they were
+scrawny Papago ponies. But Geronimo saw one more fine stallion, a dark
+gray with black spots.
+
+Riding stolen ponies, which they guided without help of saddle or
+bridle, Delgadito and his raiders were on the heels of the last horses.
+As their mounts jumped into the wash they slid off. Delgadito made his
+way to Geronimo and looked down at the dead Papago.
+
+"How is this?" the chief asked.
+
+"He would have stolen our horses," Geronimo replied.
+
+"Was he alone?"
+
+"There was another," the boy admitted. "I did not kill him."
+
+"You should have," Delgadito scolded. "But come now and mount."
+
+Geronimo ran with him to the picket line and mounted his mother's old
+stallion, then he was astounded to see Delgadito take time to strip
+saddle and bridle from his own horse and put them on the apaloosa.
+Geronimo marveled. This was enemy country and, when the Papagoes
+discovered that some of their horses had been stolen, they were sure to
+launch a hot pursuit. But Delgadito seemed as calm as he had ever been
+at home in his own wickiup.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Mounting the apaloosa and whooping at the top of his voice, Delgadito
+charged the herd. The other riders took off, one after another, and
+drove the horses full speed straight north. This puzzled Geronimo.
+Finally he rode over to talk with Nadeze.
+
+"Why do we go north?" he asked. "Our home is almost due east."
+
+"Worry not and question not," Nadeze said coolly. "Look and learn."
+
+Always at full gallop, Delgadito was racing from one end of the line to
+the other. The apaloosa already had run at least six times the distance
+any other horse had traveled.
+
+About an hour and a half later Delgadito caught his own horse and
+transferred saddle and bridle from the apaloosa to him. The exhausted
+apaloosa staggered ten feet to stand with head drooping. Geronimo
+finally understood.
+
+Beyond any doubt, Papago trackers were already on the trail of
+Delgadito's Mimbreno raiders. They could not fail to find the weary
+apaloosa and they would know its owner was the _shaman_ of the White
+Mountain Apaches. They would also see that the stolen horses had been
+started northward, toward the home of these Apaches. Thus the Papagoes
+would think that they had been raided by men from the White Mountain
+tribe and they would seek revenge on them, rather than on the Mimbreno
+Apaches.
+
+"We have a wise chief," thought Geronimo, as Delgadito's plan became
+clear to him.
+
+Just then Delgadito said, "Chie, continue northward with thirty of the
+more worthless horses. Leave a plain trail, as though we were stricken
+with panic. But drive the horses back and forth so it will appear as
+though there were many more than thirty. Run as soon as you see
+pursuers."
+
+Chie nodded, and the rest of the men started dividing the remaining
+horses into smaller groups.
+
+"Why do we do this?" Geronimo asked, riding along beside Nadeze.
+
+"It is easier to hide the trail of a small group of horses," said
+Nadeze. "And the Papagoes will find it much more difficult to track us
+since we will take each herd in a different direction before swinging
+back to our village."
+
+"Do I drive some?"
+
+"You are too anxious, stripling." Nadeze was far more respectful since
+Geronimo had slain the Papago. "You will ride with one of us."
+
+Suddenly the rain clouds which Geronimo had noticed earlier loosed an
+earth-battering torrent. The raiders smiled. Usan, god of their tribe,
+had indeed blessed them. Though the Papago trackers would certainly find
+the apaloosa, they would never discover where the rest of the horses had
+gone after a storm such as this one.
+
+Driving all the horses ahead of them through the pouring rain, the
+raiders turned homeward.
+
+    *    *    *    *    *
+
+In bright sunlight next day, the stolen Papago horses cropped grass on
+the slope opposite Delgadito's wickiup. Geronimo listened anxiously
+while Delgadito, as was the right of a chief who led a raiding party,
+divided the plunder.
+
+The leader reserved twenty horses for himself, and the twenty he chose
+included the two fine stallions. Then he gave smaller numbers of horses
+to the four men who had gone with him. The number each received depended
+on how hard he had worked to make the raid successful. Next came a just
+share for all families who had no one to steal horses for them.
+
+Geronimo's heart sank as the horses were given away. He had hoped to get
+something for himself, but now the only horses remaining were a dozen or
+so fit only for the cooking pot. Delgadito declared them as such. Then
+he announced, so that all could hear:
+
+"I give part of my portion, the black stallion and the gray stallion
+with black spots," he swung to Geronimo, "to an Apache youth who
+deserves them because during this raid he behaved like a warrior."
+
+For a moment Geronimo was too surprised and delighted to move. Then he
+tilted his head, squared his shoulders, and went proudly forth to claim
+his prizes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THREE
+
+_Alope_
+
+
+It was spring in the year 1846, five years after Geronimo's first raid.
+Ten miles south of the Arizona-Mexico border, Geronimo sat silently on
+the summit of a low hill. His knife was on his belt. His muzzle-loading
+rifle, powder horn, and bullet pouch were in easy reach. A red blanket
+was draped over his body, which was naked except for breech cloth,
+moccasins, and the warrior's headband that bound his black hair.
+
+Two young warriors, Zayigo and Pedro Gonzalez, sat beside him. Both were
+older than Geronimo. Yet both had chosen to let the seventeen-year-old
+warrior lead this raid into Mexico because of his cunning and courage.
+
+Now they were a little uneasy because of their leader's silence. Usually
+Geronimo loved to talk, and he was already a leading orator among the
+Mimbreno Apaches. When he was least talkative, he was most dangerous.
+Finally Zayigo said impatiently:
+
+"We sit beside the youngest Mimbreno Apache ever to become a member of
+the Council of Warriors. Yet he sulks like a scolded child. It ill
+befits him."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"Aye," Pedro Gonzalez agreed. "Since leaving the Mimbreno village,
+Geronimo, you have smoldered like a fire that is not quite able to
+burst into flame. Is it because some warriors spoke against you when
+they met to determine whether you might be admitted to the Council?"
+
+"I care not who speaks against me," Geronimo said sourly. "Any who
+consider me unworthy of being a Mimbreno warrior I'll fight gladly."
+
+"Those who did not want to admit you to the Council of Warriors never
+questioned your bravery or your skill in battle," Zayigo said quickly.
+"They said only that you are reckless and headstrong, and that trouble
+goes where you do because you never reckon the odds."
+
+"There are some Mimbreno warriors who have the cowardly souls of
+Mexicans," Geronimo grunted. "And I do not mean that you are a coward,
+Pedro."
+
+Pedro Gonzalez said quietly, "Mexican I was once. Apache I am now."
+
+That was true. Captured in Mexico when he was five years old, Pedro had
+been adopted by an Apache family. He had taken so readily to Apache ways
+that he was now one of their finest and fiercest warriors. He spoke
+again:
+
+"If you care not because some spoke against you, what is the trouble? It
+is no pleasure to go raiding or anywhere else with one who does little
+except stew in his own anger."
+
+Geronimo said bitterly, "Ne-po-se was one of the men who spoke against
+me."
+
+"The father of Alope does not like you," Zayigo said. "But that is no
+news in the Mimbreno village. Ne-po-se does not care to have Alope marry
+a mere warrior when it is possible that a chief will offer five horses
+in exchange for her."
+
+For a moment Geronimo did not answer. For five years he had watched
+Alope become lovelier each year. Her image accompanied him wherever he
+went by day and haunted his dreams by night. He was as deeply in love as
+a young man can be.
+
+He said finally, "When I became a warrior in full standing, I went to
+Ne-po-se and asked for Alope. He sneered at me, and said to come back
+when I could offer ten horses for his daughter's hand."
+
+"Ten horses!" Zayigo said in astonishment. "That is unheard of, even for
+such a bride as Alope! What do you intend to do?"
+
+"Pay for my bride what she is worth," Geronimo said. "That is why we are
+in Mexico, where there are plenty of horses for the taking."
+
+He spoke more easily, for talking about his troubles had made them seem
+less. Zayigo and Pedro Gonzalez smiled, their white teeth flashing in
+the darkness.
+
+"Now you talk as the leader we hoped we were following," Pedro Gonzalez
+said happily. "Of course there are plenty of horses in Mexico. And when
+it comes to stealing horses, no warriors are more clever than Geronimo.
+You shall gain the price of your bride."
+
+"I shall have the price or I shall not return to the Mimbreno village,"
+Geronimo vowed. "And I know we shall return for we go against Mexicans.
+
+"I think it must be true that something in the food they eat or the
+water they drink turns the marrow of Mexican men's bones to jelly as
+soon as they become men. Captive Mexican women fit very well into our
+tribe, as do children if taken young enough. The men do little except
+tremble with fear, and that is why it is better to kill than capture
+them."
+
+Pedro Gonzalez laughed joyously. "It is long since I have fought
+Mexicans. Let us hope this is a good fight."
+
+They curled up in their blankets and slept. The night was still black
+about them when they rose to go on. Traveling at a loose-legged gait
+that covered the ground with amazing speed, they were many miles from
+their camping place when the sun rose. They stopped to nibble parched
+corn from pouches that hung at their belts, rested less than five
+minutes, and went on.
+
+Geronimo, who had been this way many times and who also had a splendid
+sense of direction, led the others through steep-walled canyons and over
+brush-grown hilltops. By midafternoon they were looking from the top of
+a hill down on the _rancheria_ they intended to raid.
+
+The house and other buildings were built of adobe, or sun-dried brick.
+To one side were extensive corrals made of poles that had been
+laboriously hauled from some river bottom or other where trees were
+plentiful. There were about fifty horses in the corrals.
+
+The three Apaches crouched in the brush and bided their time. They were
+heedless of the sun that burned down upon them. Thirst that would have
+driven a white man mad bothered them not at all. They were trained to
+endure thirst.
+
+An hour before dark, several Mexican riders came with a herd of forty
+horses. They put them in the same corral where the fifty were already
+confined, and turned their own saddle mounts in with them. Two more
+riders came, stripped saddles and bridles from their mounts, and shut
+them in the corral. Then all the Mexicans went into the house.
+
+Night fell before the three Apaches stirred. Geronimo gave his orders.
+
+"Zayigo and Pedro, keep those in the house from coming out. I go to the
+corral."
+
+Geronimo slipped away in the darkness. He could no longer see the
+corral, but his sense of direction was so sure that he went exactly to
+it. The Mexicans had draped their saddles over the top rail and hung
+their bridles on the saddle horns. Taking no saddles, for all three
+raiders were expert bareback riders, Geronimo looped three bridles over
+his shoulder and entered the corral.
+
+The horses snorted in alarm when they got his scent, then wheeled to run
+to the corral's far side. Geronimo did not hurry even slightly, for in
+the first place any quick move would frighten the horses. In the second
+place, with Zayigo and Pedro Gonzalez watching the house, he was not
+afraid that the Mexicans would come. In the third place, Geronimo had
+done this so many times that he knew exactly how to go about it.
+
+[Illustration: _The horses snorted in alarm_]
+
+Presently he backed a group of horses into a corner of the corral.
+Geronimo caught one, held it by looping the reins of one of his three
+bridles around its neck, and bridled it. He mounted.
+
+At that moment, a stallion screamed.
+
+The door of the house was flung open. But when Zayigo's rifle spoke, the
+door was slammed shut quickly. Still refusing to hurry, Geronimo caught
+and bridled two more horses. Sitting his own mount, and holding the
+reins of the other two, he whistled shrilly.
+
+Zayigo and Pedro Gonzalez appeared out of the darkness. Not speaking,
+for each knew exactly what he must do, they mounted the two bridled
+horses. Geronimo opened the gate and the three drove the herd through.
+
+There were hundreds of other horses grazing on the vast acreage of the
+_rancheria_. But this was the only herd kept near the house and the
+raiders had been careful to take all of them. The rest were miles away
+at other water holes. Even if the Mexicans recovered their wits
+immediately, they would still need hours to get more horses and launch
+any kind of pursuit.
+
+The raiders drove their herd toward Apache land at a leisurely walk.
+
+[Illustration: _Geronimo brought the skins of puma_]
+
+On their return Geronimo gave Ne-po-se twenty fine horses. It was a gift
+so dazzling that even Mangus Coloradus, giant chief of the Mimbreno
+Apaches, came to inquire about it. And Ne-po-se could no longer forbid
+Alope to marry the brave young Geronimo.
+
+Several thousand people lived in the Mimbreno village. But since most
+Apaches liked plenty of room between themselves and their neighbors, the
+village was spread over several hills.
+
+Geronimo and Alope, however, built a fine wickiup very near the house of
+Geronimo's widowed mother. Alope decorated it with pictures while
+Geronimo brought the skins of elk, deer, antelope, puma, and other
+creatures that fell to his hunting arrows. There were no bear skins
+because bears are sacred to Apaches.
+
+The following twelve years were probably the only truly happy ones
+Geronimo ever knew. A daughter came to live in the wickiup, then a son,
+then another daughter. It was a full and wonderful life for all.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FOUR
+
+_Massacre_
+
+
+Again it was spring, the spring of 1858, and almost the entire village
+of Mimbreno Apaches was on the move.
+
+Twenty or more youngsters, who couldn't contain their own bubbling
+spirits and wouldn't restrain their lively ponies, led the main column
+by half a mile. Next, riding his immense war horse and surrounded by his
+sub-chiefs, came Mangus Coloradus himself--a giant of a man and a great
+leader. Immediately behind this group were more than three hundred pack
+horses and burros. Their packs bore tanned skins, fruit of the saguaro
+cactus, edible roots of the mescal plant, and other trade goods.
+
+The pack train was guarded by warriors who rode on either side. Far
+enough behind so that they would not be bothered too much by the dust
+of the pack train, came the remainder of the warriors, the old people,
+and the women and children. All were mounted. Some of the smaller
+children rode four or five to a pony. They were going on a holiday of
+the happiest sort.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Though the Apaches were usually at war with the Mexicans, they had
+arranged a peace so that they might have their great annual trading
+party, or _fiesta_, in Mexico. Most of their trading would be done in
+the town of Casas Grandes, deep in the Mexican state of Chihuahua. But
+before reaching Casas Grandes they intended to stop and trade at a
+smaller town which they called Kas-Kai-Ya.
+
+Two and a half miles short of town they halted and set up camp. This was
+a simple enough business. Most of the Indians just cast their blankets
+down on the ground and arranged a fireplace. Some cut green saplings and
+thrust the thick ends in the ground to form a circle. Next they bent the
+tops together and held them with buckskin thongs. Then they thatched the
+walls with deer skins or blankets.
+
+Geronimo started building such a wickiup for his mother, Alope, and his
+three children. His two daughters, ten and five, and his seven-year-old
+son tried so enthusiastically to help him that the wickiup never would
+have been built if Alope hadn't taken charge.
+
+The Apaches had not stopped so far from Kas-Kai-Ya because they were
+afraid of the Mexicans. But, though Mexican women might roam at will in
+Apache villages, no Apache woman would think of showing herself in a
+Mexican town. Besides, trading was a man's business.
+
+Leaving enough warriors to protect a peaceful camp, the eighty men who
+were going in town to trade set out, led by Mangus Coloradus himself.
+They took only thirty horses, twelve of which were laden with trade
+goods. The rest of the trade goods and the pack horses and burros were
+saved for trading in Casas Grandes.
+
+Every warrior except Geronimo had a hidden knife. Some carried hidden
+pistols, and a few had carbines, or short rifles, thrust inside their
+breeches. To enter the town openly armed would surely provoke a fight,
+and a fight would spoil the holiday. But even though they were
+supposedly at peace, no Apache ever trusted any Mexican and no Mexican
+ever trusted any Apache.
+
+Geronimo carried only a buckskin pouch filled with yellow metal that,
+to him, hadn't the slightest value. Made into arrow or lance heads, it
+blunted on almost any target. It was too heavy for hair or ear
+ornaments, and useless to the Apaches except as playthings for the
+children. But the Mexicans, who called the metal _oro_--gold--prized it
+greatly.
+
+The traders reached the sun-dried brick wall enclosing the town of
+Kas-Kai-Ya and found a squadron of _rurales_ drawn in formation across
+the gate. All these soldier police were mounted and armed, and their
+snapping black eyes were filled with hatred for Apaches. As Geronimo
+knew, there was good reason for this hate. Apaches had raided too long,
+too often, and too successfully in Mexico to win any friendship from
+_rurales_ whose duty it was to stop them. Mangus Coloradus addressed the
+uniformed officer:
+
+"_Buenas tardes, Señor Rurale._ We would trade."
+
+The officer made an effort to stare Mangus Coloradus down, and when he
+couldn't do it, flushed angrily. But he replied civilly:
+
+"_Buenas tardes_, good afternoon, Señor Apache. You may enter."
+
+The _rurales_ drew aside, let the Apaches through the gate, and then
+reformed across it. The Apaches braced themselves to meet the horde of
+peddlers that screeched and squawked down on them.
+
+Geronimo was confronted by a lanky man whose only garment was a tattered
+_serape_, or blanket-like robe, that was draped over one shoulder and
+pinned at the sides with thorns. His hair looked as though it hadn't
+been combed in years, his beard was as tangled. His body was dirty. His
+eyes were both cunning and humble.
+
+In sharp contrast were the fierce eyes of a golden eagle that the
+Mexican had imprisoned in a wooden cage. In spite of broken and
+bedraggled feathers, the eagle still looked royal. The Mexican lifted
+the cage.
+
+"See?" he whined. "See, Señor Apache? Grieved though I must be to part
+with anything so precious, this noble bird is yours for only three
+horses."
+
+Geronimo brushed haughtily past the man and walked on. The peddler
+called anxiously, "Will you give me some mescal?"
+
+Geronimo's eyes expressed his disgust. If wild things were not meant for
+the wilds, the god, Usan, would not have placed them there. They might
+be hunted for food but never should any be imprisoned.
+
+"Some tobacco?" the eagle's captor wailed.
+
+Geronimo turned, glared, and the Mexican scurried away. Geronimo
+continued his unhurried walk. Kas-Kai-Ya was truly remarkable, largely,
+Geronimo thought, because so many people could live in such a small
+area. They were so crowded that Geronimo wondered how they kept from
+suffocating each other.
+
+He saw a man lying with his head on a chunk of adobe, the same sun-dried
+brick from which the town walls and all the buildings were fashioned.
+Suddenly the man leaped up and began to scream. Other Mexican men,
+women, even children at once started to scream or shout as loudly as
+they could. The clamor was deafening.
+
+The amazed Apaches halted and gaped. After a bit, assuring himself that
+this senseless yelling must be a sickness suffered by those who allow
+themselves too little room, Geronimo went on.
+
+Presently he halted beside a Mexican who had a basket supported by a
+ragged rope over one shoulder. The basket was divided into compartments
+and filled with glass beads that were separated according to color.
+
+[Illustration: _He halted beside a Mexican_]
+
+The beads were so fascinating that Geronimo scarcely knew that the
+horrible din had quieted.
+
+He caught up a half dozen assorted beads and one by one put them back in
+the proper compartments. He took out his pouch of gold. But though he
+yearned for the beads, and would gladly have given all his gold for
+them, he was too good a trader to offer everything at once. Geronimo
+dropped two small nuggets onto the palm of his hand and held them out.
+
+"No," the bead vendor refused.
+
+But excitement made him breathe hard, and he could not take his eyes
+from the pouch. Geronimo gave him two more nuggets. The Mexican gasped
+and Geronimo thought he was once more refusing. Recklessly he poured
+half the gold into the bead vendor's palm. The Mexican moaned, slipped
+the basket from his own shoulder and hung it on Geronimo's, cupped the
+gold with both hands, and ran.
+
+Geronimo dropped the still half-filled pouch of gold into the dust and
+forgot it. He noticed for the first time that his comrades were making
+their way toward the gate. Trading had been brisk. The Apache trade
+goods were gone and each warrior had at least a double handful of
+knickknacks. The _rurales_ drew their horses aside and let the departing
+Apaches through the gate.
+
+The Indians started back to their camp. But when they were halfway there
+Mangus Coloradus halted suddenly. A split second later, every warrior
+was alert. From a brush-grown _arroyo_, or gully, came the hushed voice
+of Pedro Gonzalez, one of those who had stayed behind.
+
+"This way."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The eighty melted into the _arroyo_ as quietly as eighty quail might
+slip away from an approaching hunter. They found Nadeze with Pedro. The
+wives of five of the men who had gone into town and the wives of four
+who had stayed behind were there also. And two girl children. The faces
+of all showed shocked, numbing grief. But the eyes of all, even the two
+children, blazed with fury.
+
+"Some _rurales_ came!" Pedro snarled. "I know not from where! But they
+outnumbered us two to one. And when we warriors would have fought rather
+than let them enter the camp, they reminded us that this is a time of
+peace! They said they wished only to trade and talk, but once among us
+they attacked without warning! We slew many, but our horses, our arms,
+our trade goods, are now theirs! Of those men, women, and children who
+stayed behind, we alone live!"
+
+"Where are the _rurales_ now?" asked Mangus Coloradus.
+
+"In what was our camp, awaiting your return," Pedro said.
+
+Mangus Coloradus said, "When Apaches do not make fools of Mexicans, the
+Mexicans seem determined to make fools of themselves. The _rurales_ must
+have known that some escaped, and that we would be warned. They should
+have ambushed us as we left the gates of Kas-Kai-Ya."
+
+Sadly he thought of all who had been killed. Then he added "I will take
+the wives of our brave men and these two children with me, and I will
+hold myself responsible for their safety. Of the rest, each seek a
+different path and hide his trail. We will meet at the place we have
+chosen to be our rendezvous."
+
+A moment later, the _arroyo_ was empty of Apaches.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FIVE
+
+_Flight_
+
+
+Light from a thin slice of moon glanced from the Bavispe River, stole
+through thinly leaved trees, and painted a lichen-crusted boulder with
+moonbeams.
+
+But the moonlight made not the faintest impression in the grove of
+thick-limbed, heavy-trunked trees on the river's bank. Beneath the trees
+it was black enough for devils to dance. But any devils who might have
+been there would have been frightened away by the Apaches who had come
+to Mexico in peace but who knew now that there must be war. This grove
+was their appointed rendezvous should anything go amiss while they were
+trading.
+
+Geronimo sat as though he had lost everything that made him alive but
+was still not dead. He knew dimly that Mangus Coloradus was talking in
+low tones with men whom Geronimo was too dazed to recognize.
+
+The Mimbreno chief said, "We must go to our village."
+
+"And leave our dead?" The question was laden with heartbreak.
+
+Mangus Coloradus said, "We are deep in enemy country, with few arms, no
+food, and no horses. Is there another way?"
+
+"I will not go," Nadeze said firmly.
+
+"Then you will not return to meet again those who massacred our people,"
+said the chief.
+
+"Return?" Nadeze was puzzled.
+
+"We will come again," Mangus Coloradus promised, "but with warriors
+only."
+
+"Ha!" Nadeze snarled like an angry puma. "If my dead know that, they
+will forgive me for leaving! I must go and tell them!"
+
+Others announced their intention to return to the encampment for one
+last visit with their dead.
+
+"Go we may, but we must go cautiously and we must not linger," Mangus
+Coloradus said. "The _rurales_ may still await us there. If they do not,
+the night is our friend. And we must ask our friend to shield us while
+we travel far."
+
+A clear thought penetrated Geronimo's numbed brain. At the time when the
+massacre must have occurred, the people of Kas-Kai-Ya had set up a
+deafening racket. Why, if not to make it impossible for the warriors in
+town to hear rifle shots?
+
+The thought faded and Geronimo was again a live body with a numbed brain
+and sick soul. He understood dully that they must return to their
+village, but that first they would have one last visit at the
+encampment. He rose only because the others did, and started out of the
+grove.
+
+They found and traveled the trail to the Apache encampment. It was a
+bold move and, under a lesser chief than Mangus Coloradus, might have
+been disastrous. But the Mimbreno chief had rightly decided that
+Mexicans gauged Apache hearts by their own. If such a disaster had
+stricken Mexicans, the survivors would never have dared show themselves
+on the trail. Neither would they have visited the scene of the massacre.
+
+When the angry and grief-stricken Apaches reached the encampment, they
+found that the _rurales_ had left. The moon was merciful. The crumpled
+figures that lay all about seemed like so many sleeping persons.
+
+Geronimo sought the wickiup where he had left his family.
+
+He stopped suddenly. Alope lay full length before him, head turned and
+cheek resting on her right hand. Her long black hair tumbled at her
+side. Many times had Geronimo watched her sleep in just such a fashion,
+and now she seemed asleep. But she did not wake.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Geronimo's mother had fallen at the entrance to the wickiup, and the
+children were near. The two little girls had embraced when the Mexicans
+overtook them, and had fallen with their arms still about each other.
+The boy was at his sisters' feet. His right arm was stretched toward
+them, and he still clutched the rock which he had intended to throw at
+the treacherous Mexicans.
+
+Geronimo was unaware of the hand that touched his arm, until Mangus
+Coloradus said gently, "Come with us, brother."
+
+Geronimo responded like an obedient dog. He felt no grief, no shock, no
+pain, for he was too numbed to feel anything. He knew he must follow
+only because he had been told that he must.
+
+By sunrise the Apaches were many miles from the scene of tragedy. Mangus
+Coloradus had led them over the roughest and rockiest places. They had
+waded streams wherever streams flowed and done everything possible to
+hide their trail.
+
+At last Mangus Coloradus called a halt and sent some out to hunt while
+he told others to build a smokeless fire from dead wood. One by one, the
+hunters returned. Since a shot from a gun would have attracted
+attention, the game had been brought down with thrown rocks or knives.
+Their bag consisted of some jack rabbits and a crippled peccary. They
+ate, rested, and went on.
+
+Geronimo remembered nothing of the flight. On reaching the village, he
+went first to his mother's wickiup. He entered, but at once ducked out
+again and sought his own house. Slowly the fogs faded from his brain.
+He discovered that he still carried the basket of beads for which he had
+traded half a pouch of gold in Kas-Kai-Ya.
+
+He had not realized, that night while the thin moon lighted the scene of
+the massacre, that the beloved people upon whom he looked were dead. Nor
+had he understood since. But he knew it now.
+
+Geronimo plunged into his wickiup and sought his store of weapons.
+Shotguns, rifles, muskets, powder, shot, knives, hatchets, lances, bows,
+and arrows were carried a safe distance from the wickiup and put
+carefully down. The basket of beads was placed near them.
+
+Then Geronimo strode to a nearby fire. Catching up a burning brand, he
+fired the wickiup he had shared with Alope, then cast the brand against
+his mother's house. He turned his back on the burning wickiups. Like his
+old life, they would soon be ashes. But there would be a new life, he
+told himself. A life of revenge!
+
+Pedro Gonzalez was attracted to the fires, and Geronimo asked him, "Do
+you have weapons?"
+
+"Bow and arrows, a knife, a lance, a hatchet."
+
+Geronimo indicated his own store. "Choose what you will."
+
+Pedro's brows arched in surprise. "You make gifts of such?"
+
+"I give a weapon to whoever will ride with me and meet the _rurales_ who
+murdered our people."
+
+"I will ride, but only when Mangus Coloradus says to. He is still
+chief."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"Coward!" Geronimo spat.
+
+Pedro's face tightened with anger, and he drew his knife. Geronimo
+grunted contemptuously and snatched at his own knife. Before either
+could make a thrust, Mangus Coloradus stepped between them.
+
+"What insanity is this?" the chief thundered.
+
+"I offered him his choice of weapons if he will return and fight the
+_rurales_!" Geronimo flared. "He will not go!"
+
+"I will!" Pedro snapped. "But I wait until Mangus Coloradus leads!"
+
+Mangus Coloradus whirled on Geronimo. "Have you turned fool?"
+
+"I go to fight the murderers of my family," Geronimo said flatly.
+
+"None of us has forgotten our dead," the chief replied. "We will go to
+avenge them, but to do so we must not only fight the Mexicans. We must
+defeat them. To defeat them, we must plan."
+
+"Plan?" Geronimo inquired.
+
+"We will seek Cochise, chief of the Chiricahua Apaches, and Whoa, chief
+of the Nedni," Mangus Coloradus said gravely. "We will ask their help.
+Then we will prepare. And then we will ride!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SIX
+
+_Revenge_
+
+
+All fires in the camp near the Bavispe River had been extinguished
+before sundown. Naiche, the young, tall, courageous son of Cochise, sat
+in the darkness with Geronimo. Geronimo spoke.
+
+"An autumn, a winter, and a spring have been born and died since Mangus
+Coloradus sent me as his spokesman to ask the help of the Chiricahuas
+and the Nedni."
+
+"I well remember your visit," Naiche said. "When you spoke, your words
+were fire that burned into my very heart. As I listened I knew that, if
+no other Chiricahua would follow you to Mexico and help avenge the
+massacre of your people, Naiche would."
+
+"Soon the battle," Geronimo said.
+
+"Soon the battle," Naiche echoed. "And at last I shall know."
+
+"What shall you know?"
+
+"Why so mighty a warrior as Geronimo, who owns many fine rifles, goes to
+fight Mexicans armed with a shotgun, a pouch of beads, a knife, and a
+lance."
+
+Geronimo stared moodily into the darkness. Since fleeing from the
+encampment he had lived only to go back to Kas-Kai-Ya. But much time had
+been needed to plan an expedition large enough to attack the _rurales_
+there.
+
+New weapons had been fashioned. Countless messages had been exchanged by
+Mangus Coloradus, Cochise, and Whoa, the three chiefs. The women and
+children of all three tribes had been taken to mountain retreats whose
+only approaches consisted of narrow canyons that a few warriors might
+defend. Then those retreats had been stocked with ample provisions and
+fuel.
+
+Planning the campaign had been no easy task. Every warrior burned to go
+into Mexico and fight the _rurales_. Nobody wanted to stay home to guard
+the women and children. Nor would any warrior serve under any leader
+except his own chief.
+
+Finally each of the three leaders had chosen his picked men. Mangus
+Coloradus included among his warriors all who had been at Kas-Kai-Ya.
+Now, with two hundred and fifty braves under Cochise, two hundred under
+Mangus Coloradus, and a hundred and fifty led by Whoa, they were well
+into Mexico.
+
+Each of the three divisions kept apart from the others, but not so far
+apart that they would be unable to join forces when it was time for a
+battle. Naiche preferred to travel with the Mimbreno Apaches rather than
+with the Chiricahuas led by his father, Cochise. This was because of his
+great liking for Geronimo.
+
+Geronimo said finally, "I took the beads from the Mexicans. Now I return
+them. That is only justice."
+
+"Only justice," Naiche agreed. An owl hooted three times, and Naiche
+said, "The signal. A scout returns."
+
+Geronimo said, "Come."
+
+They rose and made their way to the camp of Mangus Coloradus. A short
+time later, dressed as a Mexican and driving a burro, Pedro Gonzalez
+loomed up in the darkness. He had been to Mexico in advance of the
+warriors to gather such information as he could.
+
+Mangus Coloradus rose to meet him. "What saw you?" he asked.
+
+"I saw _rurales_," Pedro said. "I even talked with them, since they
+thought me a Mexican. There are two companies of foot soldiers and two
+companies of horse soldiers. Among them are those who attacked us at
+Kas-Kai-Ya. But they are not now at Kas-Kai-Ya. They are at Arispe, in
+the Mexican state of Sonora and to the west of Kas-Kai-Ya."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Geronimo blurted, "Then we go to Arispe!"
+
+"To Arispe!" Naiche echoed.
+
+Mangus Coloradus asked haughtily, "Do warriors decide where the battle
+shall be fought?"
+
+"I will fight the _rurales_ who killed my wife, my mother, and my
+children," Geronimo said stubbornly. "If we must attack the people of
+Kas-Kai-Ya, that may come afterwards."
+
+Naiche growled, "I fight beside my friend."
+
+"We will all go to Arispe," Mangus Coloradus said. "We will start at
+once. For in truth we must fight the _rurales_ who massacred our
+people."
+
+"I shall tell Cochise," Naiche said.
+
+Mangus Coloradus said, "Ask Cochise to inform Whoa. Tell both that we
+join forces before Arispe."
+
+"I shall inform Whoa," Naiche promised.
+
+Naiche disappeared in the darkness. The word spread like wind-driven
+wildfire, and warriors prepared to march. Nobody was mounted. Even with
+almost a year to make ready, there had not been enough time to capture
+war horses for everyone. Besides, so great a number of horsemen would be
+far easier to detect than foot soldiers, so nobody rode.
+
+Geronimo felt in the darkness to make sure his knife was at his belt. In
+turn he fingered his powder horn, the pouch of beads, his parcel of
+jerked meat, and his parcel of parched corn.
+
+He hung over his shoulder the blanket that served him as bed by night
+and clothing by day. Like all the rest of the warriors, he was going
+into battle wearing as little clothing as possible, and the blanket
+would be flung aside when the fight started. Taking his lance in his
+left hand, Geronimo carried his shotgun in his right hand.
+
+Mangus Coloradus said, "Lead on."
+
+Geronimo strode into the darkness. Partly because he knew Mexico so
+well, and partly because of his marvelous sense of direction, he had
+been appointed guide for the entire expedition.
+
+In late afternoon of the third day following, they came before the
+walled town of Arispe.
+
+They halted in a woods some five hundred yards from the town, and
+Geronimo's heart leaped as he stood beside Naiche. Again, in
+imagination, he saw his mother, his wife, his murdered children. A great
+joy rose within him at the knowledge that, only a short distance away,
+their murderers awaited. The Apaches had come upon Arispe so stealthily
+that the _rurales_ couldn't possibly have fled. A battle was assured.
+
+But their presence must be known soon, and when they were discovered
+they could expect action from Arispe. The sun was sinking when Naiche
+said:
+
+"They come."
+
+Eight townsmen bearing a white flag of truce left the walled town and
+walked toward the trees. Geronimo could not help admiring them. Eight
+Mexicans who approached any number of Apaches _must_ be courageous.
+
+"What would you do with them, brother?" Naiche asked, stepping closer to
+Geronimo.
+
+"Hold them prisoner and force the _rurales_ to come out to attempt a
+rescue," replied Geronimo. "Thus we may be sure of a battle."
+
+"Their flag says they come to talk. It is not honorable to capture
+them."
+
+"The _rurales_ who slew our women and children at Kas-Kai-Ya were less
+than honorable too," Geronimo said grimly.
+
+"That is true, but whether we capture or parley is for the chiefs to
+say. Let us hear."
+
+They made their way to where Mangus Coloradus, Cochise, and Whoa awaited
+the eight townsmen. No Apache stirred until the Mexicans were so near
+the woods that there was no possible chance of their running back into
+Arispe. Then Mangus Coloradus ordered:
+
+"Capture them so the _rurales_ must try a rescue."
+
+Geronimo and Naiche remained with the chiefs, for they scorned to fight
+townsmen. But other warriors ran forward. The Mexicans halted and
+grouped together, each man with his back against a companion's.
+
+Pedro Gonzalez, one of those attempting the capture, said in Spanish,
+"Submit and you will not be hurt."
+
+"You come to kill!" a Mexican snarled, and eight hands flew to knives.
+
+The encircling warriors drew their own knives. Near-naked Apaches ringed
+the Mexicans and it was over. Pedro Gonzalez came to the chiefs.
+
+"We would have captured them, but they chose to fight," he said.
+
+"It is no matter," Cochise shrugged. "The _rurales_ will come now for
+revenge."
+
+The next morning some of the soldier police did come. Twenty horsemen
+galloped toward the woods where the Apaches were hiding, fired wildly
+into them, and retreated without hurting anyone. That evening the
+Apaches captured a Mexican supply train whose leaders knew nothing of
+the powerful war party concealed near the town. Besides a store of
+food, the Apaches took many guns and much ammunition.
+
+At ten o'clock the next morning, the _rurales_ came in force. Two
+companies of infantry in battle formation advanced toward the woods
+where the Apaches were still hidden. Two of cavalry were held in reserve
+just outside the town walls.
+
+Lying near the chiefs, with Naiche on one side and Nadeze on the other,
+Geronimo poured powder into the cavernous muzzle of his shotgun. He
+emptied the pouch of beads on top of it, tamped them in with cloth, and
+primed the gun. Naiche grinned, understanding at last.
+
+Nadeze exclaimed, "There are the murderers of Kas-Kai-Ya!"
+
+"So?" Mangus Coloradus said calmly. "What think you, Cochise? What think
+you, Whoa? These enemies slew Geronimo's mother. They slew his wife.
+They slew his children. Should Geronimo lead the first attack?"
+
+"It is well," Cochise murmured.
+
+"It is just," Whoa agreed.
+
+Geronimo turned to Naiche. "Take fifty warriors and go unseen into that
+strip of woods we see from here. Wait until the enemies are past and we
+have attacked. Then charge them from the rear."
+
+"I go, brother," Naiche said grimly. "Good hunting."
+
+When the _rurales_ were four hundred yards away they stopped to fire.
+Those in front kneeled so that those behind could shoot over their
+heads. Keeping his men hidden, Geronimo noticed that every weapon was
+discharged.
+
+The _rurales_ fired a second volley from two hundred yards and, as
+before, every weapon was emptied. Now, before they could reload, was the
+time to take them.
+
+Shotgun in one hand, lance in the other, Geronimo sounded the Apache war
+whoop and raced out of the woods toward the enemy. The Mexicans worked
+desperately with their guns, but fewer than half reloaded in time. The
+remainder drew sabers and awaited the attack.
+
+When only fifty feet separated Geronimo from the Mexicans, he leveled
+his shotgun, cocked it, and fired. The weapon spewed its glass beads
+forth, and half a dozen Mexicans fell. Flinging the now-useless shotgun
+from him, Geronimo leveled his lance and raced on.
+
+He saw Naiche and his warriors swarm out of the woods to attack from the
+rear. At the same time he saw the Mexican cavalry charge to the aid of
+their hard-pressed comrades.
+
+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.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+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 massacre 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
+horsemen 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 grass, and waved it slowly back and forth.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+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.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"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
+Pass 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 Pass. 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 massacre 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."
+
+"Let us do that," Naiche agreed.
+
+They rode into the Chiricahua encampment just in time to see the women
+and children, with an escort of warriors, leaving. The remaining
+warriors were looking to their weapons. Naiche and Geronimo made their
+way to Cochise, who was calmly giving orders to sub-chiefs.
+
+"Why should this be?" Naiche inquired.
+
+"Our scouts bring word that many soldiers from the land to the west, who
+call themselves the California Volunteers, are marching in this
+direction. They go to fight in the war that other white men are fighting
+to the east," Cochise said. "The path they have chosen will lead them
+through Apache Pass. I have sent word to Mangus Coloradus to join us.
+Then we will kill every soldier!"
+
+At the exciting news of a great battle in store, Geronimo and Naiche
+forgot all about the two white men whom they had intended to find and
+kill.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER EIGHT
+
+_The Battle of Apache Pass_
+
+
+High on the steep and boulder-strewn side of narrow Apache Pass,
+Geronimo lay behind a pile of rocks. He had made the little breastwork
+appear natural by uprooting a cactus and standing it on top of the
+rocks. His best rifle and all the powder and bullets he had been able to
+gather lay within easy reach. Now he had only to await the soldiers, who
+intended to march through Apache Pass, and to give thanks to Usan, who
+had created an ambush so perfect.
+
+Apache Pass was a narrow slit between the Chiricahua Mountains on the
+west and the Dos Cabezas on the east. It was one of the very few passes
+in the Southwest through which travelers could take wagons. Far more
+important, in a land of little water it sheltered sweet and cool springs
+that never failed.
+
+Turning his head, Geronimo saw the stone house built by men of the
+Overland Stage Company and abandoned since Cochise took the warpath.
+Some six hundred yards beyond the house, tall trees and green grass
+marked the flowing springs.
+
+Geronimo smacked his lips in satisfaction.
+
+Behind each rock in the pass, each shrub, each cluster of cactus,
+crouched an armed Apache. There were almost seven hundred Mimbrenos and
+Chiricahuas. They were so well hidden that even Geronimo, who knew they
+were there, could see few of them. He smacked his lips again.
+
+The scouts had reported that there were about as many white soldiers as
+there were Apaches in ambush, some on foot and some mounted. The
+soldiers had stopped with their supply train at Dragoon Springs, forty
+miles west of Apache Pass. There they could drink to their heart's
+content, water their stock, and load up with enough water to see them
+through to Apache Pass. But their water would be gone by the time they
+entered the pass, and they could not get more until they reached the
+springs beyond the stone stagehouse.
+
+Geronimo glanced with pleasure at the stone breastworks which Mangus
+Coloradus and Cochise had had built on the heights overlooking these
+springs. The fortifications were manned by warriors who could shoot
+without being shot, since the breastworks protected them.
+
+Unable to renew their water supplies, the soldiers who were not killed
+by bullets would die from thirst. The greatest Apache victory of all
+time was almost certain.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Soon two Apache scouts who had gone out to watch for the soldiers'
+arrival came into the pass. One went to Cochise's ambush. The second
+turned to where Mangus Coloradus lay.
+
+Geronimo burned to know what the scouts had seen and what they were
+saying, for then he would know how soon he might expect battle. But he
+did not leave his position.
+
+Presently, Naiche slipped down beside Geronimo. He was grinning.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"Most of the heavy wagons, without which white soldiers go nowhere,
+remain at Dragoon Springs," he said. "A few horse and many foot soldiers
+are coming to Apache Pass, but they are no more than one to our six.
+They wear their foolish uniforms of blue cloth and they reel with the
+heat. They cannot live without water."
+
+"Nor can they get water," Geronimo's grin reflected Naiche's. "Before
+they reach it we shall slay them all."
+
+"We shall slay them all," Naiche agreed.
+
+Naiche slipped back to his ambush. A half hour later Geronimo saw the
+thin cloud of dust that hovered above the marching soldiers.
+
+The soldiers entered Apache Pass, and most of the cavalrymen led their
+mounts, for the horses were so desperate for water that they could not
+be ridden. There were pack animals too, and they carried strange wheels
+and tubes that were typical of the silly things white soldiers took into
+battle. But in spite of heat, thirst, and the heavy uniforms, the white
+men kept a smart military formation as they walked unsuspectingly into
+the trap.
+
+They were two thirds of the way into the pass when a shot from the rifle
+of Cochise rang out. At once firearms blazed from behind the Indians'
+breastworks. But the hoped-for massacre did not come about.
+
+This was partly because the Apaches were so sure the soldiers could not
+escape that they did not bother aiming as carefully as they should have.
+And it was partly because so many of the Indians were shooting
+smoothbore muskets that were not accurate at a long distance.
+
+Even as he shot at them, Geronimo could not help admiring soldiers such
+as these white men. They did not flee in panic, as Mexicans nearly
+always did, but coolly shot back. In good order, shooting as they went
+and taking their wounded with them, they retreated from the pass.
+
+Geronimo swallowed his disappointment. He had hoped all the soldiers
+might be slaughtered at the first volley. But he knew that those who
+still lived must reach the springs or die of thirst.
+
+Leaving his position, Geronimo raced to the heights overlooking the
+springs. He found a place behind the breastworks on the heights and
+waited.
+
+The white soldiers came again. But they were in battle formation this
+time, and their rifles were far superior to smoothbores. Every shot
+from an ambushed Indian drew a quick reply. Soldiers dropped, but here
+and there an Apache went limp too. Carrying their dead and such wounded
+as could not help themselves, the soldiers fought their way to the stone
+stagehouse. Some entered the building, and some sheltered themselves
+behind it.
+
+Geronimo made ready for the attack on those who would attempt to get to
+the springs. He had thought not even one soldier would ever reach the
+stagehouse, but most were there. However, they were still six hundred
+yards from the water they must have and the deadliest ambush of all.
+
+The soldiers stayed in or behind the stagehouse for almost an hour and a
+half. When they came out and advanced toward the springs, Geronimo was
+amazed to see them pulling little wagons with tubes mounted on them.
+Only warriors who knew nothing of battle would bother with such clumsy
+things. Geronimo's confidence rose.
+
+The soldiers neared the springs, and the Apaches loosed a rain of
+bullets. Again, very few soldiers were hit.
+
+It seemed to the puzzled Geronimo that the others were very busy with
+their little wagons. One wagon escaped from the men who were handling
+it and started to roll. Immediately other men pounced upon and halted
+it. They turned the little wagon about, so that the tube pointed at the
+breastworks.
+
+[Illustration: _The first shell struck the breastworks_]
+
+The first shell--for the little wagons were really howitzers--struck the
+breastworks squarely about thirty feet to one side of Geronimo. Dust,
+dirt, stones, boulders, and Apaches flew into the air.
+
+The rest of the Apaches waited in stunned silence until the second shell
+exploded. Then the Indians began a panicky scramble up the slope.
+
+When they reached the heights, Geronimo stood with Mangus Coloradus and
+twenty other Mimbreno braves and looked down on the battle ground. They
+watched the soldiers drink, fill canteens, and retreat with their horses
+to the stone stagehouse.
+
+"We would have killed them all, but they shot wagons at us," Mangus
+Coloradus said wonderingly. "But we are still many more than they are,
+and we will kill them yet. To do so, we must first kill the messengers
+they will surely send for help. Come."
+
+The warriors followed Mangus Coloradus to the west end of the pass. Soon
+they heard the pounding of horses' hoofs. A moment later they saw the
+five mounted messengers who were riding to warn those camped at Dragoon
+Springs of the ambush and to ask for help.
+
+The Indians shot. Three horses went down at the first volley, but two
+riders were quickly pulled up behind two other soldiers and thundered
+on. There remained no one to help the rider of the third downed horse.
+
+In the thickening night, the Apaches advanced to kill this lone man. The
+dismounted trooper crouched behind his dead horse and prepared to sell
+his life as dearly as possible.
+
+The trooper's carbine cracked. Geronimo and two other warriors caught
+Mangus Coloradus as he fell and carried him behind an outjutting
+shoulder of rock.
+
+They forgot all about the trooper who, after the Apaches left, made his
+way to his companions at the stagehouse and lived to tell the tale.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER NINE
+
+_A Wounded Chief_
+
+
+The sorrowful warriors gathered around their wounded chief. Grieving
+because he was hurt, they were also worried. While Mangus Coloradus led
+them, even though they might suffer temporary defeats, in the end they
+always triumphed. What now?
+
+Nadeze said, "We need a medicine man."
+
+"I am a medicine man," Geronimo said.
+
+Geronimo told the truth. Following the massacre of Kas-Kai-Ya, he had
+taken the training which he needed in order to become an Apache medicine
+man. This he had done in the hope that he might discover some powerful
+medicine which would make sure the defeat of the _rurales_ responsible
+for the massacre. But even though he had learned all the rituals that an
+Apache medicine man must know, he was far too intelligent to have much
+faith in them. But others believed in them.
+
+He said again, "I am a medicine man."
+
+"True," Nadeze agreed. "I had forgotten."
+
+Opening his pouch of _hoddentin_, or sacred pollen, Geronimo rubbed a
+bit on Mangus Coloradus' forehead. Then he made a cross of _hoddentin_
+on the chief's breast. He sprinkled a thin line of the sacred pollen all
+around the Mimbreno leader and put a touch on the forehead of every
+warrior who stood near. Finally, he applied a pinch to his own forehead
+and took a bit in his mouth.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+And even as he finished, he knew that _hoddentin_ was not enough.
+
+Geronimo was not so blinded by the ways of the Apaches that he was
+unable to see for himself that other people had better ways. Often he
+had seen _rurales_ so badly wounded that he thought they could never
+fight again. Yet, in a later skirmish, he had fought the same _rurales_,
+and apparently they were as whole as before.
+
+With the rest of the nearby Mimbreno braves too stricken to do anything,
+and no sub-chief near, Geronimo took charge.
+
+He said, "Make a litter."
+
+"Where do we go with my father?" asked Mangas, son of Mangus Coloradus.
+
+"To the Mexican medicine man at Janos," Geronimo said.
+
+Mangas said, "The Mexicans are enemies."
+
+"That I know," Geronimo grunted.
+
+He paid no more attention to Mangas. Though a brave warrior, the son of
+Mangus Coloradus lacked the qualities that made his father great. When
+he was forced to make an important decision, Mangas was never able to
+decide on the wise course and always trembled between the two.
+
+Geronimo was not a chief, but the other warriors obeyed him now because
+he acted like one. Some went to fashion a litter of deer skins or
+deer-skin jackets stretched between cottonwood poles. Some went to
+rally the rest of the Mimbreno warriors. As word reached the followers
+of Mangus Coloradus they gathered around their stricken chief.
+
+Mangas said, "If all of us depart, the Chiricahuas alone must battle the
+white soldiers."
+
+"Let them," Geronimo grunted sourly.
+
+He could not know that the Chiricahuas were to fight again, and to be
+defeated again, the next day. Had the Mimbrenos stayed to help, the
+soldiers might have been defeated. Then, at least until the Civil War
+ended and more soldiers came, the combined Apache forces probably would
+have retaken all their homeland.
+
+But almost none of the Mimbreno warriors had any thought for anything
+save the badly wounded Mangus Coloradus. Under his leadership, they had
+become a very powerful tribe. If they were robbed of his wisdom, who
+knew what might happen?
+
+Stockily built Victorio, a cold-eyed, ferocious Mimbreno sub-chief, had
+hurried to Mangus Coloradus as soon as he heard of his wound. Now he
+said:
+
+"I will help carry our leader. Guide us, Geronimo."
+
+He picked up one end of the litter. Mangas took the other. Geronimo led
+the way through the darkness. He dropped pinches of _hoddentin_ as he
+walked, for this was supposed to make the wounded Mangus Coloradus' path
+much easier. But the seventy-year-old chief was unable to speak above a
+whisper during the long and difficult journey.
+
+Stopping only to hunt food and for snatches of sleep, the Mimbrenos
+carried him over mountains and across deserts. At last they were in
+Mexico, before the gates of the walled town of Janos.
+
+The _rurales_ of the town came out to meet them. Though they were armed
+and in considerable force, the _rurales_ were afraid. The Mimbreno
+braves were in full strength. They also were fully armed, and with no
+women and children to hamper them.
+
+Murmuring prayers, the _rurales_ made ready to defend themselves and the
+townspeople. But Geronimo stepped up to their captain.
+
+"We come in peace," he said. "Our chief is wounded, and we bring him to
+your medicine man."
+
+A sweat of fear bathed the captain's face, but a gasp of relief escaped
+his lips. There was hope. This was no war party.
+
+The captain dismounted, gave his horse's reins to a private, and
+walked beside Geronimo and the two men carrying Mangus Coloradus'
+litter. Men, women, and children shrank against houses or scurried away
+as the procession made its way to the doctor's house.
+
+[Illustration: _The Mimbrenos carried him over mountains and across
+deserts_]
+
+"They come in peace. Their chief is wounded and they wish only to bring
+him to our doctor," the captain explained to whoever remained near
+enough to hear.
+
+Those who heard passed the word to others. Then all the people of Janos
+hurried to the church. Often they had wished that Mangus Coloradus might
+die. Now they prayed for his life, for they feared that, if he died, the
+angered Apaches would kill everybody in Janos.
+
+When they reached the doctor's house, Mangas and Victorio carried Mangus
+Coloradus in. Most of the warriors took up positions outside the house
+so that no one might come near. The captain of the _rurales_ and
+Geronimo entered with the litter bearers.
+
+Geronimo addressed the doctor.
+
+"Make him well."
+
+The doctor was a slender man, not young enough so that his hair was all
+dark but not old enough so that it was all white. The hard life he had
+led in Janos had taught him to fear nothing. Stepping close to the
+litter, he looked at the wounded chief.
+
+"Put him on the table," he said.
+
+Mangas and Victorio lifted Mangus Coloradus to a rude wooden table and
+stepped back against the wall. Geronimo watched Mangus Coloradus
+steadily.
+
+There had been times during the long march when the Mimbreno chief's
+wound had caused him to sleep, and times when his mind had wandered. But
+he was awake now and he knew what was taking place. He was ready to meet
+this as he had always met everything else. Whatever came, his eyes would
+be toward it, and his heart would be strong.
+
+Though outwardly the Apaches showed nothing of what they thought or
+felt, inwardly they were taut as stretched buckskin. The captain of the
+_rurales_, hoping Mangus Coloradus would live and fearing the
+consequences if he died, was staring, gasping, and sweating. The doctor
+and the Mimbreno chief were the only calm people in the room.
+
+The doctor examined the wound, shook his head doubtfully, and the
+captain of the _rurales_ cried aloud. The doctor looked sternly at him
+and said:
+
+"Captain Ruiz, if you cannot control yourself, be good enough to leave."
+
+"I'll stay, and I'll be quiet," Captain Ruiz promised.
+
+With a delicate, but firm and sure touch, the doctor slipped a probe
+into the bullet wound. Mangus Coloradus did not cry out, but pain
+brought a bath of sweat to his forehead.
+
+Mangas stepped angrily forward. Geronimo reached out a hand to stop him.
+The doctor again shook his head doubtfully, and Captain Ruiz clapped a
+hand over his mouth to stifle another cry.
+
+Again the probe went in, gently but surely.
+
+Two hours after the chief had been laid on the table, the doctor took
+the bullet from Mangus Coloradus. He applied a compress of soothing
+herbs and held them in place with a bandage. Then he turned to Geronimo,
+Victorio, Mangas, and Captain Ruiz.
+
+"He'll live," he said.
+
+Thus the Mimbreno Apaches came to Janos and left without harming a
+single person.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TEN
+
+_A Chief Dies_
+
+
+Sitting on a hillock beside Victorio, Geronimo's restless eyes sought
+the valley beneath, the next hill, and the hills beyond. Often he turned
+his head to look behind him. The years had taught Geronimo that an enemy
+might come from anywhere at any time. He who failed to see the enemy
+first was apt to die swiftly.
+
+Victorio's eyes searched the hills, too, despite a frown that told of a
+troubled mind.
+
+"It is possible," he said as he continued his conversation with
+Geronimo, "that the Mangus Coloradus who was, leaked out through the
+white soldier's bullet hole. We did not bring the same chief from Janos
+that we took to the medicine man."
+
+"I have often wondered if the Mexican doctor did not put a spell upon
+him," Geronimo remarked. "Many times I have thought of going back to
+Janos and killing him. But I have thought each time that even Mangus
+Coloradus could not suffer such a wound without being ill. It is a
+natural thing."
+
+"A natural thing," Victorio agreed, "and for many days he was ill.
+Remember the snail-pace we were forced to keep when we finally left
+Janos? It is a good thing we were many, for even Mexicans might have
+overtaken us. But Mangus Coloradus is ill no longer. Still he counsels
+that Apaches must make peace with white men or there will be no more
+Apaches."
+
+Geronimo said, "He lives much in the spirit world. I entered his wickiup
+to speak to him, and he said, 'I am happy to see you once more,
+Delgadito. Now you must tell our people that we cannot conquer these
+Americans as we did the Mexicans.' Ha! Delgadito died many years ago in
+a battle with Mexicans. Yet Mangus Coloradus talked with him when he
+should have been talking with me. It chilled me, for I cannot talk with
+spirits."
+
+"Nor can I," said Victorio. "I can talk only with people and be guided
+only by them and by my own common sense. Good sense tells me that if we
+do not fight the Americans, they will overrun us and there will be no
+more Apaches anyway. In spite of the fact that they still war among
+themselves, they have soldiers to spare for Apache land. White men who
+come among us are more instead of fewer, but only the Chiricahuas still
+fight them."
+
+"Mangus Coloradus points that out," Geronimo said. "The warriors of
+Cochise kill and are killed by soldiers, cattle drivers, and rock
+scratchers who are forever looking for gold. But it is as though every
+dead white man is a seed from which two more spring up."
+
+"Do you think that?" Victorio questioned.
+
+"There is reason for so thinking," Geronimo said. "But I also think we
+must fight until every white man is driven from our land or until all
+Apaches are killed. If white men become our masters we shall know sorry
+times indeed. Do you know they call us thieves, liars, murderers, and
+every other vile name their tongues can form? Ha! Any Apache can take
+lessons in thievery, lying, and murder from any white man!"
+
+"What do you mean?" asked Victorio.
+
+Geronimo said, "When the white men warred against Mexico, Apaches sold
+them horses and mules and brought them food. We told them to take the
+places called Sonora and Chihuahua and we would help. They accepted our
+help when it was needed. The war ended and for a time no more was heard.
+
+"Then came a surveyor named Bartlett, and he sent word that he was a
+good friend to all Apaches. We believed and trusted him, but when we
+brought our Mexican slaves to his camp, Bartlett took them away.
+
+"It seems that, when the war ended, Americans and Mexicans became
+brothers. Bartlett said it was wrong to make slaves of his brothers. He
+said also that the Americans' God frowns upon those who keep slaves. Ha!
+I have since learned that the Americans keep millions of slaves
+themselves!"
+
+"It was a great lie," Victorio said.
+
+"A very great lie," Geronimo agreed, "but far from the greatest.
+Bartlett's real purpose in coming here was to mark where this land ends
+and Mexico begins. The Americans were at war with Mexico. They might
+have taken the whole country by force of arms, but when they wanted
+land, they bought and paid for it.
+
+"That was very silly, and it was just as silly for the Americans to
+think they bought land from Mexico that Mexico never owned. They paid
+Mexico for _our_ land, the country of the Apaches. Then they told us,
+'We bought you when we bought your land. Obey our laws, or we shall
+punish you.' Was there ever a greater swindle?"
+
+"Never!" Victorio growled.
+
+"So we fight white men whom we would never hurt at all, if they just
+stayed home. And they call us evil! Suppose we went to the people of the
+north, the Canadians, and paid money for the lands of the Americans.
+Then suppose we told the Americans that they must live by Apache laws or
+be punished. Would they not resist?"
+
+"Fiercely," Victorio growled. "I agree with you that we must fight, but
+the Mimbreno warriors follow Mangus Coloradus and will for as long as he
+is chief. Let us go see if we might again persuade him to be a war chief
+and lead us against the white men."
+
+The two made their way to the Mimbreno village, and knew as soon as they
+looked upon it that something unusual was taking place. People scurried
+here and there, dogs barked, and horses on a nearby hill were nervous.
+
+Victorio and Geronimo began to run. They saw Mangus Coloradus in the
+center of the village surrounded by a group of his people. Beside him
+was a bearded white man whom Geronimo recognized as Jack Swilling, a
+skilled frontiersman who had lived for a long time in the Southwest.
+Towering over everyone in the group, old Mangus Coloradus was as erect
+at seventy-two as he had been at seventeen. His hair was snow-white now.
+But it was still abundant, and it had just been carefully dressed. He
+wore his finest moccasins and buckskins, and he was talking calmly.
+
+"Long have I led the Mimbreno Apaches, and always my first thoughts have
+been for my people. Of late I have been greatly troubled. Constant war
+is a poor companion, and starvation is a thankless bedfellow.
+
+"Now comes this messenger from Captain Shirland, of the United States
+Army. He asks us to go into Captain Shirland's camp bearing a white
+flag, and he brings Captain Shirland's own pledged word that neither I
+nor any who choose to go with me shall suffer harm. He has promised that
+the Mimbreno Apaches will have their own reservation and plenty of food.
+I believe, and I would lead all who choose to go with me to peace and
+plenty."
+
+Geronimo flung himself forward and knelt before his chief. "Think!" he
+pleaded. "Think carefully before you do this thing! The white men will
+have much cause for boasting if they may say that Mangus Coloradus is
+their prisoner!"
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"It is a trick!" Victorio warned.
+
+Mangus Coloradus spoke with the dignity of a chief and from the wisdom
+of years. "You, Geronimo, and you, Victorio, have ever been two of the
+most hot-headed warriors. Nothing I can say will make you believe that
+you cannot continue to battle the white man. Experience alone must
+teach you. Rise and let me pass."
+
+Geronimo rose to his feet and soon Mangus Coloradus and the little group
+who had chosen to go with him left the village.
+
+The evening fires had been lighted six times and were lighted again when
+Diablo, a young warrior who had gone with Mangus Coloradus, shuffled
+back into the village. His eyes were downcast, his tread weary. He
+walked slowly to a fire and stared at it. For a long while he did not
+speak.
+
+"You saw?" Geronimo questioned.
+
+"I saw," Diablo said dully.
+
+"What saw you?"
+
+Diablo said, "We walked into the soldiers' camp. Mangus Coloradus
+carried the white flag that should have been our protection, but
+soldiers rose up and seized him. They tied our chief as we might tie a
+Mexican, or a dog. The rest of us they herded into an unused stable. I
+know the rest of the story from Acona, an Apache scout who is serving
+the soldiers."
+
+Diablo quieted and stared intently into the fire, as though he could not
+go on. At last he continued.
+
+"Into the camp came a Colonel West, an Army chief who outranks Captain
+Shirland. He talked with some of the soldiers. The soldiers loosed
+Mangus Coloradus' bonds and left. Only two soldiers remained on guard.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"Our chief, old and ill, and who must have been weary, lay down by the
+fire. He slept. One of the guards thrust the long knife, the bayonet
+that white soldiers carry on the end of their guns, into the fire. When
+the bayonet glowed red with heat, the soldier touched it against our
+chief. Mangus Coloradus sprang up, as who would not? He started to run,
+as who would not if awakened in such a fashion? There were two shots
+and ..."
+
+Diablo fell silent and stared moodily into the fire.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER ELEVEN
+
+_Geronimo in Chains_
+
+
+In the Apache camp at Warm Springs, New Mexico, Victorio and Geronimo
+braced themselves against the side of a big wooden building which had
+once been a barracks for white soldiers. All about them wickiups
+sprouted like misshapen plants. A large herd of horses grazed near by.
+Women and older children ground corn in their stone grinding bowls.
+
+Others prepared freshly killed meat, but they were not working over the
+carcasses of elk, deer, and antelope. These were stolen range cattle
+that the women made ready for cooking pots. But they were as tasty as
+any wild game. And they also furnished a great deal more meat for every
+shot expended.
+
+The warm sun had made Geronimo and Victorio sleepy, so that neither
+warrior felt like moving unnecessarily. But their conversation was
+lively enough.
+
+"The days of our fathers are truly gone, and I do not believe they will
+ever be again," said Geronimo. "Even war as we once knew it is no more.
+There was a time when Apaches fought more for adventure and plunder than
+anything else. But now, since the white men have become our enemies,
+both sides fight only to kill."
+
+"That is how Cochise fought the white men for ten long years," Victorio
+remarked.
+
+Geronimo said bitterly, "But finally even he made terms. He promised to
+fight no more if his Chiricahuas were permitted to stay in their
+homeland, the Chiricahua Mountains. General Howard, with whom Cochise
+treated, pledged his word that they might.
+
+"Yet, less than eighteen months after Cochise has gone to join his
+ancestors, all his people have been rounded up by troops and shipped to
+a new reservation. It is somewhere here in New Mexico, and the
+Chiricahuas do not like it. Many have already deserted to go back on the
+warpath. Many more will desert. There will be much trouble."
+
+Victorio said bitterly, "The white soldiers are great fools. If they
+had left the Chiricahuas alone, there would have been no trouble. But
+has there ever been a time when white soldiers did not promise us one
+thing and give us another?"
+
+"Why do you think I followed you to this place where you and your people
+have fled?" Geronimo queried. "I will not live with the other Apaches in
+that stinking country called the San Carlos Reservation which the white
+men saw fit to give them. And there are too many soldiers being
+stationed in Arizona. I knew that I and those few who came with me could
+not hope to fight them. It is good here."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"It is good here," Victorio agreed. "But only because the white soldiers
+are so stupid. In Arizona, every group of soldiers starting on an
+Apache trail had many mules to carry provisions. Thus they were able to
+stay on the trail for many days or even weeks. Here in New Mexico, each
+soldier has only his own horse. When they set out to pursue us, they may
+continue only until their horses are too weary to go on. Then the
+soldiers must turn back."
+
+"There is small need to fret about them," Geronimo said confidently.
+"For many years we have run away from all the soldiers in Arizona and
+New Mexico too. They will not catch us now."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Victorio said, "It is not the soldiers who worry me, but a white man who
+is now in charge of the San Carlos Reservation. His name is John Clum,
+and he is no more like the ordinary white man who comes to oversee
+Indians than a jack rabbit is like an elk. He has treated the Apaches
+fairly, and as a result they have grown to respect him. Some of the
+bravest and best Apache warriors have joined his Indian police force.
+And he has vowed to put you and me, whom he calls renegades, on the
+reservation too."
+
+"Let him talk," muttered Geronimo. "One cannot catch us with words."
+
+He did not know that even as he spoke, John Clum and a number of his
+most fearless and sharpest-shooting Indian police were on their way to
+the camp. They had left San Carlos a week earlier for the sole purpose
+of capturing these two men and their followers.
+
+For more than a year the Apaches had remained unmolested in this
+isolated camp in New Mexico. When they went to bed that night, they
+scarcely bothered to post a sentry.
+
+In the first light of early morning John Clum and his Indian police
+closed in. Taken wholly by surprise, the Apaches could do nothing but
+surrender.
+
+Geronimo felt the cold of iron manacles as they were clamped over his
+wrists. He and seven other troublemakers were chained together. John
+Clum directed a company of his police to take Victorio and his band to
+the Ojo Caliente reservation in Texas. All the rest were returned to San
+Carlos in Arizona.
+
+Geronimo knew perfectly well that this reservation, along the banks of
+the Gila River, had been given to the Apaches only because no white man
+thought he would ever want the land. The reservation was blistering hot
+in summer and wind-blasted in winter. There was so little year-round
+rainfall that nothing would grow well except cactus, palo verde trees,
+greasewood, mesquite, and other desert vegetation.
+
+Even as he arrived on the reservation, Geronimo knew that he would never
+stay. But all his ammunition and his rifle had been taken away. His
+knife was gone too. Since no warrior could travel far without weapons,
+Geronimo could do nothing for a while except bide his time and draw his
+rations of worm-ridden flour and tough, stringy beef.
+
+But he was not idle, as he waited for a chance to escape. Searching
+daily, he found a bullet here, another there, and finally stole a rifle
+and hid it out on the desert. The agent who replaced John Clum was not
+interested in watching him closely. So Geronimo was able also to
+rebuild his horse herds through night raids on the Papagoes.
+
+Other discontented Apaches were doing likewise.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+One dark night, little more than a year after Geronimo had been brought
+to San Carlos in chains, a visitor came to his wickiup. He was Carlos
+Anaya, who had been one of Victorio's warriors.
+
+"I come from the warpath," Carlos said softly to Geronimo.
+
+"Victorio broke out?" Geronimo asked.
+
+"Aye," Carlos said. "He left Ojo Caliente and fled south to join
+Caballero, chief of the Mescalero Apaches. Their combined forces made
+war throughout Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and Old Mexico. They killed
+more than a thousand people.
+
+"They forced many soldiers and many men called the Texas Rangers, and a
+vast number of the _rurales_, into the field against them. But finally
+most of them were killed. Only a few of us escaped. Still a warrior's
+death is better than a reservation life."
+
+"Far better," said Geronimo. "I and those who follow me are almost ready
+to make a break for freedom too."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWELVE
+
+_Flight into Mexico_
+
+
+The lowering sun scorched Camp Goodwin, the United States Army fort on
+the San Carlos reservation. But despite the sun, Geronimo had been
+sitting near the fort all day, as he had sat for the past six days, with
+a Navajo blanket draped about him and his fastest pony near at hand. He
+wanted the Indian agent at Camp Goodwin, a man named Hoag, to become
+accustomed to his sitting thus so that Hoag would pay no attention to
+him.
+
+On this seventh day, plans that had been more than a year in the making
+were at last as perfect as they ever would be. Swift action lay ahead.
+
+Geronimo's blanket hid a Winchester repeating rifle and bullet-filled
+belts. He watched a little group of Apaches, all mounted, riding
+southward. Nobody else paid any attention; the group might have been
+going hunting or wood gathering.
+
+Geronimo returned his attention to Camp Goodwin. Two Apache chiefs named
+Loco and Nana, with most of their people, were gathered near the
+building. They all knew that Geronimo and another leader, Whoa, were
+about to make a break for Mexico with sixty warriors and a hundred and
+sixty women and children. Loco and Nana wanted to be sure that the agent
+could see them near the fort and know that they were taking no part in
+this break.
+
+Geronimo wanted to make sure that neither chief told Hoag of the
+forthcoming flight. If there was any sign that they intended to betray
+his plans for escape, Geronimo would shoot them, and Loco and Nana both
+knew it.
+
+Planning the flight had not been easy. And when the plans were made it
+had been necessary to choose the right time for the break. There would
+never be a better one than this afternoon. Many of the soldiers usually
+stationed at Camp Goodwin were away. Some were campaigning in New
+Mexico. Some were hunting outlaw Apaches who had been reported near the
+Arizona-Mexico border.
+
+Whoa had left early this morning to wait in a dry wash some miles to the
+south. All day long Apaches had been quietly drifting out to join him.
+They intended to start just before dark so they would have all night
+before the soldiers still in Camp Goodwin could take their trail.
+
+Geronimo's eyes narrowed. Loco and Nana and their followers had done
+nothing. But the man named Sterling, Chief of San Carlos Police, now
+rode up with some Apache policemen. Had someone betrayed the careful
+plans? Or had Sterling intended to bring his Apache Police to Camp
+Goodwin anyhow?
+
+The sun told Geronimo that it was a little past four o'clock. He rose.
+Still keeping the rifle hidden under his blanket, he walked to his pony
+and was preparing to mount when the man named Sterling shouted:
+
+"Hey you! Wait!"
+
+Pretending he did not know that he was being addressed, Geronimo did not
+look around. Sterling shouted again:
+
+"I mean you, Geronimo! Stop or I'll shoot!"
+
+Geronimo sprang to the saddle, dropping his blanket as he did so.
+Sterling's rifle cracked and a bullet sang close. Leveling his own
+rifle from the back of the already running pony, Geronimo flung a shot
+at Sterling. He bent low on his pony's back to make a smaller target as
+bullets from Sterling's Apache police whistled past. Then he galloped
+over a hill and was hidden.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Geronimo raced into the dry wash where the rest awaited him. All the
+warriors were on foot and holding their horses. The women and children
+were mounted, and some of the women held tightly to babies not yet old
+enough to ride alone. Most children, often with three on the same pony,
+managed their own mounts. Whoa, an Indian so big that he dwarfed the
+wiry little pony he rode, came to meet Geronimo.
+
+"What news do you bring?" Whoa asked.
+
+Geronimo said, "The man named Sterling came with his Apache police. He
+shot at me, and I shot at him, but I do not know if I hit him. The
+soldiers must know soon that we are gone."
+
+"Come."
+
+The warriors mounted. With an advance and rear guard, and scouts on
+either side, men, women, and children rode on at a fast trot.
+
+Night fell, and they were safe until the sun rose again. But sunrise
+might find soldiers hot on their trail, so there could be no thought of
+sparing horses. The only sleep they dared allow themselves was such
+snatches as might be had in the saddle. From time to time they nibbled a
+bit of the parched corn or jerky, sun-dried beef that they carried in
+pouches.
+
+With daylight, Geronimo reined in on top of a hill and looked behind
+him. There were no soldiers in sight and no cloud of dust, to indicate
+that any were coming. Geronimo turned and overtook Whoa.
+
+"Nobody comes from the rear," he said, "but we shall be in trouble
+soon. Our mounts reel from weariness."
+
+"Yes," Whoa grunted.
+
+Neither said more. Both had known that they and their people must travel
+fast. And both had also known that their horses and ponies could not run
+all the way to Mexico. They did not know yet what they would do when the
+animals were played out.
+
+Some Apaches were asleep in the saddle, and now the fastest must suit
+their gait to the slowest. A pony stumbled, almost went down, then found
+his balance and pounded on. Suddenly Geronimo pointed ahead and
+exclaimed:
+
+"Look! Usan has smiled upon us!"
+
+A long pack train, with some horses and mules bearing packs and many
+more running loose, was making its way up the valley. Knowing how to get
+the last burst of speed from his tired pony, Geronimo whooped and sped
+to the attack. He began to shoot as soon as he was in range, and he
+heard the rifles of the rest of the warriors blasting behind him.
+
+[Illustration: "_Look! Usan has smiled upon us!_"]
+
+The white men and the Mexicans with them were outnumbered six to one.
+They fired a few hasty return shots and spurred out of danger, leaving
+their pack train and loose horses behind them. Letting the fleeing men
+go, Geronimo rode in ahead of the frightened horses and turned them. The
+warriors surrounded the herd.
+
+There was a quick exchange of saddles and bridles, a swift rummaging
+through all the packs for priceless rifles and bullets, and most of the
+Apaches rode on.
+
+Freshly mounted, Geronimo returned to the top of a hill for another look
+at the back trail. He could still see neither soldiers nor the telltale
+dust cloud to indicate any were coming. Geronimo hurried to catch Whoa.
+
+"No soldiers are near enough to cause trouble from the rear," he
+reported. "So rather than go on at full speed, it would be wise to ride
+these fresh horses at a pace they can maintain."
+
+"Wise indeed," Whoa said. "But let us not forget that some soldiers are
+elsewhere and even now may be returning to Camp Goodwin. We must be
+alert for whoever approaches from the front."
+
+Geronimo said, "You speak wisely."
+
+Alternately walking and trotting their mounts, they rode steadily toward
+Mexico. That day they stopped only long enough to let the thirsty
+Apache horses drink from a water hole. A herd of range horses was
+already drinking there, and they took those horses with them when they
+went on.
+
+Into the night they traveled, and stopped again for two hours at another
+water hole. The horses drank and grazed. Some of the weariest people
+slept. Geronimo, who often had been afield a full week with only such
+sleep as he could get in the saddle, climbed a hill to look for danger
+on the back trail.
+
+The next day, riding as advance scout, Geronimo saw soldiers coming a
+moment before they saw him. There were two companies, about sixty men,
+of the Fourth Cavalry, and they were directly in the path the Apaches
+must follow. Geronimo waved his rifle as a signal that enemies were
+sighted, and the warriors whooped to join him.
+
+This was Apache country, a land in which they were familiar with every
+rock and crevice, and to the west was a bypass around the soldiers.
+Driving the loose horses at full run, the women and children raced
+toward that bypass. Yelling, but not shooting, because they had no
+bullets to waste, the warriors swooped down on the soldiers. It looked
+as though they intended to have a hand-to-hand fight with them.
+
+Again Geronimo could not help admiring American soldiers, who never ran
+as Mexicans so often did but always stood their ground. However, the
+Apache charge was a trick.
+
+Suddenly the racing Indians swerved east, toward some rocky hills. They
+rode up a narrow cleft, the only one around which horses could climb.
+The soldiers shot, but the range was so long that they hit no one.
+Reaching the summit of the cleft, the Apaches took their horses behind
+some rocks where they would be safe from bullets. Then they scrambled
+back to take up positions in the rocks themselves.
+
+The soldiers launched a spirited attack, but they could not advance
+under the withering fire rained down upon them. They retreated,
+re-formed, and attacked again.
+
+The Apaches shot slowly and carefully, for they wanted neither a fierce
+battle nor close-quarter fighting. Their only purpose was to delay the
+soldiers until the women and children had had time to reach a place of
+safety.
+
+Two hours after the soldiers first opened fire, the Apaches began to
+slip away. Each mounted his own horse, and each took a different path to
+rejoin the women and children. Finally only Geronimo and a dozen others
+were left. They fired at the soldiers and drove them to cover in the
+rocks. Then all the remaining Apaches rose and ran to their horses.
+
+On their next attack, the soldiers took the hilltop. There was not an
+Apache left to resist them, but there were sixty different trails that
+led in sixty different directions.
+
+Forty-eight hours after they left San Carlos, the Apaches crossed the
+Mexican border and were safe in the Sierra Madre Mountains.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THIRTEEN
+
+_Fortress Paradise_
+
+
+Urged by three of Geronimo's warriors, fifty-three cattle climbed
+laboriously up a slope and shuffled into pine forest. Stolen from a
+Mexican _rancheria_, they had been driven most of the night at the
+fastest pace they could keep up. Now the cattle staggered with
+weariness. But they would rest soon.
+
+Geronimo and a warrior named Francisco, who had helped steal the cattle,
+were with the raiding party. Watching only until the cattle had reached
+the mountain top, they turned to look back down the slope.
+
+Beneath, the Sierra Madres leveled into low foothills. In the distance,
+the hills seemed to fold into each other, so that instead of many
+mountains there was just one. Finally the one was lost in a shimmering
+blue haze.
+
+The two Apaches tied their horses to nearby trees and continued to scan
+the hills below them. It was Geronimo who spoke.
+
+"They come."
+
+Far beneath, made small by distance, a line of Mexican soldiers moved
+slowly but steadily on the cattle's trail. The two Apaches looked at
+them as one might regard some interesting insects.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Geronimo had never been a chief while Apaches still lived by their
+ancient customs. But he was one now because he had been chosen by the
+people who had escaped from San Carlos, to be their leader. Neither he
+nor Francisco, the warrior, were the least bit excited by the sight of
+the Mexican soldiers. Their rifles leaned against two trees.
+
+The Sierra Madres, with their low foothills that rose to
+ten-thousand-foot peaks, were known only to Apaches. Two hundred miles
+long by a hundred miles wide, the only human dwellings in the entire
+vast range were wickiups.
+
+It was here that the Apaches held their pony races, played their endless
+games, and hunted. When they felt in need of amusement or plunder, they
+left their camps in the Sierra Madres to raid Mexican towns or ranches.
+Returning to the mountains, they were always safe. No force of _rurales_
+had ever penetrated this wild retreat.
+
+After a bit, Geronimo sat down and cast only an occasional glance toward
+the oncoming soldiers. He yawned.
+
+"We needn't have been so hasty," he said. "Mexicans know two gaits, slow
+and slower."
+
+"Yes," Francisco was amusing himself by tracing designs in the earth
+with a stick.
+
+"Still, there are more than there were, and they come deeper into the
+Sierra Madres than they ever did," Geronimo said. "I am glad Loco has
+come with his people, and Benito, and Nana, and Mangas, and Chato, and
+Naiche."
+
+Geronimo was speaking of other Apache chiefs and braves who had come to
+Mexico. After seeing for themselves that the American soldiers were
+unable to bring Whoa and Geronimo back, they, too, had defied the Army
+and fled the reservation. Now they, too, were living a free life in the
+Sierra Madre Mountains.
+
+"We did not really need them to fight Mexicans," the sulky Francisco
+remarked.
+
+"I am not so certain," Geronimo said seriously. "Have you so soon
+forgotten the battle we fought in the stream bed south of Arispe? It was
+no more than three weeks after we finally returned to the Sierra Madres.
+Do you remember the Mexican general who shouted my name in such foul
+terms?
+
+"He said, 'That dog of a Geronimo is finally cornered!' He screamed to
+his soldiers that they must kill every Apache, and that he would post
+his wounded to shoot cowards and deserters. They were many more than we,
+and we might have been overwhelmed had I not shot the general."
+
+"But you did shoot the general," Francisco pointed out.
+
+"I did," Geronimo agreed, "and I am very glad. I have no love in my
+heart for Mexicans, especially Mexican generals. That is why I am happy
+to see so many Apaches in the Sierra Madres. Together we may fight all
+the Mexicans."
+
+Francisco reminded, "We are not together."
+
+"That is as it should be," said Geronimo. "Apaches need room, and they
+cannot crowd together as Mexicans and Americans do. But we may get
+together when we choose."
+
+"If I had known that Chato was going raiding into Arizona, I would have
+chosen to ride with him," Francisco said.
+
+Geronimo said wistfully, "I too, for I have longed to see Arizona once
+more and have a good fight with American soldiers."
+
+"Let us wish Chato all success," Francisco said.
+
+Geronimo said, "He will have it. Benito rides with him, and twenty-six
+picked warriors."
+
+"Were I there, there would be twenty-seven picked warriors," Francisco
+bragged.
+
+Geronimo grunted sourly and lay down to sleep. A half hour later he was
+awakened by Francisco's hand on his shoulder.
+
+"They come," said Francisco.
+
+Geronimo sat up and looked down the slope to see some thirty soldiers
+climbing it. All led their horses, and they stopped often to rest.
+Geronimo turned to Francisco.
+
+"These are not the _rurales_ we once fought," he said. "_Rurales_ never
+came so deeply into the Sierra Madres. If they did, they were never so
+foolish as to be caught in daylight on a slope such as this."
+
+Francisco asked disinterestedly, "Who are they?"
+
+Geronimo said, "It has come to my ears that they have been sent from a
+far-off place known as Mexico City. The Nan-Tan, the chief, of Mexico
+City has at last discovered and is greedy for the gold and silver to be
+found here. He has sent his soldiers to protect it. Ha!"
+
+"Ha indeed," Francisco grunted. "Are you ready?"
+
+"Ready," said Geronimo.
+
+Each lifted a football-sized boulder from its bed, tilted it on end, and
+let it go. The rolling boulders gathered stones, gravel, more boulders.
+A fair-sized landslide, indeed an avalanche, thundered down. A great
+cloud of dust arose.
+
+When the dust cleared, Geronimo and Francisco again saw the soldiers.
+They had escaped the avalanche by running frantically to one side or
+the other, taking their horses with them. But all were mounted now and
+galloping frantically back in the direction from which they had come.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Geronimo said, "The soldier chief at San Carlos asked me how we fought
+Mexicans. I told him bullets are too hard to get to waste on them, and
+that we fought them with rocks. He thought I lied."
+
+Without another word he started up the slope, following the trail of the
+other three raiders and the cattle.
+
+A week later Chato, Benito, and twenty-five of the twenty-six warriors
+who had gone raiding in Arizona, rode into Geronimo's camp. Chato
+dismounted, loosed his horse, and went to sleep beneath a pine. Benito
+regarded him admiringly.
+
+"That one sleeps only in the saddle while he is on a raid!" he said.
+"When the rest of us slept, he stood guard!"
+
+"Was it a good raid?" Geronimo inquired.
+
+"A very good raid," Benito said. "For the six days we spent in Arizona,
+we were seldom out of the saddle. We struck where we would, and stole
+fresh horses where we needed them. In six days we rode four hundred and
+fifty miles."
+
+Geronimo said, "I do not see Tzoe among those who returned."
+
+"You will not see Tzoe," said Benito. "Though Chato warned him that it
+was a foolish thing to do, he left us and went to visit his friends who
+remain at San Carlos. He is now a prisoner of the white soldiers."
+
+Geronimo staggered, as though from a sudden blow on the head. He
+gasped. Though a young warrior, Tzoe had been among the loudest and
+fiercest in declaring that never again would he submit to the white
+man's rule. But he had surrendered to the same loneliness and yearning
+for his loved ones that was afflicting all the renegades. Who would be
+next?
+
+"Is Geronimo ill?" Benito asked.
+
+"I am not ill," Geronimo said.
+
+But he saw a dark cloud hovering over all Apaches.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FOURTEEN
+
+_Chief Gray Wolf_
+
+
+Rumor prowled like a hunting mountain lion over the foothills of the
+Sierra Madres. It crept up the canyons, climbed the peaks, searched out
+every Apache camp, and came to Geronimo. He surrounded his camp with
+scouts.
+
+The sun was four hours high when one of the scouts imitated the call of
+a jay. Geronimo did not stir. A jay's call meant that a friend came; a
+hawk's scream indicated an enemy. Ten minutes later Whoa rode into
+Geronimo's camp.
+
+The huge chief of the Nedni was sweating, and Geronimo hid his wonder.
+He had known Whoa for many years, and had fought with him when the
+Kas-Kai-Ya massacre was avenged. This was the first time he had seen his
+friend show fear.
+
+"Have you heard?" Whoa demanded.
+
+Geronimo replied, "It has come to my ears that Chief Gray Wolf is in the
+Sierra Madres."
+
+"He is!" Whoa exclaimed. He held up both hands with all fingers spread.
+"Ten times this many warriors he leads, and ten times again, and twice
+again! The word is that he comes in peace and only to ask Apaches to
+return to the reservation in Arizona. Benito believed him and let his
+band surrender in peace. Gray Wolf's soldiers shot the men! They cut the
+throats of the women and children!"
+
+For a moment Geronimo remained silent. Ten times ten, and ten times a
+hundred, and twice a thousand. Not even Chief Gray Wolf, known to the
+white men as General George Crook, could lead two thousand soldiers into
+the Sierra Madres unobserved. Nor was General Crook a white chief who
+said one thing but meant another. He kept his promises, and he would not
+massacre prisoners. But it would not be well for even Geronimo to give
+Whoa the lie.
+
+Finally Geronimo asked, "This you saw?"
+
+"This I saw," said Whoa.
+
+"You saw it with your own eyes?" Geronimo asked.
+
+"Not with my own eyes," Whoa admitted. "One of my warriors saw."
+
+"Name him," Geronimo said.
+
+"It was not really one of my warriors," Whoa said. "A warrior from
+Naiche's camp, or Zele's, or Loco's, saw. He told my warrior."
+
+Geronimo said, "I would live in Arizona again, if I could live as befits
+an Apache. I would even live on the reservation, but not on the Gila
+River flats."
+
+"You would put yourself in the white man's power?" Whoa asked
+unbelievingly.
+
+Geronimo said, "I put myself in no man's power. But if I might once more
+live in Arizona, I would keep peace with the white man and let him go
+his way if he kept peace and let me go mine."
+
+"You speak madness!" Whoa gasped.
+
+"I speak no madness," said Geronimo. "And I do not think that even Chief
+Gray Wolf can catch me now that I know he is here. We saw _you_ coming."
+
+"As you shall see me go," Whoa promised. "I have ridden this far to ask
+you to go with us."
+
+"Whither?"
+
+"Far to the south, where no white soldier ever has been or ever shall
+be," Whoa said.
+
+Geronimo said, "I do not think I would like the south."
+
+"I say no more," said Whoa.
+
+Whoa caught his pony and rode away. Geronimo knew a great sorrow. Whoa
+was frightened. Because he feared, he was willing to see through the
+eyes of others rather than find out for himself how things truly were.
+It was indeed a sad thing.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Two days later the scout announced another friend. In twenty minutes,
+Ana, Benito's wife, climbed the hill to Geronimo's camp.
+
+"Why are you here?" Geronimo demanded.
+
+"I bear a message from Chief Gray Wolf," said Ana.
+
+Geronimo said, "It has come to my ears that Chief Gray Wolf killed all
+the followers of Benito. Yet you, Benito's wife, are not dead."
+
+"We did indeed fight some of Chief Gray Wolf's Apache scouts," said Ana.
+"They were commanded by the white chiefs, Crawford and Gatewood. They
+surprised us in our camp, and we thought they came for war. But they
+came for peace, and though they killed a few of us because we fought
+them, they took most of us prisoner and treated us very well.
+
+"The men remain prisoners. But the children have freedom of Chief Gray
+Wolf's camp and all women have been sent forth with the message Chief
+Gray Wolf has for all Apaches. That is why I am here."
+
+"And what is this message?" Geronimo asked.
+
+"Return to Arizona and live in peace."
+
+Geronimo asked, "Was Chato in Benito's camp when Gray Wolf's scouts
+came?"
+
+"Chato was there," Ana said.
+
+"And what says Chato to the message?"
+
+"Chato and Benito have agreed to return," said Ana. "So have Zele and
+Naiche. I know not of the others."
+
+"She lies," Francisco warned.
+
+Geronimo said, "Women do not lie about their husbands. Would Chief Gray
+Wolf speak with me?"
+
+"He would," said Ana.
+
+"Where?"
+
+Ana used a stick to trace a map on the ground. Geronimo studied it,
+rubbed it out with his moccasin, and nodded.
+
+"Eat and rest," he told Ana. "Then go to Chief Gray Wolf and say
+Geronimo will come in four days."
+
+In four days, carrying his Winchester repeating rifle and wearing a belt
+full of bullets, Geronimo approached the meeting place an hour after
+sunrise. He looked straight ahead only, for anything else might betray
+him. His warriors, who had left camp while night still held, were hidden
+all about. But they were to attack only if there was treachery.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Geronimo saw Captain Crawford and Lieutenant Gatewood, army officers
+whose deeds had earned them the respect of all Apaches. There was Al
+Sieber, famed chief of scouts and one of the very few white men who
+could think like an Apache. Mickey Free, whom Cochise had been accused
+of kidnapping years before, stood ready to tell Geronimo and General
+Crook what each said to the other. Geronimo spoke Apache, Spanish, and
+some English. General Crook spoke and understood English only.
+
+Proud and haughty as the Apache himself, every inch the warrior, General
+Crook's eyes met Geronimo's. They did not look away.
+
+Geronimo asked, "What would you talk about?"
+
+"Your return to Arizona," said General Crook.
+
+Geronimo said, "You think I will live again on the hot flats of the
+Gila?"
+
+"It was not I who sent you there," said General Crook. "Choose your
+home. There are the White Mountains."
+
+A mighty yearning stirred in Geronimo's heart. He was homesick for
+Arizona, and the White Mountains.
+
+"What else do you ask?" Geronimo inquired.
+
+General Crook said, "Your promise to live in peace."
+
+"Who promises me that the white man will also keep the peace?" Geronimo
+asked.
+
+"I do," said General Crook. "And have you known me to lie?"
+
+"I have never known Chief Gray Wolf to speak falsely," Geronimo
+admitted. "And I see no treachery here."
+
+Humor lighted General Crook's eyes. "How many of your warriors surround
+us, Geronimo?"
+
+"Do you think I came in fear?" Geronimo asked angrily.
+
+"I did not say that," said General Crook. "I asked how many of your
+warriors surround us."
+
+"Some," Geronimo admitted. "But they are to shoot only if you start a
+battle."
+
+"See for yourself that we want no battle," General Crook said. "Will you
+come back to live on the Apache reservation if you may choose your home
+in the White Mountains?"
+
+"I will if I may do that," Geronimo said.
+
+"Will you live in peace?"
+
+Geronimo promised, "I will live in peace."
+
+"When will you come?" General Crook asked.
+
+"When I am ready."
+
+Geronimo turned on his heel and strode away.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FIFTEEN
+
+_The Discontented_
+
+
+A mile and a half from his farm on Turkey Creek, in Arizona's White
+Mountains, Geronimo skulked in a thicket and looked sourly at a flock of
+wild turkeys. They were so many that they seemed a living carpet over
+the five-acre clearing in which they were catching grasshoppers. But
+they held no charm for Geronimo. Who besides white men would eat a bird
+that ate snakes?
+
+White men also ate the trout that swarmed in White Mountain streams, and
+trout were akin to snakes. Geronimo grimaced. He had had enough, and
+more than enough, of white men and their ways.
+
+A lark called three times. The turkeys skulked away. They knew that it
+was not a lark calling, but a man imitating a lark. A moment later
+Naiche slipped into the thicket where Geronimo hid.
+
+Naiche said, "No one saw me."
+
+"It is well," said Geronimo. "Chato suspects that we are again on the
+point of fleeing to Mexico. He will be happy to inform the soldiers if
+he can discover our plans."
+
+Naiche said, "Chato suspects everything since he turned from his own
+people to the white men. In his own opinion, Chato is a very great man.
+He told me himself that Chief Gray Wolf never would have come to the
+Sierra Madres if he, Chato, had not gone raiding into Arizona. He said
+the settlers of Arizona had decided that the Apaches would never dare
+leave Mexico. His raid taught them otherwise, and so Chief Gray Wolf
+came."
+
+"For once, Chato spoke the truth," Geronimo said.
+
+Without announcing himself, old Nana came so silently that neither
+Geronimo nor Naiche knew he was coming until he was almost upon them.
+Mangas and Chihuahua arrived, and the leaders who had planned this
+second outbreak were gathered.
+
+Geronimo spoke. "When I met Chief Gray Wolf in Mexico, I told him that I
+would return to Arizona if I might live as an Apache should. But before
+I could come, I needed time. Not wishing to return to Arizona a poor
+man, I had to steal enough cattle to make me rich. My warriors and I
+took three hundred and fifty cattle from the Mexicans. They were
+honorably stolen. We brought them to Arizona when we came. But when we
+arrived at Fort Apache, our cattle were taken from us."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The chiefs growled like angry wolves. Geronimo continued:
+
+"That was not what Chief Gray Wolf promised, but where is he? Where are
+Captain Crawford and Lieutenant Gatewood? Where are any white men we may
+trust? They brought us here and over us set strangers like Lieutenant
+Davis, who knows nothing about Apaches and cares less."
+
+"I told Mickey Free to tell the fat white chief, Lieutenant Davis, that
+I had killed men before he was born!" old Nana snarled. "He cannot tell
+me what to do!"
+
+Chihuahua said angrily, "He and others do tell us! We must not do this,
+we must not do that! But we must scratch the ground with those foolish
+plows they gave us, and try to grow corn when it is much easier to steal
+it! I promised to keep peace with white men! I never promised not to
+fight with and raid Papagoes and Navajos!"
+
+"None of us promised anything except that we would live on the
+reservation and bother no white men," Geronimo said. "It is true that we
+live in the White Mountains rather than on the flats of the Gila, but
+how do we live? It is still better to be free and at war in Mexico than
+to be at peace and live like the stupid sheep which Navajo herders
+chase."
+
+"Right!" Nana agreed. "It is better to die in battle than to live as a
+slave! Before we go, I think that I will pick a fight with the fat white
+chief."
+
+"Have men, not boys, beside you if you do," Geronimo advised.
+"Lieutenant Davis is a warrior. How many are we?"
+
+Naiche said, "In all, we are thirty-five men, eight boys who know how
+to shoot, and a hundred and one women and children. We might have had as
+many more as we cared to take with us if we had been able to provide
+arms for them. As it is, three of the boys who can shoot must carry bows
+and arrows since we were unable to get enough rifles."
+
+"It is as well," Geronimo said. "The smaller the party, the faster we
+may travel. We know that the Apache scouts and the white soldiers will
+stop us if they can. And I feel that Lieutenant Davis is suspicious."
+
+Naiche said, "I can go to him and pick a fight. He would kill me, or I
+would kill him. If I killed him, he could not stop us."
+
+"Since we are not sure he knows anything, this is not the time to fight
+him," Geronimo said. "He has not tried to stop us. When we are gone, he
+cannot stop us."
+
+"He can send a message by the wire that talks, the telegraph," said
+Nana. "He can tell the soldiers at Fort Thomas to stop us, and we shall
+have to fight them when we meet."
+
+Geronimo said, "If we start a fight here, we must fight all the soldiers
+and all the Apache scouts. If we run, we cannot be sure that we will
+meet anyone. It is wiser to run."
+
+The Apaches started in late afternoon. Geronimo was the last to leave,
+and he scouted thoroughly. Seeing nothing, he turned his pony southward.
+
+Only another Apache could have hidden from Geronimo's final scouting. As
+soon as the runaways had gone, Mickey Free rose from the patch of brush
+in which he had hidden and watched every move. He ran full speed to the
+army headquarters and found Lieutenant Davis.
+
+"Geronimo, Chihuahua, Mangas, and Nana lead many people toward Mexico,"
+Mickey Free said.
+
+Lieutenant Davis hurried to the telegraph operator.
+
+"Send this message at once to Captain Pierce, in Fort Thomas: 'An
+unknown number of Apaches under Geronimo and other chiefs are fleeing
+toward Mexico. Head them off.'"
+
+"Right away," the operator said.
+
+While the operator worked his key, Lieutenant Davis tapped his foot
+nervously up and down. He did not as yet know how many Apaches had fled
+from the reservation. But he did know that, even if they were only a
+few, they were far more dangerous than the most savage pack of wolves
+that had ever roamed.
+
+[Illustration: _Geronimo had cut the wire with his axe_]
+
+If they escaped again into the Sierra Madres, it meant more terror for
+the citizens of Arizona. From their stronghold in the Mexican mountains,
+the Apaches would certainly raid Arizona towns and ranches. It meant
+equal terror for Mexico, and it meant a long and costly military
+campaign before the runaways were again under control.
+
+The telegraph operator continued to work his key. But Geronimo had
+already stopped long enough in his flight to climb one of the trees to
+which the telegraph wire was fastened. He had cut the wire with his axe
+and tied the two ends together with a piece of buckskin. This he did so
+that the wires would not dangle, making it easy for soldiers to find and
+repair the break.
+
+After five minutes, the operator turned, much puzzled, to Lieutenant
+Davis.
+
+"I cannot get through," he said.
+
+"Stay at your key and keep trying," Lieutenant Davis said. "If you get
+through, say that I'm on the trail with soldiers and scouts. I hope we
+may catch them, but trailing will be slow at night, and I think it means
+another campaign in Mexico."
+
+Lieutenant Davis was right. Geronimo and all his followers again reached
+Mexico and found a haven in the Sierra Madres.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SIXTEEN
+
+_Hunted Like Wolves_
+
+
+Geronimo galloped wildly through the black night. Naiche rode beside
+him. Ten of the eighteen warriors who remained with Geronimo followed.
+
+Geronimo turned his head. He saw light from the burning buildings of the
+Arizona ranch that he and his warriors had just raided, reflected in the
+sky. The Apaches had taken fresh horses. But the four men who had been
+at the ranch had fled after firing a few shots.
+
+Presently Geronimo pulled in his horse to a trot. The rest slowed.
+Naiche drew in nearer to his chief.
+
+"I wish that the white men had stayed to fight," he said.
+
+"I too," said Geronimo, "but the white men are not fools. They remain
+great liars. The last time, I raided in Arizona with but six men, and
+Kieta deserted to return to San Carlos. But the white men said we had
+two hundred warriors. Loco, who remains on the reservation, sent me a
+messenger, asking to know where we found such strength."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Naiche asked anxiously, "Was that the whole message?"
+
+"There was no more," Geronimo said.
+
+Said Naiche, "Then I am sad. My wife and children are in Arizona. My
+relatives are there. I am sorely in need of news of them. Why does
+Chihuahua send me no word? He returned to the reservation the second
+time Chief Gray Wolf came to us and asked us to come in."
+
+"There is no knowing what happened to Chihuahua," Geronimo said. "Chief
+Gray Wolf has gone from Arizona, and the Apaches will never see him
+again."
+
+General Crook had indeed made a second journey to Mexico, and again he
+met the runaway Apaches and tried to persuade them to come back to the
+reservation. Chihuahua and his followers had returned. Mangas and two or
+three others had fled deeper into Mexico, but Geronimo and Naiche had
+promised to return. At the last minute they, with eighteen other men and
+nineteen women and children, had changed their minds and fled back into
+the Sierra Madres.
+
+General Crook had been sharply rebuked by his commander for letting
+Geronimo escape. So he had asked to be relieved of duty in Arizona and
+sent back to Texas. His wish was granted, and a general named Miles had
+come to Arizona to take his place.
+
+General Miles had five thousand soldiers at his command, and their
+principal duty was to capture Geronimo. A large number of Mexican
+_rurales_ and police were afield for the same purpose. Besides these,
+there were many ranchers, cowboys, miners, and townsmen who would gladly
+do anything they could to put an end to Geronimo and his followers.
+There were certainly at least ten thousand people actively plotting the
+downfall of this one Apache chief.
+
+And not all of them together had come near to succeeding.
+
+By special arrangement with Mexico, American troops were permitted to
+range south of the border, and there had been several fights between
+them and Geronimo's band. Some American soldiers had been killed or
+wounded, and the Mexicans had suffered too. But Geronimo had not lost a
+single warrior. Not one of his followers had even been wounded. Yet the
+Apache chief was discouraged.
+
+He swayed in the saddle, and bright lights flashed before his eyes. He
+put a hand in front of his eyes to shut out the lights.
+
+"Are you ill?" Naiche asked in alarm.
+
+"I am tired," said Geronimo.
+
+Naiche said, "We may stop and rest."
+
+"I speak not of body weariness," Geronimo said. "My spirit is tired."
+
+"I understand," said Naiche. "We have fought for a very long while. We
+have been driven from our camps and our cooking fires. Seven times in
+fifteen months we lost all our horses and had to steal more. We know not
+when we will have to fight many soldiers. The spirits of all of us are
+tired, but we dare not surrender."
+
+"We dare not," Geronimo agreed. "Chief Gray Wolf is gone. Captain
+Crawford is dead. Lieutenant Gatewood is gone. There is not one white
+man among all who pursue us whom we may trust. Almost I wish that I had
+gone in with Chief Gray Wolf."
+
+"I too," Naiche murmured.
+
+They halted at daylight in a rockbound little canyon. Horses that had
+become both weary and thirsty stood with heads raised and nostrils
+flared. They smelled water, for there was a water hole ahead. But the
+warriors tied their mounts and waited.
+
+Carrying his Winchester repeating rifle, Geronimo slipped off alone.
+With no more fuss than a slinking coyote, he made his way among the
+boulders and the scrawny little trees that grew between them.
+
+After a bit Geronimo stopped and cut a number of leafy twigs. He thrust
+them into his headband so that, if he held very still, whoever saw him
+would think they saw a bush instead. Then he dropped to wriggle forward
+on his stomach. Presently he looked down into another canyon.
+
+The water hole was there, and the water was fresh and cold. Green grass
+surrounded it. Great cottonwood trees bordered it. But a herd of horses
+browsed on the grass, and pack mules stamped at a picket line. There
+were packs and tents, and there were more than twenty soldiers whose
+only reason for being here was to keep Geronimo away from the water.
+
+Geronimo slipped away as quietly as he had come.
+
+"Soldiers await," he told Naiche when he had returned to his warriors.
+
+"Many soldiers?" Naiche asked.
+
+"Too many for us to fight," Geronimo said.
+
+Naiche said, "Then we must go."
+
+"No. We must loose our horses," said Geronimo.
+
+Naiche said, "They will run to water."
+
+"They will run to water," Geronimo agreed.
+
+Naiche asked wonderingly, "You would give good horses to white
+soldiers?"
+
+"These horses are too spent to serve us any longer," Geronimo said. "Let
+them go."
+
+Tie ropes were slipped. Following the smell of water, the horses were
+off at a gallop.
+
+Geronimo led his warriors forward. He stopped them just beneath the rim
+of the canyon in which the water hole lay. Again he thrust bits of brush
+into his headband and crawled forward to look.
+
+The thirsty horses had come in and were crowding each other at the water
+hole. A young lieutenant was ordering his men to mount. A scout whom
+Geronimo had seen, but whose name he had never heard, was arguing with
+the lieutenant.
+
+"Don't do it!" the scout said. "Don't do it, Lieutenant!"
+
+"You say these horses were loosed by Geronimo's men?" the lieutenant
+asked.
+
+The scout said, "Couldn't of been nobody else, an' every horse wears the
+Pratt brand. Geronimo must of stole them there. I figure we'll find the
+Pratt ranch burned an' maybe the Pratt brothers dead. But don't dash off
+in all directions thisaway."
+
+"If Geronimo's lost his horses, he and his men are afoot!" the young
+lieutenant exclaimed.
+
+"The only horses Geronimo ever _lost_ was them our scouts or soldiers
+took away from him," the scout said. "He's turned these loose for some
+deviltry of his own. An' did you ever try to hunt Apaches when they was
+afoot?"
+
+"No," the lieutenant admitted. "But they should be easy to catch."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"'Bout as easy as so many quail with six extry wings," the scout said.
+"You can't catch 'em."
+
+The lieutenant said sternly, "Mount and come with us."
+
+"All right," the scout said. "But don't leave no horses here!"
+
+"I won't. But we must travel fast so I'll leave the pack mules."
+
+"Then leave a guard too."
+
+"I'll need every man," the lieutenant said.
+
+"S'pose the Apaches come here?" the scout asked.
+
+"They won't," the lieutenant said. "They're too cowardly. Geronimo and
+every last one of his men are running for Mexico. We must overtake them.
+Geronimo's the last Apache war chief! When he's captured or killed, it
+will mean an end to Indian wars here in the Southwest! The least I'll
+get out of this is a captain's rating, and perhaps even a major's!"
+
+The scout said, "If I'm asked, I'll say I told you 'twas a fool thing to
+do."
+
+"Say what you please," the lieutenant said. "I know what I'm doing."
+
+The soldiers followed the scout, who in turn followed the back trail of
+the horses. When they found the place where the horses had been loosed,
+the lieutenant thought, they would also find helpless Apaches on foot.
+
+When the soldiers were out of sight, Geronimo signaled his men forward.
+
+They drank at the water hole. Then they rummaged hastily through the
+packs and tents and took all the rifles and ammunition they could find.
+Minutes later, each warrior was mounted on a mule. Geronimo led them
+into rough and rocky ground where mules could travel but horses could
+not.
+
+Long before the young lieutenant brought his men back to their camp,
+every Apache was safe.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
+
+_A Gallant Soldier_
+
+
+Sitting in the shade of some pines on the rim of a lofty mountain,
+Geronimo stared down at Mexico's Bavispe River. From the mountain top
+the river looked like a silver ribbon that followed the curves of the
+valley and gave back the sparkle of the sun.
+
+Geronimo shook his head. When he was a medicine man, he had tried in
+vain to see the visions that should appear to all _shamans_. Though he
+was no longer a _shaman_, visions came now.
+
+He saw that long past day when he had stolen Delgadito's war horse to
+fight a duel of stallions with the son of Ponce. Again he went with
+Delgadito on the raid, and saw the two Papagoes who had come to steal
+horses. Once more he lived in his mother's wickiup, and knew the love
+that had warmed him there. Next followed his happy days with Alope, but
+not the massacre at Kas-Kai-Ya.
+
+Then the battle that avenged the massacre, the ambush of the California
+Volunteers in Apache Pass, and the battles that had been since.
+
+He thought of all that had passed since his first fight with the two
+Papagoes. Geronimo had been twelve years old then. He was fifty-eight
+now. He had known forty-six years of war.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+More visions came. Geronimo saw old Mangus Coloradus, leaving the
+Mimbreno village to surrender to the white man. He saw Cochise, who
+fought fiercely for ten years after the death of Mangus Coloradus but
+finally gave in too.
+
+No more visions appeared. Geronimo turned to Naiche, who sat beside him.
+
+"You told me that you long to see your wife, your children, your
+relatives," he said.
+
+"I do," said Naiche. "Have you no wish again to visit your blood kin?"
+
+"No one awaits me--"
+
+Geronimo was interrupted by the whistle of a hawk, the sentry's signal
+that an enemy came. The sentry signaled again, the enemy was not in
+force.
+
+The women and children ran to hurry the horses into hiding. The men hid
+themselves where they could ambush their foe. In less than a half
+minute, not one of Geronimo's band and no horses could be seen.
+
+Presently two Apaches appeared. One was Kieta, who had deserted Geronimo
+while raiding in Arizona. The second was a warrior named Martine.
+
+When the pair was well within the ambush, Geronimo and his hidden
+warriors sprang up. Kieta and Martine stood motionless. But both knew
+that, if either raised a weapon, both would die.
+
+Geronimo said, "It is good to see you again, Kieta."
+
+"I am here because I like you, Geronimo," Kieta said, "and I like you
+because you led us well. I know you bear me no ill will because I left
+you and returned to San Carlos."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Said Geronimo, "If you wished to follow me no more, your own path was
+before you, and how can I bear ill will because you chose it? Have you
+now returned to me and brought Martine with you?"
+
+"We are here as messengers for a very gallant soldier," Kieta said.
+
+Geronimo said harshly, "I treat with no soldiers."
+
+"Will you hear his name?" Kieta asked.
+
+Geronimo said, "I will hear his name."
+
+"Lieutenant Gatewood," said Kieta.
+
+Geronimo could not hide his astonishment. He knew that Lieutenant
+Gatewood was fierce in battle, merciful in victory, and always true to
+his word. With that respect which one great warrior must feel for
+another, Geronimo said, "More than once I have met Lieutenant Gatewood
+in battle. But it came to my ears that he had gone far from the land of
+the Apaches."
+
+"Your ears heard truly," Kieta said. "Lieutenant Gatewood has been in a
+place so far off that I do not even know its name. But when he learned
+that Geronimo refuses even to talk with the soldiers who are pursuing
+him, he came as one whom Geronimo himself knows he may trust."
+
+"How many soldiers are with him?" Geronimo asked.
+
+Kieta said, "There are six soldiers, all of whom serve as couriers and
+none as warriors. There are two interpreters, Jose Maria and Tom Horn."
+
+"They are all?" Geronimo asked.
+
+"They are all with Lieutenant Gatewood," said Kieta. "But there are many
+soldiers not far away. Will you talk with this brave man?"
+
+Geronimo gave himself to serious thought. After a while, he looked at
+Kieta.
+
+"I will talk with him," he said. "But only Lieutenant Gatewood, the six
+couriers, and Tom Horn and Jose Maria. No one else must come to the
+meeting place. Should there be soldiers, we fight."
+
+"We go to tell him," Kieta said.
+
+Geronimo said, "Martine goes to tell him. Just to be sure Martine speaks
+truly, you stay with us until he returns."
+
+Later Geronimo stood very still as he watched Lieutenant Gatewood and
+his group come near. Lieutenant Gatewood had been ill and showed it. But
+he was armed as a warrior should be, and mounted as a warrior should be,
+and he was completely at ease. True to his word, he was accompanied only
+by the six couriers and two interpreters.
+
+Geronimo's mind took him back almost six years to a nameless canyon. He
+and Naiche, with a large band of well-armed warriors, had succeeded in
+luring a company of United States Cavalry to a water hole in the canyon.
+The Apaches fell upon the soldiers and might have massacred every one
+had not the brave Lieutenant Gatewood rallied his men and led them out
+of the trap.
+
+Geronimo stirred uneasily. His warriors could kill these few men in less
+than a minute. But even as the thought occurred to him, he knew that he
+would never give the order to shoot. Not when this gallant soldier was
+in command.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
+
+_The Last Surrender_
+
+
+Lieutenant Gatewood dismounted, handed the reins of his horse to one of
+the couriers, and shook hands with Geronimo. Geronimo searched the
+officer's face for some sign of fear. But there was not even a slight
+nervousness. Lieutenant Gatewood was indeed worthy of his reputation for
+both courage and gallantry.
+
+Geronimo said, "Your face is pale and drawn, as though it has not seen
+the sun in too many days. Or perhaps you have been ill?"
+
+"It is nothing," said Lieutenant Gatewood. "I have merely ridden far and
+fast so that I may talk with Geronimo."
+
+"You did not say, 'My friend, Geronimo,'" Geronimo pointed out.
+
+"You are not my friend," Lieutenant Gatewood said calmly. "You are the
+friend of no white man or Mexican as long as you continue to live like
+a wild beast, and raid and kill at your pleasure. Except for those who
+are with you now, even the Apaches have turned against you, for you have
+given a bad name to Apaches who would live at peace."
+
+"It is true that many thirst for my blood," Geronimo said thoughtfully.
+"It is equally true that you still speak with a straight tongue. Some
+have called me 'friend,' and when they thought I was no longer
+suspicious, have tried to betray me. But you say at once that you are
+not my friend, and that is honest talk. What would you have from me?"
+
+Lieutenant Gatewood said, "For myself I want nothing, and as a soldier I
+may ask nothing. But for General Miles, the great chief in command of
+the soldiers who are pursuing you, I ask your surrender and the
+surrender of all your band."
+
+Geronimo asked, "And what does General Miles offer in return?"
+
+"Imprisonment in Florida for you and your families," Lieutenant Gatewood
+said.
+
+"Is he mad?" Geronimo flared angrily. "His soldiers have pursued me for
+many months, and we have fought them many times. Many soldiers have died
+in these fights, but not a single Apache has been killed by white
+soldiers. Does your General Miles not know that we are capable of
+carrying on the fight?"
+
+"He knows," Lieutenant Gatewood said. "But if you fail to surrender,
+General Miles has another offer. He will hunt you down and kill every
+one of you if it takes another fifty years."
+
+"Take a message to your General Miles," Geronimo said. "Tell him that we
+will return to Arizona if we may go back to our homes in the White
+Mountains, and if we may live there as we did before fleeing into
+Mexico."
+
+"That is childish talk, Geronimo," Lieutenant Gatewood said. "You have
+had many opportunities to prove that you would live in peace on the
+reservation. There will not be another chance. General Miles' orders
+stand. Accept imprisonment in Florida or be killed by soldiers."
+
+"We may also kill soldiers," Geronimo reminded him.
+
+"That you have proven many times," Lieutenant Gatewood admitted. "But
+you remember the times of long ago, when for every white man in Arizona
+there were a hundred Apaches. Now, for every Apache, there are two
+hundred white men and more to come. You cannot kill all the soldiers."
+
+"Nor can they kill us," Geronimo said. "My terms stand. We return to the
+White Mountains and live as we once lived, or we continue the war."
+
+Lieutenant Gatewood turned suddenly to Naiche and smiled. "I saw your
+mother and daughter, Naiche, just after they came in with Chihuahua's
+band. They have been sent to Florida with the rest, but both inquired
+about you."
+
+"Are they well?" Naiche asked eagerly.
+
+"Very well," Lieutenant Gatewood said. "They wish you to surrender so
+that you may join them, and I am to remind you that an enemy more
+merciless than any soldiers lies in wait. It is winter that is just
+ahead. Geronimo, do I have your final answer?"
+
+Geronimo said, "May we talk again tomorrow?"
+
+"We may," said Lieutenant Gatewood.
+
+They parted. Lieutenant Gatewood and his party returned to their camp
+while the Apaches went to theirs. The Indians were sober and thoughtful.
+
+"It is true," Geronimo said, "that few animals have been hunted harder
+than we. We have fought and fought well, but we are very few, and our
+enemies are very many. We cannot continue to fight them forever."
+
+Said Naiche, "It is also true that we would like to see our friends and
+families again. There is small chance of doing that as long we are in
+Mexico and they are in Florida."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Others of the band murmured agreement. All were desperately tired and
+lonely. They had endured far more than flesh and blood should be
+expected to bear. But they were willing to continue the fight if
+Geronimo and Naiche decided that that was best.
+
+"Yet," Naiche continued, "I fear to surrender even more than I fear to
+continue the battle. Mexicans south of the border and Americans north of
+it would kill us as readily as we would kill a pack of rabid wolves. If
+we hand our arms over to Lieutenant Gatewood, who will protect us until
+we are safe in Florida?"
+
+Suddenly Geronimo, who had been silent, saw in full the vision he had
+seen only in part as he sat beside Naiche. There was old Mangus
+Coloradus advising his people to make peace with the white men, since
+they could never hope to conquer them. There was Cochise, who had needed
+ten years of bloody war to teach him what Mangus Coloradus had been
+taught by his own wisdom. Now, almost twenty-five years after the death
+of Mangus Coloradus, Geronimo finally understood what one of these
+chiefs had known and the other had learned.
+
+Apaches could not fight the white men. But neither could they surrender
+to them unless it was possible to work out a plan guaranteeing their own
+safety.
+
+When they resumed their talks the next day, Geronimo said bluntly to
+Lieutenant Gatewood, "Forget you are a white man and pretend you are one
+of us. What would you do?"
+
+"Trust General Miles and surrender to him," Lieutenant Gatewood said
+promptly.
+
+"So you have spoken and so shall we do," said Geronimo. "But it is a
+long way to the border where General Miles awaits, and this is enemy
+country. We will not surrender our arms until we are met by General
+Miles."
+
+"That is agreeable," said Lieutenant Gatewood. "In addition, Captain
+Lawton and a company of soldiers are camped not far away. I will ask
+them to march with you and help beat off any Mexicans who may attack."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"You march with us," Geronimo said. "Captain Lawton and his soldiers
+may come, but they are to stay ahead or behind. We do not care to mingle
+with white soldiers."
+
+"That, too, is agreeable," said Lieutenant Gatewood.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+It was thus that the Apaches marched to the border of Mexico. Lieutenant
+Gatewood marched with them. Captain Lawton provided an escort of
+American soldiers. And a mob of two hundred Mexicans, who finally saw
+the hated Apaches in captivity, trailed them all the way. But the
+Mexicans did not dare start a fight.
+
+When they reached the camp where General Miles was waiting, Geronimo
+stalked haughtily to the general, who stared coldly at the great Apache
+leader. Geronimo and his warriors laid down the arms that they had
+carried so many miles and into so many battles. The disarmed Apaches
+were surrounded by soldiers who took them, first to prison cells at
+Arizona's Fort Bowie, then to the train that carried them to exile in
+Florida.
+
+So ended the fighting days of Geronimo, the last and fiercest Apache war
+chief. And so, also, ended the Indian Wars in the Southwest. Never again
+would men and women on lonely ranches or in isolated villages awaken,
+trembling, in the middle of the night to hear the pound of ponies' hoofs
+and the wild Apache war cry. Never again would travelers in Arizona, New
+Mexico, and northern Mexico find it necessary to travel in groups and
+well-armed for fear of Apache attacks.
+
+Geronimo and his followers, as well as many other Chiricahua and Warm
+Springs Apaches, were imprisoned at old Fort Pickens, or at Fort Marion,
+in Florida. Eventually they were moved to a reservation in what was
+then Indian Territory and what is now the State of Oklahoma. There
+Geronimo died at Fort Sill, on February 17, 1909.
+
+Whether he was a great villain or a great patriot depends on whether one
+looks at him with the eyes of the white men whom he plundered, or the
+Apaches whom he championed. But nobody can deny that he fought for a
+free life for himself and his people and that he was one of the greatest
+warriors of all time.
+
+
+
+
+_About the Author_
+
+
+Jim Kjelgaard was born in New York City but spent his childhood and
+youth in the Pennsylvania mountains. There he learned to hunt, fish, and
+handle dogs. He still likes to hunt and has done so in most parts of the
+United States and Canada, although he has exchanged his rifles and
+shotguns for cameras. After graduating from high school, he spent two
+years at Syracuse University Extension. Since then he has held a variety
+of jobs ranging all the way from trapper to factory superintendent, and
+has been writing professionally for over twenty years. Of some thirty
+successful books, all but one are for young people.
+
+
+_About the Artist_
+
+Charles Banks Wilson, well known to young people for his illustrations
+of many historical books about the West, has achieved equal success as a
+painter. Over 150 exhibitions of his work have been held in museums
+throughout America. In both book illustration and painting, Mr. Wilson
+is associated with the contemporary life of the American Indian. Many
+Indian ceremonials which have never been photographed are recorded in
+his work, which has taken him throughout the Southwest as well as the
+Far West. He lives in his native Oklahoma with his wife, a Quapaw Indian
+princess, and their two children. Since 1947 he has been head of the Art
+Department of the Northeastern Oklahoma A. & M. College.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Story of Geronimo, by James Arthur Kjelgaard
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 41630 ***