“But that will not be for those of us who are here, Geronimo, if we stay here until after Tapida brings the new day, for we shall all be dead. The soldiers of the white-eyes are already preparing to attack us. How may drunken men defend their families and themselves? We shall all be killed if we do not go at once. I have spoken.” Slowly Geronimo gathered his muddled wits. The words of Shoz-Dijiji took form within his brain. He saw the condition of his warriors, and he recalled not only the rumors that had come from Tribollet’s but also the treacherous attacks that had been made upon his people by the white-eyed soldiers in the past. “There is yet time,” said Shoz-Dijiji. “The night is dark. If we leave at once and in silence we can be far away before they know that we have left. Another day, when our warriors are sober, we can fight them but not today.” “Awake them all,” said Geronimo. “Gather the women and children. Tell them that we are going back into the mountains of Mexico. Tell them that we are not going to remain here to be murdered by our enemies or taken back to Bowie to be hanged.” They did not all answer the summons of Geronimo. Na-chi-ta went but he did not know that he was going or where. They threw him across the back of a mule; and Shoz-Dijiji loaded Gian-nah-tah upon another, and Geronimo rode silently out through the night with these and eighteen other warriors, fourteen women, and two boys, down into the mountains of Mexico; and the results of months of the hardest campaign that, possibly, any troops in the history of warfare ever experienced were entirely nullified by one cheap white man with a barrel of cheap whiskey. Chapter Ten Two Thousand Dollars for a Head =D=OWN into the rugged mountain fastnesses of Sonora the remnants of Geronimo’s band of renegades hurried from the menace of the white man’s justice. Suffering from the after effects of Tribollet’s whiskey they marched in sullen silence, thinking only of escape, for the fighting spirit of a sick man is not wont to rise to any great heights. For sixteen hours they marched with but a single brief rest, and it was again dark when they went into camp. Water and a little food revived their spirits. There was even laughter, low pitched lest it reach across the night to the ears of an enemy. Shoz-Dijiji squatted upon his haunches chewing upon a strip of jerked venison that was both dirty and “high” and that not only pleased his palate but gave him strength, renewing the iron tissue of his iron frame. Less fastidious, perhaps, than a civilized epicure in the preparation and serving of his food, yet, savage though he was, he appreciated the same delicate flavor of partial decay. As he ate, a tall warrior came and stood before him. It was Gian-nah-tah. Shoz-Dijiji continued eating, in silence.