The Be-don-ko-he felt secure. But a chain is as strong only as its weakest link. Perhaps a sentinel was shirking; perhaps there were other Indians who knew the Mother Mountains better than the Be-don-ko-he knew them. How else might be explained the long file of armed men creeping upward through a narrow, timbered defile toward the camp of the Apaches? Twenty-four of them were Mexican regulars and with them were forty Indian allies, hereditary enemies of the Be-don-ko-he. Geronimo sat before a rude brush shelter, smoking, while Sons-ee-ah-ray ground maize in a metate. Ish-kay-nay, sewing beads to the yoke of a buckskin shirt, worked industriously at her side, while Shoz-Dijiji, squatting in the circle, watched the girl’s nimble fingers and beautiful face. Several children played about, sometimes listening to the talk of their elders. At a little distance, her back toward them, sat Geronimo’s mother-in-law. She took no part in the conversation, never addressed any of them and was never addressed by them, and when necessary to refer to her signs were invariably employed. Notwithstanding the fact that Geronimo was very fond of her he might never speak to her—thus are primitive peoples slaves to custom, even as we. Shoz-Dijiji was narrating again his encounter with the three white men and the white girl near Billings’ ranch. “Why,” asked Geronimo, “did you not kill the white-eyed girl? It was not wise to let her go back to her people and say that she had seen an Apache in war paint.” “Was she very pretty?” demanded Ish-kay-nay. “Yes,” replied Shoz-Dijiji. “Is that why you did not kill her?” There was a note of jealousy in the girl’s voice. She could be jealous of a white woman. “I did not kill her because I do not make war on women,” said Shoz-Dijiji. “Then you cannot successfully fight the white-eyes,” growled old Geronimo, “for they make war on women and children. If you let their women live they will breed more white warriors to fight against your people. They know—that is the reason they kill our women and our children. “Listen! The soldiers attack our camps, killing our women and our children. They do this today. They have done it always. Listen to the words of Geronimo of the story of Santa Rita, that his father’s father had from _his_ father’s father. A hundred rains have come and gone and yet the blood is not washed away from the memory of the Shis-Inday or from the hands of the pindah lickoyee. “A hundred times have the deer mated; a hundred harvests have been gathered since that day. The Mexicans worked the mines of Santa Rita near the headwaters of the Rio Mimbres in those days, and their chief was a pindah lickoyee named Johnson. His heart was bad, but he hid it beneath soft words. He called our chiefs and told them that he was going to give a great feast, asking them to send word to their people.