“But now,” he continued, sadly, “I cannot see any hope of winning anything but death by fighting longer against the pindah-lickoyee. There are too many of them, and they will not let us rest. I would make a peace treaty with them, if I could.” “They do not want to make a peace treaty with us,” said Shoz-Dijiji. “They want only to kill us all that there may be no more Apaches left to dispute the ownership of the land they have stolen from us. Let the old men and the women and the children make a peace treaty with the pindah-lickoyee. Shoz-Dijiji will never make peace if it means that he must return to San Carlos and be a reservation Indian.” “I think that we should make peace with them,” said Na-chi-ta, “if they will promise that we shall not be killed.” “The promises of the pindah-lickoyee are valueless,” growled a warrior. Thus they spoke around their council fires at night, and though most of them wanted peace and none of them saw any other alternative than death, they clung doggedly to the war trail. During three months they had many skirmishes with the white soldiers; and five times their camps were surprised, yet in no instance were the troops of the pindah-lickoyee able either to capture or defeat them; never was there a decisive victory for the trained soldiers who so greatly outnumbered them. In July 1886 Geronimo’s force numbered some twenty-five fighting men, a few women, and a couple of boys. Outside of their weapons and the clothing that they wore they possessed a few hundred pounds of dried meat and nineteen ponies—the sole physical resources at their command to wage a campaign against a great nation that already had expended a million dollars during the preceding fourteen months in futile efforts to subjugate them and had enlisted as allies the armed forces of another civilized power. Moving farther and farther into Old Mexico as the troops pressed them, the renegades were camped on the Yongi River, nearly three hundred miles south of the boundary, late in July. They believed that they had temporarily thrown their pursuers off the track and, war weary, were taking advantage of the brief respite they had earned to rest. Peace and quiet lay upon the camp beside the Yongi. The braves squatted, smoking, or lay stretched in sleep. The squaws patched war worn moccasins. There was little conversation and no laughter. The remnant of a once powerful nation was making its last stand, bravely, without even the sustaining influence of hope. A rifle cracked. War whoops burst upon their ears. Leaping to their feet, seizing the weapons that lay always ready at hand, the renegades fell back as the soldiers and scouts of Lawton’s command charged their camp. The surprise had been complete, and in their swift retreat the Apaches lost three killed, whom they carried off with them, as they abandoned their supply of dried meat and their nineteen ponies to the enemy. Now they had nothing left but their weapons and their indomitable courage.