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."