“No, but I see you. Apache see everything—know everything. You see white girl again you tell her Shoz-Dijiji no can return her pony. Him dead.” “Who, Shoz-Dijiji?” “No, pony. I am Shoz-Dijiji,” and he tapped his chest proudly. “Pony dead.” “Oh.” “You tell her by and by. Shoz-Dijiji no can send her pony back; he send back her white-eyed lover instead. You savvy?” “Why, I’m not her—well, I _will_ be damned!” “Now I go. You move—Shoz-Dijiji shoot. This time he kill. You savvy?” “Yes, go ahead; and you needn’t think I’ll try to get you after what you’ve done for me,” and he glanced at the dead Ned-ni beside them. “But, say, before you go won’t you tell me how and where and when you got a pony from Wichita Billings?” “Me no savvy,” stated Shoz-Dijiji, and turning, he leaped swiftly down the hillside to disappear a moment later from the sight of the astonished subaltern. As Shoz-Dijiji had vanished among the hills so had the other warriors, and as the commanding officer reassembled his troop a crestfallen second lieutenant walked down a hillside and approached his captain. The “old man” was furious at himself because he had ridden directly into an ambush, because he had lost some good men and several horses, but principally because the hostiles had slipped through his fingers with the loss of only two of their number. And so he vented his spleen upon the unfortunate King, who had never guessed until that moment how much contempt, sarcasm and insult could be crowded into that single word _MISTER_. He was relieved of duty and ordered into arrest, released and returned to duty, three times in the ensuing fifteen minutes after he rejoined the troop. His spirit was raw and sore, and he conceived for his superior a hatred that he knew would survive this life and several lives to come; but that was because he had been but a few weeks under the “old man.” Before that campaign was over Lieutenant King would have ridden jubilantly into the mouth of Hell for him. But just then he did not know that his captain’s flow of vitriolic invective and censure but masked the fear the older man had felt when he saw the youth’s utter disregard of danger leading him straight into the jaws of death. The old captain knew a brave man when he saw one and he knew, too, that the steadying influence of experience in active service would make a great Indian fighter of such as his second had proven himself to be, and in the depth of his heart he was very proud of the boy, though he would have rather his tongue had been cut out than to admit it in words. It was his way to win loyalty by deeds, with the result that his men cursed him—and worshipped him.