A whole winter had passed since the morning in late autumn when the Apaches burst upon us and put an end to the work on which we were sent. It had been a winter of the greatest interest, passed as it was in closest intimacy with Intschu-Tschuna, Winnetou, and his beautiful young sister Nscho-Tschi, the Fair Day, who, when I first came among the Apaches, and was still under sentence of death as a traitor and a thief of their lands, had been my gentle nurse through a long and dangerous fever.
Winnetou had not only taught me the Apache tongue, but also all that skill in hunt and warfare which has been the Indian's inheritance for countless generations, and of which he was a master. Intschu-Tschuna made me wise in the lore of his people, and the sweet Fair Day showed me that a loving daughter and sister, a true-hearted and gentle maiden, was to the red Indian, as to the white, his most precious possession.