"Then came a surveyor named Bartlett, and he sent word that he was a good friend to all Apaches. We believed and trusted him, but when we brought our Mexican slaves to his camp, Bartlett took them away.
"It seems that, when the war ended, Americans and Mexicans became brothers. Bartlett said it was wrong to make slaves of his brothers. He said also that the Americans' God frowns upon those who keep slaves. Ha! I have since learned that the Americans keep millions of slaves themselves!"
"A very great lie," Geronimo agreed, "but far from the greatest. Bartlett's real purpose in coming here was to mark where this land ends and Mexico begins. The Americans were at war with Mexico. They might have taken the whole country by force of arms, but when they wanted land, they bought and paid for it.
"That was very silly, and it was just as silly for the Americans to think they bought land from Mexico that Mexico never owned. They paid Mexico for _our_ land, the country of the Apaches. Then they told us, 'We bought you when we bought your land. Obey our laws, or we shall punish you.' Was there ever a greater swindle?"
"So we fight white men whom we would never hurt at all, if they just stayed home. And they call us evil! Suppose we went to the people of the north, the Canadians, and paid money for the lands of the Americans. Then suppose we told the Americans that they must live by Apache laws or be punished. Would they not resist?"
"Fiercely," Victorio growled. "I agree with you that we must fight, but the Mimbreno warriors follow Mangus Coloradus and will for as long as he is chief. Let us go see if we might again persuade him to be a war chief and lead us against the white men."
The two made their way to the Mimbreno village, and knew as soon as they looked upon it that something unusual was taking place. People scurried here and there, dogs barked, and horses on a nearby hill were nervous.
Victorio and Geronimo began to run. They saw Mangus Coloradus in the center of the village surrounded by a group of his people. Beside him was a bearded white man whom Geronimo recognized as Jack Swilling, a skilled frontiersman who had lived for a long time in the Southwest. Towering over everyone in the group, old Mangus Coloradus was as erect at seventy-two as he had been at seventeen. His hair was snow-white now. But it was still abundant, and it had just been carefully dressed. He wore his finest moccasins and buckskins, and he was talking calmly.