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.
"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.
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