d of the
White Mountain girl, and told her that he was Massai, a Chiricahua
warrior; that he had been arrested after the Geronimo war and sent East
on the railroad over two years since, but had escaped one night from the
train, and had made his way alone back to his native deserts. Since then
it is known that an Indian did turn up missing, but it was a big band of
prisoners, and some births had occurred, which made the checking off
come straight. He was not missed at the time. From what the girl said,
he must have got off east of Kansas City and travelled south and then
west, till at last he came to the lands of the Mescalero Apaches, where
he stayed for some time. He was over a year making this journey, and
told the girl that no human eye ever saw him once in that time. This is
all he ever told the girl Natastale, and she was afraid to ask him more.
Beyond these mere facts, it is still a midnight prowl of a human coyote
through a settled country for twelve hundred miles, the hardihood of the
undertaking being equalled only by the instinct which took him home.

[Illustration: 29 SCOUTS]

"Once only while the girl was with him did they see sign of other
Indians, and straightway Massai turned away--his wild nature shunning
even the society of his kind.

"At times 'his heart was bad,' and once he sat brooding for a whole day,
finally telling her that he was going into a bad country to kill
Mexicans, that women were a burden on a warrior, and that he had made up
his mind to kill her. All through her narrative he seemed at times to be
overcome with this blood-thirst, which took the form of a homicidal
melancholia. She begged so hard for her life that he relented; so he
left her in the wild tangle of mountains while he raided on the Mexican
settlements. He came back with horses and powder and lead. This last was
in Winchester bullets, which he melted up and recast into .50-calibre
balls made in moulds of cactus sticks. He did not tell how many murders
he had committed during these raids, but doubtless many.

"They lived that winter through in the Sierras, and in the spring
started north, crossing the railroad twice, which meant the Guaymas and
the Southern Pacific. They sat all one day on a high mountain and
watched the trains of cars go by; but 'his heart got bad' at the sight
of them, and again he concluded to kill the girl. Again she begged off,
and they continued up the range of the Mogollons. He was unhappy in his
mi