“You have not spoken of the white girl since you took her from our camp to her home after you had saved her from Tats-ah-das-ay-go and the other Chi-e-a-hen,” replied Gian-nah-tah; “but while she was with us I saw the look in your eyes, Shoz-Dijiji, and it told me what your lips did not tell me.” “Then my eyes must have known what my heart did not know,” said Shoz-Dijiji. “It would have been better had my heart not learned, but it did. “Long time have we been friends, Gian-nah-tah. Our tsochs, swinging from the branches of the trees, swayed to the same breezes, or, bound to the backs of our mothers, we followed the same trails across deserts and mountains; together we learned to use the bow and the arrow and the lance; and together we went upon the war trail the first time. To me you are as a brother. You will not laugh at me, Gian-nah-tah; and so I shall tell you what happened that time that I took the white-eyed girl, Wichita, back to the hogan of her father that you may know why I am unhappy and why I know that Usen no longer cares what becomes of me.” “Gian-nah-tah does not laugh at the sorrow of his best friend,” said the other. “It was not in my heart to love the white-eyed girl,” continued the Black Bear. “To Shoz-Dijiji she was as a sister. She was kind to me. When the soldiers of the pindah-lickoyee were all about, she brought me food and water and gave me a horse to carry me back to my people. I knew that she did that because I had once saved her from a white-eyed man who would have harmed her. No thought of love was in my mind. How could it have been? How could I think that Shoz-Dijiji, an Apache, a war chief of the Be-don-ko-he, could love a girl of the pindah-lickoyee! “But Usen deserted me. He let me look upon the face of the white-eyed girl for many days, and every day He made her more beautiful in my eyes. I tried not to think of love. I put it from my mind. I turned my thoughts to other things, but I could not keep my eyes from the face of the pindah-lickoyee girl. “At last we came close to the hogan of her father; and there I stopped and told her to go on, but she wanted me to come with her that her father might thank me. I would not go. I dared not go. I, The Apache Devil, was afraid of this white-eyed daughter of the pindah-lickoyee! “She came close to me and urged me. She laid her two hands upon my breast. The touch of those soft, white hands, Gian-nah-tah, was more powerful than the will of Shoz-Dijiji; beneath it crumbled all the pride and hate that are of the heritage of the Apaches. A flame burst forth within me—the signal fire of love. “I seized her and pressed her close; I put my mouth upon her mouth. And then she struck at me and tried to push me away, and I saw fear in her eyes; and something more terrible than fear—loathing—as though I were unclean.