“I’m less concerned about Geronimo,” returned the scout, “than I am about my two pards, old Nomad and Little Cayuse. Bascomb”--the scout’s eyes glittered--“has made us plenty of trouble. I’ll have him back. You hear that, Markham? I’ll never rest until I lay hands on the scoundrel and land him in the strong room at Fort Apache.” “You’ll have a job of it, Cody. Bascomb seems to have curried favor with the Apaches, and it’s ten to one that he’s with Geronimo this minute. You know Geronimo--a regular firebrand, and wily as a side-winder. He’ll crow-hop on every reservation but his own, and all the while he’s here, there, and everywhere, like the Irishman’s flea. Now you see him and now you don’t. Next time he’s captured he ought to be shot.” “I’ll get Bascomb!” averred the scout. “I suppose your pards are done for?” Buffalo Bill got up and walked to the door. What he felt he hid by turning his back on Markham. For a moment he stood in the doorway looking out at the Pimas; then he went to a bucket, took a drink from a gourd dipper, and went back to his chair opposite Markham. His face was expressionless, except as to the eyes--they flashed like steel. “I’ll get Bascomb!” said he, his voice vibrant with resolution. “If he’s with Geronimo, I’ll take the two of them. As for my pards, game old Nick and the loyal little Piute, if they’ve crossed the divide, that runs up a personal debt which I owe the renegades, particularly Geronimo. “You know what it is, I reckon,” he went on, dropping his voice, “to share the same blanket with a man year in and year out; to scout with him at your side; to stand shoulder to shoulder with him in more fights than you can count; to find him at all times a pard to be depended on for sand and sagacity; and----” He broke off curtly. “I don’t need to tell you what the loss of Nick Nomad means to me, or the loss of Little Cayuse.” “No,” returned the captain sympathetically, “you don’t need to tell me, Cody. The fortunes of war are hard on a man sometimes. You say you’ll get Bascomb, and I hope----” An orderly, his clothes dusty with alkali, showed himself in the doorway and saluted. “Come in, Carter,” said Markham. “What’s to pay? Anything new?” “One of our Apache scouts has jest come in, sir,” answered the orderly. “He reports having been captured by Geronimo, quirted and sent back to Bonita with a message.” “Send him in,” ordered Markham. “These Apache scouts,” he added to Buffalo Bill when the orderly had vanished, “may be depended on, or they may not. It’s a doubtful point.” “When fighting Geronimo,” counseled the scout, “it’s well to look with suspicion on what an Apache says. Only the Pimas are to be depended on when fighting Apaches. Pimas have been foes of the Apaches for a hundred years and more, and never a Pima has raised his hand against a white.” Just here the Apache came in. He wore a pair of blue overalls, fastened to his waist with a piece of rope. His shoulders were bare.