The snap of a bowstring broke the stillness, and was followed by the shrill scream of a horse death-stricken.  The Spanish animal reared, the feathered end of the arrow quivering high behind its foreleg, and went down in a headlong plunge.  Its rider sprang free as it fell, to alight on his feet with a dry clang of steel.  He staggered, empty hands flung wide, fighting to regain his balance.  His matchlock had fallen several feet away and the match had gone out.

He drew his broadsword and looked about him, trying to locate the beady black eyes he knew glittered at him from somewhere in the close-set greasewood bushes that edged the rim of the dry wash to his left.  Even as he sought the slayer of his steed, the man appeared - he rose erect and sprang over a low shrub almost in one movement.  A vengeful yell of triumph quivered in the late afternoon stillness.

An instant they faced one another, separated by more than the fifty foot stretch of tawny sand - the New World and the Old personified in the two men.

About them, from horizon to horizon, the naked plains swept away and away to mingle in the faint ocean-like haze that hovered along the turquoise rim of the sky.  No bird cried, no beast moved.  The dead horse lay motionless.  In all that vast expanse these two men were the only living, sentient beings; the tall, gray-bearded man in tarnished steel and the copper-skinned brave naked in his beaded loin-clout, black eyes burning redly under the square-cut bang of his black mane.

Those fierce eyes flickered toward the matchlock, lying out of reach and useless, and the red glints grew more lurid.  The Chiricahua - known to the Spaniards as llanero, plainsmen, had learned the deadliness of the "white" men’s guns. But, now he was sure the advantage was with him.  His left hand gripped a short, stout bow of bois d’arc, backed with sinew; in his right was the flint-headed arrow of dogwood.  The stone-headed hatchet remained at his girdle; he had no intention of coming within the sweep of the long sword that glimmered dully in the rays of the westering sun.

For an instant the tableau held motionless, while he swept his fierce gaze over his enemy.  He knew flint darts would splinter on the white man's armour - but no vizor covered the bearded face.  Yet he was unwilling to waste a single arrow, each of which represented hours of tedious toil.

Cat-like he glided toward his prey, not in a straight line but springing lightly from side to side, to confuse the other, to make him shift his position and so catch him at the end of a motion, where he could not dodge the leap of winged death at him.  The brave did not fear a sudden sword-swinging rush.  The steel clad man could never match his own fleetness of foot.  The white was at his mercy and he could kill in his own way, without risk.