He went directly to where several warriors were squatting, smoking, and waited until they noticed him.

"Where is Go-yat-thlay?" he asked.

One of the warriors jerked a thumb down the canyon. "Go-yat-thlay hunts antelope in the valley," he said.

"I, the son of Go-yat-thlay," said the boy, "have killed shoz-dijiji. I, alone, shee-dah, have done this thing; but alone I cannot bring in my kill. Therefore will you, Natch-in-ilk-kisn, come and help bring in the body of shoz-dijijl, yah-tats-an?"

"You no kill shoz-dijiji, you lie," said Natch-in-ilk-kisn. "You only little ish-kay-nay."

The lad drew himself up to his full height. "The son of Go-yat-thlay, the chief, does not lie--to his friends," he added. Then he pointed to the scratches and the blood upon him. "Think you I got these playing tag with the other children?" he asked. "The meat of shoz-dijiji is good. Would Natch-in-ilk-kisn rather have the wolf, the coyote and the vulture eat it than to eat it himself?"

The warrior rose. "Come, little ish-kay-nay," he said, laughing. "Natch-in-ilk-kisn joked. He will go with you."

That night was a proud night for the son of Go-yat-thlay; for at the age of ten he had killed big game and won a name for himself. Henceforth he was to be known to man as Shoz-Dijiji, and not just as ish-kay-nay--boy. He had had a name for a long time of course, but, also of course, no one ever mentioned it in his presence, since if the bad spirits ever learned his name they could, and undoubtedly would, cause him a great deal of trouble, even to sickness and death.

Go-yat-thlay was not Go-yat-thlay's name either, for he too, as all other Apaches, had a secret name that was really his though no one ever used it; and though he lived to be eighty years old and was better known all over the world than any Indian who ever lived, with the possible exception of the Sioux medicine man, Sitting Bull, yet to this day no white man knows what his name was, and few indeed were those who knew him even as Go-yat-thlay. By another name was he known, a name that the Mexicans gave him, a name that held in fear and terror a territory into which could have been dumped the former German Empire and all of Greece, and still had plenty of room to tuck away Rhode Island--Geronimo.

That night Go-yat-thlay was proud, too, for Shoz-Dijiji was all that the proudest Apache father could expect of any son; and according to the custom of the Apaches the boy was as much the son of Go-yat-thlay as though he had been the blood of his own blood.

Before the lad was sent to bed he sat at the knee of the grim chieftain and the man stroked the boy's head. "You will be a brave in no time, Shoz-Dijiji," he said. "You will be a warrior and a great one. Then you can go forth and spread terror among the pindah lickoyee, slaying them where you find them."

"You hate the white-eyes," said Shoz-Dijiji. "They are men like we; they have arms and legs, as do we, and they walk and talk. Why do they fight us? Why do we hate them?"

"Many years ago they came into our country and we treated them well," replied Go-yat-thlay. "There were bad men among them, but also there are bad men among the Apaches. Not all men are good. If we killed their bad men then they killed us. If some of our bad men killed some of them they tried to punish all of us, not seeking out just the bad men among us who had made the trouble; they killed us all, men, women and children, where they found us. They hunted us as they would wild beasts.

"They took away our lands that Usen gave us. We were told that we could not hunt where our fathers had hunted since the beginning of the world; where we had always hunted. But they hunted there, where they would. They made treaties with us and broke them. The white-eyed men do not keep their promises and they are very treacherous.