The listeners were afraid to leave while he was preaching, for fear he would put a bad spell on them.

"I think you ought to find this man Three Birds and take him home," Scull said, when he had finished drawing the little shapes in the dirt. "He ain't crazy and you ain't either. What's left to do had best be done by crazy folks, which means myself and Mr. Kicking Wolf.

"If I was perfectly sane I'd be on a cotton plantation in Alabama, letting my wife's ugly relatives support me in high style," he added.

Famous Shoes thought he knew why Kicking Wolf was taking the Buffalo Horse to Ahumado, but it was a subtle thing, and he did not want to discuss it with the white man. It was not wise to talk to white men about certain things, and one of them was power: the power a warrior needed to gain respect for himself. He himself, as a young man, had been sickly; it was only since he had begun to walk all the time that his health had been good. Earlier in his life he had done many foolish things in order to convince himself that he was not worthless. Once in the Sierra Madre, in Chihuahua, he had even crawled into the den of a grizzly bear. The bear had not yet awakened from its winter sleep, but spring was coming and the bear was restless. At any time the bear might have awakened and killed Famous Shoes. But he had stayed in the den of the restless bear for three days, and when he came out the power of the bear was with him as he walked.

Without risk there was no power, not for a grown man.

That was why Kicking Wolf was taking the Buffalo Horse to Ahumado--if he went into Ahumado's stronghold and survived he could sing his power all the way home; he could sing it to Buffalo Hump and sit with him as an equal-- for he would have challenged the Black Vaquero and lived, something no Comanche had ever done.

There was nothing crazy in such behaviour. There was only courage in it, the courage of a great warrior who goes where his pride leads him. When he was younger Buffalo Hump had often done such things, going alone into the country of his worst enemies and killing their best warriors. From such daring actions he gained power--great power. Now Kicking Wolf wanted great power too.

"You brought me where I asked you to bring me and you taught me to track," Scull said. "If I were you I'd turn back now. Kicking Wolf and me, we're involved in a test, but it's our test. You don't need to come with me. If you meet my rangers on your way home, just give them the news." Famous Shoes did not quite understand the last remark.

"What is the news?" he asked.

"The news is that I'm off to the Sierra Perdida, if anyone cares to know," Scull said.

Then he walked away, following the tracks of his big horse, toward the blue mountains ahead.

They had removed the young caballero's clothes and were tying him to the skinning post outside the big cave when Tudwal came loping into camp with news he thought Ahumado would want to hear.

Ahumado sat on a blanket outside the cave, watching old Goyeto sharpening his skinning knives. The blades of the old man's knives were thin as razors. He only used them when Ahumado wanted him to take the skin off a man. The young caballero had let a cougar slip into the horses and kill a foal. Though Ahumado never rode, himself--he preferred to walk--he was annoyed with the young man for letting a fine colt get eaten by the cougar.

Ahumado also preferred sun to shade. Even on the hottest days he seldom went into the big cave, or any of the caves that dotted the Yellow Cliffs. He put his blanket where the sun would shine on it all day, and, all day, he sat on it. He never covered himself from the sun--he let it make him blacker and blacker.

Tudwal dismounted well back from the skinning post and waited respectfully for Ahumado to summon him and hear his news. Sometimes Ahumado summoned him quickly, but at other times the wait was long. When the old man was meting out punishment, as he was about to do, it was unwise to interrupt him, no matter how urgent the news.

Ahumado was deliberate about everything, but he was particularly deliberate about punishment. He didn't punish casually; he made a ceremony of it, and he expected everyone in camp to stop whatever they were doing and attend to what was being done to the one receiveg the punishment.

When the young caballero, stripped and trembling with fear, had been securely tied to the skinning post, Ahumado motioned for old Goyeto to come with him. The two men were about the same age and about the same height, but of different complexions.

Goyeto was a milky brown, Ahumado like an old black rock. Goyeto had seven knives, which he wore on a narrow belt, each in a soft deerskin sheath. He was bent almost double with age, and only had one eye, but he had been skinning men for Ahumado for many years and was a master with the knives. He carried with him a little pot of blue dye to mark the places that Ahumado wanted skinned. The last man whose skin he had removed entirely was a German who had tried to make away with some rocks he had taken from one of Ahumado's caves. Ahumado did not like his caves disturbed, not by a German or anybody.

It was rare, though, for him to order a whole man skinned--often Goyeto would only skin an arm or a leg or a backside, or even an intimate part. Tudwal didn't expect him to be that hard on the young vaquero, who had only made a small, understandable mistake.

It soon developed that he was right. Ahumado took the little pot of dye and drew a line from the nape of the caballero's neck straight down to his heel. The line was not even an inch wide.

Ahumado lifted the boy's foot, drew the line across the sole of his foot, and stepped around him to the other side. Then he carefully continued the line all the way up to the boy's chin.

Ahumado pulled the boy's face around so he could look right in his eye.

"I do not raise horses for cougars to eat," he said. "I am going to have Goyeto take an inch of your skin. Goyeto is so good with the knives that you may not feel it. But if you do feel it please don't yell too much. If you disturb me with too much yelling I may have him skin your cojones or maybe one of your eyeballs." Then he walked back to his blanket and sat down. He could see that Tudwal was anxious to tell him something. Usually, while a torture was being performed, he made his couriers wait--it was hard to take in the news accurately when a man was screaming only a few feet away. But Tudwal had been sent north, toward the border, and it was never wise to ignore news from the border country.

He motioned to Tudwal, who came hurrying over. Just as he got there old Goyeto made a few cuts and began to peel the little strip of skin down the nape of the young caballero's neck. The boy, not understanding that he was being given only a light punishment, began to scream as loudly as he could. As Goyeto pulled and cut, pulling the strip below the boy's shoulder blades, the boy screamed so loudly that it was impossible to hear Tudwal's news. Before the strip of skin was pulled away past his hips the boy fainted, and Goyeto stopped and squatted on his heels.