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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Red Mustang, by William O. Stoddard
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Red Mustang
+
+Author: William O. Stoddard
+
+Release Date: October 30, 2010 [EBook #33897]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RED MUSTANG ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Edwards, Barbara Kosker and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+ THE RED
+
+ MUSTANG
+
+ _by_ W. O. STODDARD
+
+
+
+
+THE RED MUSTANG
+
+
+
+
+ HARPER'S YOUNG PEOPLE'S SERIES
+ NEW LARGE-TYPE EDITION
+
+ TOBY TYLER                      James Otis
+
+ MR. STUBBS'S BROTHER            James Otis
+
+ TIM AND TIP                     James Otis
+
+ RAISING THE "PEARL"             James Otis
+
+ ADVENTURES OF BUFFALO BILL      W. F. Cody
+
+ DIDDIE, DUMPS AND TOT           Mrs. L. C. Pyrnelle
+
+ MUSIC AND MUSICIANS             Lucy C. Lillie
+
+ THE CRUISE OF THE CANOE CLUB    W. L. Alden
+
+ THE CRUISE OF THE "GHOST"       W. L. Alden
+
+ MORAL PIRATES                   W. L. Alden
+
+ A NEW ROBINSON CRUSOE           W. L. Alden
+
+ PRINCE LAZYBONES                Mrs. W. J. Hays
+
+ THE FLAMINGO FEATHER            Kirk Munroe
+
+ DERRICK STERLING                Kirk Munroe
+
+ CHRYSTAL, JACK & CO.            Kirk Munroe
+
+ WAKULLA                         Kirk Munroe
+
+ THE ICE QUEEN                   Ernest Ingersoll
+
+ THE RED MUSTANG                 W. O. Stoddard
+
+ THE TALKING LEAVES              W. O. Stoddard
+
+ TWO ARROWS                      W. O. Stoddard
+
+ HARPER & BROTHERS
+ PUBLISHERS
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: "NOW FOR SANTA LUCIA!"]
+
+
+
+
+ THE
+ RED MUSTANG
+
+
+
+
+ BY
+ WILLIAM O. STODDARD
+
+ Author of "THE TALKING LEAVES"
+
+
+
+
+ ILLUSTRATED
+
+
+ [Illustration]
+
+
+
+ HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
+ NEW YORK AND LONDON
+
+
+
+
+ THE RED MUSTANG
+
+ Copyright, 1890, by Harper & Brothers
+ Copyright, 1918, by William O. Stoddard
+ Printed in the U. S. A.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+ CHAPTER                                                PAGE
+
+       I. THE HORSE AND HIS RIDER                          1
+
+      II. HOW CAL EVANS RODE FOR HELP                     15
+
+     III. THE BAND OF KAH-GO-MISH                         23
+
+      IV. THE GARRISON OF SANTA LUCIA                     27
+
+       V. CAL AND THE CAVALRY AND THE RED MUSTANG         32
+
+      VI. THE PERIL OF SANTA LUCIA                        38
+
+     VII. BOUND FOR THE BORDER                            51
+
+    VIII. GETTING READY TO CHASE KAH-GO-MISH              56
+
+      IX. THE HACIENDA OF SANTA LUCIA                     63
+
+       X. THE TARGET ON THE ROCK                          67
+
+      XI. THE STORY OF A LOG                              75
+
+     XII. PING AND THE COUGAR                             82
+
+    XIII. THE RETURN OF KAH-GO-MISH                       89
+
+     XIV. THE FOUNTAIN IN THE DESERT                      94
+
+      XV. LOST IN THE CHAPARRAL                          101
+
+     XVI. AN INVASION OF TWO REPUBLICS                   107
+
+    XVII. HOW PING AND TAH-NU-NU GOT TO THE SPRING       114
+
+   XVIII. HOW DICK PLAYED SENTINEL                       120
+
+     XIX. BAD NEWS FOR WAH-WAH-O-BE                      126
+
+      XX. HOW CAL STARTED FOR MEXICO                     132
+
+     XXI. THE MANITOU OF COLD SPRING                     139
+
+    XXII. ACROSS THE DESERT BY NIGHT                     144
+
+   XXIII. AT THE RANCH AND IN THE CHAPARRAL              151
+
+    XXIV. CAL'S NIGHT UNDER A TREE                       157
+
+     XXV. A STRANGE LETTER FROM MEXICO                   163
+
+    XXVI. CAL'S VISITORS AND HIS BREAKFAST               169
+
+   XXVII. THE POST-BOY THAT GOT AWAY                     174
+
+  XXVIII. THE MYSTERY OF THE STICKS                      180
+
+    XXIX. HOW WOULD YOU LIKE FIRE?                       186
+
+     XXX. THE MANITOU WATER                              192
+
+    XXXI. PULL STICK AND THE HURRICANE                   198
+
+   XXXII. UNDER A FALLEN TREE                            204
+
+  XXXIII. LEAVING THE BAD-MEDICINE CAMP                  210
+
+   XXXIV. TAH-NU-NU'S DISAPPOINTMENT                     216
+
+    XXXV. HAND TO HAND BY FIRELIGHT                      222
+
+   XXXVI. HOW CAL WAS LEFT ALL ALONE                     227
+
+  XXXVII. RESCUED BY THE RED MUSTANG                     234
+
+ XXXVIII. HOW THEY ALL REACHED SANTA LUCIA               239
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+ "Now for Santa Lucia!"                            _Frontispiece_
+
+                                                      FACING PAGE
+
+ She and Ping Were Stealing Out upon the Broken Ledge          86
+
+ "Ugh!" They Said, as They Looked at Him. "Kah-Go-Mish"       110
+
+ Cal Took the Leaf, and Used His Knife for a Pen              184
+
+
+
+
+THE RED MUSTANG THE RED MUSTANG:
+
+_A STORY OF THE MEXICAN BORDER._
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE HORSE AND HIS RIDER.
+
+
+Early one bright June morning, not long ago, a high knoll of a prairie
+in southern New Mexico was occupied as it had never been before.
+Rattlesnakes had coiled there; prairie-dog sentinels and wolves and
+antelopes, and even grim old buffalo bulls, had used that swelling mound
+for a lookout station. Mountains in the distance and a great sweep of
+the plains could be seen from it. Never until that hour, however, since
+the grass began to grow, had precisely such a horse pawed and fretted
+there, while precisely such a boy sat in the saddle and looked around.
+
+It is very uncommon for a mustang to show a bright and perfect blood bay
+color, but this one did so, and it seemed as if the glossy beauty of his
+coat only brought out the perfection of his shape and the easy grace of
+his movements. He was a fiery, powerful fellow, and he appeared to have
+some constitutional objection to standing still. The saddle upon his
+back and the bridle held by his rider were of the best Mexican
+workmanship, silver mounted, the very thing to complete the elegance of
+the red mustang.
+
+In the saddle sat a boy about fourteen years of age, a gray-eyed,
+brown-haired young fellow, broad-shouldered and well made, whose
+sunburned face was all aglow with health and who seemed to feel
+altogether at home in the stirrups. He wore a palm-leaf sombrero, a blue
+flannel shirt and trousers, while the revolver case at his belt and the
+carbine slung at his back added to the dashing effect of his outfit.
+
+"Cowboy! I a cowboy!" he exclaimed, as the mustang curveted under him.
+"Look at those cattle! Look at all those horses! I'd rather own Santa
+Lucia ranch and ride Dick all over the range, than to live in any city I
+saw in the Eastern States. Hurrah!"
+
+An exultant, ringing laugh followed the shout, but he still held in
+Dick. He took a long look, in all directions, as if it were part of his
+business to know if anything besides cattle were stirring between that
+knoll and the dim, cloudlike mountain-peaks, or the distant trees which
+marked the horizon of the plain.
+
+Cattle and horses enough were in sight, as he turned from one point of
+the compass to another. The horned animals were not gathered in one
+great drove, but were scattered in larger and smaller gangs, here and
+there, and were busily feeding. Something like half a regiment of
+horses, however, had kept together somewhat better, and the red mustang
+himself seemed to be taking an especial interest in them.
+
+"Be quiet, Dick," said his master. "Are you set on springs?"
+
+A low whinny and something like a suppressed curvet was Dick's reply,
+and it was followed by a sharp exclamation.
+
+"Dick, what's that? What's the matter with Sam Herrick?"
+
+At the same instant Dick was wheeled in an easterly direction and was
+permitted to bound away to meet a horse and rider who were coming
+towards him at furious speed.
+
+Hardly three minutes later both reins were drawn so suddenly as almost
+to compel the two quadrupeds to sit down.
+
+"What's the matter, Sam?"
+
+"Indians, Cal, Indians!"
+
+The news was of an exciting character and was given with emphasis, but
+neither the voice nor the face of the black-bearded, undersized,
+knotty-looking man who gave it betrayed the least trace of emotion. It
+was as if he were mentioning some important but altogether
+matter-of-course part of a cowboy's daily business. He added, in even a
+quieter tone and manner, as his horse came to a standstill, "I scored
+one of 'em. They've kind o' got the lower drove, but mebbe they won't
+drive 'em far. We can race these hosses into the timber. That's what I
+came for, and I'm right down glad you're here to help."
+
+Cal's eager young face glowed with something more than health, and his
+eyes were flashing, but he made an effort to seem as calm and
+unconcerned as Sam Herrick himself.
+
+"How far away are they now?" he asked, as he followed Sam's quick dash
+towards the drove of horses.
+
+"Mebbe a mile 'n a half. Mebbe not so much. Mebbe some more. All of 'em,
+except the braves that took after me, went for hosses and fresh beef, or
+seemed to. Guess we'll have time."
+
+"Will they get many cattle? Were there enough of them to gather the
+whole drove?"
+
+"They won't gather any cattle. It's a kind of bufler hunt for 'em. Lots
+of beef handy. They won't think of driving off any horned critters. Too
+slow, my boy. They'll take all the hosses they can get, though, and load
+'em up, too."
+
+Cal's face was in strong contrast with the dark, almost wooden sternness
+of the one he was looking into when he asked:
+
+"Sam, did you say you killed one?"
+
+"Can't say. Guess not. I meant to mark him, but it was his pony that
+seemed to go down. Didn't either of 'em get up, that I saw. He was an
+awful fool to follow me in the way he did."
+
+Sam was shouting at the horses between his short, jerky sentences, and
+his long-lashed, short-handled whip was whirling and cracking in a way
+that they seemed to understand.
+
+"How many were there of them?" asked Cal, the next opportunity he had.
+
+"Hosses? Well, they must have scooped the eastern drove. More'n a
+hundred head. We've got about two hundred here, but your father's lost
+some real good ones, this time. No fault of mine."
+
+"I didn't mean horses," said Cal. "How many Indians?"
+
+"Oh, the redskins?" said Sam, with a tremendous crack of the long whip.
+"Nobody can guess how many. They seemed to swarm all around. 'Paches, of
+course, but it's a curiosity where they came from. We must work, now.
+Further to the left, Cal. That's it. They're started. What are those
+mules halting for!"
+
+Nearly a score of long-eared fellows knew, in half a minute more, why
+they were trying to reach the woods ahead of the horses. It must be
+dreadfully aggravating to any mule to hear such a yell as that of Sam
+Herrick behind him, and to feel himself whip-stung somewhere at the same
+moment.
+
+Cal Evans whooped and shouted remarkably well, but there was something
+sepulchral and savage and startling in the sounds with which Sam
+encouraged the whole drove to reach the long, irregular line of trees
+and bushes, half a mile to the southward.
+
+"Keep it up, Cal! Whoop it! They're all a-going. Never mind any cattle.
+Whoop it!"
+
+"There come the redskins!" shouted Cal, at that moment, and then he
+seemed to almost hold his breath.
+
+"I saw 'em," coolly responded Sam. "We'll reach good cover before they
+get here. The drove's running fine."
+
+Sam was cool enough, but every muscle of his wiry body seemed to be
+uncommonly alive, and the horse he was on dashed hither and thither as
+if he also understood the matter.
+
+"They're gaining on us," shouted Cal, at the end of another minute.
+"More'n a dozen of 'em. What can we two do against so many?"
+
+"Keep cool, Cal. I'll show you when we get to the timber," replied Sam.
+"We're going to save every hoof of this lot, but they may get away with
+the other drove. I'm only half sure 'bout that, though."
+
+The mob of mules and horses before them had been whipped and shouted
+into a furious run, and the thud of their hoofs was worth hearing. The
+best runners were streaming out ahead, and the heavier, slower animals
+were sagging behind as a sort of rear-guard. Sam worked vigorously for
+the rescue of those slow horses, and he hardly turned his head to take a
+look at the Indians. Cal imitated him as well as he could, except about
+the looking, and with every bound of the red mustang he justified Sam's
+remark:
+
+"He rides like an Indian. Isn't he a fine young feller? Reckon the old
+colonel 'll say I was right. I'll save his boy for him if I have to lose
+the whole drove--and my own hair, too; but they won't get that for
+nothing."
+
+Cal Evans could not know what was passing in the mind of the swarthy
+cowboy. His own brain and every nerve of his body seemed to be all a
+tingle of excitement. He was now able to think about it and to be proud
+that he felt no fear. That is, no fear concerning anything but the
+horses.
+
+On, on, on, went that tumultuous race, and the line of forest was very
+near now. It was a sort of natural barrier, stretching across the plain
+as if put there to check the sweep of "norther" storms and prairie
+fires, and any sort of stampedes. The middle of it was a winding ravine
+or slough, and at some seasons it was a river, instead of a string of
+ponds for buffalo wallows. All the wild or tame quadrupeds on that plain
+knew the value of Slater's Branch, and some of them, and all of the men,
+knew that it never quite went dry, and that its faculty to become a
+river could be exercised at any time on short notice, when the snow in
+the mountains melted rapidly or when a cloud-burst came on this side of
+the Sierra.
+
+The trees and bushes knew all about Slater's Branch, and they came and
+settled for life on its banks, making a timber-belt thick and tall, with
+here and there dense undergrowths for the deer to lie in.
+
+Cal Evans could not quite understand the present value of that line of
+forest, and yet he felt that it had a sort of sheltering look, and he
+was particularly glad to be galloping nearer and nearer, for there was
+an unpleasant chorus of whoops and yells only about a quarter of a mile
+behind him, and it was manifestly growing louder.
+
+"Cal," growled Sam Herrick, "they've gobbled hosses enough for this
+trip. They can't have any more out of your father's corral. The critters
+are getting into cover. Keep cool, Cal. We may have to throw lead, some;
+but I reckon not much."
+
+"Won't they follow us into the woods, then?" asked Cal, doubtfully.
+
+"That's the question," replied Sam. "If they're young bucks they may;
+but not if there's a chief or an old brave among 'em. I'll show you."
+
+Cal was conscious of understanding the feelings of young braves who
+needed an old chief to hold them back. He knew that it would be almost a
+disappointment if he and Sam should succeed in saving the horses without
+any shooting. He had no desire to hurt anybody or to be hurt, but then
+the idea of a skirmish and a victory and all that sort of glory made him
+think of all the Indian battles he had ever read about.
+
+Sam Herrick was armed to the teeth, as became a cowboy in that region,
+and yet it had been a long time since any hostile savages had troubled
+it. The herds and droves had multiplied, year after year, almost
+unmolested, for the Apache bands were either driven over the Mexican
+border, or into Arizona, or were gathered on their reservations. If Cal
+had been asked, that morning, why he carried his own weapons, his best
+excuse would have been "I thought I might hunt a little," and his real
+reason would not have been told unless he had said: "I love a gun, and
+I'd rather carry one than not, and a fellow can keep thinking what he'd
+do with it if he had a chance."
+
+He had not tried to do any hunting, but his chance to do something else
+had come, or it looked like it, very suddenly.
+
+"There, Cal. Glad we're here--"
+
+Sam Herrick said that as he reined in his horse and sprang to the
+ground. Cal followed his example, and one glance around him made him
+draw a breath of relief. There were great oaks, in all directions.
+Several of the largest had fallen before the hands of time and some
+strong wind, and he and Sam had ridden in behind them, followed by a
+gust of angry whooping.
+
+"Take your tree, Cal," said Sam, as he raised his repeater and sent a
+warning shot in the direction of the whoops. "Now, my boy, if you was
+one of them 'Paches, how'd you feel about riding into short range of two
+good rifles, knowing what lead'll do for a careless Indian?"
+
+"I'd think twice about it," said Cal, "and so 'll they; but they may
+ride into cover above or below us, and creep up. There's more than a
+dozen of 'em."
+
+"Another time, perhaps, they might," said Sam, "but this isn't that
+other time. They haven't any to spare for scouting and skirmishing if
+they're to get away with their plunder. You and I can stand 'em off. Let
+drive, Cal! They're riding in too near."
+
+Crack, crack, went the two rifles, although the distance was over three
+hundred yards.
+
+"I declare!" exclaimed Sam. "One of us has knocked over a cow, on the
+rise, away beyond. They've seen it, though, and it's a good notice to
+'em. There's just one thing troubles me. Word ought to be sent to the
+ranch. They ought to be warned before any mischief comes to 'em. I don't
+half know what to do."
+
+He fired again, as if in vexation as well as in doubt, and the red men
+wheeled away as they also were uncertain what to do next.
+
+Cal was silent for a moment, but a terrible thought had flashed into
+his mind. The ranch was his home.
+
+"Sam," he said, in a changed, anxious voice, "is there any danger to
+them? I could dodge these fellows. I could carry the warning."
+
+"I'd never answer to your father for letting you run any risk, Cal.
+You're perfectly safe here, but it might be an awful race to Saint
+Lucy."
+
+Sam Herrick's idea of perfect safety was all his own, but Cal responded:
+
+"I'd be just as safe on Dick's back. There isn't a horse in New
+Mexico--"
+
+"I know," said Sam, "but a bullet or an arrer 'll out-travel any hoss
+living. If you could ride along under cover, to the left, 'bout half a
+mile, and set off behind the herd, without their sighting you--"
+
+"Yes," said Cal, "but why can't you come along and get to the ranch with
+me?"
+
+"My name's Sam Herrick, and I never went back on myself since I was
+born. Colonel Evans's hosses was in my keep, and nigh half on 'em's
+gone, and I'm bound to save the other half. I can stand off this lot of
+red-skins. They haven't an hour to throw away, and they know it. Mount
+and ride! Good-bye, Cal. You're taking all the risk there is."
+
+Cal sprang to the saddle, shook Sam's hand, and cantered away through
+the trees, but he did not hear the muttered words of the man who watched
+his departure.
+
+"I reckon," said Sam, "that was the only way I could have got him to try
+it on. He's clear grit, like his father, and he'd have stayed to fight
+it out in this here death-trap. I couldn't bear to have 'em get him.
+Besides, what I told him may be true. He may be saving the women folks
+at the ranch, and perhaps these chaps won't ride in. I'll give 'em a
+shot, now and then, till he's well away."
+
+Sam seemed wonderfully relieved, as if a great load had been taken off
+his mind. It was a great thing to him to have nothing but Apaches to
+watch and to have no awful responsibility concerning the boyish rider of
+the red mustang.
+
+If one of Sam's troubles had been in some small part removed, there was
+another question which from time to time came to his lips, and he now
+seemed almost satisfied with his own answer.
+
+"Where did they come from? Well, I'd say they was from the
+Mescalero--'Pache reservation, east of the mountains. They got tired of
+being cooped up on poor rations. How'd they get through at El Paso? I
+don't know how. Where'll they go next? I don't know that, neither."
+
+When Sam first saw those Indians that morning, no time at all was given
+him for taking notes. He had been suddenly compelled to put spurs to his
+horse and to ride for his life. He had been followed by the only
+Indians, out of more than a hundred, that were mounted, for all the rest
+were on foot. The hundred, and as many more as there might be, included
+dozens of warriors, besides squaws and children. There were a score of
+heavily laden pack-ponies, besides the ponies ridden by the mounted
+braves, but that band was particularly in need of the kind of property
+which Sam Herrick had been set to guard. He guessed very correctly about
+them. They had broken away from the region of country set apart as
+their reservation, for what they deemed good reasons. They had taken
+with them only such few miserable ponies as a series of disastrous
+seasons had left them.
+
+They saw Sam before he saw them; for, in spite of his customary
+watchfulness, he had been taking things lazily. They had no idea of a
+grand prize so near at hand, and the news brought back by their scouts
+who first made the discovery came as a thrilling surprise to the entire
+band. All the voices of all the dusky men, women, boys, and girls,
+exclaimed "Ugh!"
+
+That was followed by silence and by crouchings in the grass and behind
+ant-hills. The pack-ponies were led back a little distance. A tall
+warrior on foot gave orders with motions of his hands, hardly uttering a
+sound, and, in obedience to his directions, warriors, squaws, boys, and
+even girls, darted off to the right and left.
+
+The horses were feeding quietly, and were not widely scattered, and Sam
+Herrick sat in the saddle, looking at them listlessly and not dreaming
+of peril to them or to himself. He did not see the dusky forms which
+were creeping behind tufts and knolls behind him and away on either side
+of him. So it came to pass that when, at last, all was ready, and the
+braves who had ponies came galloping towards him, it was just as he
+afterwards described it to Cal Evans, "the prairie seemed to swarm with
+them."
+
+His only course was to dash away at the best speed of his horse, and the
+squad that followed him had cared very little whether or not they should
+catch him, except to prevent him from carrying news of their arrival.
+Their miserable used-up ponies had been no match for the racer he was
+riding, but the whole band seemed likely to be better mounted, speedily,
+than it ever had been before.
+
+There was very little whooping done by the horse collectors, for there
+was no wish to cause a stampede. The first horses caught and mounted
+were employed to catch others, and the packs of the pack-ponies were
+rapidly searched for lariats and bridles. Of course there was more than
+a little dismounting as well as mounting, for a number of unbroken colts
+did their entire duty in the way of refusing to be ridden barebacked.
+That would have been better fun at any other time. Just now it was a
+delay, and so a probable danger, and some of the most vigorous kickers
+carried their point, and were driven away instead of being ridden.
+
+There was work for the entire band, for the cattle were next attended
+to, and once more Sam Herrick proved to be a good guesser. Beef was
+wanted, but not on the hoof, and horse after horse and mule after mule
+was laden with fresh meat. A poor, hungry, dismounted gang of Apaches,
+escaped from their reservation limits, had suddenly become almost rich.
+Not a soul of them had ever been taught that there was anything unlawful
+in what they were doing, and there was glee all around, marred only by
+the fact that there was nothing there to cook with, and by the fear that
+the solitary cowboy might get away and bring a lot of angry palefaces to
+take that magnificent plunder away from them. All of that wide plain had
+once been Apache land, with its buffalo, its deer, and its other game,
+and whatever might now be found upon it by a band who considered
+themselves very good Indians, was fair game for them. They believed
+themselves to have been plundered by the whites, and to be now obtaining
+something like a part payment for their lost rights. Sam Herrick,
+standing behind the fallen trees, rifle in hand, was obstinately
+interfering with their effort to secure a much larger and better payment
+of the same old debt.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+HOW CAL EVANS RODE FOR HELP.
+
+
+The excited boy on the red mustang was not allowed to use his own
+judgment altogether as to the right place for riding out from the
+forest. Hundreds and hundreds of cows and bulls and oxen took that
+important matter into their own hoofs. They had not been so sensitive as
+the horses, and had not been whipped or shouted at. They, therefore, had
+not been stampeded so quickly, but they went wild enough as soon as the
+craze took them. They may have been wondering whether a norther or a
+prairie-fire or a travelling earthquake were after Sam and Cal and the
+horses when over the grassy rolls came that squad of yelling red-men.
+The whoops were an awful noise to hear, and one very thin, respectable
+old cow set off at once. In another moment there were tossing horns and
+anxious bellowing in all directions, while some half-grown calves threw
+up their heels and followed the cow. A wiry, vicious-looking ox, with
+only one horn, punched with it the ribs of his next neighbor. That
+example spread like wildfire; and something said by the widest-horned,
+longest-legged, deepest-throated old bull may have really meant:
+
+"Now--ow, every fellow bellow and run like all ruin--uin--uin!"
+
+Run like ruin they did, and, of course, they broke for the timber,
+although the Indians who were threatening Sam Herrick were right ahead
+of them. If a regiment of infantry had been in the way it would have
+been scattered all the same, and what were a dozen or so of mere
+pony-riders? Sam was safe among his fallen trees, but the Indians had to
+get out of the way of that stampede. Cal Evans saw the cattle coming,
+and he had his wits about him.
+
+"Hurrah!" he shouted. "I'll put them between me and the redskins. Now,
+Dick, it's our chance."
+
+The red mustang knew that he had been called upon. There was a whinny, a
+bound, a swift dash of nearly two minutes into the open plain, and then
+a burst of whooping announced that he and his rider had been seen.
+
+What of that, when all that tumult of tossing horns was streaming along
+behind them, putting its barrier between Cal and the nearest Apache
+warrior? Follow him? What would ponies already overdriven be worth
+behind the long, swinging, elastic bounds of the red mustang?
+
+"Hurrah, Dick! There's no other such horse living! Hurrah!"
+
+On, on, on! and there was no need of a trail to follow, for Sam
+Herrick's last advice had been, "Ride due north, Cal, and you won't lose
+any distance."
+
+At that very moment the brave cowboy was watching the course of events
+almost breathlessly, but the only token of excitement was a glitter in
+his black eyes, until he exclaimed, "Colorado! Cal's safe! The critters
+have done it. They've done me a good turn, too, if I can manage to keep
+out of their way."
+
+He sprang to the saddle, and hurried along deeper into the forest. Just
+as the foremost bulls were charging in among the trees, Sam rode out
+into an open place on the bank of Slater's Branch. It was bare of trees,
+but it was thronged with horses, and so was the wide, shallow pool
+beyond; and now they all heard once more the crack of Sam's whip.
+
+"The horned critters won't stop," he said to himself, "till their hoofs
+are in the mud. The redskins may follow 'em, but there's time to put the
+hosses on the other side."
+
+There was fright enough among them to prevent any delay, and the last
+mule was braying upon the opposite bank in reply to a shout of Sam's,
+when the cattle began to show in the open space. Bushes and trees had
+checked the stampede somewhat, but there were bellows of pleasure all
+along the line--bellows of all sorts and sizes, as if calf and cow and
+patriarch alike found mental relief in a sight of Slater's Branch.
+
+"Colorado!" exclaimed Sam; "all the critters are as nigh safe as I can
+make 'em. I'm free, now, to pick my way back to Saint Lucy. Redskins 'll
+go slow through timber with a rifle in it. If the whole band came I'd be
+of no manner of use. They can't catch Dick now he's got a clear start.
+Cal's safe; but what I want now is a fresh mount. I've taken twenty odd
+miles out of this one, and I may have racing to do. That gray's about
+X."
+
+The gray he singled out was caught and saddled and bridled, but no
+ordinary groom could have performed that feat. Neither could any timid
+horseman have compelled the gray to give up the disposition he had for
+dancing horse-waltzes and polkas among the trees. Sam did it, and forced
+him to go ahead with not more than three or four gaits at once.
+
+"More fire and more mischief and more good running in him," he remarked,
+exultingly. "Nothing could catch him, unless it might be Cal's red
+mustang. My chance is a heap better than it was."
+
+He seemed to have a habit of talking to some imaginary companion. Men
+who pass much of their time alone are very apt to get such a habit, but
+men who live among crowds never do. Away he went a mile or more down the
+Branch, until he came to a place where he could cross it almost dryshod.
+
+"The 'Paches won't come this way," he remarked. "They'll either try to
+strike Saint Lucy, or else they'll head for the Mexican line with their
+plunder."
+
+Sam could make his calculations as coolly as if the Apaches had been so
+many peaceable traders, but there was only one thought in the mind of
+Cal Evans. It grew as he rode, and it kept his mind in a sort of mingled
+fever and chill.
+
+"The ranch and everybody in it! If father is there he might take them
+for friendly Indians until it would be too late. He isn't likely to be
+there. Men all gone! Mother is there! Vic is there!"
+
+Cal's thoughts took terrible shapes as he galloped onward, borrowing
+horrors from all he had ever heard of the deeds of pitiless savages.
+More than once a fierce kind of shout burst from him, but he had no
+need for urging Dick. The red mustang's racing-blood was up, as if he
+knew that he were riding a great match against danger and death. He
+responded to his master with a short, excited whinny, and seemed to
+lengthen the splendid stride that swept the miles away. He had been set
+free to run his best and wildest, with only a light weight to carry, and
+the distance vanished behind him.
+
+Cal had ridden Dick more than once when there were running deer to
+catch, and had thought him a miracle of speed, but now there were
+moments when he almost found fault with him for going slowly. That, too,
+with the warm wind whistling past him, and his own best horsemanship
+called for to keep the saddle. He guided Dick a little with reference to
+burrows and ant-hills. He knew that there were no ravines worth
+mentioning. He even kept a lookout for possible Indians between him and
+the northern horizon.
+
+"I'll charge through them if I do see any," he said to Dick.
+
+His face had undergone a change for the time, and was hardly boyish, it
+was so full of desperate determination and awful anxiety. He was riding
+for the safety of his home--of his father, mother, sister. At last
+before him arose a long, gentle roll of prairie that he seemed to know.
+
+"Mother!" burst from him, as Dick sprang up the slope, and at the crest
+of it the good horse was reined in.
+
+"Santa Lucia! The ranch! All right yet, and not an Indian to be seen.
+Hurrah for Dick!"
+
+He deserved it, although he did not look is if he had been specially
+exerting himself. There was hardly a fleck of perspiration upon his
+glossy coat, and he drew only two or three long breaths, not so much
+because he needed them, perhaps, as that he also was relieved at finding
+everything serene about the ranch.
+
+It was, in fact, a very picture of peace that lazy summer morning. The
+stout stockade, containing fully two acres of ground around the spring
+and the buildings, seemed almost deserted, except for a few cows, some
+dogs, and a couple of tethered horses. The house itself, of one story,
+built of large blocks of sunburned "adobe," made three sides of a
+square, the main entrance being through a gateway in the palisades and
+covered veranda that guarded the fourth side. Each face was over fifty
+feet long, and the outer windows were mere slips. The Spanish Mexicans
+who built Santa Lucia, years and years ago, had planned it for a pretty
+strong fort as well as dwelling, and Cal Evans felt very kindly towards
+them at the present moment.
+
+The gate of the stockade was wide open, unguarded, and he dashed through
+it and up to the house in a manner which attracted attention. The sound
+of a piano ceased at once, and a dignified elderly lady, who came out to
+the veranda, was quickly joined by a younger and slighter form.
+
+"Cal," exclaimed the latter, "has anything happened to father?"
+
+"No, Vic, nothing much has happened--not yet--"
+
+"Cal, something has happened! What is it?" said the old lady, with a
+quick flush of anxiety.
+
+"I must out with it. The Apaches have scooped the lower drove, every
+horse. They came for the upper drove, but Sam and I got them into the
+timber--"
+
+"Was he hurt?" asked Mrs. Evans.
+
+"No, mother, but he isn't safe yet--" and Cal went on to give a rapid
+account of all he knew.
+
+Sam Herrick himself could hardly have shown better nerve than did Cal's
+mother. She grew calm and steady-eyed as she listened, but Victoria's
+pretty face paled and reddened again and again, for she was hardly two
+years older than her brother.
+
+"Oh, if only father were here!" she said.
+
+"Where's he gone?" asked Cal.
+
+"Out on the range," replied his mother. "He and all of them will come in
+at the first sign of danger. Everybody knew that the Indians were
+dissatisfied, but I didn't dream of their coming this way."
+
+"They wanted horses, mother, and they may try and strike the ranch,"
+said Cal.
+
+"I think not," she said, decidedly, "but you must carry the news to Fort
+Craig."
+
+"And leave you and Vic here? Never!"
+
+"You must not pause one minute. Not even to eat. Victoria and I and the
+servants can bar the stockade and the house, but no Indians will come.
+If there is really any danger, the sooner the cavalry get here the
+better. Do you think you've tired Dick?"
+
+"No, mother, but it seems as if I'd rather die than leave you here
+alone."
+
+"Ride for our safety, my son. Ride steadily. It's a long push for any
+horse, and Dick must last till you get there."
+
+"Yes, mother," said Cal, "but he can do it."
+
+"Leave your rifle," she added. "You'll not need it, and it's an extra
+weight."
+
+She did not let him forget to water the red mustang, and while Dick was
+drinking she packed a small haversack with cold meat and bread for Cal's
+use on the road.
+
+He was ready to mount.
+
+"Oh, mother, I want to stay and fight for you and Vic--"
+
+"Bring the cavalry! Go!" she said, and it seemed to cost her something
+to say it.
+
+He hardly knew, after he was in the saddle, in what words he put his
+good-bye. He saw two faces that watched him as Dick sprang through the
+gate. It seemed almost as if he had seen them for the last time, and
+then he thought, again, that perhaps the best hope for Santa Lucia and
+all in it had been confided to the swift feet of the red mustang.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+THE BAND OF KAH-GO-MISH.
+
+
+New Mexico is a wonderful country. It is full of places that are worth
+going to see, while some of its other places are well worth keeping away
+from. Down through the territory, east of the middle, runs north and
+south the main range of the Rocky Mountains. Among them rise the Picos
+and the Canadian and several other rivers that run away to the south and
+east. Westerly from the main range, with marvellous valleys between, are
+the Organ Mountains, made to show what strange shapes vast masses of
+rock can be broken into. Farther westward is the great valley of the Rio
+Grande and beyond this arise the Sierra Madre and the Sierra San Juan.
+It is all a wonderful region, with great plains as well as mountain
+ranges, and here and there are found remarkable ruins of ancient
+architecture and every way as remarkable remnants of ancient people.
+Some of the wide levels are mere deserts of sand and gravel--hot,
+barren, terrible--but others are rich with pasturage for horses and
+cattle, as they once were only for innumerable bisons, deer, and
+antelopes.
+
+The Spanish-Mexican hidalgo who had selected Santa Lucia had shown
+excellent judgment, although even in that day he probably had more or
+less trouble with his red neighbors. The present owners and occupants
+of the ranch had had none at all until the very hour when Sam Herrick
+found the prairie around him swarming with them.
+
+As for Sam, he had now no suspicion how near he came to again meeting
+the very Apaches who had chased him and Cal and who were now hurrying to
+rejoin their band. They missed Sam and they brought news back with them
+which seemed to receive the approval of the very dignified warrior who
+had directed in the capture of the horses. He was a proud-looking
+commander now, as he sat upon one of Colonel Evans's best horses to
+listen to their report.
+
+"Ugh!" he remarked. "Kah-go-mish is a great chief. Get ranch first. Then
+go for horses in timber."
+
+There was pride in every tone and movement of Kah-go-mish, for he had
+performed a great exploit, and he and his band were no longer in
+poverty. There were many signs, however, that they had not been
+prosperous upon the Reservation, although the chief still wore the very
+high silk hat which had there been given him. He had tied a green veil
+around it to set off its beauty and his own. His only other garments
+were the well-worn buckskin leggings which covered him from the waist to
+the knee, and a pair of long red stockings through which he had thrust
+his arms to the shoulder. Openings in the soles let out the hands, with
+which he gesticulated in explanation of orders which were promptly
+obeyed.
+
+About thirty warriors, now well mounted and all pretty well armed,
+whirled away northerly, with Kah-go-mish at their head, and their
+purpose did not require any explanation.
+
+Half as many more braves and all the squaws, boys, and girls proceeded
+to complete the beef business. They did it with great rapidity and
+dexterity, and then they, with the horses, dogs, and children, trailed
+away in a caravan that was headed almost due south. It was a very
+picturesque caravan all the time, but it looked more so than ever when
+it halted, after a while, on the bank of Slater's Branch.
+
+Some very good people had been interested in the reservation set apart
+for those Apaches, and had gathered contributions of civilized clothing
+for them. It had not been in rebellion against anything of that sort
+that Kah-go-mish and his people had run away, for the miscellaneous
+goods from away Down East helped the picture at Slater's Branch
+amazingly. The hat and stocking legs had helped the appearance of the
+chief himself, but other things had done more for a fat and very dark
+lady whom he had addressed as Wah-wah-o-be. The many-ribboned straw
+bonnet upon the head of the severe-faced wife of Kah-go-mish was fine.
+So was the blue calico dress with the red flannel skirt over it, and the
+pony she rode seemed to be afraid of the whole outfit. Near her, upon
+two other ponies, sat a boy and girl. They were apparently younger, a
+little, than Cal and Victoria Evans. They were hardly as good-looking,
+in some respects, and were dressed differently. Among the charities at
+the Reservation had been a bale of second-hand trousers, of the style
+worn nowadays by boys, reaching to the knee. The young lady wore a pair
+of these, and with them a dress of which any Mescalero girl might have
+been vain. A piece of yard-wide red cotton, three yards long, had a hole
+in the middle for the head to pass through. When proper armholes were
+added and a belt of embroidered antelope skin confined the loose cloth
+at the waist, what more was needed by the bright-eyed daughter of
+Kah-go-mish?
+
+The boy on the other pony--Well, he wore another pair of second-hand
+trousers. They had been planned for a man and were large in the waist,
+requiring a belt, but had been altered to the complete style by cutting
+them off just below the knee. The pony he rode was one of the nearly
+worn-out fellows that had travelled all the way across the mountains
+from the Reservation. He and Cal Evans had been within a few miles of
+each other that morning. Both were uncommonly vigorous young fellows, of
+whom their parents had a right to be proud, but it was not easy to
+discover many points of resemblance between them. There did not seem to
+be the least probability that they would ever be much thrown into each
+other's society; but then no young fellow of fourteen knows precisely
+who his future friends are to be, or where he is to meet them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+THE GARRISON OF SANTA LUCIA.
+
+
+Fully six miles from the threatened home of the Evans family there was a
+deep, round sink-hole, shaped like a funnel. Nobody knew exactly when or
+how it was made, but down at the weedy bottom of it lay the body of an
+Indian pony, and over that there leaned a very tall man.
+
+Up at the margin of the sink-hole were four horses, and three of them
+had riders.
+
+"Well, colonel, how does it pan out?" asked one of the mounted men.
+
+"Either Cal or Sam Herrick did it. Hit him right between the eyes.
+'Tisn't two hours since it was done. The critter rolled down here.
+Joaquin, you and Key ride for the ranch. Tell Mrs. Evans I'll scout a
+little and be right there."
+
+"All right, colonel," shouted one of the horsemen.
+
+"Si, señor," responded the other.
+
+The first was a brawny, freckled old fellow, with nothing to mark him
+for notice but a jaunty sort of roll and swagger, even in the saddle.
+The second speaker was an American, of the race that fought with
+Hernando Cortes for the road to the City of Mexico. He may or may not
+have been a full-blooded Tlascalan, but there was a fierce, tigerish
+expression on his face as he glanced at the dead pony. His white teeth
+showed, also, in a way to indicate the state of his mind towards the
+tribe the pony's owner belonged to, but the words he uttered carried a
+surprise with them. Who would have thought that so sweet and musical a
+voice could come from such a thunder-cloud face?
+
+Key and Joaquin galloped away, and Colonel Evans climbed up out of the
+sink-hole.
+
+"Somebody coming," suddenly exclaimed the remaining horseman.
+
+"Reckon it must be Sam."
+
+"Looks like him, Bill," said the colonel. "Coming on the run."
+
+"We'll know now!" and Bill's words came out in a harsh, rasping voice
+that matched exactly with his long, thin body and coarse yellow hair.
+
+The colonel stood by his horse waiting for Sam. Nobody who saw him once
+was likely to forget him. His eyes and hair were like Cal's, but the
+likeness did not go much further. There was silver in his heavy beard
+and mustache, and his eyebrows were bushy, giving him a stern, and, just
+now, a threatening expression. More than that, Colonel Abe Evans, old
+Indian trader and ranch owner, stood six feet and seven inches, although
+he was so well proportioned that at a little distance he did not seem
+unusually large. As to his strength, his men may have exaggerated a
+little, now and then, but they declared that whenever a horse tired
+under him he would take turns and carry the horse, so as not to lose
+time. He hated to lose anything, they said, but most of all he hated to
+lose his temper.
+
+There were signs that he was having some difficulty in keeping cool just
+now, but his voice was steady, as yet.
+
+"Is that your work?" he asked, as Sam reined in and stared down at the
+dead pony in the sink-hole.
+
+"Colorado!" exclaimed Sam. "That's where that 'Pache went to. Hit the
+pony, did I? 'Peared to go out of sight powerful sudden."
+
+He paused for a moment, and he wiped his forehead, but there was a
+steely light beginning to dance in the eyes of Colonel Evans, and the
+cowboy continued: "No manner of use blinking it, colonel. The lower
+drove's gone. Took me by surprise. Reg'lar swarm. I reached the upper
+drove in time and stampeded it across Slater's Branch. Every hoof."
+
+"Did they follow you?"
+
+"Oh, yes, a gang of 'em, but Cal and I stood 'em off."
+
+"Cal!" exclaimed his father, with a start and a shiver, but Sam went
+steadily on in a rapid sketch of the morning's adventures.
+
+"Sam Herrick," said the colonel, "keep the gray you're on. It's your
+horse. I can read the whole thing like a book. Of course they wanted
+beef and horses, but they may go for the ranch. Come on!"
+
+There was an angry shake, now, in the deep, ringing tones of his voice,
+and the veins in his forehead were swelling. He sprang to the saddle of
+the broad-chested, strong limbed thoroughbred held for him, and that
+seemed just the horse for the strongest man in southern New Mexico.
+
+"Sam," said he, as they rode away, "what's your opinion?"
+
+"Cal got there safe, long before the redskins could. We can do it, too,
+if they worked long enough over their beef. If we get there first, we
+can hold Saint Lucy against twice as many. But if we don't--"
+
+Neither of those horsemen said another word after that. Sam knew no more
+than the rest did of what was actually going on at the ranch.
+
+More than a little had been going on, and with quite remarkable results.
+
+Hardly had Cal disappeared through the gateway of the stockade before
+the two in the veranda turned and looked wistfully at one another.
+
+"Mother," said Victoria, "do you think there is really any danger?"
+
+"Terrible danger, my dear," said Mrs. Evans, with a quiver in her firm
+lips.
+
+"Then what made you send Cal away? Oh, mother!"
+
+"We are as safe, almost, without him as with him, and the whole valley
+is in danger until the army officers are warned. They believe that
+everything is quiet."
+
+"How I wish they were here! And father!"
+
+"Victoria," exclaimed Mrs. Evans, with a face that grew very pale, "he
+went to look at the lower drove, the one that the savages have
+captured."
+
+"Sam didn't see him, or Cal would have said so. Mother, you don't
+believe they killed him?"
+
+There was a strange look in the resolute face of Mrs. Evans.
+
+"Vic," she said, "I don't believe they have touched him. He's not the
+man to be caught. We must work, though, for they'll be here pretty
+soon. We must bar the gate, first, and any prowling Indian needn't be
+told that there are only women behind the stockade."
+
+Vic's quick dash for the gate expressed her feelings fairly, but she put
+up the bars of the gate with more strength and steadiness than might
+have been expected of her. But for the reddish tint of her hair she
+would have looked even more like Cal than she did when she turned and
+said: "There, mother, that's done. Now, what?"
+
+Mrs. Evans studied the gate for a moment.
+
+"Vic," she said, "everybody must help. I think we can hold the ranch.
+Come with me."
+
+In half a minute more they were standing in the courtyard of the adobe,
+explaining the terrors of the situation to a group of five startled and
+frightened women. Seven in all, they were the only garrison of Santa
+Lucia, and Kah-go-mish and his warriors were coming to surprise it. How
+long could they hold out?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+CAL AND THE CAVALRY AND THE RED MUSTANG.
+
+
+"Sixty miles to Fort Craig!"
+
+That had been the mournful exclamation of Cal Evans, a little distance
+from Santa Lucia. Then he made a brief calculation, and added: "Dick has
+had ten miles of easy going and ten miles of running. Not many horses
+could stand sixty more. I believe he can, but I'll take care of him, as
+mother said. It's awful! I don't wonder some people want to kill all the
+Indians, right away. I do."
+
+He had some lessons yet to learn about Indians, but now he reined in the
+red mustang to a steady-going gallop instead of the free gait that Dick
+was inclined to take.
+
+An hour went by, and it was a trying hour to Cal Evans, crowded as his
+mind was with fears and with imaginations concerning what might be doing
+at Santa Lucia.
+
+"Wasn't mother beautiful!" was one thought that came to him. "Vic, too,
+and they're brave enough, and they both know how to shoot, but what can
+they do against Indians?"
+
+He felt that he was doing his duty. He was, at all events, obeying his
+mother. He was a boy who wished to be in two places, but his mind grew
+calmer with the regular beat of Dick's hoofs. A sharp appetite came,
+too, and put him in mind of his haversack. He ate as best he could, and
+the next stream of water he came to invited him to dismount and get
+some, and to let Dick do the same and rest a little. It was very hard
+work to stand still and eat cold meat and bread, and pat Dick and think
+about Santa Lucia.
+
+After that the red mustang was pulled in for a breathing-spell at the
+end of every half-hour, or a little more, but every minute expended in
+that way seemed like an hour to Cal Evans.
+
+Noon came and went, as the long miles went by. Groves, tree-lined
+sloughs, gangs of deer to the right and left, hardly attracted a glance
+from the sore-hearted young messenger. Mountain-tops, easterly, that had
+been cloudy in the morning, were showing more distinctly against the
+sky, when Cal at last pulled the red mustang suddenly in.
+
+"A smoke!" he exclaimed. "It can't be Indians. No danger of their being
+away up here. I'll find out."
+
+Courageously, but warily, he rode some distance nearer, and he was just
+about to dismount when a loud voice hailed him.
+
+"Hullo! What are you scouting around for? What are you afraid of?"
+
+"Hurrah!" shouted Cal, for the hitherto unseen horseman, who now came
+out from behind a clump of mesquit trees, wore the yellow-trimmed
+uniform of the United States cavalry.
+
+Explanations followed fast, and were made more full in front of the
+camp-fire, where rations were cooking for a score or more of what Cal
+thought were the best-looking men he ever saw. That is, they were the
+very men he wanted to see, and the bronzed, gray-bearded captain in
+command of them was really a fine-looking veteran.
+
+"So," he said, "my young friend, we ought to have set out a day earlier.
+Colonel Sumner had heard that a band had been seen near El Paso, days
+ago, and we were coming your way. Your father isn't the man to be taken
+by surprise. He can hold the ranch."
+
+"Father isn't there, Captain Moore!" exclaimed Cal.
+
+"I'll trust him to get there, then. That's a splendid fellow you're
+riding. What did you say? Twenty miles and more before you left Santa
+Lucia? Forty odd, since, to this place. Pretty near seventy miles.
+That's enough for him or you for one day."
+
+It was in vain for Cal to plead the peril of his family. The cavalry had
+made a long push and must rest their horses. One tough fellow was given
+only time to eat before he was again mounted, on a spare horse fresher
+than the rest, with despatches for the commander at Fort Craig.
+
+Dick was provided with ample rations, and so was his master; but Cal
+Evans needed all the cheerful encouragement of Captain Moore to keep his
+heart from sinking under his heavy forebodings concerning the fate of
+Santa Lucia.
+
+The nearer the sun sank to the horizon the more strongly he felt that it
+was impossible for him to spend that night in the cavalry camp. He said
+so to Captain Moore, stoutly denying that his day of hard riding had
+wearied him.
+
+"I know how you feel," said the kindly veteran at last. "There'll be a
+good moon, and you know the way. I'll let you have one of our led
+horses. You mustn't ride to death that red beauty of yours. We'll bring
+him on. Tell your father we shall start at sunrise, and that I've sent
+word to the fort."
+
+Cal was sincerely grateful, but while a soldier was saddling for him a
+good-looking black, he went to say good-bye to Dick, praising and
+caressing him in a manner that brought from him whinny after whinny of
+good-will.
+
+His master had not known how tired he was himself until he mounted the
+black--so stiff, so sore, so almost without any spring left in him; but
+he felt better the moment the horse began to move under him.
+
+"Take your bearings by the north star," shouted Captain Moore. "Go easy
+and you'll get there. Then I think you'll want to go to bed."
+
+Cal thanked him and cantered away. He was glad enough of the glorious
+moonlight and of the stars, especially the north star. He was carrying
+news of help found quicker than he had expected. What then? Would he
+find Santa Lucia as he had left it? Would it be besieged? How many
+Apaches might he not fall in with before getting there? He knew that
+they never rode around after dark, and that was something.
+
+"If I don't get too tired and tumble off," he said to himself, "and if
+the black holds out, I'll get home before daylight, and I'll ride
+through to the gate if the Apaches are camped all around the ranch."
+
+The black galloped steadily. He was a good horse, but he lacked the
+easy swing of the red mustang, and there was more weariness in riding
+him. He was allowed to rest, at intervals, and Cal tried hard not to ask
+too much of him.
+
+"Captain Moore said about forty miles to the ranch," remarked the young
+rider to his horse, at last. "You must have done about half of them.
+You're doing well enough, but I never felt so tired in all my life. I'm
+going to make a good, hard push of about ten miles, if it's only to keep
+me from going to sleep."
+
+The push was made and the black stood it well enough, but it grew harder
+and harder on Cal. At the end of it he knew that he could not be more
+than ten miles from the ranch, but he found that the black was disposed
+to walk. It might be unwise to urge him any more. At the same time every
+mile was probably bringing Cal and his news within more or less danger
+of Apache interruption. Oh, how he longed for a glimpse of the Santa
+Lucia stockade! Oh, how sleepy he was, and how hungry and how sick at
+heart!
+
+As the black plodded onward he caught himself nodding heavily, and he
+recovered his senses in the middle of a half-waking dream in which he
+had seen the cavalry arriving and chasing away Indians.
+
+"I may fall off," he said, "if I try that again. I'm afraid if I did
+fall I couldn't climb into the saddle again. I'm stiff and numb all
+over."
+
+Plod, plod, plod, on went the very good-natured black, and Cal did not
+know how long it was before he had another dream.
+
+It seemed to him as if the red mustang came and walked along with the
+black, and as if he himself had said: "Hullo, Dick. Glad you've come.
+You can carry me easier, and you know where to go."
+
+Then, in the dream, Cal rode the red mustang.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE PERIL OF SANTA LUCIA.
+
+
+After Cal rode away from the cavalry camp on the black, Captain Moore
+made a number of remarks about him.
+
+"Plucky boy," he said. "Tough as whipcord, but he'll be pretty well used
+up before he gets to the ranch."
+
+The other officers and the men agreed with their commander in all he had
+to say about Cal Evans or about his horse.
+
+The red mustang was in the corral. He had been tethered, by a long
+lariat, to the same pin with a mean-looking, wiry little pack-mule, and
+he had given early tokens that he did not like his long-eared company.
+
+Dick had travelled fast and far since sunrise of that day. Cal had given
+him a friendly rubbing down after supper, and he felt pretty well. One
+admiring cavalryman had given him a full army ration of corn, and
+another had brought him some nice pieces of hard-tack, while several
+more had said things about his shape and color and the miles he had
+travelled, all in a way to rouse the jealousy of a sensitive mule. After
+the men went away, Dick considered himself entitled to lie down and did
+so, but the mule did not. There was moonlight enough to kick by, and it
+was not long before the red mustang was suddenly stirred up. He was not
+hurt, for that first kick had been seemingly experimental, as if the
+mule were getting the exact range of Dick's ribs. A low squeal expressed
+his satisfaction at his success, but it was followed by a
+disappointment, for his own lariat was several feet shorter than the
+brand-new one given to the red mustang, and the latter had stepped
+almost out of danger. It was almost, but not quite, and Dick was
+compelled to keep in motion to get out of harm's way. It was too bad not
+to have quiet, after so hard a day's work, but that mule was a
+bitter-hearted fellow. Dick moved along, backing away and watching, and
+the mule slowly, sullenly, followed him. Santa Lucia was a better place
+than this, Indians or no Indians. Dick had seen Cal depart, and he had
+felt deserted and lonely then, but his homesickness increased rapidly
+under the treatment he was receiving from the wickedly perverse beast he
+was tied up with.
+
+Back, back, back, until both lariats were tightly wound once more around
+the pin. They were shortened eight inches by that twist, and the next
+wind around shortened them nine inches more. The mule grew wickeder and
+made a dash that did not cease until three more twists had shortened the
+lariats. Meantime there had been all sorts of jerks and counter-jerks
+upon the wooden pin, and it was getting loosened in the soft ground.
+Winding up the lariats, the game went on until both tethers were short
+indeed, and that of the mule was less than three yards long. The strain
+of it disgusted him, and he gave a plunge and pull against it just as
+Dick was drawing hard in the opposite direction. Up came the pin, but
+once more the mule was disappointed. The next dash he made brought him
+and Dick to a stand, for they were on opposite sides of the trunk of an
+oak that caught the lariats in the middle. They could bring their heads
+and shoulders together, but the tree protected Dick from his enemy's
+heels. The tree and the knotted lariats held hard, and the red mustang
+could not prevent that ugly head from coming close to his own.
+
+Would he bite?
+
+No, he was a bad mule, but the mischief in him, except such as naturally
+settled in his heels, was of another kind. He preferred to gnaw a hide
+lariat around a horse's neck rather than the neck itself. Dick was
+compelled to stand still while the gnawing proceeded, and it was very
+unpleasant.
+
+The mule had good teeth, and he knew something about lariats. It was
+remarkable how short a time elapsed before, as Dick gave a sudden start,
+he found himself free.
+
+Liberty was a good thing, but that camp was not an attractive place for
+a horse which had seen his master ride away from it. Besides, it
+contained the tormenting mule, and all of the red mustang's thoughts and
+inclinations turned towards Santa Lucia.
+
+Notable things had occurred there since Dick and Cal came away, and
+after Mrs. Evans made her courageous appeal to her five servants. Four
+of these were evidently Mexicans, and the fifth declared her own
+nationality in the prompt reply that she made to her mistress.
+
+"Wud I foight, ma'am? 'Dade'n I'll not be skelped widout foighting. I
+want wan of thim double goons, and the big wash toob full of b'ilin'
+wather and the long butcher knife and the bro'd axe. I'll make wan of
+thim 'Paches pale like a potaty. There's plinty of good blood in Norah
+McLory."
+
+Evidently there was, but Mrs. Evans did not feel so sure of the others.
+Anita, Manuelita, Maria, and a very old woman spoken to as Carlotta,
+seemed at first disposed to call upon an immense list of saints rather
+than listen to a plan which their mistress tried to explain, but Norah
+succeeded in shutting them up.
+
+It was a remarkable military plan, and, when it was all told, "Oh,
+mother!" exclaimed Vic, and in a moment more she added: "Splendid!"
+
+"'Dade, an' I'm ready, ma'am," said Norah, as she made a dash for the
+boiler, and heaped the stove with fuel. "Faith, I'd rather bile thim
+than ate thim."
+
+A bustling time of it followed, and courage grew with work. Weapons were
+plentiful, and the stockade had been regularly pierced for rifle
+practice. All that was needed there or in the adobe was a supply of
+riflemen. There was a tall flagstaff at one corner of the adobe, but its
+halliards had swung emptily for many a day.
+
+"Mother," said Vic, at the end of about twenty minutes, "what will they
+say?"
+
+"The Indians?" said Mrs. Evans, "They may not come at all. Take your
+father's field-glass and go up to the roof. We must keep a sharp
+lookout. I'll tend to things down here."
+
+Up went Vic, her bright young face all aglow with excitement, and she
+carried Cal's repeating rifle with her, as well as the double
+field-glass with which to sweep the prairie for Indians.
+
+"Not one in sight," she shouted down to her mother. "Guess Cal's safe,
+anyhow. I don't believe they're coming."
+
+She should have questioned Kah-go-mish about that. While she was
+nervously patrolling the roof of the old hacienda and watching for him,
+the prudent leader of the now well-mounted Mescaleros was pushing
+steadily forward. He had given out a careful set of orders, which proved
+his right to be considered an uncommon Apache.
+
+"Ugh!" he said. "No kill. Borrow! Make pale-face lend poor Mescalero
+gun, horse, mule, blanket, knife, cartridges, kettle. Keep 'calp on
+head. No want 'calp now."
+
+He hoped to find the ranch almost if not quite undefended and to take it
+by surprise, getting what he wanted without doing anything to provoke
+the altogether unforgiving vengeance of the military authorities.
+
+Half an hour more went by that was very long to the watchers in the
+adobe.
+
+"Four Indians, mother," shouted Vic, at last, from her station on the
+roof. "'Way off there, eastward. I can't see anything of father or the
+men."
+
+"They will come, Vic. Watch!" replied Mrs. Evans.
+
+"If they were near enough," said Vic, "I'd fire at them. They've
+halted."
+
+They had done so, on a roll of the prairie, for they were a mere
+scouting-party, and they quickly hurried away as if they had an
+unexpected report to make concerning the state of things at Santa Lucia.
+Five minutes later Vic laid down her field-glass and took up Cal's
+rifle.
+
+"More Indians, mother!" she shouted, and the loud report which followed
+testified strongly to the condition of Vic's fighting courage.
+
+Nobody seemed to be hit by that bullet; but the warning shot, long as
+was the range, compelled one Indian to remark:
+
+"Ugh! Kah-go-mish is a great chief! Pale-face heap wide-awake."
+
+"They've halted, mother, but I didn't hit anybody. Hurrah! Hurrah!"
+
+"What is it, Vic?" anxiously inquired Mrs. Evans. "Do you see anybody
+else?"
+
+"Not Indians, this time. On the other side. Key and Joaquin. Perhaps
+they won't dare to ride in."
+
+"Nothing could stop your father."
+
+That was very true, and nothing did. Key and Joaquin had had somewhat
+the start of him, but had been delayed on the way, repeatedly, by the
+necessity of keeping out of sight of a dangerous-looking squad of
+Apaches, so that they were but a little in advance of three more white
+men who quickly rode up.
+
+"Colorado!" exclaimed one of these. "What's lit on to the ranch?"
+
+It was a fair question for Sam Herrick or any other man to ask. A
+wide-winged American flag floated proudly from the flagstaff, at the
+foot of which stood what seemed to be an army officer in very full
+uniform, cocked hat, epaulets, sword, and all. Another flag fluttered at
+the gate, and in front of it paced up and down a sentry in uniform,
+while outside of him, at regular intervals, were ostentatiously stacked
+a complete company's allowance of muskets, bayonets fixed, ready for
+service.
+
+"Colorado!" again exclaimed Sam Herrick; but the angry look was fading
+from the face of his employer. It did not return, even when a score or
+so of yelling Apaches came out in full view at the right.
+
+"Boys," he shouted, "give 'em a volley and ride in. The drove is gone,
+but the ranch is all right."
+
+Crack went the rifles; but the range was long, and not one of the red
+men was harmed. A whoop, a yell, and they wheeled away, for they had no
+idea of storming a stockade defended by an infantry company in addition
+to Colonel Abe Evans and his cowboys.
+
+"Hurrah!" roared the deep voice of the colonel. "There's fun coming!"
+
+Loud rang the answering cheers of the cowboys, but at that instant the
+sentry at the gate threw away his musket, exclaiming: "Howly mother!"
+
+The army officer on the roof made a quick motion as if he were gathering
+his skirts to go down a ladder, and he disappeared, while four soldiers
+inside the stockade dropped their muskets also, and their commander
+ceased a remarkable use she was making of an old drum. The garrison of
+Fort Santa Lucia had been seized with a sudden panic and had
+disappeared, leaving the gate open for the colonel and his men to ride
+in and take possession.
+
+Mrs. Evans had not been in uniform. She had put down her drum, and she
+was now in the doorway ready to meet her husband. Norah had dashed past
+her, exclaiming: "'Dade, ma'am, I'd not let the owld man and the byes
+see me wid the like o' this on me bones."
+
+Reports were quickly exchanged between the colonel and his wife.
+
+"Nothing lost but the horses and a few cattle," he said. "It was just
+like you, Laura. You did the best thing, all around. Cal is safe, but if
+the cavalry come, he and I are going to ride after the redskins with
+'em, far as they go."
+
+"Of course," she quietly responded.
+
+"Laura," said he, "I'm glad all that old army stuff was in the
+storeroom; but I shall not take Major Victoria Evans along. I shall
+leave her here to garrison Santa Lucia, with General Laura Evans as
+commander-in-chief."
+
+Sam Herrick and the other cowboys brought in the stacks of muskets and
+closed the gate.
+
+"All that old iron is good for something, after all. So's the flag,"
+said Bill.
+
+"Colorado!" remarked Sam. "The redskins may think they've struck Fort
+Craig, by mistake."
+
+"They'll smell a mouse," said Key, "and they may not give it up so
+easy."
+
+"If they do try it on," said Sam, "it won't be till about daylight
+to-morrow morning. Let's have something to eat."
+
+"Byes," said Norah, as they entered the kitchen. "Hilp me off wid the
+b'iler. It was put there to cook 'Paches, but I'll brile you some bacon
+instid."
+
+The kitchen table looked warlike enough with its collection of the
+weapons required by Norah, but she was no longer in uniform, and looked
+peaceful. She and her Mexican assistants cooked vigorously, but before
+the coffee was hot the colonel sent for Joaquin.
+
+"Eat your dinner," he said, in Spanish, "and then take a fresh horse and
+ride to warn the upper ranches. We're safe enough; even if they try a
+daylight attack, we can stand 'em off till help can get here. Bring me a
+dozen good men. I'm going to chase that band of redskins, cavalry or no
+cavalry."
+
+"Si, señor," replied Joaquin, and he was quickly away, seeming to hardly
+give a thought to any possible interruption by scouting Apaches.
+
+Some work was done by scouting cowboys that afternoon in the vicinity of
+the ranch. No Indians were seen; but for all that the night which
+followed was not a sleep-night. The men slept fairly well, except the
+sentry whose turn it might be, but they were all dressed and had their
+weapons by them. It was nearly so with the female part of the garrison.
+They did not sleep at all well, but they were all dressed, and they kept
+more guns and swords and axes within grasping distance than did the men.
+
+The dawn came at last, and it did not bring any alarm; but, just as the
+sun was rising, the gate in the stockade swung wide open, and a man
+stepped out, gazing earnestly towards the east.
+
+"Colorado! What's that?" he exclaimed. "I won't rouse the ranch, but it
+beats me all hollow. Hosses. Two of 'em."
+
+There was evidently something curious in the fact that a pair of horses
+were plodding slowly along towards Santa Lucia, all by themselves, at
+that hour of the morning.
+
+Sam stood by the gate as if waiting for an explanation, when there came
+a sound of steps behind him.
+
+"Sam," asked an anxious voice, "do you see anything?"
+
+"I'd say 'twas the red mustang, if there wasn't a pack on him, and a
+black hoss with him. Didn't know you was up, ma'am."
+
+"Cal's mustang, Sam? I've not been abed or asleep."
+
+"Mother, is it Dick? Is it Cal? Are there any Indians?"
+
+"Vic, I'm afraid it's Cal. I'm going to see. He's wounded!"
+
+"Most likely," said Sam, with a sharp change of voice. "They'd better
+turn out. Stay here, madam."
+
+He raised his repeater as he spoke and fired a random shot, the report
+of which brought every soul in Santa Lucia bolt upright, and then he
+started on a swift walk, followed closely by Cal's mother and sister.
+
+There were the two horses, red and black, and Vic reached them first.
+They stood stock-still, as if waiting for her, when she came near, and
+she was sure that the black carried Cal's silver-mounted saddle.
+
+Dick carried Cal!
+
+Was he wounded? Was he dead? How came he on Dick's bare back? A dozen
+excited questions burst from Mrs. Evans and Vic, but no answer came
+until Sam Herrick drew a long breath and responded: "Sound asleep! The
+boy's tired clean out, riding, and Dick's been caring for him. He walked
+as if he was treading among eggs. 'Fraid Cal'd fall off."
+
+There was nobody to tell just how many slow miles Cal had ridden,
+unconsciously, or nearly so, with his arms around Dick's neck. Sam was
+just about to lift him off when the deep voice of Colonel Evans, behind
+him, said: "Don't wake him, Sam; I'll take him. There isn't money enough
+anywhere to buy that red mustang."
+
+Dick held as still as a post while his master was gently removed in the
+strong arms of the old colonel, but the moment that was done he
+accompanied a sharp whinny with a weary attempt to throw up his heels.
+Another pair of arms was around his neck now, however, and Vic tried
+hard to make him understand her intense appreciation of him.
+
+"Hope he isn't hurt," said Sam. "I guess he isn't, nor Cal either."
+
+No, Cal was not hurt, but he was a boy who had been through a tremendous
+amount of excitement, as well as of hard riding. Just as he was being
+carried through the gate he opened his eyes for a moment and saw the
+flag floating over Santa Lucia.
+
+"Glad the cavalry got here," he murmured. "Captain Moore said they'd
+start at sunrise." He saw his mother and Vic, and tried to say
+something, but he was sound asleep again before the smile on his lips
+could be turned into words.
+
+Cal was put upon a bed and his mother sat down by him. Norah McLory had
+teetered fatly around them all the way to the house, whispering
+remarkable exclamations, and she was evidently in great fear, even now,
+of awaking the weary sleeper.
+
+"Wud hot wather do him any good, ma'am?" she huskily suggested.
+
+"Breakfast will, by and by," said Mrs. Evans. "Oh, my boy!"
+
+"Glad the cavalry are coming," said the old colonel, as he turned away
+from gazing down at Cal. "I'll know all about it when he wakes up."
+
+The whole ranch had for many minutes been in a state of turmoil, and
+mere quadrupeds had been left to take care of themselves, for even Sam
+Herrick came pretty near to being excited about Cal. He was out in the
+veranda now, and Cal's watchers heard him exclaim, "Colorado!"
+
+"Something's up," said the colonel, and he and Vic hurried out.
+
+There stood Dick, with no bridle or saddle, but with a look about his
+drooping head which seemed to ask, "Is there anything more wanted of
+me?"
+
+The black waited a few paces behind Dick, as if he also had an idea that
+his task was not completed.
+
+"Dick!" shouted Vic. "What can we do for him, father? Would some milk do
+him any good? Dick, you're the most beautiful horse in the world!"
+
+Milk was not precisely the thing he needed, but Sam led him away, the
+black following; and if rubbing, feeding, watering, and a careful
+inspection of every hoof and joint could do a tired racer any good, all
+that sort of comfort came abundantly to the red mustang.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+BOUND FOR THE BORDER.
+
+
+The warning-shot fired from the roof of the ranch by Major Vic Evans had
+been a great surprise to the Apaches. It had informed them that they
+could not surprise Santa Lucia, and that they were known as enemies. At
+the same time, they had not been supplied with field-glasses for the
+better inspection of the marksman.
+
+Kah-go-mish knew something about the army of the United States.
+Blue-coats at Santa Lucia meant danger to him and his. Loss of horses
+and a possible forced return to the Reservation seemed to stare him in
+the face. Of course, he gave up the ranch, but he had yet a hope
+remaining.
+
+The braves who had chased Sam Herrick that morning had reported one
+lonely cowboy, and no end of horses and cattle stampeded into the timber
+at Slater's Branch. There was the point to strike at, therefore, and
+success was sure if it had not been for the horse from which Sam Herrick
+dismounted when he transferred his saddle to the dancing gray for his
+ride home. He was a good horse, and he had run well when the Apaches
+were behind him. Sam had now left him, but it seemed to him that his
+morning-work had been cut short. Perhaps, too, he had a curiosity as to
+where Sam was riding to upon the gray. At all events, the dashing
+cowboy was not out of sight before the horse he had unsaddled started
+after him.
+
+That was example enough for a drove which was still tremendously nervous
+from a big stampede. Horse after horse and mule after mule set out in a
+lively four-footed game of "follow my leader." Not one of them was
+willing to be left behind to be captured by Indians or by another
+stampede. Even the horned cattle on the opposite bank began to wade
+through the mud of Slater's Branch as if they thought of joining the
+procession. The self-appointed leader of the horses did not see fit to
+take a very rapid gait, but seemed able to follow the trail of Sam
+Herrick to the ford where the cowboy had returned to the other side.
+Here a half hour or so was expended in feeding, neighing, kicking up of
+heels, and other tokens of horse deliberation. Then one and another of
+the more influential members of the drove decided to try the grass
+nearer Santa Lucia, and began to lead their comrades northerly. Sam's
+friend appeared to be superseded in command, but the net result was bad
+for Kah-go-mish. The chief and his warriors were guided well after
+giving up the ranch, and on their arrival at Slater's Branch they found
+the cattle in the timber. A noble herd; endless beef; but all too heavy
+to carry and too slow to be driven by red men who were likely to be
+pursued by cavalry.
+
+Slater's Branch was crossed at once, and all the muddy margin told of
+the horses which had marched away. Where were they now? The puzzle
+deepened as the disappointed braves rode onward down the branch. Even
+at the ford a brace of braves dashed across for a search, but they gave
+it up, and came back disappointed. The escaped drove of horses had been
+under too much excitement to halt long anywhere, and had even enjoyed a
+small stampede, which carried them half-way to the ranch.
+
+"Kah-go-mish is a great chief," sullenly remarked the Apache commander.
+"Cavalry come. Save horses. Ugh! Heap bad luck."
+
+It required what seemed almost like rashness, under such circumstances,
+to linger at Slater's Branch, but the Apaches felt bitterly about being
+robbed in that way of Colonel Evans's larger horse-drove. More cattle
+were slaughtered and more fresh beef was prepared for transportation;
+fires were kindled, and an hour of what might have been precious time if
+any cavalry were near, was spent in cooking and eating.
+
+Keen had been the eyes of Kah-go-mish, and they had given him an
+interpretation of the stacks of bayoneted muskets in front of the
+stockade gate. He knew that the garrison of Santa Lucia consisted, as
+yet, of infantry only, and that he and his braves could finish their
+dinner before the supposed return of the dreaded cavalry.
+
+They ate well, nobody could have disputed that, and then they mounted
+and rode away in high spirits. While the people at the ranch were
+anxiously reasoning as to whether or not their enemies would reappear,
+the exultant Mescaleros were miles and miles nearer, with every hour, to
+the Mexican border, and to the point where they were, in due time, to
+meet their equally happy families. Their camp, that night, was as
+peaceful as if it had been a picnic, and at the earliest dawn of day
+they were stirring again, very much as if they had taken for granted the
+march of Captain Moore and the angry determination of Colonel Abe Evans.
+The air rang with whoops and shouts, and among them could be heard a
+very positive assertion concerning himself from the deep voice of
+Kah-go-mish.
+
+At about the same hour, and in as perfect safety, fires were kindling
+and fresh beef was cooking, and eating began at the camp where
+Wah-wah-o-be and all the family part of the band had passed the pleasant
+summer night. It was a number of miles to the southward; it was nearer
+to the very southern edge of the United States, but over every breakfast
+might have been heard expressions of a general desire to be nearer
+still.
+
+That entire party, as well as the warriors in the other, had dismal days
+of poverty and privation to look back upon. Days when most of them were
+compelled to walk instead of riding, and when footsore squaws were
+forced to carry burdens which were now transferred to the strong backs
+of captured mules and ponies. Walking was over and hunger was gone, and
+even the overworked ponies saw their packs put upon fresher carriers. It
+was a great relief to a poor fellow who had panted under a small hill of
+family property all the way from the Reservation to have nothing now but
+a squaw to carry, or a couple of small boys, or perhaps three girls or
+so. No pony had more than that when all was ready for the day's march.
+
+Several of the captured Evans colts had a busy time that morning. They
+had rebelled too vigorously the previous day, and had reached their
+first Apache camps unbroken. Their time for service had come now,
+however, and they were rapidly instructed how to go along under
+wild-looking riders whom they were unable to throw off. Several there
+were, nevertheless, who earned another day of comparative freedom. Time
+was precious, and too much of it could not be spent in horse-breaking.
+
+"Ugh!" said Wah-wah-o-be. "Pale-face pony kick a heap."
+
+That was when a skilful mustang had pitched a young Apache brave clean
+over his head.
+
+It was a gay cavalcade when at last it got in motion. From one end of it
+to the other there did not seem to be one sign of anxiety. Its immediate
+wants had been provided for wonderfully, and it had great confidence in
+the future. There was something very hopeful to talk about, for every
+Mescalero, young or old, was on tiptoe with eagerness to hear the report
+of the doings of Kah-go-mish and his warriors.
+
+"Sun go down, great chief come," said Wah-wah-o-be, and there was no
+telling what or how much he would bring with him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+GETTING READY TO CHASE KAH-GO-MISH.
+
+
+It was noon when Cal Evans opened his eyes, and even then the lids came
+apart reluctantly. He saw his mother sitting by him, and Vic was peering
+in at the door, but he did not quite understand matters.
+
+"Mother," he said, "are you all safe?"
+
+"Yes, we're all safe--" she began.
+
+"He's awake! Mother, may I come in?" shouted Vic. "Cal! we had such a
+time. We all dressed up in those old uniforms and played soldier. I
+fired at the Apaches from the roof."
+
+Cal struggled to sit up, and found out how sore and stiff he was, while
+he exclaimed:
+
+"Vic, did you? There was an attack? You beat them off?"
+
+"Scared them off," said his mother. "Why, how lame you are!"
+
+"Awful!" he groaned, as he lay back again. "But about the fight--"
+
+"There wasn't any," said Vic, and she added a rapid sketch of the
+garrison--Norah McLory at the gate, and Mrs. Evans with the drum, and
+the Mexican women parading as sentinels.
+
+"Tell us about your ride," she said, as she paused for breath.
+
+"Ride?" he said. "Well, yes, it was a great ride, but I don't know the
+whole of it, myself. How's Dick?"
+
+"Sam says he's all right," said Vic, "and there isn't such another horse
+in all New Mexico."
+
+"Guess there isn't," replied Cal, very emphatically. "The black is a
+good fellow, but it was his gait that made me so sore. I can't turn
+over."
+
+He could tell all that he knew, however, and he could hear all that they
+had to say, and he found that he could sit up when Norah brought in his
+breakfast.
+
+"Hungry? I guess I am. Never was so hungry in all my life. But I'm going
+with father after 'em."
+
+He was as much in need of a thorough rubbing as Dick had been, but when
+Sam Herrick gave it to him, a little later, he had to shut his mouth
+hard, for Sam's gentleness was of a cowboy kind, and he did his whole
+duty. After that was over Cal could walk fairly well, and he went out at
+once for a look at the red mustang, and Vic and his mother went with
+him.
+
+"There he is," he said, "that's a fact, but I can't tell how it came to
+be so. I left him picketed in the corral, at the cavalry camp. He must
+have untied himself and got away."
+
+Cal knew nothing about the teeth of the persecuting mule.
+
+"Did you mount him in your sleep?" asked Vic.
+
+"I don't know," he said. "I was so tired I went to sleep more than once.
+Dreamed, too. It was all a good deal like a dream. Seems so yet, from
+the beginning. I've a kind of memory that Dick came alongside, crowding
+close and whinnying, and that he and the black stood still, so I could
+crawl on Dick's back and lie down, somehow, and sleep more comfortably.
+That's all I know about it, except what you've told me."
+
+If the red mustang felt any stiffness as a consequence of his remarkable
+performances, he kept the matter to himself and accepted graciously all
+the petting given him. The black came in for his share of praise, but he
+was regarded as an enlisted private horse of the regular army, while
+Dick's last performance had been altogether as a volunteer.
+
+It was just about noon when Captain Moore, riding at the head of his
+men, listened to a message from Colonel Evans, brought to him by Bill,
+the long, lank, yellow-haired cowboy.
+
+"All right," said the captain. "Glad I needn't push any faster under
+this hot sun. Glad Cal got in safe. Gritty young fellow. You'll have to
+tell him, though, that his horse and one of our pack-mules got away in
+the night. Sorry, but there's no help for it."
+
+"Well, yes, that's so," replied Bill, "but that there red mustang. Why,
+captain, do you know, Cal Evans rid into Saint Lucy on to him? The hoss
+was a-caring for him like a human, and Cal was sound asleep. He hadn't
+begun to wake up when I kem away."
+
+The captain and his fellow-officers had questions enough to ask, then,
+and they learned all about Dick's volunteer work when they reached the
+ranch the next day. They knew nothing about the mule then, but at that
+very hour the long-eared rascal reported himself for garrison duty and
+rations at Fort Craig, having for the time delivered himself from the
+pack business and from the fatigues of a long chase after Apache
+horse-thieves.
+
+There were delays in the preparations for following the band of
+Kah-go-mish. Captain Moore had to wait for further instructions from
+Fort Craig, and Colonel Evans also waited for Joaquin and the expected
+cowboy recruits from the upper ranches.
+
+Sam and the rest had already gathered, with keen satisfaction, the drove
+of horses which had so nicely dodged Kah-go-mish, and they had scoured
+the plain to Slater's Branch and beyond. They reported all things safe
+and serene, and then Cal and Vic and their mother rode out and went over
+all the scene of his first adventure.
+
+From the mound on the prairie Cal showed them how the cattle and horses
+were stampeded. Then they went to the timber and the fallen trees where
+he and Sam "stood off" the Apaches. Then they rode away down to where
+Sam had first been swarmed around by the Mescaleros, and there was Sam
+to tell about it.
+
+"Colorado!" remarked he, "but didn't they butcher a lot of cattle! They
+got about a dozen mules, thirty good hosses, and sixty or seventy
+second-rates and ponies. Mounted their whole band, I reckon!"
+
+"I don't care so much about that," said Mrs. Evans, but she was looking
+at Cal just then.
+
+"Vic," said Cal, "you was three years at school, away off there in the
+settlements, and so was I."
+
+"No Indians there," said Vic.
+
+"Good thing you was," said Sam. "I never had any schooling. Hope you
+learned a heap."
+
+"Hope I did," said Cal, "but I tell you what, it seems to me as if I'd
+learned more in one day's riding."
+
+"Well, yes, like enough," replied Sam, "more of one kind. Glad you
+didn't learn how an arrer feels. I did, once. Bullet, too. Tell you
+what, though, if you go on the trail with your father and the captain, I
+reckon you'll learn some more."
+
+"I've seen a great many Indians," began Vic, "but they were all friendly
+except--"
+
+"Colorado!" suddenly exclaimed Sam. "Four of 'em! Heading right for us!
+Don't shoot, Cal. Keep a good ready, but don't throw lead if you can
+help it. It beats me!"
+
+Mrs. Evans reined her horse close along side of Vic's pony, but said
+nothing. Her face was pale, but that of Vic's was flushed fiery red. So
+was Cal's as he touched Dick with his heel and sent him forward
+head-and-head with Sam's gray.
+
+Four unmistakable red warriors, armed to the teeth, were rapidly riding
+nearer.
+
+"Mother," exclaimed Vic, "I'm ready."
+
+"So am I," said Mrs. Evans, sharply. "We can both help."
+
+Each had a revolver in her hand, and Vic afterwards remembered how glad
+she felt, just then, of all her target practice. Her thought was, "I can
+hit one, I know I can."
+
+The leading idea in Cal's mind was that his hero-time had come, and that
+he alone was quite enough for four Apaches. The expression upon his
+face, during about two minutes, was tremendously heroic. He glanced
+behind him and saw just such another look upon that of Vic, but the
+smile his mother gave him made him feel like a whole regiment of
+cavalry.
+
+"Isn't he splendid!" said Vic.
+
+Just then the four red men halted. They were only twenty yards away, and
+it might be that they were getting ready to shoot. They were conferring
+for a brief moment.
+
+Cal drew rein, as Sam did, at the same time, and one of the Indians rode
+forward holding out his right hand, palm up.
+
+"How?" he said. "Chiricahua chief want Sam? Ugh! Heap friend."
+
+"Colorado!" exclaimed the cowboy. "That's it, Cal. They're the friendly
+Chiricahua-Apache scouts the captain sent for first time you met him.
+They want me to go 'long and show 'em the trail. Reg'lar bloodhounds."
+
+He turned in his saddle and shouted, "Ladies, it's all right," and in a
+moment more he and Cal were shaking hands with their new acquaintances.
+
+"What hideous-looking men they are!" exclaimed Vic, for at that moment
+they were smiling, and the one holding Cal's hand was saying, "Ugh! Boy,
+heap ride. Heap good pony. Ride big sleep. 'Pache 'calp him; he no wake
+up. Lose hair all same."
+
+That was evidently meant for a good-humored joke. Mrs. Evans and Vic had
+to shake hands with them next, and then rode away with Cal towards Santa
+Lucia, while Sam and the wild-looking scouts set out for an examination
+of all the traces left behind by Kah-go-mish and his warriors.
+
+"The two bands, Chiricahuas and Mescaleros, are almost like different
+tribes," was the explanation Vic received from her mother.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+THE HACIENDA OF SANTA LUCIA.
+
+
+Early in the afternoon of the fourth day after the red mustang and the
+regular-army black brought Cal home to Santa Lucia, the ranch wore a
+very peaceful appearance. No cavalry were camped near it. There was not
+now any American flag floating from the staff on the roof of the
+hacienda, and there was not wind enough to have made one float if it had
+been there.
+
+No cattle were grazing within sight of anybody standing at the stockade
+gate. That was closed and barred in an unusually inhospitable manner,
+and no wayfarer could ride in without first explaining himself. There
+was reason in it, for Santa Lucia now contained only one man to
+strengthen the brave female garrison which had held it against the
+intended surprise-party of Kah-go-mish. More men would be there at
+sunset, on the return of the herders, and no Indians were believed to be
+within a very long distance.
+
+A wide awning had been stretched out from the veranda, and there were
+two or three chairs under the awning, but they were empty.
+
+Norah McLory and a couple of the Mexican women were busy with some tubs
+in the courtyard. The windows looking into it were not narrow slits like
+those outside. They were wide enough, had swinging sashes in them, and
+they gave the old adobe less the appearance of being either a fort or a
+prison. Most of them were curtained, and the curtains of a pair opposite
+the open side of the square were very handsome. Just beyond one of these
+curtains stood Mrs. Evans, with her arms around her daughter. If
+anything were troubling Vic's mind, the face she was looking into must
+have had comfort in it. Mrs. Evans was one of those women who are
+remarkable, and have no need of proving it to make people believe it.
+She was of medium height and not at all robust in appearance, although
+in excellent health. There was hardly a tinge of gray in her auburn
+hair, her cheeks were smooth, her brown eyes were bright and pleasant,
+and her voice was full and musical. Those who had heard it once wished
+to hear it again, even if they wondered what there was in it that made
+them go and do just as she told them. It was a grand thing for a young
+cowboy, like Cal Evans, to have such a mother away out there upon the
+plains, and was equally good for Vic, especially at such a time as had
+now come.
+
+The room itself was as nearly like a large parlor in an Eastern mansion
+as such a room in such a building could be made. Colonel Evans had
+refused to count up how many head of cattle the furniture had cost him,
+including the piano and the wagoning of it from Santa Fé.
+
+Mrs. Evans had not stopped there, for her china and other elegances
+enabled her to set a well-furnished table, and her kitchen garden in one
+corner of the stockade, with her hen-coops, provided something better
+than the beef and bacon and corn-bread supplied to hungry people at
+most New Mexican ranches.
+
+More than one Indian chief to whom Mrs. Evans had given a dinner had
+declared it "good medicine," not understanding that his own race was
+passing away because the chickens and the potato-patches were coming.
+
+Army-men, officers and soldiers, had ridden away from Santa Lucia,
+remarking of Cal's mother: "Very uncommon woman. But how did she get
+those things to grow 'way down here?"
+
+Mexican herders in the colonel's employ had also discussed the matter,
+and had decided that no melon or bean or hill of corn or other vegetable
+dared refuse to grow after getting orders from the "Señora."
+
+Perhaps the most remarkable thing, after all, was the fact that such a
+lady, with all her refinement and cultivation, should say that she
+preferred a ranch life at Santa Lucia to any other kind of life
+anywhere.
+
+She was saying so now to Victoria. Vic would have been a smaller pattern
+of her mother, but for a tinge of red in her hair and something saucy
+about her nose and mouth. That is, on ordinary occasions, but not just
+now, for she was looking blue enough.
+
+"Mother," she said, "father never gets hurt, but Cal is so young. The
+Indians, mother, and there may be fighting. I almost hate this country.
+I'd rather be where no savages can come."
+
+"They will never come, Vic."
+
+"They did come, this time! I saw them from the roof. Some of them come
+along here every now and then."
+
+"Peaceably, my dear. It's a wonder to me that they touched anything of
+ours. If everybody had dealt with them as your father has there would
+not be any fighting."
+
+"He went away angry enough," said Vic.
+
+"Not angry enough to hurt any Indian without necessity. If there should
+be any fighting--"
+
+"Seems to me I can't think he could kill anybody, or be killed; but Cal
+is so young!"
+
+"Victoria," said her mother, almost laughing, "Cal is a smaller mark
+than your father, and not half so likely to get hit. I hope they will
+bring the horses back with them."
+
+"You are a wonderful woman, mother. Were you ever really afraid of
+anything?"
+
+Mrs. Evans thought for a moment, and then replied, "Yes, Vic, the other
+day. I was afraid we'd not get our soldier scarecrows ready before the
+Apaches came. Then, too, they might have met your father. I thought of
+that, but I wasn't really afraid that they had. I think I was made to
+live here."
+
+That was the truth of the matter, and she soon convinced Victoria that
+the time to be nervous had not yet arrived. It was true that Colonel
+Evans and Cal and a dozen cowboys had gone with Captain Moore and the
+cavalry to trail the thieving Mescaleros and bring back the horses, but
+the Indians had three days the start, and were not likely to be caught
+up with at once.
+
+"There may not be any fighting, even then," said Mrs. Evans; but
+Victoria did not find any use for her piano that day.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+THE TARGET ON THE ROCK.
+
+
+It was the very hour when Mrs. Evans and Vic were talking, at Santa
+Lucia, about the cavalry and cowboy expedition which had gone in search
+of the Apaches. Many a long mile to the southward of the old hacienda
+the sun shone hotly down upon the rugged slope of a spur of a range of
+mountains. At the bottom of the slope ran a wide trail which had been
+used by wagons, and was almost like a road. Along its narrow pathway of
+sand and shale rode a straggling cavalcade of extraordinary-looking
+horsemen. About half of them carried lances and wore a showy green and
+yellow uniform. All had firearms in abundance, and most of them had long
+sabres rattling at their sides. There seemed to be a profusion of silver
+ornaments, even on men as well as upon bridles and saddles, but there
+were also a number of badly battered sombreros and ragged serapes. What
+is a sombrero? It is any sort of very wide-brimmed, low-crowned hat, and
+can be made to carry much tinsel and feathers. As for a serape, one can
+be made out of any blanket by cutting a hole in the middle of it, so
+that it will hang gracefully around the man or woman whose head has been
+pushed through the hole. It was not easy to say whether the gay officer
+commanding the gaudy lancers, or the remarkably tattered peon who led
+the last string of pack-mules, at the rear, was really the most
+picturesque Mexican of that cavalcade.
+
+On the slope above them, less than three hundred yards from the trail, a
+great bowlder of gray granite stood out prominently from the bushes and
+the smaller lumps of rock around it.
+
+On the bowlder, at its very edge, stood the figure of a man who was even
+more noteworthy than were the officer and the peon. His arms were
+folded, so that two red stocking-legs spanned his broad chest; his silk
+hat, with a green-veil streamer, was cocked on one side defiantly; his
+attitude was that of a man who did not fear all Mexico, and the loudly
+uttered words he sent down at the horsemen were: "Kah-go-mish is a great
+chief!"
+
+Whether or not they believed him, and although he had given them no
+apparent cause for considering him an enemy, horseman after horseman
+lifted carbine or revolver and blazed away at the Mescalero leader.
+Bullet after bullet buzzed in among the bushes and rocks above and
+behind him, but not a muscle of his tall form flinched.
+
+All practised riflemen know that a mark posted as he was is difficult to
+hit, even at short range and in shadow, and that the difficulty
+magnifies with distance and a sunny glare.
+
+There stood Kah-go-mish, and while report after report rang out in the
+narrow valley, and called forth echoes from among the crags, he
+exhausted all he knew of Spanish and was compelled to help it with his
+native Apache dialect, and even then seemed unable to express his
+opinion of the marksmen. He had much to say concerning his own great
+and good qualities and those of his people, but declared that all the
+unpleasant reptiles and insects and quadrupeds he could name were
+serving as Mexicans that afternoon. He shouted to them that they did not
+even know how to shoot. If they had been Gringos (Yankees) of the lowest
+order, he said he might be in danger from their bullets, but, as it was,
+the man they aimed at was safer than any other man within range.
+
+The Mexican caballeros may or may not have been able to understand any
+part of that hailstorm of hard words, but Kah-go-mish had an audience
+and was not wasting his eloquence. He and his bowlder seemed to be
+alone, jutting out from the slope, but that was an optical illusion.
+That knob of granite stood upon the outer rim of a wide, ragged, bushy
+ledge, and at no great distance there began a shadowy growth of forest.
+The broken level behind Kah-go-mish was peopled by scores of braves and
+squaws and younger people, proving that the two sections of his band had
+reunited. Dogs ran hither and thither, while ponies and horses could be
+seen among the trees. One dog in particular did his futile best to climb
+the bowlder, and then sat down under a furze bush and yelped with all
+his might at the cavalcade, as if in sympathy with the chief of his band
+of Apaches.
+
+At the right of the granite bowlder, and several paces from the edge or
+the ledge, were some huge fragments of red basalt rock. In front of
+these crouched a group which gazed at Kah-go-mish with unmistakable
+pride. In the middle sat Wah-wah-o-be, bonnet and all. Against her, on
+the right, was curled the form of the young lady in the wonderful red
+dress, and she looked almost pretty as her black eyes flashed with
+admiration of her father's magnificent heroism and oratory. At the left
+of Wah-wah-o-be, the boy in the Reservation trousers stood sturdily
+erect, but nothing could make him handsome or take from his broad, dark
+face the look of half-anxious dulness which belonged there. His beady
+eyes glittered, and he showed his white teeth, now and then, but his
+very smile was dull. He leaned back against the rock, and just then a
+something came whizzing past his head, and there was a slightly stinging
+sensation in his left ear. He did not wince, but he lifted his hand
+quickly to his ear, and there sprang to his lips an involuntary
+imitation of the sound made by the ragged ounce ball of lead when it
+struck the crumbling basalt.
+
+"Z-st-ping!" he said, and the sound was caught up by other voices.
+
+"Ping--ping--ping," ran from lip to lip, and some laughed merrily, for
+all had heard the whiz and thud of the deadly missiles which were coming
+up from the valley, although they and Wah-wah-o-be had deemed themselves
+entirely sheltered.
+
+Kah-go-mish had at that moment turned for a glance at his family, and he
+uttered a loud whoop, as if of pleasure. At the same breath he came down
+from his rock with a great, staglike bound, and stood among them.
+
+"Wah-wah-o-be, look!" he said. "Ugh!"
+
+He had no need to point, for she was already aware that the ragged edge
+of the bit of lead had made a deep scratch in her son's ear. She was
+both very proud and very angry.
+
+"Ping!" she exclaimed, as if the sound had acquired a new meaning.
+
+"Ugh!" said Kah-go-mish. "Ping!"
+
+As for the boy himself, the dulness almost vanished from his face in his
+exultation at having been so nearly hit, actually grazed, by a
+rifle-ball. His sister came around to stare at the scratch, and then his
+own quick eyes caught something.
+
+"Tah-nu-nu!" he said, and pointed at the wide fold of her red calico. It
+was torn. A Mexican bullet had found its way through the furze bushes,
+and Tah-nu-nu had been almost as much in peril, the moment she stood
+erect, as her brother had been.
+
+Wah-wah-o-be's wrath boiled over. The Apaches pay more of respect to
+their squaws than do some other tribes, and the chief's wife was a woman
+who was likely to demand all that belonged to her.
+
+Kah-go-mish had stood upon the rock to be fired at by the rancheros for
+the glory of it, and was almost too proud of so great an exploit to lose
+his temper at once. He was beginning to say something about Mexican
+marksmanship when he was interrupted by Wah-wah-o-be. She had feelings
+of her own, if he had not. She pointed at her son's ear, and again she
+said "Ping!"
+
+The bullet might have wantonly murdered any member of her family, or any
+of her neighbors. She made rapid remarks about it, of such a nature that
+Kah-go-mish felt a change going on in his mind. Other ears had heard,
+and the voices of braves and squaws seemed to agree with that of
+Wah-wah-o-be. All had fallen back from the dangerous margin, and it
+would have looked a little like a council if a squaw had not been the
+speaker. There was very little red upon the ear of Ping, but it served
+her as a representative of all the wrongs ever done to the Apaches by
+the white men, including that of cooping them in upon the Reservation,
+where she had obtained her bonnet, and where they had all but starved
+for lack of game.
+
+The blood of Kah-go-mish reached the right heat at last, and his hand
+arose to his mouth to help out the largest, longest, fiercest war-whoop
+he knew anything about.
+
+"Kah-go-mish is a great chief!"
+
+He said this as he strode away towards the trees, waving back all the
+rest with his hands. Warriors and squaws, boys and girls, they at once
+seemed to arrange themselves for a good look at whatever their great man
+might be about to do.
+
+He was gone but a few minutes, and returned, leading a mean-looking,
+undersized, disreputable pony, upon whose head he had placed a
+miserable, worn-out bridle.
+
+He did not utter a word to Wah-wah-o-be, but upon the ground before her
+he deposited a handsome rifle, a bow and arrows, and a lance. He took
+from his belt the revolver and laid it beside the other weapons, and
+upon them all he placed the green-veil-plumed silk hat and the red
+stocking-legs. He ostentatiously called attention to the fact that he
+retained nothing but his heavy bowie-knife. Armed with only that weapon,
+and mounted upon his worst pony, he, the great chief, the hero, was
+about to depart upon a war-path against the coyotes, the buzzards, the
+tarantulas, the red ants, the lost dogs--namely, the Mexicans of
+Chihuahua, or any other Mexicans. He would make them pay bitterly for
+having wasted so much ammunition that day.
+
+The announcement of the chief's purpose was received with whoops and
+yells of approbation. Wah-wah-o-be seemed to overlook any possible peril
+of losing her husband altogether. She may have been hardened by a long
+habit of seeing him come home safe.
+
+Kah-go-mish gave some rapid orders to one brave after another, mounted
+his pony while others were gathering their own, and then he rode
+straight into the side of the mountain, followed by his whole
+band--horses, dogs, and all. That is, it would have so appeared to any
+white man standing at the foot of the granite bowlder, but it was only a
+good illustration of the magical arts by which the Indian medicine-men
+make it so difficult for green white men in blue uniforms to catch red
+runaways. Uniformity of color in quartz and granite, or other ledges,
+provides for a part of the mystery. Shrubs and trees and distances help,
+and so, often, does their absence. A great break in the side of that
+spur of the Sierra was as invisible from the pass as if it had been
+hidden by snow or midnight. It was a chasm which led in two directions
+from that point. Kah-go-mish waved his hand authoritatively and wheeled
+his pony to the left, to the southward, towards Mexico. His warriors and
+his family, and all other members of the band, dogs included, turned
+northward, to the right, carrying with them positive assurances as to
+the place, and very nearly as to the time, when they might again hope
+to see and admire their leader.
+
+During his absence the command fell to a short, broad-shouldered
+warrior, who walked dreadfully intoed, and who seemed to stand very much
+in awe of Wah-wah-o-be. She, on the other hand, was evidently well
+satisfied with the course which affairs were taking. She had picked up
+the weapons so heroically laid upon the ground by her husband, and she
+had helped Tah-nu-nu and Ping to gather the ponies of the family. She
+had said a great many things while doing so, for one point in her
+superiority to other squaws was the capacity of her tongue for
+expressing her ideas.
+
+The whole band had an almost prosperous appearance, very different from
+that which it had worn just before it began to swarm around Sam Herrick
+and the drove of horses. Lodge-poles had been cut, now that there were
+ponies to drag them. Hardly anybody was on foot, except a few braves
+whose half-trained, spirited horses were likely to require leading over
+narrow and pokerish mountain-passes.
+
+Kah-go-mish rode on alone in one direction and the band went in the
+other, and both were shortly buried in the deep, cool gloom of the
+shadowy chasms.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+THE STORY OF A LOG
+
+
+The red mustang was in excellent health, and he was also in high
+spirits. So was his master, and they were nearly agreed upon another
+point. Dick evidently believed that any trail whatever ought to be
+followed at full speed, and Cal fretted continually over the steady
+plodding commanded by Captain Moore. Cal was glad that in his first
+Indian campaign he was to have so much first-class help, including the
+four Chiricahua-Apache scouts. He had confidence in his father and in
+the captain, as men of experience in such matters, but at last he could
+hardly help mentioning to Sam Herrick the joint criticism made by
+himself and Dick. "Why, Sam," he remarked, "the red-skins have three
+days the start of us, and Captain Moore isn't in any kind of hurry. They
+must be gaining on us."
+
+"That's not of much account, Cal," said Sam, "so long as their trail
+stays in this country. They're camped at the end of it to-night. So they
+will be every night till they get to the far end of it, and there we'll
+find 'em, unless they cross over into Mexico."
+
+"And if they do that?" asked Cal.
+
+"Mexico's a hot place for Indians just now," replied Sam. "Troops
+moving; militia called out. These fellows couldn't stay there."
+
+The far end of an Indian trail is sometimes a curious thing to hunt for,
+as Sam went on to explain. It may get lost in the sand, or among the
+mountains, or in the snow, or somebody may hide it or steal it, or a
+heavy rain may wash it all out.
+
+"Well," said Cal, "one thing's sure. If we should come near 'em, and
+have to chase 'em, the horses won't be too travel-tired for good
+running."
+
+"Exactly so," said Sam. "That's what the captain's up to."
+
+The cavalry and cowboy camp, that night, was as safe as Santa Lucia, but
+there was something like a disturbance in another place.
+
+The party of rancheros and Chiricahua militia who had blazed away at
+Kah-go-mish may have been a kind of scouting-party. They had escaped
+destruction by not following him up the slope, and they afterwards had
+not many miles to ride before they reached a camp to which they
+evidently belonged. One small corner of that camp had an appearance of
+good order, where an experienced officer of the Mexican army was in
+command of a few disciplined soldiers. All the remainder of it seemed to
+bear the likeness of a grand military picnic, where all the men who had
+tickets were free to have a good time in any manner they might please.
+Very soon after supper most of them pleased to lie down and go to sleep,
+while others sat up to smoke and play cards.
+
+Of course there could not be any danger threatening a force of over four
+hundred men, all so warlike, so soldierly, so completely ready to whip
+any tribe of mere red Indians. Besides, no important band of hostiles
+was known or believed to be in that vicinity. There might have been a
+better watch kept that night, nevertheless, especially at the corral
+where all their horses were picketed.
+
+This had been made along the bank of the deep, still stream which
+supplied the camp with ice-water from the Sierra Madre. Nobody ever
+heard of any fellow taking a swim in such cold water as that was. It was
+cold enough to chill the bones of a mountain trout. Of course no one did
+undertake to swim in it, but, at about midnight, a log came floating
+down. There was a large knot on one side of the log. The current or
+something carried it against the bank, right in the middle of the
+corral, and either there were two logs, or that log divided, for one log
+floated off down stream, while the other log crept out on shore, stood
+erect, and walked stealthily around among the horses. The knot was
+carried on the upper end of this log, and the other went off without
+any.
+
+Very quickly were four of the best horses fixed with four of the best
+saddles and bridles from among the long rows at the edge of the corral.
+The log did it, and added holsters with revolvers in them and two
+bundles of fine lances and some good American carbines, and two full
+straddle packs of cartridges. The sentries of the corral were all
+stationed away outside of the place where that peculiar log was at work.
+All but two of them were asleep, as the guardians of so strong and
+warlike a camp had a right to be.
+
+Now the log crept around until it found a path leading out southerly,
+past a sentry who was sleeping very soundly indeed. Then it went back
+into the corral and led out the four saddled and bridled horses, with
+four others following that wore only halters, but carried securely
+strapped burdens, selected and fitted by the log.
+
+There was a brilliant moonlight, so that there was no danger whatever to
+the camp from Indians, and the log led the horses on until it became
+wise to go ahead and see if there had been any picket posted at the
+place and distance at which one might have been expected.
+
+"Ugh!" exclaimed the log, as it went back for the horses. "Mexican! No
+blue-coat!"
+
+That was a compliment to such men as Captain Moore, but then the log was
+doing what no kind of fellow would have undertaken with "blue-coats." It
+now mounted one of the horses and led on up the stream, to a place it
+seemed to know about, where the water was wide and shallow and could be
+easily forded. On crossing it the log was still at no great distance
+from the camp, but upon higher ground. Looking down, it could have a
+good view of the smouldering camp-fires and the sleeping Mexicans, for
+tents there were not.
+
+"Kah-go-mish is a great chief!" exclaimed the knot at the top of the
+log, exultingly. "Ugh! Got heap hoss, heap saddle, heap gun, heap all
+plunder. Ugh! Mexican shoot at him on rock. Wonder how feel now, pretty
+soon. Ugh!"
+
+An irrepressible whoop of triumph burst from him.
+
+"Ugh! Bad medicine," he said. "Great chief let mouth go off like boy."
+
+He had not lost his wits, however, and he followed that whoop with a
+dozen more, a whole series of fierce, ear-splitting screeches, while he
+rapidly emptied the nine chambers of the captured carbine and the six of
+a revolver. He aimed at the camp-fires and with tip-top success,
+testified to by sudden showers of sparks and brands which flew around
+among the startled sleepers.
+
+Great was the uproar in that astonished camp. Seven gallant fellows who
+had bugles began to blow for dear life the moment they were upon their
+feet. Every officer began to shout orders as soon as he was awake, and
+some seemed to begin even earlier. They exhibited tremendous presence of
+mind, but no soldier received the same order from any two of them.
+Within a minute, at least a hundred men were at their posts of danger
+behind something or other, while three hundred more were making a blind
+rush for the corral. The sentries had all fired their pieces at once,
+and now there began a general popping of guns and pistols at the awful
+shadows beyond the little river.
+
+Kah-go-mish could hardly have wished for anything better. He wheeled and
+rode rapidly away, followed by the string of horses which he had
+regarded as the fee due to him for being made a target of.
+
+He had not been killed, then, no thanks to the Mexicans, and he had not
+killed anybody now, deeming it imprudent to take any scalps under the
+circumstances. He had again, however, proved his claim to be considered
+an extraordinary collector of enemy's horses, and that is a high fame to
+win among the wild tribes of the southwest. As for the righteousness of
+what he had done, in his own eyes, he was a commanding officer of
+Mescalero Apaches, and his people were at war with Mexico, as the
+rancheros and militia had declared so recklessly. He made war in a
+manner every inch as civilized as their own, and thought well of himself
+for so doing. He said so, quite a number of times, that night, as he
+rode on deeper and deeper into the rugged passes of the Sierras. About
+daylight he came to an open, shaded spot, by a spring, where there was
+grass for his prizes, and where he could build a fire and then find out
+what there might be for breakfast in a very fat haversack which hung
+from one of the saddles.
+
+As for the Mexican cavalry, of all sorts, they behaved well, and the
+officer in supreme command at last succeeded in substituting his own
+orders for those of his hasty subordinates. He stationed a strong force
+at the ford, to prevent the supposed tribe of red men which had assailed
+his camp from crossing the river. He threw out scouting-parties,
+encouraged his men by voice and example, urging them to do their duty,
+prove their attachment to their flag, and to die rather than surrender.
+He was answered by enthusiastic cheers, and, when morning came, he
+readily obtained from among them a body of brave volunteers who followed
+him across the ford to search the dangerous underbrush on the hill from
+which the hostile barbarians had fired upon the camp. The more they
+searched the better they felt, and at last they found a trace of the
+enemy. They captured a pony, bridle and all. It was the sad-looking
+beast selected by Kah-go-mish as the most nearly worthless of all that
+he had brought with him from the Reservation.
+
+Eight militiamen, one of them a bugler, already knew that the enemy had
+penetrated the corral, and had gotten away again, but here was a sort of
+a mount for one of them. Well, it was a capture, anyhow, and a proof of
+victory, and was spoken of as "ponies" in the official report of the
+manner in which that night-attack had been baffled by the Chiricahua
+militia.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+PING AND THE COUGAR.
+
+
+When Kah-go-mish set out upon his war-path, he went by ways which no
+white man's foot had ever trod. His family and followers began to
+perform the same feat in another direction.
+
+Tah-nu-nu very nearly spoiled a name which was beginning to grow upon
+her brother. It was too long for common use, and it meant:
+"The-boy-whose-ear-pushed-away-a-piece-of-lead." Wah-wah-o-be, every now
+and then, strung all the syllables together, and the whole was like one
+of those mountain-passes, wider here and narrower there, but rugged all
+the way. Tah-nu-nu cut it short and called him Ping.
+
+Wah-wah-o-be's tongue and the use she made of it helped such a trail as
+that amazingly. She had endless tales to tell concerning what her
+husband had done and was yet to do, and of the great deeds of her
+nation, and of the evil deeds and purposes of all pale-faces.
+
+The questions asked by Ping and Tah-nu-nu were also endless. His proved
+that he knew some things already and that he had learned a part of them
+while the band had been upon the Reservation. Those of the little Apache
+girl proved for her as much and more. She must have thinking and
+imagining, and her eyes frequently took on a soft and dreamy look which
+did not come at all in those of her mother or her brother.
+
+There were not many safer places in all the Sierras than was the little
+valley in which the band of Kah-go-mish encamped, an hour or so before
+the shadows became darkness among the chasms and gorges.
+
+Ping ate a hearty supper, but he was in trouble. Other boys and girls,
+and some of the squaws, had taken a notion of turning their heads on one
+side and saying "Ping" when they met him, just as if they believed that
+he had winced from the touch of the bullet. He knew that he had not done
+so, but the taunt stirred up within him a very hot desire to do
+something heroic, like standing still to be shot at. He felt that it was
+an awful injustice to ridicule him for the very ear he was so proud of.
+The sting to his vanity kept him in motion after supper, and he strolled
+all over the valley. No lodges had been pitched, and the horses were
+scattered around, feeding, under the watchful care of several braves
+whose turn it was to serve as "dog-soldiers," or camp police.
+
+The moonlight was brilliant, but Ping had no idea whether or not the
+mountain scenery it lighted up was grand. He did know that it was just
+the night for his father to do great deeds in, or for any wild animal to
+prowl around after its prey. The cries of several had been heard during
+the afternoon march and since the band halted.
+
+Wah-wah-o-be had told him and Tah-nu-nu that these Mexican mountains
+fairly swarmed with Manitous and magicians, most of whom were favorable
+to the Apaches, but that all of them were more or less to be feared. For
+all that Ping knew, some of these unseen beings might be wandering up
+and down in that moonshine within arrow-shot of him. He felt safe in the
+camp, but nothing would have induced him to venture out among them. He
+knew very well that any Indian who got himself killed in the dark did
+not go to the Happy Hunting-Grounds, but had an awful time of it
+somewhere. As for the wild animals, he had a settled determination to
+kill a grizzly bear, some day, and to have his claws for a collar of
+honor to wear upon great occasions. He proposed to become a mighty
+hunter and warrior, but just now he felt sleepy, and he went back and
+lay down at the foot of a pine-tree, not far from the rest of his
+family.
+
+Ping's eyes closed, but another pair did not. Tah-nu-nu's remained open
+in spite of her. She had heard more stories than Ping had, and while
+each tale had kept its old shape in his mind it had turned into twenty
+new forms in her own.
+
+That is one difficulty about having an imagination, and Tah-nu-nu's had
+been getting more and more excited ever since the Mexican bullet tore
+her beautiful red dress. She kept thinking, too, of her heroic father
+and of the great things he would have to tell when he should get back
+from his war-path.
+
+Tah-nu-nu lacked only a few years of being a grown-up squaw, and
+Wah-wah-o-be often braided her hair for her, like that of a young
+pale-face lady at the Reservation headquarters. Some day a great brave
+was to come and pay many ponies for her, and she would then rule his
+lodge for him and scold eloquently, like her mother. She had,
+therefore, a long list of matters to dream about as she lay awake among
+the bushes where Wah-wah-o-be and several other squaws had spread their
+blankets. It was at some distance from the fires which the
+"dog-soldiers" kept slowly burning. Not far away, on the left, were the
+tall pines under one of which Ping had curled down, while outside of all
+was a bare ledge of rock, littered with bowlders and fragments.
+
+There were streaks and patches of shining white quartz here and there.
+Tah-nu-nu had never heard of such a thing as beauty, any more than Ping,
+but she felt its power as he did not. She arose and stole softly out to
+look at the marvellous picture made by that ledge in the moonlight. She
+looked and looked, but she had no Apache word for what she saw. It was
+all utterly still during many minutes, and then Tah-nu-nu was sure she
+saw something moving around at the farther border of the ledge. Her
+first impulse was to go out and see what it was, but her next thought
+was of her bow and arrows and of Ping.
+
+"Ugh!" said Ping, as she shook his arm, and he sprang to his feet.
+
+"Hist!" she said. "Come! Look!"
+
+He strung his bow and fastened his quiver of arrows to his belt, while
+she whispered an exclamation. Then he went to where the family packs had
+been thrown down and brought back a weapon at which Tah-nu-nu nodded
+approval.
+
+Days before that a careless pony had stepped upon and broken one of the
+best lances of Kah-go-mish. The blade was as keen as ever, and there
+were six feet of shaft remaining, below the crosspiece, so that it made
+a pretty dangerous-looking pike, although it was no longer a lance.
+
+Ping followed Tah-nu-nu, and not a word was uttered until they were out
+upon the ledge. Some prowling wolf might be there, attracted by the odor
+of cooked meat and fish, or even some more important animal, for bears
+also have noses. Ping would not have given a useless alarm for anything.
+That would have brought upon him sharper ridicule than had the scratch
+on his ear. He had no idea that any human enemy could be near that
+lonely camp, and wild animals, he knew, were sure to keep at a distance
+from camp-fires. That was true, but then Wah-wah-o-be and her friends
+were not camp-fires, and were not near to any. They were asleep away out
+on that side of the camp, and it was so safe that it had no sentry, and
+the eyes of Tah-nu-nu had been of so much the greater value.
+
+She and Ping were stealing out upon the broken ledge, and he had an
+arrow upon the string, but she had not, as yet.
+
+"Ugh!" he said, as he crouched low and drew his arrow to the head.
+
+Tah-nu-nu uttered a sharp cry. It was the Apache word for "cougar!"
+
+Ping's bowstring twanged, and then he bounded to the right as if he were
+dodging something. So he was, for the whole camp heard the snarling roar
+with which a great "mountain lion" came rushing through the air and
+crashed down a bush close to the children of Kah-go-mish and
+Wah-wah-o-be.
+
+[Illustration: SHE AND PING WERE STEALING OUT UPON THE BROKEN LEDGE.]
+
+Ping's arrow had been well aimed, for it was buried in the breast of the
+cougar. Another went into his side, as he came down, and that was
+from the hand of a girl-archer. Tah-nu-nu had worked like a flash, and
+her arrow operated as a sting, for the wounded beast made yet another
+tremendous bound.
+
+All the squaws were on their feet, and Wah-wah-o-be could not have told
+why she picked up her blanket as she arose. She was worthy to be the
+wife of a chief, however, for when the cougar alighted almost in front
+of her, she promptly threw the blanket over him. Another and another
+blanket followed, while he rolled upon the ground, mad with pain and
+rage, tearing the unexpected bedclothes and snarling ferociously.
+
+There had come into the dull mind of
+The-boy-whose-ear-pushed-away-a-piece-of-lead a great memory of a story
+he had heard of a warrior who faced a cougar single-handed. With it came
+another, of a chief standing alone upon a rock while a hundred enemies
+fired at him.
+
+"I am the son of Kah-go-mish!" he shouted, exultingly, and before the
+fierce wild beast could free himself, there was Ping in front of him,
+spear in hand.
+
+Any experienced cougar-hunter would have been inclined to say,
+"Good-bye, Ping," but the Apache boy was not thinking of the risk he was
+running. He knew what to do, and he put all the strength of his tough
+young body into the thrust with which he sent his weapon, low down,
+inside the animal's shoulder. The sharp blade went in, up to the
+crosspiece, just as the bow of Tah-nu-nu twanged again, and there were
+piercing shrieks on all sides. The loudest came from Wah-wah-o-be, as
+the cougar made a convulsive effort to reach his rash assailant, for
+over and over went Ping in spite of all his bracing.
+
+He would have fared worse if the butt of the spear-shaft had not caught
+a better brace against the ground, so that the cougar did not fall upon
+him.
+
+The blade had done its work. There were two or three more long rips made
+in Wah-wah-o-be's woollen treasure and then the cougar lay still.
+
+Ping was beyond all ridicule now, for he had proved himself a young
+brave. Wah-wah-o-be was so proud of him that she had not a word of grief
+to utter over the mess of woollen ribbons which was all that remained of
+her best Reservation blanket.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+THE RETURN OF KAH-GO-MISH.
+
+
+There were no alarms of cougars nor of any human wild people around the
+Santa Lucia ranch. Even the dogs could hardly get up an excuse for
+healthy barking after dark.
+
+Just in the dawn of that next morning, however, the cowboy on guard at
+the stockade gate was taken by surprise. Nobody rode up to the wooden
+barrier, but his quick ears caught a stealthy footstep behind him, and
+he turned sharply around with his hand on the lock of his rifle.
+
+Did she mean to murder him?
+
+There she stood, Norah McLory, with a double-barrelled gun in one hand
+and a cleaver in the other, and a red shawl pinned all around her. She
+made a very striking picture, and the look on her face was very much as
+if she were ready to strike.
+
+"What's up, Norah?" exclaimed the cowboy.
+
+"Faith an' I'm oop mesilf," said she. "I couldn't slape for thinking of
+thim red villains."
+
+"No redskins 'round here," almost yawned the weary sentry.
+
+"Ye don't know that," said Norah, "and I wanted to see was you watchin'.
+We moight all be murdhered in bed."
+
+"The dogs'd take care o' that," said he, "and, oh, but I'm hungry."
+
+"I'll have you the cup of hot coffee right soon," said Norah, "and you
+needn't tell the byes I watched ye."
+
+That was a bargain, but before the coffee boiled there was proof of
+other wakefulness besides Norah's. Mrs. Evans and Vic were out to look
+at the garden and to feed the chickens and to talk about what might be
+going on in the far-away camp which contained the red mustang.
+
+After breakfast the cowboys went to their duties. So did Norah and the
+Mexican servants. Vic and her mother took a brisk horseback ride, and
+came back to their home.
+
+"Everything is too quiet, mother," said Vic, impatiently. "There isn't
+anything going on! I want to see somebody! I want to see something! I
+hate this waiting."
+
+"I'm afraid it will be days and days before we can hear from your father
+or Cal," said Mrs. Evans, "but I hope it will be good news when it
+comes."
+
+The entire garrison of Santa Lucia, ladies, servants, and cowboys,
+talked of the men on the trail of Kah-go-mish, and wondered where and
+under what circumstances their camp might be getting breakfast.
+
+Cal Evans himself, although he awoke in the camp they were talking
+about, did not clearly know where it was, and while he was grooming the
+red mustang he said as much to Sam Herrick.
+
+"Colorado!" remarked Sam; "you're just like everybody else. I believe
+those Chiricahuas have lost the trail, or else they don't mean we shall
+find the Mescaleros."
+
+"What's going to be done?" asked Cal.
+
+"Your father and Captain Moore mean to push right on," said Sam.
+"They've got some plan or other. Tell you what, though, if I was an
+Apache chief, and if I'd gobbled a drove of horses, as they did, I'd
+take my chances over in Mexico. I wouldn't come loafing out hereaway, to
+be followed by cavalry and caught napping. There's a plain of awfully
+dry gravel a little west of where we are now."
+
+Cal finished Dick, and then he carried his questions to his father.
+
+"Sam's right," said the colonel. "He's an old hand at trailing. We
+believe the redskins have crossed the line."
+
+"Into Mexico? Shall we miss 'em?"
+
+"No, Cal, I think not. Captain Moore knows something of what the
+Mexicans are doing. The Apaches won't be comfortable there. What we're
+guessing at is the place where they're likely to come out again. We're
+pretty sure we know about where it's got to be."
+
+He might have been less positive if he could have seen how very
+comfortable the band of Kah-go-mish looked in their camp among the
+Mexican mountains at that very hour.
+
+It was a safe place, but it was not one to remain in for any great
+length of time, for the horses had already eaten up nearly all the
+grass. Some of the braves had gone out after game successfully, while
+others had brought in fish, so that the human beings had food enough,
+but the quadrupeds would soon wear out the pasturage of so small a
+valley.
+
+Ping's cougar was regarded as capital game, the best kind of meat in the
+world to Indian tastes, as far as he would go.
+
+The discovery had already been made that more plentiful grass could not
+safely be sought for under the Mexican flag. Too many lancers and
+rancheros were out on the war-path, and the thoughts of all the band
+were turning towards some better refuge north of the United States line.
+Everybody was contented for the day, however, or until about the middle
+of the afternoon. Even Wah-wah-o-be was astonished then, and Ping for a
+moment forgot his cougar. The little valley rang with a great whoop,
+which came from its southerly end. Every brave within hearing did his
+best to answer that whoop, and the whole camp was at once in a state of
+excitement, for it was the voice of the returning Kah-go-mish, and it
+was thrilling with triumph.
+
+Here he came, not astride of the doleful pony that had carried him away,
+but riding an elegantly caparisoned steed. Some other horses followed
+him. He had gone out almost weaponless, and he was now overloaded with
+weapons. He had gone bareheaded, and now he wore a gorgeously gold-laced
+and yellow-plumed cocked hat, recently the special pride of a major of
+Mexican militia. Even the Reservation chimney-pot silk beauty, green
+veil and all, was altogether nothing compared with this.
+
+Kah-go-mish had not exactly played Cortes, and conquered Mexico, but
+what he had done was very nearly the same to Wah-wah-o-be, Tah-nu-nu,
+and The-boy-whose-ear-pushed-away-a-piece-of-lead.
+
+It was a great time, but the chief had the plans of a general in his
+head. No Mexican force would follow him into the Sierra, but one might
+try to head him off on the other side, and take away his horses, and it
+was time to be moving.
+
+The band broke camp at once, to push on through the rugged
+mountain-paths as long as there might be daylight enough to go by. That
+was why the darkness, when it came, found them scattered all along the
+bottom of a tremendous gorge, walled in by vast perpendicular faces of
+quartz and granite rock. Even Ping thought it wonderful, when the
+straggling camp-fires were kindled, that their light did not stream
+half-way up those walls, and left the rest in shadow until the moon rose
+high enough to show them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+THE FOUNTAIN IN THE DESERT.
+
+
+On the morning of the second day after Ping and Tah-nu-nu and the
+blankets proved to be too much "bad medicine" for one poor cougar, the
+sun arose hotly over one of the dreariest bits of scenery in southern
+New Mexico. It was the gravel desert described to Cal Evans by Sam
+Herrick. No mountains were visible on the south or east, and the ranges
+of tall peaks westerly and northerly were a very long day's journey from
+the most interesting spot in that entire plain. Everywhere else even the
+cactus-plants and scrubby mesquit-trees and stiff-fingered sage-brushes
+were scarce, as if they did not care to struggle for a living in so mean
+a country. Here, on the contrary, there was a dense chaparral of every
+kind of growth, excepting tall trees, that is common to that climate,
+and spreading for miles and miles. In many places the chaparral was so
+high and so thick that a man on horseback could have been hidden in it
+from another man at a short distance.
+
+If any man had ridden into it, however, perhaps his first declaration
+might have been, "All this thorn and famine shrubbery was laid out by a
+lot of crazy spiders."
+
+Innumerable paths led through it, crossing or running into each other in
+a manner to have perplexed a carpet-weaver or a military map-maker, and
+everybody knows what tangled patterns they can make. The spiders had not
+done it, but the larger kinds of four-footed wild animals. They had
+worked at those paths for ages, treading them down all the while, and
+preventing any vegetable growth from choking them up.
+
+There was really no tangle, at least none that could perplex the clear
+mind of a bison or an antelope, and all the threads of that spider-web
+had more or less reference to a common centre towards which the main
+lines tended.
+
+The dry and thirsty bushes on the outer circumference of the chaparral
+should not have settled where they did. They ought rather to have
+learned a lesson from the bisons, and have gone in farther. The wide
+main pathways ran into each other, and all the smaller pathways melted
+into them, until only twenty or thirty ends of paths led into a great
+open space, in the middle of which was the one thing needed by all that
+vast plain, with its dreary gravel and sand and alkali.
+
+Water?
+
+Yes, water as clear as crystal, and that seemed to be colder than ice.
+
+The thirsty animals who were from year to year to traverse that plain
+had been provided for as if they had been so many sparrows, and the
+cactus-plants as if they had been lilies of the field.
+
+The greater part of the open space was occupied by a seamed and broken
+face of quartz rock, nowhere rising more than a few feet above the
+general level. Scores and scores of miles away, among the unknown
+recesses of the Sierra, westward, was a lake, a reservoir, into which
+the everlasting snows continually melted. At some point of that
+reservoir a channel had been opened through and under the cloven strata
+of the rock, making a natural aqueduct. Cold and clear ran the
+snow-water, never failing in its wonderful supply, until it burst up
+into the burning sunshine in the very middle of the desert, of the
+chaparral, and of the spider-web of paths. It danced and gurgled, this
+morning, right under the timid noses of a gang of antelopes who had
+trotted in there by the shortest lane, not missing their way for a yard.
+
+A motherly old sage-hen watched them from under a bush upon one side of
+the open, while in the opposite scrubs a large jackass rabbit sat, with
+lifted forefeet and with ears thrust forward, his face wearing such a
+look of surprised disapproval as only a rabbit can put on.
+
+One antelope held his head up and listened while the rest were drinking.
+He turned his head and looked around him, and in every direction he
+could see an extraordinary collection of white or whitening bones, large
+and small. Perhaps, year after year, many over-thirsty animals had
+rushed hastily in and drank too much of that snow-water. At all events,
+they had ended their days there. The antelope, or anybody else, could
+also have said to himself, "Tomato-cans? Empty sardine-boxes? Bottles?
+Old wheels? I wonder how many and what kind of white men or Indians have
+camped around Fonda des Arenas?" If he had been an American antelope,
+however, he would have said Cold Spring, and not Fountain of the Sands.
+
+The antelopes were divided as to their nationality, and changed their
+citizenship several times, for, right through the middle of the spring
+and along the little rill by which it ran across the rock lay the
+boundary line between the United States and Mexico. Some curious
+chisel-marks in one place had meanings with reference to the boundary,
+and so it must have been there; but even the keen eyes of two buzzard
+eagles, soaring overhead, could not have seen the line itself.
+
+Suddenly the antelope chief gave a bleat and a bound, and in a twinkling
+he and his little band disappeared in the southern chaparral. Every one
+of them had fled into Mexico.
+
+Only ears as sensitive as their own could have heard any warning in what
+seemed the almost painful silence of that solitude, but they were right
+in running away. Not many minutes elapsed before several of the paths
+opening towards the spring were occupied by stealthy human forms on
+foot, peering around as if to make sure that no other human beings had
+arrived before them. They answered one another with low calls which
+sounded like suppressed barks of a prairie-wolf, and these were repeated
+in the chaparral behind them.
+
+Then a tall, broad, dignified man, in a red flannel waist-cloth and a
+gorgeous cocked hat, and with red stocking-legs on his arms, strode out
+towards the bubbling fountain with the air of a ruler taking
+possession.
+
+"Kah-go-mish is a great chief!" he remarked, emphatically. "Cheat
+pale-face a heap. Ugh!"
+
+If other remarks made by himself and by a dusky throng, now pouring out
+of the chaparral, could have been interpreted, it would have been
+understood that a plan of Kah-go-mish for escaping from some pursuit or
+other had thus far worked well, but that the danger was by no means at
+an end.
+
+Wah-wah-o-be was one of those who shook their heads about it very
+wisely. She said very little, and neither Ping nor Tah-nu-nu was with
+her. If she knew where they were she did not even mention that fact.
+
+There was plenty of room for the whole band of Kah-go-mish, horses and
+all. They had travelled since the dawn of day, or before, and although
+it was still quite early they were hungry and thirsty.
+
+There was the spring for thirst, and fires were kindled. These were as
+quickly put out, after breakfast had been cooked and eaten, and when the
+sun had dried the waters thrown upon the embers no newcomer could have
+guessed how long it might be since the last coal died.
+
+"Leave heap sign," said Kah-go-mish. "Paleface know great chief been
+here. Not know where gone. Ugh!"
+
+Sign enough was made, for now the band moved away westerly by a path of
+the chaparral. Broad and plain was the trail left behind and it was all
+on Mexican sand. It went right along until it reached and crossed
+another wide path at right angles. Here most of the band turned to the
+left, under orders, but the rest, a lot of warriors, went on, making
+false trail as if for a purpose, half a mile farther, to a wide, empty
+patch of hard gravel. No two of the warriors left that patch together,
+and the trail died there. Of the band which turned to the left, at the
+crossing, the squaw part pushed on while some cunning old braves worked
+like beavers to scratch out every trace that they or theirs had entered
+that left-hand path at all.
+
+It was all a very artistic piece of Indian dodging, and when it was
+completed the entire band of Kah-go-mish was encamped in a secluded nook
+of the chaparral about a mile and a half from the spring. So far as any
+tracks they had made were concerned, they would have been about as hard
+to find as the sage-hen, who had now returned to her place under the
+bush by the spring, and had distinguished company to help her watch it.
+
+A sage-hen crouching low in sand and shadowed by wait-a-bit thorn twigs
+is pretty well hidden. So is a great Apache chief when he has left his
+cocked hat and his horse a mile and a half away and is lying at full
+length, in a rabbit path, a few yards behind the sage-hen.
+
+Kah-go-mish had his own military reasons for hurrying back to play spy,
+and his face wore an expression of mingled cunning, patience, and
+self-satisfaction. Something like a crisis had evidently arrived in his
+affairs, and he was meeting it as became a Mescalero-Apache statesman of
+genius. He and the sage-hen lay still for a while, but it was not long
+before there was another arrival at the spring.
+
+No sound escaped the lips of Kah-go-mish, but the expression of his face
+changed suddenly.
+
+Perhaps the new arrival had been long in convincing himself that he
+could safely venture to the spring, but he now left his pony at the edge
+of the quartz level and walked on to the water's edge. He was not a
+white man. He was one of the Indians who had said "How" to Vic and Mrs.
+Evans, and the sight of him seemed to arouse all the wolf in
+Kah-go-mish. The eyes of the Mescalero leader glistened like those of a
+serpent as he thrust his rifle forward. There was a sharp report and
+Kah-go-mish bounded from his cover, knife in hand, for the Chiricahua
+scout lay lifeless upon the rock.
+
+"To-da-te-ca-to-da no more be heap eyes for blue coat," said the
+ferociously wrathful chieftain, and a moment later, as he again
+disappeared in the chaparral, he added, bitterly: "Heap sign now. Ugh.
+Pale-face find him. Bad Indian! Ugh!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+LOST IN THE CHAPARRAL.
+
+
+Kah-go-mish and all the other members of his band except two had been
+entirely absorbed in the marching and counter-marching required to make
+other people lose track of them. Meantime the two exceptions had been
+threading the blind paths of the chaparral more rapidly and a great deal
+more anxiously.
+
+Neither of the ponies which carried Ping and Tah-nu-nu was hampered by
+any saddle, and both were somewhat wild, but they were not wild enough
+to have an antelope's learning as to the streets and lanes of that bushy
+wilderness. Their young riders were just as ignorant. After the fight
+with the cougar, Ping remembered that when Tah-nu-nu sent her last arrow
+into the side of the great cat she had seemed to him to be about twice
+her ordinary size. Her bow had twanged at the moment when he had himself
+felt like a very small boy indeed, about to be stepped upon by the worst
+claws in the world. She, at that moment, had thought of her brother as a
+young warrior and a hero. Now, however, they were even, for they both
+had lost their way; and she spoke of him as a mere boy, while he
+described her as a little squaw, from whom, of course, any great amount
+of wisdom was hardly to be expected. Whether they rode fast or slow, up
+one path or down another, seemed to make little difference. They were in
+a complete puzzle, and there were a number of square miles of it.
+
+At last an avenue of more than ordinary width seemed to offer a promise
+that it might lead somewhere in particular, instead of everywhere in
+general, and Ping remarked: "Ugh! Heap trail," as he rode into it.
+
+"Buffalo trail," added Tah-nu-nu, satirically, and she was right, but it
+was the best highway they had yet discovered.
+
+On they rode, for a while, making fewer turns and windings, until they
+came to a problem which halted them. The wide path split into two that
+were equally wide, and made a good place for a lost Apache boy and girl
+to argue a knotty question. Tah-nu-nu favored the right-hand road while
+Ping preferred the left, and neither of them could give a good reason
+for any choice.
+
+After Ping killed the cougar, the heart of it had been given him for
+breakfast and the tongue for dinner, but, whatever else he had gained by
+eating them, he had not acquired that animal's natural-born bush wisdom.
+He may at some time have eaten an antelope's ear, however, for he now
+put up his hand as if another bullet had whizzed past him.
+
+"Ugh!" he exclaimed. "Hear pony! Tah-nu-nu, come!"
+
+They wheeled their own ponies behind the nearest thick bushes and
+dismounted. The newcomer might be a friend, but he was just as likely to
+be an enemy. Ping got an arrow ready, and felt very much like a young
+cougar waiting for an opportunity to spring.
+
+They had only a minute to wait, and then another exceedingly puzzled
+young person drew his rein at the point where the wide path divided.
+Ping's eyes opened wide and they glittered enviously. Never before had
+he seen so dashing-looking a young paleface, nor any kind of boy mounted
+upon such a beauty of a horse. Oh, how the son of Kah-go-mish did long
+to become the owner of that red mustang.
+
+"Dick," said the boy in the saddle, very much as if he had been talking
+to another human being, "did you know that you and I had lost our way?
+How do you suppose we shall ever get out of this scrape? It's a bad
+one."
+
+Dick neighed discontentedly, and pawed the sand, for he was thirsty, but
+he made no other answer. He was as ignorant as was his master concerning
+those roads and of what was at that moment taking place among the
+bushes.
+
+The Mescalero branch of the great Apache nation, while at war with
+Mexico, was at peace with the United States, although it was by means of
+a treaty which had been badly cracked, if not broken, upon both sides.
+As for The-boy-whose-ear-pushed-away-a-piece-of-lead, however, he felt
+in all his veins that he was at war with the entire white race, and that
+he wanted that red mustang.
+
+His arrow was on the string, and he was lifting his bow, when Tah-nu-nu
+caught him firmly by the arm.
+
+"Ugh!" she whispered. "Kah-go-mish say no kill. No fight blue-coat. No
+take 'calp. Ping no shoot."
+
+The too eager young warrior struggled a little, but Tah-nu-nu was
+determined. Then he seemed to assent, and she let go of his arm while
+they both listened to something more that the white boy said. They could
+not quite understand the words, but they could read the decision he came
+to.
+
+"Dick," he remarked, "here goes. We'll take to the right, if it leads us
+to China."
+
+With the guiding motion of his hand the red mustang sprang forward. Just
+as he did so, a fiercely driven arrow whizzed by the head of his master.
+It only missed its mark by a few inches, and they had been gained for
+Cal by the quick hand of Tah-nu-nu.
+
+"Indians!" was the exclamation that sprang to Cal's lips. "An ambush."
+
+He rode on rapidly a little distance, and then he pulled in his pony,
+adding: "Things are getting pretty bad for us, Dick."
+
+"Ugh!" Ping had said, as Cal disappeared. "Tah-nu-nu make him lose
+arrow. Lose pony. Heap squaw!"
+
+"Kah-go-mish say, good!" she sharply responded. "Heap mad for kill."
+
+She had saved the life of the young pale-face stranger, and she felt
+sure of her father's approval. She had heard him give his warriors rigid
+orders against unnecessary bloodshed. He had specified blue-coats and
+cowboys with thoughtful care for the future of his band, if not for the
+treaty, but he had said nothing at all about Chiricahua scouts.
+
+Ping was compelled to yield the point, but it was plain to both of them
+that if there were more pale-faces to the right, for that one to follow
+after, their own course must be to the left. Down that path they rode,
+accordingly, and they were going right and wrong at the same time.
+
+Cal Evans, on the other hand, was going altogether in the wrong path,
+and was doing it pretty rapidly. It occurred to him that buffaloes
+marching two abreast must have laid out that bush-bordered lane, but
+then other lanes as wide ran into it or crossed it. He at last brought
+Dick down to an easy canter and tried to study the situation carefully.
+He had heard of experienced plainsmen who had lost themselves in
+chaparral. They had wandered around aimlessly, for days and days,
+crossing their own trails again and again. At last they had lost hope
+and had lain down and died of hunger and thirst at only short distances
+from friends who were hunting for them.
+
+Cal's heart beat hard as he recalled those terrible stories. The sun
+seemed to be growing hotter overhead. The wind had almost died out, and
+the air was like that of a furnace. He was painfully thirsty, and he
+knew that Dick had had no water since daylight, and then not a full
+supply, for the expedition had been in the desert since the previous
+afternoon. They had all travelled rapidly, too, in the hope of reaching
+Cold Spring early.
+
+"What will father say," thought Cal, "when he finds out that I'm
+missing? What would mother and Vic say, if they knew? I only rode ahead
+a little way, and I can't guess how I came to lose track of them all."
+
+No man who gets lost can ever tell exactly how he managed to do it.
+
+Very mocking were the curves of that seeming road to nowhere, and many
+were the narrower lanes that entered it as if they also wanted to go
+there. Cal could hardly have guessed how many sultry miles he travelled
+before he came suddenly upon a wider, sandier path, bordered by taller
+bushes, that struck straight across the other.
+
+"It's time for us to try something new, Dick," he said, but he said it
+dolefully, as he turned to the left and pushed down the unknown avenue.
+It had its curves, like the other, and it was wider here and narrower
+there, and it led him on for a full hour. He had long since almost
+forgotten about the whizzing arrow, in his deep anxiety, and he knew
+that there could not be ambushes everywhere.
+
+At the end of the long hour he and Dick stood stock-still. They were on
+a slight elevation from which a considerable sweep of the chaparral
+could be overlooked. It was a dreary, dreary prospect, and it seemed to
+be interminable. Cal stared wistfully in all directions, but north and
+south and east and west appeared to be alike without hope. Into that
+lonely path no other human being was likely to come. Dick and Cal were
+like flies, caught in the vast web. In spite of the glowing sunshine,
+all things seemed to be growing very dark indeed, and they even grew
+darker when his feverish imagination wandered away to Santa Lucia.
+
+"It's a fact, Dick," he said, huskily, "you and I are lost."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+AN INVASION OF TWO REPUBLICS.
+
+
+Kah-go-mish was a great chief, and had employed all the cunning in him
+in his arrangements for eluding his pursuers. It now remained to be seen
+whether or not he had made blunders.
+
+The Chiricahua scout lay on the white quartz only a few yards from the
+water's edge. The sage-hen sat under the bush. The Apache leader lay
+once more in his rabbit-path behind her, having regained it by a long
+circuit through the chaparral.
+
+The two buzzards overhead were floating somewhat lower, and they could
+see all over the tangled maze of scrubby growth and buffalo-paths.
+
+From the southward came a soft, warm wind, carrying with it sounds which
+brought a quick, vindictive gleam into the eyes of Kah-go-mish. First
+came the faint, distant music of a bugle, as if to inform both friends
+and enemies that a cavalry column was picking its way through the
+spider-web. A little later shouts could be heard, and then the rattle of
+sabres and the neighing of horses. Nearer and nearer drew the assurance
+that quite a lot of fellows of some sort were at hand, and all the while
+the buzzards overhead, and they only, were aware that a very
+different-looking set were approaching from another direction.
+
+This second party was also armed and mounted, but it plodded on in
+silence and not rapidly. They seemed disposed to feel their way with
+some care, although not at all in doubt as to the path they were
+following. Part of these silent horsemen were all the way from Fort
+Craig, hunting some Mescaleros who had left their Reservation, and the
+rest of them were from Santa Lucia ranch and its neighborhood, and had
+come for some stolen horses. Just now many of them seemed disposed to
+discuss the military tactics of Mexican commanders.
+
+"All the Indians in the chaparral have had good bugle-warning, Sam,"
+said Colonel Evans to the cowboy nearest.
+
+"Colorado!" said Sam. "Reckon they have. But then no redskins nor
+anybody else 'd stop here long. We know one thing, though."
+
+"What's that, Sam?"
+
+"Well, if our redskins are here away, they've been raced out of Mexico.
+We'll get 'em on American sile."
+
+That appeared to be the opinion of Captain Moore, but the entire party
+had a hot, thirsty, jaded look, as of men and horses who had made a long
+push across a desert and wanted rest and water.
+
+"We'll try and reach the spring first," said the captain, "and claim our
+first choice of a camping-ground."
+
+That was why neither of the two bodies of cavalry got there first, and
+why Kah-go-mish and the sage-hen heard, pretty soon, an American cavalry
+bugle from the east answering the Mexican music from the south.
+
+Then the buzzards overhead saw men in uniform and other men in no
+uniform ride out of the chaparral, from opposite sides, into the great
+rocky open around the spring.
+
+Just before that Kah-go-mish had seen three Chiricahuas steal out from
+the cover. They had scouted all around it, and one of them had passed
+very near the lurking Mescalero. He had been in no danger, for
+Kah-go-mish had heard the bugles and knew that he must lie still. All
+three were now grouped around their lost comrade on the rock.
+
+"Ugh!" they said, as they looked at him. "Kah-go-mish."
+
+Captain Moore had been informed of the name of the chief whose band had
+wandered from the Reservation, and now the Chiricahuas were in no doubt
+as to whose work lay before them. It was part of an old personal feud,
+they said, and had nothing to do with pale-faces or stolen horses.
+
+Straight to the margin of the spring rode Captain Moore and the Mexican
+commander, each followed by several other riders, while behind them
+their men filed out of the chaparral.
+
+The meeting of the two officers was ceremoniously polite, and was
+followed by rapid explanations that left them in little doubt but that
+they were pursuing the same enemy.
+
+"Señor," said Captain Moore, with a smile, at last, as he looked around,
+"your forces have invaded the territory of the United States."
+
+"Señor Capitan," smiled the Mexican, with a low bow, "part of the troops
+under your command have broken the treaty and are now in Mexico."
+
+"I propose, then, Colonel Romero," said the captain, "that we compromise
+the matter. My command is almost thirsty enough to drink up the American
+half of this spring. How are your own?"
+
+"Dry as the sand," would have been a fair interpretation of the polite
+Mexican's reply, and orders were given on both sides which provided for
+the thirsty men and animals without delay.
+
+There were pleasant-voiced introductions among the gentlemen, and the
+blue-coats and cowboys mingled freely with the lancers and rancheros. If
+Kah-go-mish did not know it before, he now learned that these Mexicans,
+of whom there were nearly two hundred, were not the same force that he
+had collected his target-fee from.
+
+A sort of mutual council of war of all the officers and Colonel Evans
+was held over the body of the dead Chiricahua scout.
+
+"It may indicate the presence of only one warrior," said Captain Moore,
+"or it may mean that the whole band is near--"
+
+At that moment a loud whoop sounded from the chaparral, westerly. It was
+followed by the hasty return of one of the Chiricahuas to announce that
+he had found the trail of the Apaches and that it led towards the south,
+into Mexico.
+
+"You can follow them, then, and I cannot," said Captain Moore to Colonel
+Romero. "I should like to consult with Colonel Evans as to my own
+course."
+
+He looked around as if searching for the owner of Santa Lucia, who had
+been at his elbow, but had suddenly seemed to vanish.
+
+[Illustration: "UGH!" THEY SAID, AS THEY LOOKED AT HIM. "KAH-GO-MISH"]
+
+"Si, Señor Capitan," replied Colonel Romero. "We will follow the
+trail at once, and I am glad that all the glory is to be ours. We shall,
+at all events, be in a good camping-ground by sunset."
+
+"Your whole command is with you?" asked the captain.
+
+"Except a pack-train and spare horses," replied Colonel Romero. "We
+pushed ahead a little, and they took it easily. They are only a few
+miles behind and will soon catch up with us."
+
+He said more, and he had a good voice. He accompanied his very distinct
+utterances with gestures, not dreaming that the sage-hen or any other
+improper listener was near enough to learn too much.
+
+Even in his rabbit-patch, however, Kah-go-mish could not entirely
+restrain his thoughts.
+
+"Ugh!" he muttered. "Heap pony. Heap mule."
+
+Horses and men had quenched their thirst and both sides were eating
+luncheon. The two commanders separated, and Captain Moore turned away.
+As he did so a large man stood before him with flushed, excited face.
+
+"Captain Moore, Cal is lost! Lost in the chaparral!"
+
+That was why he had stepped away so suddenly, for Sam Herrick had first
+beckoned to him, and then had led him aside to say that Cal had not come
+in with the rest. He had hunted for him all around, but not one of the
+men had seen him for an hour and a half. The colonel himself had at once
+made rapid inquiries, and now he had brought the news to Captain Moore,
+in such a state of mind that he could not think.
+
+"Cal!" exclaimed the captain. "Lost! Oh, no. Don't be so agitated. You
+can find him."
+
+The colonel tried to speak, but his voice refused to do its duty.
+
+"Herrick, Sam," said the captain, quietly, "those Greasers have more
+bugles than they need. Buy a couple. I'll lend you mine. Stop. I'll
+speak to Colonel Romero about it."
+
+"Bugles?" said Colonel Evans.
+
+"Why, yes," said the captain, "if Cal is tangled in the chaparral he
+must have something to guide him. I must push on, along the boundary
+line, to see what luck I can have with the Mescaleros. Colonel Romero
+and his men will follow their direct trail, and so they won't find them;
+but we both make it safer for you. Patrol back, blowing all sorts of
+noise, and Cal's pretty sure to ride right up to one bugle or another.
+Scatter 'em wide."
+
+"Thank you. Thank you, captain," said the colonel. "Sam, get all the
+bugles you can. Give a horse for a bugle. Give anything!"
+
+The captain at once rode into Mexico for a talk with Colonel Romero.
+There was, indeed, an over-supply of musical instruments in that
+command, and its gallant colonel sympathized impressively with the
+feelings of Cal's father and friends. So did two militiamen who were
+happy enough to own unnecessary bugles. Sam Herrick did not give a horse
+for either, but one battered, crooked tube of sheet brass brought enough
+money to replace it with a new one at least half silver.
+
+Captain Moore hardly needed to explain so simple a plan. He had tried it
+twice, he said, for stray men of his own, and in each case they had
+ridden safely in. Neither he nor Colonel Evans guessed that Cal had
+already ridden away beyond the stretch of chaparral in which they
+proposed to toot for him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+HOW PING AND TAH-NU-NU GOT TO THE SPRING.
+
+
+Colonel Romero and his gay lancers and his picturesque ranchero militia
+rode away along the well-marked trail so carefully left for them by the
+Apaches. It led manifestly into their own republic, and there seemed to
+be no danger whatever of their losing it. They had two bugles less than
+when they entered the chaparral, but they made noise enough to notify
+any red men lurking in the bushes ahead of them that they were coming.
+The one special precaution which they continually took was against
+possible ambuscades. They were determined not to be taken by surprise,
+and their wary scouts routed out a considerable number of jackass
+rabbits and sage-hens. Beyond these they met with no excitement whatever
+until they came to the barren gravel patch, beyond which the Apache
+trail did not go.
+
+Here a halt was called--necessarily. The pride of a Mexican army
+officer, and of a round score of them, was in the way of going back to
+Cold Spring to tell some Americans of a kind of defeat. It was talked
+over, and a decision was wisely reached. The Apaches, it was concluded,
+had not gone down into the earth nor up into the air. They had scattered
+through different paths of the chaparral, to come together again at
+some point farther on--probably at the outer edge of it. Kah-go-mish
+would have fully approved of that piece of sagacity, for it sent the
+Mexican part of the forces pursuing him a number of miles farther into
+Mexico. As for that cunning Apache himself, he seemed a model of human
+patience. The sage-hen had at last deserted him. She had seen the
+Mexicans depart, and that was enough for her. Perhaps she knew of other
+old chaparral ladies like herself to whom she wished to tell the latest
+news.
+
+At all events she scurried suddenly away and left Kah-go-mish trying to
+understand the next military operation going on at the spring.
+
+Of course the slaughtered Chiricahua scout was carried into the bushes
+and buried. Then the blue-coats and their commander rode away upon a
+path which promised to keep them most of the time within the United
+States. After that the cowboy part of the American expedition gathered
+at the spring, and evidently held a sort of council. It was of
+importance to Apache plans to get an idea of what theirs might be, and
+the watcher in the rabbit-path lay very still. He saw man after man take
+a bugle and blow on it, as if trying to see how loud a noise he could
+make. He did not know Joaquin by name, but gave him the prize,
+decidedly, in his own mind.
+
+While all this was going on, it might have been as well for the family
+peace of the chief if he could have been attending to the welfare of his
+two promising children.
+
+Ping and Tah-nu-nu rode on, with something like hope and confidence, for
+a while after their glimpse of the red mustang and his rider. Every now
+and then The-boy-whose-ear-pushed-away-a-piece-of-lead had something to
+say about the wonderful pony he had seen, and it was plain that he did
+not quite agree with Tah-nu-nu as to the wickedness of sending the arrow
+after Cal.
+
+His band had left the Reservation and had escaped from all peril of
+becoming civilized, and some day or other he felt sure of going upon the
+war-path against the pale-faces with the hope of killing them all. In
+the meantime they were coming to take away his father's horses, and he
+believed himself at war with them.
+
+He grew moody and silent, and it was partly because he and his pony were
+uncommonly thirsty. He did not say so, for he was a young warrior who
+had already slain a cougar and had eaten the cougar's heart, well
+roasted, and it did not become him to show any signs of fatigue or
+suffering. The path they followed was a strip of yielding sand, up to a
+point where Ping pulled in his pony with a jerk. Another path, as wide,
+ran into it right there, bringing "bad medicine."
+
+"Ugh!" exclaimed Ping. "Pale-face! Blue-coat!"
+
+"Ugh!" was the only response of Tah-nu-nu, as she leaned over and looked
+down at the plain marks left behind by the hoofs of iron-shod horses.
+
+There were many of them, and they all went in one direction.
+
+"Heap blue-coat!" exclaimed Ping, again and again; and it seemed as if
+the troubles of Tah-nu-nu and himself had been multiplied.
+
+The trail of their enemies led to some place in particular beyond a
+doubt, but that must be the very place to which no Apache boy and girl
+wished to go. They must try another path.
+
+Slowly, watchfully, they followed the cavalry trail for a moderate
+distance until another hopeful outlet presented itself. They were agreed
+this time, and rode on side by side, wondering more and more where could
+be the hiding-place of their own people.
+
+They had not by any means wandered so far out of the right track as had
+Cal Evans, but, after their first mistake had been discovered, had
+seemed to find a curious kind of instinct of their own guiding
+them--just a little like that which might have led a pair of unwise
+young antelopes. They were born children of the plains, and Cal was not.
+Even now their general idea of the direction to be taken led them
+towards the central point which should have been their aim.
+
+Perhaps it would be more correct to say that it should not have been
+their aim under the circumstances, for it was the very point to which
+the other winding pathway, the cavalry trail, also tended after making a
+wide sweep.
+
+There was no one to give them any information, but again and again they
+halted to consider the matter and to rest their thirsty ponies. It was
+slow travelling and every way unpleasant to a pair of young people who
+had set out that morning with a merry assurance that the great chief,
+the father of whom they were so proud, had outwitted the Mexicans and
+was about to outwit the blue-coats and the cowboys.
+
+He, lying in his rabbit-path, was now very nearly ready to declare to
+himself what was the best thing for a great Mescalero Apache to do next,
+when he was called upon to witness an extraordinary performance. The
+bugle-practice had closed many minutes; the last horse had eaten his
+rations and had been watered. The last cowboy had sprung to the saddle;
+squads had been counted off; directions had been given by Colonel Evans,
+and each small party was about to enter the chaparral by a different
+path.
+
+The spring was deserted, and its flashing ripples, with the white rock
+around them, could be seen at a distance by any rider coming along one
+of the straighter avenues. Two who came along saw it, and each uttered a
+glad, thirsty cry. A sort of despair left them so instantly that they
+did not pause for thought or consultation. Boy and girl together, they
+lashed their ponies and dashed recklessly forward. Their shouts had been
+heard.
+
+"There's Cal!" exclaimed one cowboy.
+
+"He's coming," said another.
+
+A third had his hat off and was just on the point of hurrahing when the
+deep voice of Colonel Evans, in a distinct though suppressed tone,
+warned them.
+
+"Silence, all! It isn't his voice. Wait."
+
+They waited, and it was barely a full minute before Kah-go-mish saw Ping
+and Tah-nu-nu halt their ponies at the spring.
+
+"Ping!" screamed Tah-nu-nu.
+
+"Ugh!" said he. "Cowboy!"
+
+On all sides appeared the mysteriously unexpected horsemen, swiftly
+closing around them. It was of no use to run or to resist. The chief's
+daughter and The-boy-whose-ear-pushed-away-a-piece-of-lead were
+prisoners in the hands of the very men who had come to steal from their
+father all the good horses he had gathered upon Slater's Branch.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+HOW DICK PLAYED SENTINEL.
+
+
+That had been a warm and also a very busy day at Santa Lucia Ranch. It
+began, like other days, with an early breakfast for all who awoke under
+the roof of the hacienda, and everybody had conjectures to make, of
+course, as to the whereabouts and doings of Cal and his father and the
+Apache-hunting expedition.
+
+Mrs. Evans and Vic did not care for a horseback ride. In fact, Vic said
+she did not care much for anything. About the middle of the forenoon,
+however, two hammocks that swung under the awning in front of the
+veranda became suddenly empty.
+
+There came a great shouting and whip-cracking out upon the prairie. It
+sounded along the well-marked old wagon-road which came down from the
+north. Whole army trains had travelled that road from time to time, and
+now a great tilted wagon, drawn by six mules and followed by four more,
+came rolling smoothly in the deep old ruts.
+
+There was a cowboy ready to open the gate and let in the wagon. News of
+its coming was already in the house, and every soul hurried out to
+welcome it.
+
+"Sure, and it's glad I am that it's come," said Norah McLory. "There
+wasn't coffee to last the wake, let alone sugar."
+
+The beauty of that wagon was all in its cargo. It belonged to Colonel
+Evans, and it brought supplies all the way down from Santa Fé. The
+unloading and investigation of the things under the ample tilt was an
+affair of fun and excitement and surprises worth a whole week of
+shopping in the city.
+
+Full orders had been sent by that six-mule express, for such a trip was
+costly and could not be afforded too frequently; but even Mrs. Evans had
+not been permitted to examine all the lists of goods before they went,
+and Vic knew almost nothing about them. It was, therefore, something
+like a tremendous Christmas morning coming in June.
+
+The groceries, both as to assortment and quantity, delighted the very
+heart of Norah McLory. There were cloths and clothing for all the needs
+of Santa Lucia. One whole packing-case was marked as belonging
+especially to Mrs. Evans, but it might almost as well have been directed
+to Vic. The next was smaller and had no name upon it, but when it was
+opened it compelled Vic to exclaim, again and again: "How I do wish Cal
+were here! What won't he say when he gets home!"
+
+However that might be, Cal heard Ping's arrow whiz past him just a
+little before Vic laid down his new breech-loading double-barrelled
+shotgun and began to admire his neckties, his pocket-knife, compass, and
+a lot of other treasures.
+
+The miscellaneous cargo of the tilted wagon had cost the price obtained
+for a goodly number of horned cattle. The value of two fine mules had
+been expended upon another kind of supplies.
+
+There was no post-office at or near Santa Lucia, and letters found
+their way there as best they might, at long intervals. Newspapers came
+in like manner, if they came at all, but now the tilt of that wagon had
+covered a very large amount of news. Some of it was beginning to get a
+little old in the rest of the world, for there were several files of
+well-known Eastern weekly journals, three months in length. Illustrated
+journals were there, and magazines, for young and old. The remainder of
+those mules had gone for books. One serious element of the loneliness
+Vic had complained of in her ranch life vanished at once.
+
+"I've loads of good company now," she said, after dinner, as she began
+at last to swing in one of the hammocks.
+
+A stack of printed matter lay on the ground beside her, and the thin,
+wide pamphlet in her hand emphasized her declaration: "I always want to
+see all the pictures first."
+
+Mrs. Evans was in the other hammock. She had finished some letters
+before dinner, and now she was at work with the newspapers, trying to
+find out what great things had happened in the world since it had been
+heard from at Santa Lucia.
+
+The day died slowly away, as it always will in June. The pictures were
+looked at, the news was read, the books were turned over, and if the day
+had not been so very warm more might have been done with the other
+contents of the tilted wagon. Even Norah McLory put away the liberal
+provision made for her department, and sat down to think of it.
+
+"They'll not milt away," she said, "but that's more'n I can prove about
+mesilf. Injins is fond of sugar, and there's two barrels of it here
+now. Oh, the villains."
+
+Vic stood out beyond the awning and watched the sun go down over the
+cloudlike tops of the western mountains.
+
+"What are you thinking of, Vic?" asked her mother, from under the
+awning.
+
+"Why, mother, Cal and father are somewhere away out there. They're
+pretty near the Sierra, maybe. I was wondering in what sort of a camp
+Cal had eaten his supper."
+
+Cal was not in any camp, and he had not eaten any supper. He did not
+ride Dick uselessly the remainder of that hot afternoon. At first he
+took long rests, and then he dismounted altogether and walked. The red
+mustang needed no leading, but seemed to feel better when his human
+company was close beside him, with a hand upon the bridle. He was
+evidently suffering from thirst rather than from fatigue, and so was his
+master. Every now and then any path they happened to be in led out into
+barren reaches of sand and gravel, on any side of which they were at
+liberty to choose among several avenues, and this was one of the
+treacherous puzzles of the chaparral. Cal did not know that the red men
+who had threaded that maze before him had left marks of their own upon
+the trunks of the mesquit scrubs. He could not have read, if he had
+known, for he was worse off than a foreigner in a strange, great city.
+
+Twice he saw a wolf go trotting across the vista ahead of him, and once
+a gang of antelopes dashed away as he came in sight. Somewhere in that
+terrible tangle there must be human beings, red and white, he knew, and
+he would almost have welcomed the sight of an Indian when he saw the sun
+go down.
+
+The moon did not rise, at once, and it was very dark and gloomy, as well
+as oppressively warm, in the chaparral. Heat came up from the sun-baked
+sand, and more heat seemed to creep out from among the bushes.
+
+It was a time for Cal to look away down inside of himself and to call
+out all the courage there was in him.
+
+"I can stand it another day, I know I can," he said to himself, "and
+I've got it to do. I won't wear out Dick. We must rest all night. It
+won't be a long night. Soon as it's light we must be moving. It'll be
+cooler then."
+
+The spot that was somehow selected for his lonely bivouac was near the
+point where two broad paths crossed each other. Cal could not guess
+where they came from nor where they went to, nor which of them it would
+be best for him to travel by in the morning.
+
+He fastened Dick's lariat to a bush, but there was no grass for the
+faithful mustang to pick upon. He stood in the path a very picture of
+patience, except that now and then he expressed a little thirsty
+discontent by a dejected pawing of the hot sand.
+
+Cal had a blanket strapped behind the saddle, and he now spread it and
+lay down. He even went to sleep, and how long he had slumbered he did
+not know, when he was awakened by Dick's face close to his own, and a
+whimpering, low neigh. The red mustang was acting as a sentinel, and
+had heard something.
+
+"What is it, Dick?" asked Cal, as he sprang to his feet, but the answer
+came in an unexpected manner.
+
+There was a tramping sound along the other path, and then Cal heard
+voices. The moon was up, now, and its light fell upon what seemed an
+endless procession of horses and mules. There were mounted men among
+them, and Cal knew who they were.
+
+"That's so," he muttered. "Those are the very Apaches we are after.
+Where can they be going at this time of night?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+BAD NEWS FOR WAH-WAH-O-BE.
+
+
+Kah-go-mish was an Apache, but he was also a father. He lay in his
+rabbit-path, under the bushes, and saw the surrender of his children. Up
+he came upon all fours, glaring ferociously upon their captors. For a
+moment his whole body seemed to swell and quiver with wrath. Then he lay
+down again, and he even smiled with pride over the excellent behavior of
+Ping and Tah-nu-nu.
+
+Sam Herrick held out his hand to
+The-boy-whose-ear-pushed-away-a-piece-of-lead with a very friendly
+"How!"
+
+"Ugh! Cowboy!" said Ping. "How!"
+
+Tah-nu-nu, on the other hand, remained primly silent, and did not reply
+in any manner when one after the other of the pale-face braves around
+her asked what her name was and where she came from and where she was
+going.
+
+Ping was first questioned in English, but all of that tongue that he had
+picked up upon the Reservation seemed to have gone from him. Then
+Colonel Evans tried him in Spanish, and he looked as if he had never in
+all his life heard a Mexican speak, for the substance of the inquiry in
+both languages was, "Where is Kah-go-mish? Where is your band?"
+
+Tah-nu-nu said something to him in Apache at that moment, and a
+Chiricahua, whom she had not seen, standing behind her, interpreted it
+to Colonel Evans.
+
+"That's it, is it?" exclaimed Cal's father. "She says that they mustn't
+let us know that the band is in the chaparral. Now I know better what to
+do."
+
+The glances bestowed upon the Chiricahua by Ping and Tah-nu-nu were not
+arrows, or they would have killed him.
+
+"Boys," said the colonel, "treat them first-rate, but they mustn't get
+away. Now let's go after Cal."
+
+Kah-go-mish saw his children supplied with water, fed well, laughed
+with, questioned, every way well-treated, and then he saw them mounted
+upon fresh ponies.
+
+"Ugh!" he muttered. "Pale-face chief heap big man. Got heart. Good. No
+hurt him. Kill Mexican. No kill cowboy."
+
+He lingered a little longer, for he wondered what those pale-faces were
+up to. They rode away in squads, by different paths, and at regular
+intervals he heard them blowing tremendously upon their bugles. They
+fired shots, too, now and then, and the sounds receded farther and
+farther into the chaparral. It was altogether a very remarkable
+proceeding, such as the chief had never before heard of. He said to
+himself that there must be some kind of "medicine" in it. He had no fear
+of any bodily harm to his children, but their capture by the cowboys had
+suddenly put a new element into all the plans he had made. He still had
+the Santa Lucia horses, but the men from that ranch and its vicinity had
+Ping and Tah-nu-nu.
+
+Kah-go-mish did not go out to examine a lot of miscellaneous
+camp-property left lying around loose near the spring. He did not wish
+to share the fate he had meted out to the imprudent Chiricahua scout. He
+suspected that a squad of cowboys, guarding the extra horses, was
+lurking near by, under cover of the bushes, and that their rifles
+protected the coffee-pots and kettles. He had, also, a pretty clear idea
+that all the cowboys would soon return, and probably the blue-coats
+also, but he believed himself rid of Colonel Romero's Mexicans. "Ugh!"
+he exclaimed, at last. "Kah-go-mish is a great chief. Know what do, if
+know where Mexicans gone."
+
+Back he crept through the bushes until he deemed it safe for him to
+stand erect, and then he went farther at a rapid rate, considering the
+heat of the weather. He was bent upon an important purpose that called
+for all sorts of activity.
+
+"Where Mexicans gone?" was a question over which there had been several
+badly puzzled arguments already.
+
+Colonel Romero had led his men away along the trail so carefully
+prepared for him by the Apaches. He had had no suspicion that the
+trampled sand, so well marked by dragged lodge-poles, was all a trap.
+His best scouts had fallen into it completely, and the whole command had
+been entirely satisfied until they came to the patch of gravel where the
+trail vanished. Even after that they pushed along until they came out at
+the southwestern border of the chaparral. This was precisely what
+Kah-go-mish had hoped they would do, and right before them lay the other
+part of his cunningly set trap. It was an ancient trail, which was well
+known by Colonel Romero and by some of his more experienced
+Indian-fighters. It led deeper into their own country, and it also led
+to good grass and water, to be reached by riding on until dark.
+
+A brief council was held, but the arguments seemed to be nearly all upon
+one side. It was set forth that the Apaches must have taken that road
+because they could not remain in the chaparral to die of thirst and
+hunger or to be struck by the American cavalry and the cowboys. The
+Mexican horses and men must have water, and so they must go forward, and
+that was their only road. As to their train of pack-mules and spare
+horses, it was safe, they said. It would reach Cold Spring, and would
+find the Americans there. It would get directions from them, and could
+not lose its way.
+
+All the remaining Mexican bugles sounded the advance, and the command
+moved away along the trail. A solitary Apache boy, a head taller than
+Ping, lurking near among some very thick bushes, saw them go. As soon as
+they were well away he was on the back of his pony, at full gallop, and
+evidently was in no doubt whatever as to the right path for him to take.
+He reached the camp of his people just in time to report to the
+returning Kah-go-mish that the trap set for the Mexicans had been a
+complete success.
+
+The chief had sent away that part of his many perils, but he had rapid
+orders to give now. He had also a very difficult report to make to
+Wah-wah-o-be, and she listened to most of it with her blanket over her
+head.
+
+Kah-go-mish told her how well Ping and Tah-nu-nu had been treated, but
+she was inconsolable at first.
+
+The-boy-whose-ear-pushed-away-a-piece-of-lead, the young chief who had
+killed a cougar, and who was yet to surpass the fame of his great
+father, was a prisoner in the hands of the wicked pale-faces. So was the
+beautiful Tah-nu-nu, the most promising young squaw of the entire Apache
+nation. Wah-wah-o-be fully appreciated her children. She knew all their
+good qualities, and she mentioned most of them then and there. What if
+both Ping and his sister were to be carried away to some distant place
+among the great lodges and the terrible magicians of the pale-faces, and
+compelled to become themselves pale-faces? To be turned into something
+different from their noble father and mother? Such things had been done,
+and she had heard of them.
+
+The light of her life seemed to have departed, and Wah-wah-o-be cared
+very little what further disasters might now come to her. She even
+valued all the horses of the band at only a fraction of what they had
+seemed to be worth that morning.
+
+The blanket came down at last, for Kah-go-mish had given all his
+directions to his warriors, and there was work proposed which seemed to
+stir them to a high pitch of enthusiasm. Wah-wah-o-be had her duties
+also to attend to, and she knew that they must all get out of the
+chaparral. She saw her heroic husband ride away, followed by nearly all
+the best braves of the band. Then she and all who were left had some
+rapid packing to do, that every mule and pony might be ready for a
+sudden start whenever the war-party should return. It was understood
+that Kah-go-mish had outwitted the Mexicans, the blue-coats, and the
+cowboys, and that he was about to do something very remarkable. What,
+thought Wah-wah-o-be, if he should also succeed in winning back Ping and
+Tah-nu-nu?
+
+He did not seem to go after them at once. He led his warriors, as nearly
+directly as the crooked paths permitted, to the very trail by which they
+had entered the chaparral. It was an especially wide and well-marked
+north-and-south path to Cold Spring for anybody coming from Mexico. Half
+a mile or more from the spring, among the bushes along the trail,
+Kah-go-mish carefully hid his dismounted warriors. All their horses were
+well away behind them, and they themselves seemed to be an exceedingly
+cheerful, hopeful, and self-satisfied lot of red men. If there was one
+thing more than another that was exactly suited to them, it was an
+ambush with a dead certainty of surprising somebody.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+HOW CAL STARTED FOR MEXICO.
+
+
+Wah-wah-o-be and Kah-go-mish had an advantage over Colonel Evans, for
+they knew what had become of Ping and Tah-nu-nu while his uncertainty
+about Cal grew darker and darker. He and the cowboys faithfully and
+warily threaded the part of the chaparral through which they had marched
+in the earlier hours of that eventful day. The buglers blew regularly,
+taking care not to get out of hearing of each other, but the firing
+ceased after it was discovered that a clear bugle-note could be heard
+farther than could the report of a gun.
+
+As Ping and Tah-nu-nu rode slowly along, they began to comprehend the
+remarkable proceedings which had so completely puzzled their father,
+lying under the bushes. Each had one arm connected by a lariat with the
+arm of a cowboy, but they were not far from one another. They asked no
+questions and had refused to answer any, but they now and then exchanged
+a few words in their own tongue when the Chiricahuas were out of
+hearing.
+
+On went the fruitless search, and at last the two young Apaches were led
+to a place where two paths ran into one. They knew the spot, for Ping
+had lost an arrow there. He remembered, too, how he had lost it, and so
+he said nothing, but Tah-nu-nu had nothing upon her conscience, and she
+turned to her brother to say, "Ugh! Heap pony!"
+
+"Ah ha! You saw him, did you?" said the sharp-eyed cowboy she was tied
+to, and he at once shouted to Colonel Evans, who was riding a little
+ahead of them.
+
+"What is it, Bill?"
+
+"Why, colonel, these two young redskins saw him pass, right here. The
+gal let it out and the boy doesn't deny it."
+
+The secret was out. Ping himself gave up and was willing to use any
+English or Spanish words he knew in telling that he had seen "Heap red
+pony" gallop away by the path which led to the right.
+
+"That's the red mustang," said the colonel, sadly. "Cal's away beyond
+the spring, long ago. No use to hunt hereaway any more. Call in the
+boys. We must try the western chaparral. Maybe he will fall in with the
+cavalry."
+
+He did not say why he shuddered, but the thought he did not utter put
+the Apaches in place of the cavalry. Hot, weary, and disappointed, he
+rode back to the spring and there were Captain Moore and his tired-out
+veterans. They had ridden far enough to satisfy themselves that the
+Apaches had not at once returned to the United States, and they had
+neither a right nor a wish to follow any trail into Mexico.
+
+"Captain," said Colonel Evans, "I wish we were on good terms with the
+Mescaleros. They'd be worth all the white men to hunt for Cal."
+
+"Tell you what I believe, though," said Sam Herrick, "them 'Paches
+didn't go out of this 'ere chaparral. We're bound to hear from 'em
+again. I've heard of Kah-go-mish before."
+
+At the mention of the chief's name Tah-nu-nu looked at her brother, for
+he was straightening up proudly.
+
+"Kah-go-mish great chief! Ugh!" he said, with great emphasis, and then his
+vanity got the better of him, for he patted himself upon the breast, adding
+all the Apache syllables of "The-boy-whose-ear-pushed-away-a-piece-of-lead"
+and ended with "Son of Kah-go-mish."
+
+He did not feel called upon to say that Tah-nu-nu was a daughter, but
+her face told enough.
+
+"That's it," exclaimed Sam Herrick. "We've caught exactly the right
+ones. I wish their dad knew we had 'em. Just as I said, though, we're
+bound to hear more from Kah-go-mish."
+
+So they did, but in a somewhat unexpected manner. Away out near the
+southern border of the chaparral a string of pack-mules and led horses
+came plodding lazily along, late that afternoon, guided by a dozen
+rancheros. They were in no danger, for their own cavalry had swept the
+way before them. They were in no hurry, for they were mentally sure of
+encamping at Cold Spring and of meeting Colonel Romero there. The trail
+before them was abundantly plain. No quadruped would or could wander
+from the train, and two of the rancheros rode ahead, more were scattered
+in the middle, and a pair who seemed almost asleep brought up the rear.
+
+A more helpless military procession never marched anywhere.
+
+The two rancheros in front and the pair in the rear suddenly waked up to
+find themselves accompanied by a dozen or more of Indian warriors, all
+apparently in a friendly and agreeable frame of mind. Not a whoop was
+uttered, not a shot was fired, and it almost looked as if no harm were
+intended. The forward rancheros were greeted by a tall chief in a cocked
+hat, with red stocking-legs upon his arms. It was a striking uniform for
+even an Apache commanding officer.
+
+"How!" he said, as he held out his hand. "Kah-go-mish is a great chief.
+Mexican good fellow. Bring heap pony, heap mule, heap plunder. Give all
+to poor Indian. Ugh!"
+
+The warriors at the rear smiled and said, "How," but then they took away
+the lances and other weapons of the train-guards, as fast as they could
+get at them. Resistance was out of the question, of course, and
+Kah-go-mish had good reasons for not wishing any bloodshed. It might
+have interfered with his wonderful plan.
+
+The entire train was quickly under the care of the Mescaleros, and every
+animal in it was turned around, with his head in a southerly direction.
+The unlucky rancheros were collected, on foot, in the very path they had
+expected to follow on horseback. They were then addressed, in tolerably
+good Mexican Spanish, by the chief himself. He told them how great a man
+he was, and gave them a vivid picture, a series of animal and insect
+illustrations, of his opinion of all pale-faces, all Mexicans, and all
+Chiricahuas. He told them they would find some blue-coats at the spring,
+and some Gringo cowboys. The chief of the Gringos was a great man. He
+had given some horses to the great chief Kah-go-mish. All of those
+horses were to be given back to him, but the chief could not bring them
+now. There were too many bad blue-coats in the chaparral. The great
+chief had given his two children in exchange for the horses, and wanted
+to trade back again. He would do so, but not now. He was on his way to
+Mexico, to carry back the pack-mules and horses he had just received
+from the rancheros. The Mexicans might want them. He hoped the rancheros
+would succeed in catching up with the cavalry. They all looked like good
+runners.
+
+It was a great speech, and much of it was cheerfully satirical. Part of
+it meant that Kah-go-mish knew very well that Captain Moore and Colonel
+Evans would deem it their duty to rescue the pack-train if an
+opportunity were given them, and that he must get as far away as he
+could before the news of his exploit reached them.
+
+It was only an hour before sunset when the plundered rancheros were set
+free to find their way to Cold Spring, for they had not so very far to
+go, and Kah-go-mish was cautious. As soon as they were out of sight he
+and his warriors and their prize were in motion. It was very needful
+that they should reach grass and water before morning.
+
+So far the deep plan of the Indian leader had worked remarkably well,
+even the changes called for by the capture of Ping and Tah-nu-nu being
+as yet in the future. This first success had been indicated by Colonel
+Romero himself, when he told Captain Moore about the pack-train. The old
+sage-hen had been listening at the same time, but she had not profited
+to any known extent. She lacked the ears and the genius of Kah-go-mish,
+and perhaps she was not at war with Mexico.
+
+In due season, among the webby paths of the chaparral, the two sections
+of the Apache band came together. Cold Spring, the blue-coats, and the
+cowboys were far away; the Mexican cavalry were farther; it was entirely
+safe for everybody to whoop, and whoop they did. Once more had the chief
+they were all proud of proved himself one of the greatest men of the
+Apache nation.
+
+Wah-wah-o-be had even a more hopeful feeling concerning Ping and
+Tah-nu-nu when she saw the Mexican pack-mules and the long string of
+horses, but she and all the rest were quickly in motion, for they knew
+that ten miles of desert lay between them and the nearest grass and
+water to the southward. More than one path led from the camping-place to
+the edge of the chaparral, and the Apaches used several in order to get
+out quickly. Suddenly, as they pressed forward, a loud whoop of
+exultation that arose upon one of those lanes was heard by the red
+wayfarers in all the others. It sounded about two minutes after the red
+mustang sentinel awoke his master.
+
+Cal Evans, weary, thirsty, astonished, and wondering what might be best
+for him to do, stood in the shadows, watching the wonderful moonlight
+procession. There was not anything left for him to do. Another part of
+the procession came trampling along behind him, and a loud neigh from
+Dick told him that it was coming. His heart beat very hard for a
+moment, and then the whoop of triumph which went to the ears of
+Kah-go-mish and the rest of the band announced that Cal and the red
+mustang were prisoners of the Mescalero Apaches.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+THE MANITOU OF COLD SPRING.
+
+
+"Sorry about Cal," said Captain Moore, after he and Colonel Evans had
+exchanged reports. "We must all get out early in the morning and scour
+the western chaparral. We shall find him."
+
+It was getting too late for any more searching that day. The shadows
+were lengthening in the chaparral. Besides, both men and animals were in
+need of rest.
+
+Every cowboy and cavalryman felt and spoke strongly about Cal, but the
+best that could be obtained from a Chiricahua was, "Ugh! 'Pache get
+boy."
+
+That was an idea in other minds, for even Ping told Tah-nu-nu: "Heap
+pony find Kah-go-mish."
+
+"Kah-go-mish no kill," she said.
+
+Ping was all but dreaming of the red mustang. Never before had he looked
+upon an animal which so fully came up to his idea of what a horse should
+be. That is, a horse for a young Apache of about his size, and the son
+of a great chief.
+
+Tah-nu-nu was not thinking of horses. She and her brother had been
+kindly treated. It was plain that they were not to be cruelly killed; at
+least not right away, for they had been fed abundantly. They were now
+provided with blankets, and the white chief of the cowboys even went
+further. He was an old Indian trader, and he had not gone out upon such
+an expedition unprepared to negotiate as well as to fight. The first
+essential of any talk with red men is presents, and there were curious
+things in a pack carried by one of the mules. From this collection Cal's
+father now selected two little round mirrors, set in white metal, as
+pretty as silver, and two startling red-white-and-blue yard-wide
+handkerchiefs. The mirrors he hung around the necks of his captives, and
+they puzzled themselves for half an hour over what they should do with
+the brilliant pieces of cotton cloth. Tah-nu-nu found out, for she tied
+hers around her head, and Ping followed her example.
+
+They had been allowed to sit down by the spring, closely watched and
+guarded by one of the Chiricahuas. They proudly refused to speak a word
+to him, although Ping's pride was gratified now with any talk offered
+him by the mighty blue-coats or the cowboy warriors of the pale-faces.
+
+The Chiricahua, however, was quite an old man, and he managed to break
+through the barrier of Ping's reserve.
+
+"Ugh!" he said, pointing to the surveyor's chisel-marks upon the face of
+the rock before them, which told of the boundary line between the two
+republics. "Bad medicine. Drive away Apache manitou."
+
+Wah-wah-o-be herself could not have more cunningly stirred a chord of
+Indian curiosity. Tah-nu-nu was a young squaw, and remained silent, as
+became her, but she stared at the tokens of pale-face magic. Ping did
+the same for a moment.
+
+"Ugh!" he said. "Bad medicine for Mescalero. Good for Chiricahua."
+
+"No, no good," said the old man, with strong emphasis, pointing to some
+dark-red stains upon the rock. "Chiricahua die there. Heap fool. Not
+watch for bad manitou."
+
+"Ugh!" replied Ping, and then for the first time he learned of the deed
+his father had done there that very morning.
+
+"Kah-go-mish is a great chief!" he said, swelling with pride, but the
+old Chiricahua shook his head.
+
+"Chief heap fool," he said. "Kill Indian. Get kill himself some day."
+
+He had more to say about the spring. It had once been good medicine for
+all Indians, especially for all the branches of the great Apache nation.
+The Mexicans, whom he described in terms as picturesque as those
+employed by Kah-go-mish, had come first. They had drunk of the spring,
+but their medicine had been weak and had failed. The manitou of the
+Apaches had not been driven away. Long afterwards had come the Northern
+pale-faces, among whom were men with red beards, like that of Captain
+Moore, and whose warriors wore blue coats. They had great guns, and
+their medicine was powerful. They had forced the Mexicans to divide the
+spring with them, and had cut a mark in the rock, so that the manitou of
+the Apaches could not stay there.
+
+"Ever since that time," said the old Chiricahua, "the Apache bands could
+visit the spring and drink, but it was not well for them to camp there.
+They were safer anywhere out in the chaparral."
+
+He had evidently taken a deep interest in his own narration, and had
+been listened to attentively by Ping and Tah-nu-nu. They had believed
+every word, and wanted to hear more, although the darkness was beginning
+to settle over the camp, and all the sentries and pickets had been
+posted, but just at this moment a shout was heard, and then another,
+among the southerly bushes.
+
+There were sharp questions and answers in Spanish and English, while all
+the men in camp sprang to their feet. So did the old Chiricahua and Ping
+and Tah-nu-nu, and in a moment more they saw a dozen unarmed men, on
+foot, file dejectedly out into the light of the camp-fires.
+
+They were the rancheros who had been in charge of the Mexican spare
+horses and pack-mules.
+
+Captain Moore, his officers, Colonel Evans, and several cowboys listened
+to the remarkable story, helped out as it was by many questions.
+
+"Good thing we caught those youngsters," said Captain Moore. "You did
+well not to fight, and you are lucky to have been allowed to keep your
+scalps. We'll take care of you till morning."
+
+He gave orders about that, and then he turned to Colonel Evans.
+
+"No need for you to hunt for your horses any farther," he said. "They
+are somewhere in Mexico. You may get back most of them, I think, for
+Kah-go-mish has about as many as he knows what to do with."
+
+"Horses!" exclaimed Colonel Evans. "I'm not thinking about horses."
+
+"Cal is not in their hands," said the captain. "We must hunt for him. I
+think, too, that we shall find him. It is not my duty to cross the
+boundary line after Colonel Romero's lost mules."
+
+"Of course not. Nor for mine either. Kah-go-mish is evidently not the
+kind of red-skin to be easily caught by anybody."
+
+"Perfect old fox!" said the captain, with strong emphasis. "But then he
+has the boundary line to help him."
+
+It was a curious fact, but the three Chiricahua scouts considered
+themselves entirely at liberty to feel elated at the victory obtained by
+Apaches of another band over the traditional Mexican enemies of their
+race.
+
+"Ugh!" said the old brave to Ping and Tah-nu-nu.
+"The-boy-whose-ear-pushed-away-a-piece-of-lead is the son of a great
+chief."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+ACROSS THE DESERT BY NIGHT.
+
+
+The evening which passed under such remarkable circumstances in the
+neighborhood of Cold Spring was uncommonly long and busy at the Santa
+Lucia ranch.
+
+Tallow was abundant where so many cattle were raised and slaughtered
+every season, and Mrs. Evans prided herself upon her skill in the
+manufacture of candles. Whatever other comforts of life in the
+settlements were lacking in the old hacienda, there was always plenty of
+illumination after nightfall. There was usually but a short time for
+candle-light in June, for people who arose so soon after daylight were
+accustomed to go to bed early. On this particular evening, however, the
+parlor wore a very brilliant appearance for two hours longer than
+ordinary.
+
+The first look at the precious things brought by the tilted wagon had
+been only a look, and every article had to undergo another inspection.
+
+All were dropped at last, or, rather, there they lay, except such things
+as were under Norah McLory's care, all scattered around the room.
+
+"I can't help it," said Mrs. Evans; "I feel uneasy about Cal."
+
+"So do I, mother," said Vic, leaning back, upon the sofa; "but you never
+said as much before."
+
+"Somehow I didn't feel so, Vic; but it seems to me--Well, I do wish he
+could be here, looking over his new books, instead of away out there."
+
+"We sha'n't hear from him for ever so long," said Vic. "All sorts of
+things might happen and we not know it."
+
+Somehow or other, as the talk drifted on, the varied assortment with
+which the floor and chairs were littered lost its charm. Mrs. Evans even
+got to telling stories of other times when her husband had been away
+from her. She had more than once been compelled to wait long for news of
+him, and had heard tidings of danger before anything better came. He had
+fought his way out of perilous circumstances, and her eyes kindled, now
+and then, as she related how. Wah-wah-o-be herself was not prouder of
+the deeds of Kah-go-mish.
+
+Vic listened, but her imagination was a little out of joint, for she
+found herself unconsciously putting Cal in his father's place. She knew
+very well that he could not pick up one Indian and knock over another
+with him, as Colonel Abe Evans had done upon an occasion described by
+her mother. She had altogether more confidence in the heels of the red
+mustang, and she said so.
+
+"I hope he will bring Dick back safe and sound," she said. "He's almost
+one of the family."
+
+"Cal would be dreadfully sorry to lose him," said Mrs. Evans. "Come,
+Vic, I don't want to talk any more."
+
+Neither of them was in good condition for going to sleep, nevertheless,
+and it may be that their eyes were hardly closed when those of Cal were
+opened at the summons of Dick to watch the moonlight procession in the
+chaparral.
+
+The warrior who first laid a hand upon the rein of the red mustang did
+so with a loud whoop. Cal summoned all his presence of mind and held out
+his right hand.
+
+"How," he said, "good friend."
+
+"Ugh!" responded the savage. "Heap boy."
+
+No violence was offered, for none seemed to be called for, and it is a
+mistake to suppose that all the instincts and customs of the red men are
+in favor of slaughter. Just now, moreover, the clansmen of Kah-go-mish
+were under orders of mercy, and Cal was led on at once to the presence
+of the chief. Dick was led with him, and the two friends stood side by
+side in front of the distinguished Mescalero. He had kept on his cocked
+hat, and Cal thought he had never before seen so remarkable a figure,
+especially by moonlight.
+
+One of Cal's accomplishments, a matter of course to a boy with Mexican
+servants in his own house, was a good acquaintance with Spanish, and it
+helped out the chief's English in the questions and answers which
+followed.
+
+Great was the delight of Kah-go-mish. He and the cowboy commander were
+now even. Each had a son of the other as a sort of security, and all the
+horses gathered upon Slater's Branch seemed more likely to remain Apache
+property.
+
+The bugling and random firing among the bushes that day was all
+explained now, and the great plan of Kah-go-mish looked very well
+indeed. It was needful, however, to put a goodly distance between him
+and the blue-coats, for whose conduct he had no security whatever.
+
+Cal's weapons were taken from him, and he was ordered to mount and ride.
+He at once explained that neither he nor Dick had tasted water since
+morning, that the red mustang was worth several common horses, and that
+he must now be too tired to carry a rider. As for himself, he had slept,
+was rested, and was ready to travel.
+
+Water was scarce in the band of Kah-go-mish at that time, but several
+gourds half full were obtained by the chief. He proposed to treat his
+prisoner pretty well, and was willing to save so very good a pony.
+
+Cal could hardly swallow when the water was brought to him. Not only his
+mouth was parched and his throat husky, but his very heart was sick.
+
+He had heard of the terrific things done by Apaches to their prisoners,
+and he had no confidence at all in the present appearance of good-will.
+He had not been told of Ping and Tah-nu-nu in his own camp, or he might
+have felt better. As it was, he drank a little, and then turned his
+attention to the red mustang. Only a small part of what Dick was ready
+for could be given him, and he was glad enough when his downcast master
+divided water-rations with him. He felt better, and whinnied eagerly for
+more. He pawed the ground and looked around to see if anything like
+grass or corn was also forthcoming. Nothing of the kind came, but a
+Mexican pony was led up, Cal's saddle and bridle were transferred to
+him, and Dick was hitched to a long lariat by which several other
+quadrupeds were being led. The last he saw of Cal that night was when
+the latter rode forward, side by side with a very lean-looking brave who
+carried a long lance, and who had warned Cal that it would be used at
+once upon any attempt to escape. Before long the entire cavalcade was
+out of the chaparral, and Cal noted that the north star was directly
+behind him.
+
+"Down into Mexico," he said to himself. "It will be long enough before I
+see Santa Lucia again."
+
+It was cooler travelling by night than by day, but the hard-baked soil
+sent up an uncomfortable amount of heat, and it was only now and then
+that even a cactus or a sage-bush was seen along the dreary way. One of
+the captured Mexican horses gave out and was left for the buzzards. An
+hour later an old pony which had travelled all the way from the
+Mescalero Reservation was unable to go any farther, and he too lay down.
+
+Cal thought of Dick, and Dick may have been, thinking of him, but the
+red mustang was really in need of nothing but grass and water. He had no
+idea whatever of giving up, and there were no mules tied to his lariat
+to worry him.
+
+Another hour went by, and the alkaline sand and gravel of the desert
+became strewn with rocks, among which the long cavalcade slowly wound
+its way. There was no straggling, for even the animals seemed anxious to
+get out of that gloomy region. The moon was low towards the horizon,
+when it suddenly occurred to Cal that during ten or fifteen minutes he
+had seen a greater number of scrubby bushes.
+
+"More chaparral coming?" he thought. "Hope there's a spring in it,
+somewhere. Never was so awfully thirsty in all my life."
+
+He could hardly have said as much aloud, for his voice seemed to have
+dried up. He was hungry, too, for he had not been able to eat much of
+the bit of cold, half-cooked beef brought to him by Wah-wah-o-be before
+the train left the Cold Spring chaparral.
+
+Trees! Yes, right and left of them, and they were a pleasant sight to
+see. How could the red men have found any place in particular, by night,
+across that trackless plain?
+
+They could not, and they had not, for it had been no part of the plan of
+Kah-go-mish to leave a trail behind him, or to travel by any old road.
+
+Grass? There was almost a thrill at Cal's heart. A temporary halt was
+making, and he saw a pony nibble something at the wayside. It must be
+that the southern edge of the desert had been reached at last.
+
+The halt had been made for purposes of exploration. Trees and grass in
+that region were unmistakable signs of water, under the ground or above
+it. Cal sat still upon the pony and the warrior at his side was as
+motionless as a statue. All around them was deep and sombre shadow, but
+the air was cooler, and a breeze began to come out of the darkness
+before them.
+
+Minutes passed, and then a clear, twice-repeated whoop came to their
+ears.
+
+"Ugh!" said the lean Apache, with evident satisfaction. "Heap water.
+Boy drink plenty now. Sun come, tie up boy and make fire on him. How boy
+like fire? Ugh!"
+
+Cal could make no reply whatever, except by a shudder, and they once
+more rode forward.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+AT THE RANCH AND IN THE CHAPARRAL.
+
+
+There was a very excellent reason why the old Spanish-Mexican settler
+had chosen that exact spot for the Santa Lucia ranch. It was the little
+spring which bubbled up in the middle of the courtyard around three
+sides of which the adobe was constructed. It had been dug out to a depth
+of several feet and walled in. It had never been known to fail, and it
+always had enough water left, after supplying the household, to furnish
+a tiny rill which ran away at one side of the gate in the palisades of
+the fourth side. This rill was planked over until it got away from the
+ranch, but it ran out into the sunshine then, and travelled gayly on to
+the corral. Here it found a number of acres of land, surrounded by a
+strong wire fence. It also found a long hollow to fill up with water, so
+that cattle and horses corralled there had plenty to drink. Except in
+the winter and spring there was little ever heard of that rill beyond
+the corral, and, if shrubbery had at any time grown upon its margin, it
+had long since been browsed away, for there was none there now.
+
+Beyond the corral were great reaches of maize, and there had this year
+been no drought to hurt it. A wide patch of potatoes and some oats
+seemed to be the only other attempt at anything more than
+cattle-farming, and things generally had the bare, camplike look common
+to New Mexican ranches.
+
+Shortly after breakfast, on the morning after the arrival of the tilted
+wagon, Mrs. Evans and Vic walked out on what appeared to be a tour of
+inspection. They had not slept well, and there was just a little touch
+of feverishness in the way they talked about Cal and his father, but
+they were trying hard to be cheerful.
+
+"No, Vic," said Mrs. Evans, "it won't pay to put in any of the seeds
+now, but I'm glad they've come, and I don't believe they will spoil. The
+grape-roots and cuttings won't get here till autumn, but we'll have the
+vineyard planted over there."
+
+"Is there really to be a barn, mother?" asked Vic, doubtfully, as if
+such an ornament as that were almost out of the question.
+
+"Yes, my dear. Your father loses stock enough, every year, to pay for
+more shelter, and for keeping hay, and for all sorts of improvements."
+
+"To think of a vineyard and grapes!"
+
+"And fruit-trees, Vic. The brook is to be fenced in up to the corral and
+lined with trees. It won't dry up so easily when it's shaded, and the
+corral is to be a little farther away. It all costs money, though. So
+does fencing."
+
+They were dreaming dreams of the future and of what could be done to
+turn Santa Lucia into a sort of New Mexican Eden. The stockade itself
+was to be clambered over by vines, and so was the veranda, and trees
+were to be coaxed to grow in all directions. Bushes and plants that
+could stand the summer heats were to be planted all around the ranch.
+The old adobe itself was to be fixed up. It was a very pleasant way of
+spending a morning, but it had its unpleasant thought.
+
+"Vic," said her mother, "there are a great many things that your father
+can't afford to do, if he is to lose all those horses."
+
+"He has plenty left, and the cattle."
+
+"Yes, but the Indians took away some of his best stock."
+
+"The Indians wouldn't be so likely to come," said Vic, "if everything
+looked more settled."
+
+It seemed so, and there was truth in it, only the whole truth required
+more houses near by, and more men to defend them.
+
+As the talk turned towards the Apaches and their deeds, the dream of
+vines and shrubbery and flowers, of barns and stables, dairy, trees, and
+all faded away, and they walked back into the house, wondering anxiously
+what would be the next news from those who had gone in search of the
+stolen horses and the Apache horse-thieves.
+
+Mrs. Evans and Vic were not one bit more completely in the dark, that
+morning, than were Colonel Romero and his lancers and his rancheros.
+They had succeeded, the day before, in following the ancient trail until
+it brought them to grass and water and a good camping-ground. It had not
+shown them, however, one track or trace which seemed to have been made
+in modern times. If Kah-go-mish and his band had come that way, they had
+managed to conceal the fact remarkably well. Once more it was easy for
+the brave colonel and his officers to see their duty without any
+argument. They could not go any farther, if they would, until the
+arrival of the pack-mules and the lead horses. They could not go in any
+direction until they knew which way the Apaches had gone. Therefore they
+must rest in that camp, and send out scouts and trailers, and wait for
+the loads of supplies and for information. Their puzzle was ended for
+that day, at least, and there were trees in abundance to lie down under
+and take it easy.
+
+The men in the bivouac, at Cold Spring, were astir as soon as the
+daylight began to come the next morning. Colonel Evans was the first man
+upon his feet.
+
+"I'll find him," he said, "if I have to search the chaparral inch by
+inch. Poor boy! What a day and night he must have had! No food, no
+water, no hope! Lost in the chaparral!"
+
+It was a dreadful thing to think of, and the next worst idea was that he
+might have been killed by the Apaches. Everybody in camp took a deep
+interest in the proposed search, and all who were to join in it were
+willing to set out before the heat of the day should come. Captain Moore
+had a number of cautious things to say about the danger from Indians and
+ambuscades, but he evidently believed, after all, that Kah-go-mish had
+gone away.
+
+"He won't run any useless risk of losing horses," said the captain. "I
+think, on the whole, we can search away."
+
+The Mexicans who had been in charge of the lost pack-train ate their
+breakfasts in a hurry. The day's journey before them seemed dismal
+enough, for they were to cross the desert on foot to report the work of
+Kah-go-mish. They were given a supply of provisions, but there were no
+horses or arms for them.
+
+"You won't meet any red-skins," said Sam Herrick to a very melancholy
+ranchero. "They've all gone the other way. You can make better time on
+foot than you could a-driving a pack-mule. You'll git thar. Give the
+colonel my compliments and tell him that old Kah-go-mish ort to just
+love him. I never heard of a train given away for nothing before."
+
+The ranchero nodded a sullen agreement with Sam, but he was not likely
+to give the message accurately to Colonel Romero.
+
+The poor fellows started at once, with a plain enough trail to follow,
+and Sam looked kindly after them.
+
+"They're in luck," he said. "They've nothing to do but to walk. Not even
+a mule to lead or a fence to climb. Colorado! But didn't old Kah-go-mish
+make a clean sweep."
+
+"Left their skelps on 'em," said Bill.
+
+"That was just cunning," replied Sam. "Some redskins haven't sense
+enough to let a skelp alone, but he has."
+
+Only a little later the sentries and pickets posted by Captain Moore
+were all the human beings left in the camp at Cold Spring. They, too,
+were hidden among the bushes, and the proof that it was a camp at all
+consisted of three sacks of corn, a saddle, some camp-kettles and
+coffee-pots, and the smouldering camp-fires.
+
+The bugles began to send their music out over the spider-web wilderness
+of the chaparral west of the spring, and Captain Moore declared,
+hopefully, that if Cal were anywhere in all that range he would be sure
+of hearing music before noon.
+
+The trouble was that he was so many long, tiresome miles beyond the
+reach of the loudest bugle, and that he had heard music of an altogether
+different sort before the very earliest riser among them had opened his
+eyes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+CAL'S NIGHT UNDER A TREE.
+
+
+The northern edge of Mexico was marked deeply by the surveyor's chisel
+upon the quartz rock at Cold Spring. All the country north and south of
+it had once been Apache land. Away back, nobody knows how long, before
+any Apaches had ever drank of that water, the entire region had belonged
+to another race of people, who disappeared, but left traces behind them,
+here and there. They did not leave any written history.
+
+There are men who hold an opinion that the deserts of the southwest,
+such as Cal Evans made his gloomy march through that night, were not
+always desert. To Cal himself, as he rode along, the waste around him
+had seemed utterly hopeless, as if nothing good ever had been there or
+ever could be.
+
+After the desert was passed, and after the whoop which announced the
+finding of water, he and his grim guard rode on until the forest around
+them became so dark that they and all others were compelled to halt. It
+was only for a few minutes, and then from the head of the cavalcade came
+back braves and squaws and boys carrying blazing torches of resinous
+wood. The huge tree-trunks that Cal now rode among seemed positively
+gigantic. No axe had been at work in that place for an age, and there
+was only a moderate amount of underbrush. What bushes could be seen were
+mostly gathered around and over the decaying trunks of fallen trees, and
+it was easy for the train to pick its winding way.
+
+Before long Cal saw ahead of him great gleams of light, for the Apaches
+were kindling camp-fires, and there was an abundance of dry branches to
+make swift blazes.
+
+The next thing of particular interest to him was a portly-looking squaw,
+who wore a somewhat battered straw bonnet, very much mixed up with gay
+ribbons. She seemed to be looking for somebody, and she carried in one
+hand a large water-gourd and in the other a flaming torch.
+
+"Ugh!" she said, as she came to the side of Cal's pony. "Boy heap dry.
+Want water?"
+
+"Thank you! Thank you!" exclaimed Cal, as he reached out for the gourd,
+and his voice sounded as if he had a bad cold in his head.
+
+It was not a cold by any means, but a sort of fever, as if a sandy
+desert were beginning to form inside of him. He drank and drank again,
+and then passed the gourd to the lean Apache beside him.
+
+"Ugh!" was all the immediate response to his politeness, but something
+said to Wah-wah-o-be in Apache brought back a rapidly spoken and
+seemingly resentful response. The chief's wife was plainly not at all
+afraid of that warrior.
+
+"Boy eat, by and by," she said to Cal, as he handed her back the gourd,
+and he was encouraged to ask her a question.
+
+"Do you know what they have done with my pony?" he said. "I want him to
+have some but not too much, right away."
+
+"Ugh!" she said. "Heap pony!" for she had taken more than one look at a
+horse which she declared to be the right kind of a mount for
+The-boy-whose-ear-pushed-away-a-piece-of-lead. Cal repeated his question
+in Spanish before he was understood, and Wah-wah-o-be promised care for
+Dick. She did not add, however, that the care was to be given on account
+of the absent Ping.
+
+The red mustang had a right to consider that he had been a patient pony,
+under trying circumstances, but his relief came at last. A fat squaw
+came to him, followed by a boy a little older than Cal and not
+resembling him in any way, and they unhitched Dick from his place in the
+train. They led him on among the trees until they came to the edge of a
+small, slowly running stream of water, and here they let him drink about
+a quarter as much as Dick thought would be good for him.
+
+"No kill him," said Wah-wah-o-be. "Pony eat a heap. Drink more then."
+
+Dick was led on after that until he came to a grassy open, where the
+moonlight showed him a large number of quadrupeds of various ranks in
+life. All were picketed at lariat-ends, but some of them had lain down
+at once, while others, in better spirits, had begun to nibble the grass.
+Dick was also picketed, and he tried the grass for a while. Then he
+concluded that he had done enough for one day and night, and he, too,
+lay down, but he would have been all the more comfortable for a few
+words from his master and a good rubbing down.
+
+Cal's uncertainty as to what was to become of him was not at all
+relieved by his next experiences. To be sure he was guided onward to a
+place under the trees, not far from one of the camp-fires, and was
+ordered to dismount. More water was brought to him and a liberal piece
+of broiled venison. He ate well, now, but all the soreness at his heart
+seemed to have worked out into his muscles. He was dreadfully weary. He
+felt too badly to care a copper when he saw his saddle and bridle taken
+from the pony he had ridden. They were carried away by the fat squaw who
+had brought him the water. He had caught her name of Wah-wah-o-be from
+her own remarks, but he did not catch the other name she uttered, with a
+motherly chuckle, when she took possession of the saddle and bridle. It
+was a very long name, and was accompanied by expressions of strong
+admiration for the boy it belonged to. The one thing which Cal clearly
+comprehended was, that if he was ever to ride again he would probably
+mount some other steed than Dick and hold some other bridle.
+
+His head was too weary and too busy to take much note of things around
+him then, but he afterwards remembered how wonderful it all looked. The
+scattered camp-fires were surrounded by wild, strange-looking figures,
+and by groups that were the wilder and the stranger the more figures
+there were in them. The firelight danced among the giant trees and
+through the long vines which clung to them or hung from their branches.
+The great shadows seemed to make motions to each other, now and then,
+and it was altogether a very remarkable picture.
+
+Cal was beginning to feel sleepy, when out from among the shadows
+marched the chief in the cocked hat and red stocking-leg uniform,
+followed by four other dignified warriors.
+
+"Ugh!" he said. "How boy now? Eat heap?"
+
+"Yes, thank you," said Cal. "How?"
+
+"Ugh! Good!" said the Apache leader, as Cal slowly arose and stood in
+front of him, but he did not shake the hand Cal offered him.
+
+He turned to the other great men, and they exchanged a few sentences in
+their own tongue. They were hearing further explanations of the plan he
+had formed for the general good, and they nodded a cheerful assent when
+he ended with, "Kah-go-mish is a great chief."
+
+They turned and stalked away, and with them went the lean, grim Apache
+who had hitherto been Cal's guard, and who had latterly seemed to be
+getting almost like a friendly acquaintance. His place was filled by a
+pair of short, bow-legged, swarthy old braves, whom Cal set down as the
+unpleasantest-looking Indians he had ever seen.
+
+Very quickly the prisoner had good reasons for an every way more severe
+opinion of his new guards. They were under strict orders to prevent his
+escape, and no other especial directions had been given them. Of course
+they proposed to perform their sentry duty with as little trouble and as
+complete security as might be. Cal was lying upon the ground, while they
+were busy with their knives among the nearest bushes. He hardly looked
+after them, for his thoughts were wandering to the camp at Cold Spring
+and to the faces of those who had talked so much about him, all that
+evening, in the parlor at Santa Lucia. He had not the remotest dream of
+the precise experience which was coming to him. The two ill-looking
+braves returned, and one of them had a handful of forked branches,
+trimmed and pointed. They turned Cal over upon his back and stretched
+out his arms. A sharp thrill went through him as he began to comprehend
+what they were doing. Thrill followed thrill as they drove one forked
+stick into the ground over each wrist, and another over each ankle.
+
+"Ugh!" exclaimed one of them. "No get away!"
+
+"I am staked out!" said Cal to himself, huskily. "Staked out!"
+
+Well might the cold shivers come with that terrible thought, for he had
+read of that method of securing prisoners and of what sometimes followed
+it. Staked out in the depths of a Mexican forest!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+A STRANGE LETTER FROM MEXICO.
+
+
+Ping and Tah-nu-nu had not been staked out that first night after their
+capture. Precisely how to keep them safely, yet humanely, had at first
+been a puzzle.
+
+"If they once got away into the brush," said Sam Herrick, "you might as
+well hunt for a pair of sage-hens, and they'd about die before they'd be
+caught again. The boy's a game little critter, and the gal's got an eye
+like a hawk."
+
+It was decided that they must be tied up, but it was so done as to
+inflict very little hardship. A thong of hide, knotted hard, so that
+nothing but a knife could undo the knot, connected an arm of each
+captive with a stout arm of a mesquit bush, close to the sharp-eyed
+sentinel at the head of the widest path.
+
+There was no danger of any escape, and both Ping and his sister were
+wiser and tamer than Sam gave them credit for. They understood the
+kindness of Colonel Evans better and better every time they looked at
+the little mirrors or the stunning handkerchiefs. They were also aware
+that the Apache band had left the chaparral, for the message brought
+from Kah-go-mish by the Mexicans had been translated to them carefully.
+Their night was, therefore, not at all uncomfortable.
+
+When the cavalry and cowboys set out to hunt for Cal in the morning, the
+old Chiricahua volunteered to act as guard while they were gone. It was
+almost as if he had taken a fancy to Ping and Tah-nu-nu, or it may have
+been that Sam was correct in saying, "The old wolf'd rather loaf under a
+bush and spin yarns than hunt through the chaparral under this kind of
+sunshine."
+
+Loaf he did, in seemingly contented patience; and he had yarns to spin,
+as if he had been Wah-wah-o-be. Not a few of them related to old-time
+fights which had been fought around that very spring, in and out of the
+chaparral. Some of his stories were of a dreadfully blood-curdling kind,
+but they hardly seemed sensational to Ping and Tah-nu-nu. Perhaps the
+story which interested Ping most was a long one of a strong party of an
+unknown, nameless tribe from beyond the Eastern Sierras. They were tall
+braves, almost black, and they came all this distance to strike the
+Apaches.
+
+The strangers camped one night at Cold Spring, and in the morning they
+found themselves penned in by overwhelming numbers of Apaches, who
+poured forth from the chaparral by every path except one. That was a
+path which the Apache chiefs did not know or had overlooked. They and
+their warriors swarmed in upon the strangers, expecting to destroy them
+all, and there was a terrible battle for a little time. Then, to the
+astonishment of all the Apaches, the Eastern war-party grew smaller and
+smaller, retreating across the rock. It left the spring behind, and
+dwindled away, fighting hard all the while. It was dripping out, so to
+speak, through the path in the chaparral that nobody knew anything
+about. The Apache warriors fought wonderfully to prevent that escape,
+and hundreds hurried around through the chaparral to attack the
+strangers in the rear and to cut off their retreat. It was of no use at
+all, said the old Chiricahua.
+
+As soon as the last of the strangers fired his last arrow from the mouth
+of that old buffalo-path it seemed to close up, and the Apaches could
+not find it. They never could, nor did they ever succeed in finding
+where it led to, for the strange warriors escaped entirely, just as if
+they had crawled into the spring. It was "very great medicine," he said,
+and nothing at all like it had been heard of since then. He himself knew
+all the paths now to be found around Cold Spring, and all of them led
+out into the desert.
+
+Thanks to the Chiricahua, Ping and Tah-nu-nu had a fairly comfortable
+morning of it. They even grew curious, instead of frightened, concerning
+what was next to come to them.
+
+The old Chiricahua did not spend all his time stretched out upon the
+sand. He arose and walked around as if the hot sunshine agreed with him,
+and exchanged remarks with the white camp-guard in their sultry covert.
+
+Ping and Tah-nu-nu stared around the open with a deepening interest in a
+spot which had so wonderful a history. Across it, on the opposite side,
+was one dense mass of chaparral, many yards in length, through which no
+opening appeared. In the middle of it arose a giant cactus, with a trunk
+like that of a tree, and with two enormously thick, long arms reaching
+out near the top. One leaf pointed south and the other north, as if the
+cactus were a directing-post. Right there, they agreed, after some
+discussion, must have been the mysterious path that opened to let out
+the strange warriors, and then shut again.
+
+Noon came, and the Chiricahua brought them some army bread, some fried
+bacon, and some coffee. They had tasted such things before, when their
+band was at the Reservation, and they had some for breakfast, but it was
+very wonderful to taste them again.
+
+"Pale-face chief make Ping a blue-coat," said Tah-nu-nu. "Eat a heap."
+
+"Tah-nu-nu squaw for blue-coat chief," said Ping. "Have big lodge. Cook
+his meat. Hoe his corn. Feed pony. Beat her with big stick. Ugh!"
+
+They could rally one another about the prospect before them, but Ping
+stoutly declared that he would run away at the first opportunity. He
+would be a chief of his own people and not of any other. Tah-nu-nu as
+positively asserted her horror of ever becoming the wife of the greatest
+pale-face living. Not if he gave ever so many ponies for her, like a
+warrior of the Apaches.
+
+Two hours later the cavalry squads and the cowboys began to straggle
+back to the spring. Their horses needed water and food and rest, and so
+did they. Hot, weary, disappointed, was the appearance of every man who
+came in, but none of them wore such a face as did Colonel Evans. He
+drank some water, but he did not eat nor did he speak to anybody.
+
+"Ugh!" said Ping. "No find boy. Heap pony lose too. Bad medicine."
+
+It was only a little later when something remarkable happened to a
+picket in a path of the southern chaparral. He stood by his horse ready
+to mount, as was his duty, but he was very sure that no Indians were
+around, and he only now and then gave a listless glance along the path.
+Suddenly, within twenty yards of him, an Indian stepped out of the
+bushes.
+
+"Halt!" sprang to the lips of the startled soldier, but the Indian held
+up both hands, empty, above his head, to show that he carried no
+weapons.
+
+The challenge was heard by the men around the spring, and they sprang to
+their feet, while others came out of the bushes. A dozen rifles were
+ready behind the picket as the solitary Indian came forward. He wore
+nothing but a waist-cloth, and from the belt of this he drew something
+which he held out and offered.
+
+"Take it, Brady," said the voice of Captain Moore. "Bring him in. He's a
+messenger of some kind."
+
+The cavalryman took it, but it was nothing more than a leathery cactus
+leaf, as wide as a stretched-out hand.
+
+"How," said the Indian. "Kah-go-mish."
+
+"That's it," exclaimed Sam Herrick. "I reckoned we'd hear from him.
+Colorado!"
+
+The leaf was passed to Captain Moore, and the Apache brave followed him,
+but only as far as the end of that pathway. There he stood, and seemed
+almost like a wooden Indian. He saw both Ping and Tah-nu-nu, and they
+saw him, but if they knew him they did not say so.
+
+"They thought nobody saw 'em, but they were making signs," said Sam; and
+the old Chiricahua muttered, "Ugh! Good!" as if he had understood
+something.
+
+Just at that moment Captain Moore met Colonel Evans.
+
+"Read that," he said, as he held out the cactus leaf.
+
+There were letters deeply scratched into the smooth, fleshy surface.
+
+      Father I'm a Prisoner to Kah-Go-Mish Staked out last night
+      Safe now Don't know where he means to go next He says you
+      will hear some day
+
+      CAL
+
+      Send mother my love.
+
+It was a wonderful cactus leaf, for it made the strong hand of Colonel
+Abe Evans shake so that he could hardly hold it. Every pair of eyes
+around Cold Spring stared at it and at him, and when they once more
+turned to look at the Apache brave who had brought it he was not to be
+seen. He had vanished as if he had been a dream.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+CAL'S VISITORS AND HIS BREAKFAST.
+
+
+Even when he was lost in the chaparral, and saw the sun go down without
+any hope of escaping from the spider-web of buffalo-paths, Cal had not
+felt quite so badly as he did when he found himself staked out. There he
+lay upon his back under the vast canopy of an ancient cypress-tree. Near
+him the two uncouth-looking Apaches had thrown themselves upon the
+grass. They seemed to be asleep pretty soon, for there was no more need
+of their watching the prisoner.
+
+Get away?
+
+He could move his hands and feet just enough to keep the blood in
+circulation, and that was all. He could turn his head and look at the
+glow of the camp-fires and at the forms of men that now and then went
+stalking to and fro. They were only dog-soldier Indian police in charge
+of the camp, for the remainder of the band was taking all the sleep it
+could get. Even the dogs were entirely quiet. If he looked up, there was
+nothing but a dense mass of foliage, but it began at a height of fifty
+feet or more from the ground. Great branches reached out, and from these
+hung long ropes of vines of some sort, here and there, to the very
+ground. There was no opening through which a star could be seen, and it
+seemed to Cal as if his last hope had departed.
+
+The position of a staked-out man is peculiarly uncomfortable, but it is
+the traditional method of the red men for securing captives. The Hurons
+and Shawnees and Iroquois, and other eastern tribes, made a forest-jail
+in precisely the same way before any white men ever came among them. Cal
+found that it was a great affliction not to be able to turn over in bed,
+but that was nothing to the torment of having a mosquito on his chin,
+another on his nose, and ten more humming around his head on all sides,
+with no hand loose to slap among them. He almost ceased thinking of
+Indian cruelties while suffering the merciless torments of those
+insects. Tired as he was, he felt no longer any inclination to sleep.
+His eyes grew accustomed to the dimness about him and over him. As he
+looked up into the branches of the tree, after a while, he heard a
+strange, mournful cry, very much like something that he had listened to
+before, and then something whitish and wide-winged came sweeping down
+from the darkness, and his eyes followed it as it swiftly shot across
+the camp.
+
+"Owl, I guess," groaned Cal. "Never saw one so large before. White owl.
+What a hoot he had! Oh, my nose! These are the biggest kind of
+mosquitoes."
+
+So they were, and they kept their victim in continual misery. It was not
+long before he saw something else, not so large as the owl, fly very
+silently past him. It went and came several times, with a peculiarly
+rapid flight, and he had pretty fair glimpses of it.
+
+"What an enormous bat!" exclaimed Cal. "They have almost everything down
+here. What I'm most afraid of are scorpions and centipedes and
+tarantulas. Such woods as these must have lots of 'em, and I couldn't
+get away."
+
+They were dreadful things to think of, but Cal had not remembered all of
+the customary inhabitants of a Mexican forest. He was put in mind of yet
+one more after a while. He heard a rustling sound among the grass and
+leaves near him, and it made him lift his head as high as he could. Just
+then something else lifted its head, and Cal saw a pair of small,
+glittering, greenish eyes that travelled right along at a few inches
+above the ground. The cold sweat broke out all over him, but he held
+perfectly still.
+
+"They don't bite if you don't stir or provoke them," was the thought in
+his mind; but that snake was not of the biting, venomous kind. It was
+only a constrictor, not more than seven or eight feet long, and only
+three inches thick at his thickest point. He was in no hurry, and it
+seemed to Cal as if it took him about half an hour, or half a century,
+he could not tell which, to crawl across the pair of legs which the
+Apaches had pinned down. It was really about a quarter of a minute.
+
+Cal had no idea how hard he had been straining at his fetters, spurred
+by the mosquitoes. He made an unintentional jerk with his right arm as
+the snake disappeared, and was startled by a discovery.
+
+"Loose?" he said to himself. "Then I can loosen it more. I won't disturb
+either of those fellows, but I must scratch these mosquito-bites."
+
+A pull, another pull, and that forked stick began to come up, for one of
+its legs had been put down in a gopher's hole, and had no holding. Out
+it came, slowly, softly, and Cal's right hand was free to reach over and
+help his left. That stake was hard pulling, but it came up at last, and
+then the ankles could be set free.
+
+"I'll drive them all down again hard," said Cal to himself, and he did
+so.
+
+"Let them wonder how I got out," he added; "but there isn't any use in
+my trying to run away. They'd only catch me and kill me at once."
+
+He rose to his feet, and it occurred to him that his safest place might
+be by one of the smouldering camp-fires. The short June night was nearly
+over, and the dawn was in the tree-tops when Cal walked away from the
+shadow of the great cypress. He had a sort of desperate feeling, and it
+made him singularly cool and steady. He did not meet anybody on his way.
+His first discovery, as he drew near the fire, was that the Apaches had
+found plentiful supplies in the packs of the Mexican mules. They knew
+how to make coffee, too, for there was a big tin coffee-pot nearly full.
+Cal put it upon some coals to heat, and then he saw a tin cup lying on
+the ground, a box of sugar, a piece of bacon, and a fragment of coarse
+corn-cake.
+
+"That'll do," he said to himself. "I may as well eat."
+
+The coffee boiled quickly, and Cal sat with a cup of it in one hand,
+while with the other he held a stick with a slice of bacon at the fire
+end of it. He did not know what was happening under the cypress.
+
+One wrinkle-faced brave opened his beady black eyes and looked at the
+place where the staked-out captive had been. The mocking smile he had
+begun flitted away from his lips.
+
+"Ugh!" he exclaimed as he sprang up and kicked his comrade, and in an
+instant more two dreadfully puzzled Apaches were examining the forked
+stakes which ought to have had a white boy's wrists and ankles in them.
+Hard driven into the ground were all four, but the white boy? Where was
+he?
+
+"Heap bad medicine!" exclaimed one brave, almost despairingly.
+
+"Boy heap gone," said the other.
+
+They looked in all directions, but the last refuge they dreamed of was
+the camp-fire where Cal was sitting.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+THE POST-BOY THAT GOT AWAY.
+
+
+Colonel Romero and most of his command spent the greater part of the day
+after Cal's capture in waiting for the pack-mule train. Some went out
+after game and did very well, and others went to hunt for signs of the
+Apaches of Kah-go-mish and did not do well at all. The rest, officers,
+cavalry, and rancheros, did nothing, and they all seemed to know how.
+
+Right away after breakfast, and before the search for Cal began, the
+dozen rancheros who no longer had any pack-mules to lead left Cold
+Spring behind them. Out they marched, under careful directions, for the
+way given them by Sam Herrick and the Chiricahuas. They certainly
+marched well, but it was in dejected, disgusted silence. Kah-go-mish,
+and, after him and his Apaches, Colonel Romero and his horsemen, had
+trampled the old trail into a very new and plain one, easy to follow. It
+was well for the peace of mind of the train-guard without any train that
+it was so, for to be lost was for them to be starved, since they had not
+so much as a bow and arrows to kill a jackass rabbit. Not one of them
+now wore a hat, as the braves of Kah-go-mish had imitated their chief,
+so far as a dozen Mexican sombreros went. There was no danger, however,
+that the rancheros would get themselves tanned any darker. They pushed
+on steadily across the desert, and at about the time when the dispirited
+Americans who searched for Cal in the bushes gave it up and returned to
+Cold Spring there was a great shout in the camp of Colonel Romero. All
+the waiting for pack-mules and supplies was over, but the muleteers had
+arrived, disarmed, hatless, and on foot.
+
+The colonel and every other soul in the camp said as much as they knew
+how to say concerning the cunning, daring, impudence, and wickedness of
+all Apaches, and particularly of Kah-go-mish.
+
+The message of the chief to the colonel was pretty fully given, leaving
+out some of the animals, birds, and insects he had put into it, and a
+council of war was called to consider the matter.
+
+The council was unanimous. Without the supplies that had been lost it
+was out of the question to chase Apaches. Without a good guess as to
+precisely where Kah-go-mish had gone, they knew that he was away beyond
+the desert somewhere, either in Mexico or the United States, and they
+might as well give him up. It was therefore decided that all possible
+hunting and fishing should be done at once, and that the entire command
+must find its way to the nearest Mexican settlements as fast as it could
+go.
+
+So far as Colonel Romero's Mexicans were concerned Kah-go-mish already
+felt pretty safe, but he was by no means sure what other forces of the
+same nation might or might not be out in search of him.
+
+As for the blue-coats and cowboys, the chief knew something about a
+boundary line. There was one around the Mescalero Reservation, and he
+had broken it, but he was sure that pale-faces never did such "bad
+medicine." He was safe from the Americans until he should see fit to
+re-enter the United States. That is, however, that he was proud to feel
+and say that so great a chief as himself could not long be entirely safe
+anywhere. Too many army-men wanted to see him.
+
+In the camp at Cold Spring, Colonel Evans and all his friends felt that
+they would give a great deal to know the exact circumstances under which
+Cal had written his cactus-leaf letter. It passed from hand to hand, for
+every man to take a look at it. The cavalry company was short of
+officers, not having brought along even one lieutenant. The orderly
+sergeant, therefore, was the man next in rank to the captain, but there
+was another sergeant and two corporals, and they each had much more to
+say than could rightly have been said by mere private soldiers.
+
+All agreed that it was a remarkable letter; all were glad to hear that
+Cal was safe, and all were glad that there was to be no more need of
+bushwhacking and bugle-work in the hot chaparral.
+
+The cowboys had opinions of their own, and most of them looked a little
+blue.
+
+"Staked out!" exclaimed Sam Herrick. "Colorado! To think of Cal Evans
+staked out!"
+
+"Wall, now, they let him up again," said Bill. "Looks as if they didn't
+allow to torter him, leastwise not right away. What a lot of
+wooden-heads we were, though, to let that there 'Pache that brought the
+leaf slip out of reach the way he did."
+
+"The cavalry had him," said Sam. "I took my eyes off him just a second,
+and when I looked again he wasn't thar."
+
+The cactus leaf came back to Colonel Evans, and once more he studied
+every dent and scratch upon it. The writing looked as if it had been
+done with the point of a knife. There could be no doubt but what it was
+Cal's work.
+
+"You'll see him again," said Captain Moore, encouragingly.
+
+"It'll be about the time that Kah-go-mish sees his own children, I
+reckon," replied the colonel. "They're a sort of security, but something
+might happen to him in spite of their being here."
+
+"Indians are uncertain; that's a fact," said the captain, "but you must
+keep up your spirits. Do you believe in Providence, colonel? I do."
+
+"Do I?" said Cal's father. "Of course I do. Why?"
+
+"Well, isn't it curious that Cal hasn't been hurt, through all this, up
+to the time when he wrote that letter? Wasn't he taken care of?" asked
+the captain.
+
+"He got lost in the chaparral, didn't he? Isn't he a prisoner now?"
+
+"They found him, and it may be a good thing that they did. Hold on a
+bit. Anyhow we'll keep a tight grip on those two young redskins."
+
+"Ping," said the colonel. "That's a queer name for an Indian boy.
+Tah-nu-nu isn't so bad for a young squaw. We'll camp here to-night?"
+
+"Of course," said the captain, "but we'll make an early start in the
+morning, and go back close along the boundary line. There's good grass
+beyond the desert; wouldn't mind forgetting the line for a few miles if
+we came near enough to any Apaches. Sorry I didn't get another talk with
+the chief's messenger. It beats me how he slipped away."
+
+The wild-looking-Mescalero postman who brought the cactus-leaf letter
+may have had another errand on his hands. When he halted at the head of
+the path, in full view of everybody, he did not look as if he meant to
+go away without an answer, and he did not. He obtained one from Ping and
+Tah-nu-nu, to carry to their father and mother. The Chiricahuas saw it
+given, and afterwards reported that the signs exchanged told that all
+were well, and that the young folk would soon be at liberty. Some other
+messages came and went, through hands and feet and features, and then
+the postman sank down into a sitting posture at the edge of the
+chaparral. That was where Captain Moore now remembered seeing the last
+of him.
+
+The excitement over the cactus leaf absorbed all minds for a minute or
+so, then, and the Apache warrior went under a bush as if he had been a
+sage-hen. Once beyond it he was hidden, but he went snake-fashion some
+distance farther. As soon as he deemed it safe to stand erect he did so.
+
+"Ugh!" he remarked. "Pa-de-to-pah-kah-tse-caugh-to-kah-no-tan heap great
+brave. Heap get away."
+
+That was evidently his longest name, and he was a pretty tall Indian,
+and had a right to compliment himself just then. The men who hurried out
+after him, when they found that he was gone, went back again with a
+mental assurance that he was somewhere in the chaparral, but that only
+he himself knew precisely where. While they were hunting, he was walking
+rapidly through the cross-paths of the spider-web. He came to a place
+where one of the horses won by his band near Slater's Branch was tied to
+a bush. He was saddled and bridled, and he carried also one of the small
+water-barrels found among the equipments of the Mexican pack-mules. The
+warrior picked up his weapons from the sand near the horse, drank some
+water, complimented himself again, and went off on foot to complete his
+day's business. He drew stealthily nearer and nearer to the cavalry and
+cowboy camp at Cold Spring, and now, while Captain Moore and Colonel
+Evans were expressing so much regret that the postman of Kah-go-mish was
+beyond their reach, a pair of eyes under a thorn-bush, within a hundred
+yards, watched their every movement and took note of whatever was going
+on around the spring.
+
+The lurking Apache could see much, but he could hear little. Least of
+all could even his quick ears catch the suppressed whisper of Colonel
+Evans when at last he lay down upon his blanket for a few hours of rest.
+
+"Cal," he said, "if I don't take you home with me, what shall I say to
+your mother?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+THE MYSTERY OF THE STICKS.
+
+
+Cal Evans, sitting by the fire and toasting his bacon in the camp of the
+Apaches, knew nothing of what was to happen that day in all those other
+places. He was ignorant of what had already occurred, except to himself.
+His strongest feeling, at that moment, was grief for what he knew must
+be the anxiety of his father, and for what he feared that his mother
+would suffer when his father should get home without him. He had passed
+a wonderful night, and it seemed to have made an older boy of him.
+
+The dawn was brightening fast when he took his first cup of coffee. He
+was very hungry, and he picked up a piece of corn bread to eat with it.
+The fact that it was stale, and that it had been upon the ground, did
+not make any difference to a fellow who had been staked out, and who was
+very likely to be upon his back again very soon, or tied to a
+torture-post.
+
+As for his two guards, he did not know nor care that they had aroused
+several other braves, and that all of them were rummaging the forest,
+near the cypress, in search of any trail he might have left behind him.
+Each brave in turn had re-examined the forked stakes and had expressed
+his wonder. According to them, Cal was "Heap snake" and "Heap bad
+medicine." They were at work upon their mystery, and he upon a piece of
+toasted bacon, when he heard an almost musical "Ugh," behind him,
+followed by other grunts, in which there was no music whatever.
+
+The first sound came from a woman's voice, and, when he turned around,
+there stood Wah-wah-o-be. She had risen early in order that the chief's
+breakfast might be ready for him upon his return from his morning look
+at the corral. The other exclamations were uttered by three
+dog-soldiers, whose patrol duty had brought them to that camp-fire.
+
+"How," said Cal, holding out his hand. "Good squaw. Give boy water."
+
+Then he remembered that she had answered him very well in Spanish, and
+he said something in that tongue about the coffee and bacon, and told
+the three dog-soldiers that they were very fine-looking fellows.
+
+It was not impudence, and it was not cunning, for it was nothing more
+nor less than desperation, but he could not have acted more wisely.
+While he was exchanging morning greetings with the dusky policemen, yet
+another brave came hurriedly up, and, the moment he saw Cal, he uttered
+an astonished whoop. He was one of the pair set to watch him, and he had
+come in great trepidation to announce the escape of the prisoner. Under
+other circumstances he might have even used violence, but a captive was
+safe in the hands of the dog-soldiers, and he did but stare in Cal's
+face as if in doubt as to his being there.
+
+Cal's mocking coolness was not at all exhausted, for he felt too badly
+to be afraid. He held out his hand.
+
+"How," he said. "Good-looking Indian. Drive heap stick."
+
+"Ugh!" said the puzzled savage. "How boy get away?"
+
+"Leave stick there," said Cal. "Pull off arm. Put hand on again. Cut off
+foot. Put on again. Want coffee."
+
+He explained more fully, by signs, that he had taken himself to pieces
+to get out of his wooden fetters, and had put himself together again to
+come and eat his breakfast.
+
+Almost all Indians have a vein of satirical fun in them, and Cal's
+explanation was thoroughly appreciated by his hearers, excepting the
+wrinkled-faced warrior who was made to look like a cheated watchman.
+Wah-wah-o-be laughed aloud, and a deep, sonorous voice behind them
+joined her in what was half-way between a chuckle and a cough.
+
+"Ugh!" it added. "Heap boy. Son of long paleface chief. How boy like
+stake out? Kah-go-mish!"
+
+"Kah-go-mish is a great chief," said Cal. "Steal heap pony. Hear a great
+deal about him. Bad Indian."
+
+He had touched, half bitterly, the right chord--the Apache leader's
+intense vanity about his fame. Wah-wah-o-be was also pleased to hear
+that the pale-faces talked about Kah-go-mish.
+
+Before the chief could unbend for any more conversation, however, his
+duty required that he should investigate the affair of the forked
+stakes. They were a mystery even to him for a moment. He reprimanded
+the two guards severely for using them at all. They were needless. They
+had been carelessly put down. The braves who had done it were mere
+squaws, and did not know how to drive a stake. He was stooping over one
+of the fetters when he said that, and the truth flashed upon him. Cal
+had driven it down hard, and it was plain that no human ankle had ever
+been under that fork. The chief's derision of the unlucky guards broke
+out afresh, but he expressed great admiration for the skill and conduct
+of the young pale-face brave, the worthy son of the long,
+broad-shouldered chief of the Santa Lucia cowboys.
+
+Wah-wah-o-be had no need to explain to the dog-soldiers that Cal was to
+be permitted to finish his breakfast in peace. They were decidedly
+inclined to favor a youngster who had performed a feat so remarkable,
+and whose courage was evidently equal to his cunning.
+
+Other Indians and other squaws came and went, and boys and girls,
+although the larger part of the band was inclined to sleep a little late
+that morning.
+
+Kah-go-mish came back from his inspection of the stakes, and he came
+with another part of his plan ready for action. He now felt pretty sure
+of getting back Ping and Tah-nu-nu without giving up too many horses,
+and he had decided upon a safe method for opening negotiations with the
+pale-faces. Nothing whatever could be done successfully as long as the
+blue-coats were in the way. He had dealt with army officers before, and
+their methods had been unpleasant. They had always persisted in speaking
+of captured horses as stolen property, and they were in a sort of
+league with the Mexicans as to such matters. His first business was to
+get beyond their reach, after letting them know that he held a hostage
+for their present good behavior. He ate his breakfast while he was
+thinking over the matter, and then he summoned one of his most cunning
+warriors and told him to bring his swiftest horse and a cactus-leaf.
+
+Cal's heart jumped for joy when he found that he was to write to his
+father, even with such materials. He took the leaf and he used his knife
+for a pen. He saw the Apache messenger spring upon his horse and ride
+away, and it seemed to him that one of the heaviest parts of his burden
+had been taken off.
+
+Kah-go-mish took pains to explain to his prisoner that if he should run
+away to the northward he would die of thirst in the desert, and if to
+the southward, he would only lose himself among forests and mountains.
+
+"Stake him out again?" said Cal. "Pull up stakes and come for coffee."
+
+Once more the grim Apache smiled not unkindly, and there was less danger
+of any sort of handcuffs or shackles.
+
+As soon as the entire band had eaten its morning meal, Cal had something
+worth looking at. The packs taken from the Mexican army mules had not
+been searched, up to that hour, except for present supplies. It was now
+needful to ascertain exactly what they contained, and they were all
+brought out and laid upon the ground in order. It was speedily evident
+that a company of Mexican cavalry, with a reinforcement of mounted
+militia, required few luxuries, but meant to have enough of such as it
+wanted.
+
+[Illustration: CAL TOOK THE LEAF, AND USED HIS KNIFE FOR A PEN.]
+
+Corn-meal for tortillas, or Mexican cakes, was plentiful, and the Apache
+squaws knew what to do with it. So was bacon. There was an abundance of
+coffee and a fair supply of sugar. There were several small bales of
+tobacco in the leaf, for cigaritas, and some in manufactured shape.
+There were whole mule-loads of blankets, for possible use in mountain
+camps. There was ammunition, as if Colonel Romero had expected much
+fighting. Miscellaneous plunder filled out the list, and the band of the
+great Kah-go-mish considered itself very rich indeed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+HOW WOULD YOU LIKE FIRE?
+
+
+The needs of human beings are very much the same the world over, but
+they are satisfied in different ways. The tilted wagon from Santa Fé
+brought to Santa Lucia coffee and sugar of a better quality than the
+Apaches found in the packs of the Mexican army mules, but it was sugar
+and coffee after all. The magazines and papers had been full of news and
+information for Vic and her mother, and the escaped train-guard brought
+very interesting matter to Colonel Romero. Letters came with the wagon,
+but not one so interesting as was the epistle which Cal had written upon
+the cactus-leaf. No story of any sort, in any of the books or pamphlets
+which Vic turned over so eagerly, was likely to be more absorbingly
+interesting to her or to any other reader than were to Ping and
+Tah-nu-nu the tales told by the old Chiricahua under the shadow of the
+mesquit bushes near the Manitou Water. He told more, that evening. Some
+of them were about himself and some were about things that he had seen
+among the blue-coats at the forts where he had been. They were in a good
+frame of mind for listening, since the sign-language letter brought to
+them by the messenger of Kah-go-mish. They knew from him that their band
+was to leave no trail behind it, and that the son of the long chief of
+the cowboys was as much a prisoner as they were. If they did not give up
+the idea of trying to make their own escape, they felt more contented,
+and could joke and laugh about their captivity.
+
+"Ping pale-face by and by," said Tah-nu-nu, almost merrily. "Heap
+blue-coat chief. Kah-go-mish make Cal big Apache brave."
+
+Her quick ears had caught his name, but Ping more frequently spoke of
+him as "Heap pony."
+
+Before the arrival of that quiet evening hour, Cal had added somewhat to
+his rapidly growing list of new experiences. He felt better after
+writing the cactus-leaf letter, and he ate a fair second breakfast,
+cooked for him by Wah-wah-o-be. He made her acquaintance very fast, but
+Kah-go-mish had his hands full of duties belonging to his pack-mule
+cargo, and he did not come again.
+
+Quite a different sort of fellow did come, for the wrinkled-faced old
+warrior was ready to burst with curiosity as to how Cal had managed to
+get out of his forked-stake prison. With Wah-wah-o-be's help he managed
+to say so, and Cal volunteered to show him. Several other braves went
+with them to the foot of the giant cypress, and in a minute or so more
+that Apache was described by all the voices around him as
+"The-old-man-who-put-a-peg-into-a-gopher-hole." He already had a fine
+long warrior name of his own, or the new one would have stuck to him for
+the remainder of his life. As it was, he evidently regarded Cal with
+more than a little admiration.
+
+"What do now?" he said. "No more get away?"
+
+"More eat, by and by," said Cal. "See red pony, now. Medicine pony."
+
+There was no reason why the prisoner, under a sufficient guard, should
+not be permitted such a privilege, and the wrinkled-faced brave nodded.
+He dropped his long Apache names, however, both of them, and used one
+which Cal discovered had been given him at the Mescalero Reservation.
+
+"Crooked Nose go," he said. "Pull Stick see medicine pony."
+
+The now numerous drove of quadrupeds belonging to the prosperous and
+wealthy band of Kah-go-mish were no longer picketed. Free of lariats,
+but attended by watchful red drovers, they had been conducted to a strip
+of natural prairie at some distance from the rear of the camp where Cal
+had eaten his breakfast.
+
+They were of all sorts, good, bad and middling, horses, ponies, and
+mules; and Cal was able to pick out, as he went along, quite a number
+that had come all the way from the bank of Slater's Branch. He was
+looking around him for one horse that was worth more than all the rest,
+in his opinion, when a loud neigh sounded from behind some bushes near
+him.
+
+Very much to the surprise of Crooked Nose, the handsomest mustang he had
+ever seen came out with a vigorous bound, a cavort, and a throwing up of
+heels, and dashed straight towards Pull Stick, as he had several times
+called Cal Evans.
+
+"Ugh!" he exclaimed. "Heap pony!"
+
+"Hurrah, Dick!" shouted Cal, and he threw his arms around the neck of
+the red mustang.
+
+One of the dog-soldier keepers of the horses came riding towards them at
+that moment, however, and Crooked Nose touched Cal on the shoulder.
+
+"Pull Stick come. Pony stay."
+
+He added a string of Apache words that Cal could make nothing of, but
+that described Dick as being now the property of
+The-boy-whose-ear-pushed-away-a-piece-of-lead. He conversed for a minute
+or two with the mounted Apache, and the latter pointed sternly towards
+the camp. There was no such thing as disputing with a Mescalero
+policeman, and Dick himself received a sharp blow from the loose end of
+a lariat when he attempted to follow the only master he recognized as
+having any right to him.
+
+Cal was glad to find that his four-footed friend was in good condition,
+after his pretty severe share in the adventures which began in the
+chaparral. Still, it was an uncomfortable thing to think of, that the
+red mustang was likely to end his days as an Apache pony instead of as
+the pet of all the household at Santa Lucia.
+
+The camp was regained, and Cal at once took note of changes. The fires
+had been kindled the previous evening, in a straggling line along the
+bank or a small stream of water. Tangled bushes marked the course of the
+stream, and great trees leaned over it, dropping the swinging ropes of
+vines from their branches to its very surface. The more distant fires
+had been entirely hidden, except for the glare they made.
+
+The band had bivouacked that first night, but now there were lodges
+going up, and Cal knew what that meant.
+
+"They mean to stay here," he said to himself. "I might as well be in
+jail."
+
+It was nearly so. The neighboring wilderness had been found to be full
+of game, and the plan of Kah-go-mish called for liberal supplies of
+fresh meat, in addition to what he had found upon Colonel Romero's
+pack-mules. He felt sure that any Mexican force hunting after him would
+look almost anywhere else, and none was likely to come for a long time.
+He and his band were happy; they were safe; they could have a good time
+until continued happiness and safety might require another move.
+
+Cal and Crooked Nose were met by a summons to come before the chief, and
+went to find him waiting their arrival.
+
+"Pull Stick here! Ugh!" said Crooked Nose.
+
+"Kah-go-mish is a great chief!" remarked the Apache commander
+dignifiedly, but he had more to say. He repeated to Cal his previous
+counsel against an attempt to escape, but after that he raked out some
+hot coals from the smouldering camp-fire near him.
+
+"Boy see?" he said, as he pointed at the red warning. "How boy like?
+Ugh!"
+
+Cal shuddered and nodded, but he could not find a word to say in reply.
+
+"Look!" said the chief again, pointing to the ground a few paces away,
+and Cal looked.
+
+There lay the forked sticks which he had escaped from that very morning,
+and the meaning of Kah-go-mish was very plain indeed.
+
+"Boy, son of pale-face chief," he said. "No heap fool. Go. Ugh."
+
+"Pull Stick come," said Crooked Nose, in a not unfriendly manner, and
+Cal walked away with him, to be more minutely informed that he could do
+about as he pleased, until further orders, unless he chose to do
+something like trying to escape, which would make it proper for his
+excellent Apache friends to stake him out again, and "make heap fire all
+over Pull Stick."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+
+THE MANITOU WATER.
+
+
+That second afternoon, after the arrival of the tilted wagon at Santa
+Lucia, was dull enough, in spite of the ample supply of news and
+literature. All the news from all the world seemed worthless without
+news from Cal and his father. All the stories ever told were
+uninteresting until they should come home and tell the story of their
+expedition after Kah-go-mish and his Apaches. It had been so all day.
+The projected improvements, in and around the old hacienda, had somehow
+lost their attraction, and were discussed no more. In fact every time
+one of them had been referred to it had compelled somebody to mention
+the absent man or boy who was likely to have an opinion to be consulted
+concerning it. Vic and her mother went out on horseback in the morning,
+and they made an uncommonly long ride of it, for they went to Slater's
+Branch and back, galloping almost all the way home, and putting each
+other in mind of Cal's dash upon the back of the red mustang to warn
+them that the Indians were coming.
+
+Duller and duller, yet more unquiet had the day grown after dinner, and
+now the shadows were growing longer, and they seemed to bring more
+anxiety with them.
+
+"Mother," said Vic at last, "I've been trying my best not to think of
+Cal or of father, and I can't."
+
+"It's the best thing we could do," almost sighed Mrs. Evans.
+
+"They may be fighting!" said Vic.
+
+"Most likely they're going into camp somewhere, all tired out," said her
+mother.
+
+"Oh, I do hope," said Vic, "they are on their way home. I can't read,
+and I won't."
+
+So all the printed things were put aside, and it may be that some of
+Vic's thinking made pictures for her a little like the reality that was
+enacting at Cold Spring and in the Mexican forest. No imagination of
+hers could have drawn anything quite equal to either of them.
+
+Something almost as well worth making a picture of was taking place a
+number of long miles farther westward. Away up among the crags and
+forests of the Sierra, but below the snow-range at that season, there
+lay all day in the sunshine a very tranquil little lake. All around the
+lake were the steep sides of mountains, and at no point was there any
+visible outlet. Streams of various sizes ran into it, and one of them
+came plunging over the edge of a perpendicular rock, in a foamy,
+feathery waterfall. There was plenty of room in the valley for the lake
+to grow larger in, but the trees at its margin seemed to say that this
+was its customary size. On the northern side the sloping steep went up,
+up, up, until all its rocks became hidden under a covering of snow.
+
+Just above the snow-line the June sun had been working hard, day after
+day, melting snow for the lake, until it had undermined a vast icy mass
+several acres in extent. Nobody could guess how many winters had been
+required to make that heap of frost so deep and hard, or how many
+summers had made everything ready for that hot day to finish the work.
+
+Just before sunset a moaning sound came down the mountain and filled the
+valley. Then something like thunder, or the report or a cannon, echoed
+among the crags.
+
+The avalanche had broken its bonds! Down it came, slowly at first, then
+more swiftly, and the tall pines were snapped off and swept away, and
+great bowlders were caught up and carried with it. Down, down, down it
+came, and at last, with a great surging plunge, it went head foremost
+into the lake. Crash! splash! dash! the flying sheets of water reached
+the tree-tops on the margin. The avalanche found deep water, for it
+almost disappeared, but it made the lake several feet deeper, and then
+its own fragments came up from their dive to be floated around and to be
+dashed against the shore by the waves.
+
+It did not take a great while for the surface of the lake to become calm
+again, with the snow-cakes and the ice-cakes almost motionless in the
+fading light. Not any human eye had seen the avalanche fall, or had
+noted its grandeur or any of its consequences.
+
+All things were peaceful at Cold Spring. Everybody had eaten supper long
+before sunset, and was glad of feeling sure that only the coming night
+was to be spent in a spot where nothing more civilized than a jackass
+rabbit seemed to have any permanent business.
+
+Colonel Evans had said all he had to say about Cal, and he stood near
+the spring, making vague speculations as to how and when he should get
+into better communication with Kah-go-mish. Near him, sitting upon a
+ledge, were Ping and Tah-nu-nu, and the old Chiricahua, who seemed to be
+telling his young friends something more about the bubbling water, when
+Captain Moore strolled up to within a few paces.
+
+"Do you see that, colonel?" he said. "I know sign language well enough
+if I can't understand the words. There's no wonder they're superstitious
+about Fonda des Arenas."
+
+"Cold Spring?" replied the colonel. "What do they say about it?"
+
+"Ask the scout. He says it's Manitou Water in the old tongue. I can't
+work the Apache syllables."
+
+Neither could Colonel Evans, when the Chiricahua repeated them. He was
+even eager to tell more, and what he did tell was curious, if true. Just
+before the great and noble Chiricahuas and Apaches came to own that
+country, he said, there had been a hill there, a sort of mountain with
+forests, and there was no desert there, and no chaparral. The
+Chiricahuas would have preferred a hill and trees and grass, but the old
+manitou who had lived there had to go away, and everything sunk down to
+a level. The trees died and rotted away, and all was dry and desolate,
+until one terribly hot day when a band of Apaches reached the rocky
+level, almost dying of thirst. Their ponies were unable to go any
+farther, and they had given up all hope. They sat around upon the rock,
+and their ponies lay down. All night long they sat there, and then, just
+as the sun was rising, they saw something white spring into the air in
+the middle of the wide rock. A new manitou had arrived, friendly to the
+Apaches. He brought the Manitou Water, and it had run continually to the
+present time. Generally it was quiet, but if the manitou heard good
+news, the water would sometimes jump away up, as it did when it first
+came.
+
+"Very pretty story," began Captain Moore, but at that moment the air
+suddenly was filled with excited exclamations.
+
+The old Chiricahua uttered a loud whoop as he sprang to his feet.
+
+"Ugh!" he said. "Heap manitou!"
+
+He added a few rapid sentences in his own tongue, while Ping and
+Tah-nu-nu darted away to the edge of the chaparral and stood there,
+clinging to each other as if in terror.
+
+"Colorado!" shouted Sam Herrick. "What on earth's got into Cold Spring?"
+
+The colonel and the captain also retreated rapidly, shivering from the
+shock of a sudden cold bath, for they both were wet to the skin.
+
+Twenty feet high sprang the water, with a sharp hiss and a report like a
+pistol-shot. The first leap subsided, but was instantly followed by
+another and another, each less lofty than the one before it. Then the
+stream became fairly steady, but with about three times its customary
+supply, so that quite a rill of water ran away across the quartz, to be
+absorbed by the thirsty sand and gravel among the bushes.
+
+Neither Ping nor Tah-nu-nu nor the Chiricahuas could be induced to come
+near the fountain again, but all the white men gathered around it and
+made guesses as to what had made it jump.
+
+"Something volcanic," said the captain.
+
+"Been an earthquake somewhere, it may be," said the colonel.
+
+All that evening there was more or less discussion of the remarkable
+performance of Cold Spring, and everybody missed the right guess. It was
+only a splash caused by the avalanche when it plunged into the mountain
+reservoir which supplied the chaparral and the sage-hens and the jackass
+rabbits and the other wild animals there with water. Nothing could well
+be more simple, and there was no soundness whatever in the grave remark
+made to Ping and Tah-nu-nu by the old Chiricahua.
+
+"Ugh!" he said. "Manitou Water heap good medicine. Good Apache manitou.
+Kah-go-mish get away now. Keep all pony."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+PULL STICK AND THE HURRICANE.
+
+
+Ping and Tah-nu-nu had had no good reason for complaining of their
+captivity. They had been well fed, they had each a magnificent
+handkerchief and a looking-glass medal, they had heard any number of new
+stories from the old Chiricahua, and they had seen how high the old
+manitou could make the spring jump when he heard good news. They were
+almost conscience-smitten to find how friendly were their feelings
+towards all those wicked cowboys and blue-coats, but they were sure that
+they could get over it all and be good Apaches again as soon as they
+should get out of that camp.
+
+One thought came, every now and then, to trouble Tah-nu-nu. Colonel
+Evans had said that he meant to take Ping home with him and make a
+farmer of him, and Tah-nu-nu's mind drew a humiliating picture of
+The-boy-whose-ear-pushed-away-a-piece-of-lead come down to work in a
+cornfield with a hoe.
+
+She spoke about it to Ping, and he replied with some awful reminders of
+stories he had heard of the cruel manner in which little Indian girls
+were sometimes treated by hardhearted pale-face squaws. She might have
+felt worse but for a memory she had of a beautiful ribbon given her by a
+white lady at the Reservation headquarters.
+
+Both of them knew that the cowboys and the blue-coats intended to march
+away early the next morning, and it added more than a little to their
+respect for the Apache manitou who managed the Cold Spring water-works.
+They believed that the great jump of the fountain had produced such an
+effect upon the pale-faces that their chiefs had determined to give up
+the pursuit of Kah-go-mish. The old Chiricahua was still detailed to
+watch the movements of the chief's children, but they were not tied up
+that night.
+
+Neither had Cal been all day in the camp where he had been staked out
+the night before. He had seemed to listen so attentively to the stern
+warnings given him against any attempt at running away, and he had shown
+such good sense that very morning, that he was allowed to walk around as
+he pleased. He did so, and he succeeded in putting on an air of easy
+unconcern, although he knew that his movements were all closely noted by
+the keenest kind of human eyes. He could hardly for a moment be beyond
+the range of those of the dog-soldier police, but their watch was
+blindness itself compared to that of the squaws and the young people.
+
+The boys, of all sizes, avoided coming too near him, but it was not long
+before he made up his mind that every large tuft of weeds around that
+camp contained a Mescalero in his teens or under them. Little
+six-year-olders stepped away from behind trees, or sauntered out of
+bushes, or seemed to have errands which led them right past him. All of
+his own faculties were in a state of strained wakefulness, and he did
+not allow such things to escape him.
+
+"I'll see the whole camp, anyhow," he said to himself, somewhat late in
+the day, after he had become accustomed to the queer sort of freedom
+given him. "I won't give them any excuse for piling fire upon me, but I
+want to know all about this place."
+
+The stream along which the camp lay was hardly more than two yards wide
+in many places, but it ran slowly and seemed to be deep. There were
+places clear of bushes, here and there, where it could be seen, and it
+had a black look, from the density of the shadows which lay upon it. It
+was good water, pretty cool, and the Apaches had taken some fine fish
+out of it, but there was something remarkable in the fact that it ran in
+a straight line.
+
+Cal walked slowly on, glancing at lodge after lodge. Most of them were
+pretty well peopled, and one that was not so had a guard before it, for
+it contained the treasures of the Mexican pack-mule train. There was not
+an Apache in the band wicked enough to have stolen anything out of that
+storehouse lodge, and the solitary dog-soldier who lounged in front of
+it was not there as a protection against human thieves. He was to keep
+out dogs, snakes, and any other kind of "bad medicine" that might
+attempt an investigation of the good things the loss of which Colonel
+Romero's cavalry were at that time growling about. He probably had other
+duties, but none of them related to Pull Stick, and Cal sauntered on,
+barely catching a glimpse of a pair of Apache boys who were doing the
+same among the trees on the other side of the brook.
+
+He had never seen finer trees, nor had he ever before noticed precisely
+such a run of water, for just a little distance beyond the last of the
+widely separated lodges he came to a point where the stream turned off
+at right angles.
+
+"It never did that of its own accord," suddenly flashed into the mind of
+Cal, and he added, aloud: "Some time or other it was dug out!"
+
+"Ugh!" exclaimed a voice behind him. "What Pull Stick see?"
+
+Cal pointed to the water and tried to explain himself, startled as he
+was a little by finding Crooked Nose so near him.
+
+The deeply wrinkled, forbidding face of the Apache brave put on a look
+of very dark solemnity as he lifted a hand and pointed at something
+about a hundred yards beyond the turn in the stream.
+
+"Ugh!" he said. "Pull Stick good eye."
+
+The first thing that caught Cal's attention was an enormous dead tree,
+whose gaunt, leafless arms reached grimly out above a great mound that
+it leaned over. He looked again, following the line of the water, and
+saw something else that was remarkable. The small rill which fed that
+long, deep, shadowed channel fell into it out of a massive stone tank.
+The masonry was overgrown with vegetation everywhere except at the place
+where the rill poured out.
+
+At some unknown day, away back in the past, when not one of those old
+trees had been more than a sapling, some people had been civilized
+enough and prosperous enough to construct that granite reservoir.
+
+Cal stared intently, for the shadows were beginning to deepen, and he
+knew that he would be interfered with if he went too far in his first
+ramble. The stone tank did not contain all the masonry over which the
+dead tree was leaning. The mound itself arose four-square.
+
+"It's one of those Mexican pyramids," exclaimed Cal. "I've read about
+them. Didn't know that any of them were ever found away up here."
+
+He may or may not have been correct about that, but in a moment more he
+turned to Crooked Stick.
+
+"Sun go down?" he asked.
+
+"Ugh! No. Pull Stick get heap water."
+
+The deepening of the shadows had not been altogether because that
+notable day of Cal's life had nearly gone. It was rather because black
+masses of thunderclouds had suddenly arrived, and had hidden all the sky
+above that part of the ancient Aztec forest.
+
+Swiftly enough came a darkness that walked in among the tree-trunks and
+covered them so that they could not be seen at twenty feet away.
+
+A vivid gleam of quivering lightning made everything stand out clearly
+for a second. Then came a deafening roll of thunder, and that was
+followed by another burst of sound that Cal did not recognize. He did
+not even know the Apache word for cougar, which sprang to the lips of
+Crooked Nose. The beast which had uttered the terrified roar, however,
+came leaping past with tremendous bounds, as if the thunderbolt had
+fallen near him and he hoped to get away from it. Cal stood still,
+mainly because no time was given him for doing anything else, but the
+cougar almost brushed his shoulder as it sprang by him.
+
+"Ugh!" said Crooked Nose. "Pull Stick great brave by and by. Good!"
+
+Flash after flash, almost incessantly, followed the tremulous glare of
+lightning, and peal on peal followed the thunder, during a full minute,
+before any rain fell. Then it seemed to Cal as if one awful flash went
+through everything around him, bringing its rattling volume of deafening
+thunder with it. He was half-blinded, half-stunned, for a moment.
+
+"That flash must have struck close by," he exclaimed.
+
+So it had, for the next gleam showed him the gigantic trunk of the
+withered tree splintered through near the earth, its whitened stem, with
+its drapery of vines, toppling over to come down with a great crash upon
+the mound above which it so long had stood sentinel.
+
+The next instant all was densely dark, for the rain came down in sheets,
+and all other sounds except that of the thunder were drowned in the roar
+of a great wind. Cal Evans had come into that forest to witness a
+hurricane.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII.
+
+UNDER A FALLEN TREE.
+
+
+Cal had been all day in a chaparral without water, and he knew by
+experience how very dry an alkali desert could be, whether under a hot
+sun or a brilliant moon. He had seen sudden storms before, for he was a
+ranch-boy, and there are wonders of electricity and rain at times upon
+the plains. Up to the moment when the hurricane struck the tree-tops,
+however, he had never fully understood what could be done by wind and
+water and thunder and lightning, at their very best working strength,
+working together. No wonder a poor cougar should be in a hurry to get
+under safe cover if he had any clear idea that all this was coming.
+
+As for the trees, the healthy ones stood up to it admirably. They had
+all been through hurricanes time and again, and were, moreover,
+something of a protection to each other. Any tree whose strength had at
+all been sapped by internal decay, however, or which had failed to send
+out roots in due proportion to its height, was in more or less danger.
+Every now and then the crash of some old forest prince made Cal look up
+at the trees near him to see how they were doing. Crooked Nose crouched
+upon the ground in silence, not looking at anything. The trunk behind
+which they were partly sheltered was apparently worthy of especial
+confidence, it was so very thick and seemed so completely beyond the
+power of any wind to break.
+
+"If any tree can stand it, this will," said Cal to Crooked Nose.
+
+"Ugh!" grunted the Indian. "Heap wind. Heap bad manitou."
+
+The trunk of that tree fully justified Cal's confidence. It did not
+snap. At that very moment, however, there was a strong hand of the
+hurricane upon its broad top, and the general uproar was increased by a
+groaning, tearing sound.
+
+"It's coming! it's coming!" shouted Cal, as he made a great spring into
+the gloom at its left, but Crooked Nose only lay flat upon the ground.
+
+Ripping, tearing, splitting the earth on the windward side of the tree,
+and breaking off, with reports like pistol-shots, the roots of the giant
+growth gave way. Down, down, down came the grand old oak, crashing
+through branches and smaller trees in the way. It left a great hollow
+where its roots had been, but Cal need not have stirred one inch. If he
+had been twenty feet high he could have walked under that fallen trunk
+without touching it.
+
+"Safest place there is," he said to Crooked Nose. "Hear that?"
+
+"Ugh!" replied he. "Bad medicine!"
+
+Bad for something, perhaps, for it was the squall of an enormous cat in
+fright and trouble. It seemed as if the hurricane must have come for
+that particular tree, since it began at once to die away after the
+crash. The thunder ceased and the flashes grew fainter, while the small
+remains of daylight came back and made the dripping forest visible. The
+spirits of Crooked Nose did not at once return. He glanced at the mound,
+where the lightning-splintered wreck of the dead tree had fallen. He
+looked up at the oak-trunk over him, and he shivered as if from cold.
+
+Once more the cry of the cat in trouble sounded just across the brook.
+The carbine carried by Crooked Nose lay upon the ground, and Cal picked
+it up. It was loaded, and its owner did not make the least objection
+when Cal took the weapon, sprang across the narrow channel, and began to
+search for that angry cry.
+
+Yet again it sounded, and now it plainly came from among the branches of
+the fallen tree.
+
+"That's so," said Cal. "Must be the same fellow. Hid in these bushes and
+got pinned down."
+
+The frightened cougar had not thought of a trap, when he cowered in a
+little hollow behind a rotten log. It had not been set for him by either
+the oak or the hurricane, but it caught him, for a fork of one of the
+heavier limbs came down over that very hollow.
+
+Cal thought he had never seen any real scratching done until that
+moment. The earth and leaves and sticks and bits of bark flew fast, as
+the powerful claws tore a passage out of that captivity.
+
+"He's fighting to get away," said Cal.
+
+"So'd I, if I saw any use in it. I could escape, too, in such a storm as
+this. If another should come, I'll try and be ready. His head and
+shoulders are free--there he comes!"
+
+Crack! and the report of the rifle was answered by a loud whoop from
+Crooked Nose.
+
+Out from his trap came the entire body of the cougar, in a convulsive
+struggle, and he lay dead upon the wet leaves, an ounce ball through his
+head requiring no second shot.
+
+Whoop after whoop answered that of Crooked Nose, but Cal stood still,
+wet, very wet indeed, and almost wondering how he came to kill that
+tremendous wild beast.
+
+The wrinkled, ugly face of the old Apache peered over his shoulder.
+
+"Ugh! Heap bad manitou gone!"
+
+Boys and braves came hurrying to the spot, and half a dozen angry
+dog-soldiers were eager to know who had fired a shot within the limits
+of the camp, contrary to rule.
+
+"Crooked Nose kill cougar," was the first bit of broken English heard by
+Cal.
+
+"Ugh!" was the reply. "Pull Stick."
+
+There was a kind of fraud at work. The Apaches believed that Pull Stick
+had faced the very dangerous animal before him without any help. They
+had heard the wrathful squall, but knew nothing of the trap. Even when
+Cal explained it, the glory accorded to him was hardly diminished, for
+there lay the cougar, claws and all. He had performed a feat precisely
+equal to that of Ping.
+
+Among the last to come was Kah-go-mish himself, and yet he did not look
+like himself. The red stocking-legs on his arms were soaking wet, and he
+wore no hat, while his entire visage had a look of intense dejection. It
+remained there until he caught a glimpse of the cougar's body, and he
+nearly repeated the exclamation of Crooked Nose: "Bad medicine gone!
+Ugh! Heap good!"
+
+Slowly Cal began to understand the meaning of several things which
+Crooked Nose had told him when he pointed at the tank and the mound.
+That was a place which, as all Apaches knew, was "bad medicine" for
+them. They ought not to have camped there or put up lodges, and when the
+hurricane came it aroused all their superstitious fears. They had been
+dreadfully frightened; as much so as the poor cougar himself, and they
+would have cowered in any hole just as he did.
+
+Cal's unexpected feat, therefore, had broken a sort of evil charm of
+that dangerous locality. He had used a gun, however, to which, as a
+prisoner, he had no right, and there were serious questions to be
+considered. He had not undertaken to escape, but he had trespassed upon
+the "bad-medicine" ground. A storm had come and the bad manitou had
+thrown trees at him to kill him. Then he had sent a cougar to tear him
+to pieces. The bad manitou had not been strong enough, and Pull Stick
+had thus far escaped, but it was all very wonderful.
+
+Kah-go-mish beckoned Cal to follow him, and they all recrossed the
+little stream and walked on to the lodge of the chief. Several other
+lodges stood near it, for none of them had been blown down, but all
+things wore a soaked, miserable appearance in the dull gloom now
+settling down over the "bad-medicine camp." The squaws were trying to
+rekindle the deluged fires, but without any success. Wah-wah-o-be, at
+her own heap of wet ashes in front of the lodge, was ready to give up in
+despair.
+
+Kah-go-mish was exchanging guttural sentences with a group of
+gloomy-looking, elderly warriors, when Cal took out his pocket-knife,
+picked up a piece of pine wood and began to make splinters and shavings
+of it. He then took from an inner pocket a case of wax-matches, and in
+half a minute more he handed Wah-wah-o-be a blazing bunch of what to her
+was comfort.
+
+"Ugh!" said Kah-go-mish to his counsellors. "Pull Stick good medicine.
+Heap bring fire. Friend."
+
+That was the turning-point, and Cal had but barely escaped a much worse
+fate than that of Jonah. At that very moment, however, a mounted brave
+galloped in from the forest and drew rein before the chief with a sharp,
+warning exclamation that was echoed by every tongue. Even Cal exclaimed
+aloud: "Mexicans? Cavalry? Rancheros? What next?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII.
+
+LEAVING THE BAD-MEDICINE CAMP.
+
+
+The camp in the chaparral at Cold Spring was astir before daylight that
+next morning. Every soul seemed to want a look at the Manitou Water, as
+well as a drink of it, immediately upon waking. Tongue after tongue
+declared, in English, Spanish, or Apache: "Just as it was before, only
+it runs a little stronger." That is, the avalanche had raised the level
+of the water in the mountain reservoir and the pressure was greater.
+Every season must have witnessed very much the same changes in the
+conduct of Cold Spring, but, as a rule, without any human eyes to take
+note of them. The sage-hens, the jackass rabbits and the antelopes had
+kept no record.
+
+Cal's father was a sad-hearted man when he mounted his big black horse.
+He was turning his face homeward without Cal, and he almost forgot that
+he had come in search of stolen horses.
+
+Ping and Tah-nu-nu were given their own ponies, and were as ready for a
+start as was anybody else. As they reached the path-opening by which
+they were to go away, they turned and took a long look at the Manitou
+Water. It flowed on steadily, without a jump of any sort.
+
+"Ugh!" said Ping. "Manitou sleep."
+
+Colonel Evans and his cowboys, Captain Moore and his cavalry, all did
+the same thing, but not one of them made the same remark. The three
+remaining Chiricahua scouts also looked, and the old brave who had told
+stories to Ping and Tah-nu-nu shook his head, saying something about
+Kah-go-mish and bad medicine. He was thinking of the fourth Chiricahua
+who had been the first man of that expedition to drink of the bubbling
+snow-water.
+
+"Have you any idea when or where we shall get our next news of Cal?"
+asked Captain Moore, as he rode along at the head of his column.
+
+"No," said Colonel Evans, "but you can count upon one thing, they will
+try to steal away Ping and Tah-nu-nu. Every movement must be watched.
+Kah-go-mish and his band are far enough away by this time."
+
+The keenest calculations are sometimes at fault. A sharp gallop of three
+or four hours across the desert might have brought a rider from the
+chaparral very near the camp of the Apaches. If the palefaces, moreover,
+knew nothing of the movements or plans of the chief, he did not propose
+to be equally ignorant of their own. Hardly were they well away from the
+spring before something began to stir under the bushes behind the great
+cactus on the western side of the open. Then a human head became
+visible, and in a minute more a tall Apache warrior was stalking around
+the spring as if he were trying to find anything which the pale-faces
+might have left behind them. He was in no manner disposed to talk to
+himself, and his inspection was soon completed. After that, a half-mile
+of walking through the chaparral brought him to a bush where one of the
+stolen Evans horses was tied. He mounted and rode away, and when he
+left the chaparral he did not take the trail which the band had before
+followed, but struck off across the desert in a southeasterly direction.
+
+If he had any intention of going back to the "bad-medicine camp-ground,"
+he was making a mistake, because the lodges of Kah-go-mish were no
+longer there. The Apache scout who came hurrying in, after the hurricane
+was over and just before sunset the previous evening, had been very near
+to not getting in at all. He had been all but intercepted by a strong
+column of Mexican horsemen. The storm had helped him to escape from
+them, but beyond all doubt he would be followed.
+
+"Kah-go-mish is a great chief!" loudly exclaimed the Mescalero
+statesman, and he added his own explanation of this new peril. These
+were not the Mexicans who had lost the pack-mules; not the command of
+Colonel Romero. They were probably the very force which had made a
+target of him as he stood so heroically upon the bowlder, and into whose
+camp he had afterwards so daringly ventured after horses and plunder.
+
+He knew that they were numerous, and he had no thought of fighting them.
+It was too late and too dark, he said, to begin any march that evening,
+but every lodge must come down, every pack must be made ready, and the
+band must move before daylight.
+
+Cal had no idea how narrow had been his own escape from the cruel
+results of Indian superstition, but he had overheard enough to
+understand the present flurry and the packing. He sat down, not far from
+one of the rekindled camp-fires, and watched the proceedings. It made
+him feel bluer than ever to know that civilized soldiers were so very
+near. He saw his cougar brought in and skinned, and he ate a piece of
+the broiled meat cooked for him by Wah-wah-o-be. The moon arose and
+looked down through the tree-tops, but Cal did not feel like sleeping,
+although his wet clothing had ceased to steam, and he felt almost dry.
+
+The lodges were all down at last, and everything seemed quiet, when
+there came to Cal's ears precisely the same boding hoot that had sounded
+among the cypress branches above him when he was staked out.
+
+"Must be the biggest kind of an owl," he muttered, but instantly he
+heard just such a sound again very near him.
+
+He turned to look for the second owl, and there he stood, with one hand
+at his mouth, for this owl was Kah-go-mish, and he was distributing news
+and orders among his band.
+
+There were rapid movements in all directions after that hooting.
+Pack-mules were led in. Squaws toiled hard and warriors worked like so
+many squaws. The horses of Kah-go-mish were led to the spot where his
+lodge had been, and one of them, bridled but without any saddle, was
+assigned to Cal with orders to mount at once. He had hardly done so
+before he heard near him a whinny that he knew.
+
+"Dick," he said, "old fellow! Don't I wish I were on your back!"
+
+His own saddle was there, and his own rifle and some other weapons were
+strapped to it. Other property was securely fastened upon them, and for
+that journey, at least, the red mustang had been turned into a
+pack-pony. He seemed to almost feel humiliated and downcast, but was
+otherwise in his usual condition, so far as his master could see.
+
+Hoot! Hoot! Hoot! came the owl cries from the forest westward, and the
+braves in charge of the shadowy train began to urge it forward.
+
+"Pull Stick, look!"
+
+It was the voice of Crooked Nose, and he was tapping his carbine
+meaningly.
+
+Cal nodded, but did not speak, for he understood the warning. His life
+was hanging by a thread, and he was in need of all the caution he
+possessed.
+
+Every camp-fire was heaped high with fuel before it was left behind, and
+the forest was all the darker by contrast. The Apaches managed to pick
+their way, with the aid of torches. It did not seem to Cal that they had
+ridden far before the trees grew thinner, and there was more moonlight.
+Then there were no trees; a little farther on and there were no bushes;
+all was plain enough then, for the bare desert was reached, and Cal knew
+by the stars that the band was heading in an easterly direction well out
+from the line of timber.
+
+Hardly had he said to himself, "Kah-go-mish got away in time, anyhow,"
+before he heard a muffled tumult in the forest behind him. Every animal
+in the train was pushed more rapidly.
+
+"Mexicans!" exclaimed Wah-wah-o-be. "Find fire. No find Kah-go-mish.
+Ugh!"
+
+A sharp rattle of distant musketry offered her a sort of angry reply,
+but it only drew a laugh from Wah-wah-o-be.
+
+The great chief she admired had been compelled to hurry up his plans,
+but he had not been caught in the surprise skilfully prepared for him by
+the Mexican commander. That officer had acted with energy and good
+judgment. He had determined to attack the Apaches in their camp at
+night, and he had not wasted an hour. He had deserved success, but he
+had not won it. The Apache owls had defeated him.
+
+As the silent Mexican columns worked their slow way through the forest,
+they had remarked upon the uncommon number and wakefulness of those
+night-birds. They were in three divisions, dismounted for better work in
+the woods, and each division met its own owls, or seemed to. They saw
+the glare of the camp-fires and moved more slowly, with greater caution,
+in excellent order, until they had all but surrounded the bad-medicine
+camp-ground. A bugle-note gave them a signal for a simultaneous shout,
+and they shouted. Another bade them fire a volley towards the
+camp-fires, and they fired it. A third bugle sounded the charge, and the
+Mexicans dashed in magnificently. If there had been any Apaches there,
+not an Indian could have escaped, or at least not a pony or a lodge.
+
+"Kah-go-mish has gone!" roared the disappointed officer, and his entire
+command agreed with him, but not a soul of them all could guess in what
+direction, by any light that the chief had left behind him.
+
+As for Cal Evans, he had received an important lesson concerning the
+ways and wiles of Indian warfare, and his own escape seemed more
+impossible than before.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV.
+
+TAH-NU-NU'S DISAPPOINTMENT.
+
+
+Santa Lucia seemed to be under a cloud, in spite of the bright June
+weather. Vic grew more and more uneasy, and did not try to conceal it.
+She was not able to understand how her mother maintained such an
+external appearance of self-possession.
+
+"I wish we had two letters a day from them," she exclaimed for the third
+or fourth time.
+
+"One would satisfy me. Oh dear! Why can't we know something about them!"
+responded Mrs. Evans, and the broken serenity helped Vic.
+
+Perhaps it was as well that no letter came, since any written from Cold
+Spring would have carried the dark tidings which Colonel Evans was
+bringing home with him.
+
+Captain Moore made a push that morning straight across the desert, that
+he might reach water and pasturage before noon if possible. The sun was
+hot, and frequent halts were needful for the horses, but the forced
+march was made with perfect success.
+
+"Well, boys," exclaimed the captain, at last, "I'm glad to see grass
+again."
+
+"Seven hours," the sergeant responded, "is a sharp pull, captain; how
+far do you think we've come?"
+
+"Twenty-five miles of gravel," said the captain. "There! Glad of that!"
+
+A whoop from a Chiricahua scout, in advance, announced at that moment
+that water had been found. It was a tree-shaded pool, evidently fed by
+springs. Around it was a bit of forest, and outside of that were
+scattered patches of chaparral.
+
+"Well on my way home!" groaned Colonel Evans, "and Cal is not with me."
+
+Through all that weary ride Ping and Tah-nu-nu had plodded along
+cheerfully. They had talked with anybody who wished to have a chat, and
+had given no token of discontent. They did not look at all like a pair
+of plotters, but they had conferred much in their own tongue when no
+Chiricahua was within hearing. They had plenty of opportunities, for
+those three red-men had undergone a change. Even the story-teller had
+been moody and silent ever since the great spirit of the Manitou Water.
+
+Although of another band, which had become nominally friendly to the
+pale-faces, the Chiricahuas were as much Apaches as were the Mescaleros,
+and had been every way as bitterly opposed to life on any Reservation.
+Their present friendship was with American blue-coats only, and not with
+Mexicans, and Kah-go-mish had smitten their old enemies in a way to
+merit their approbation. All that, and their traditions and
+superstitions, laid a capital foundation for the Manitou Water to work
+upon. To their minds they had been notified that it was "bad medicine"
+for them to do anything against Kah-go-mish upon his present war-path.
+If they were ever to kill him, it must be at some future time when
+things were going against him and his medicine was defective.
+
+Stronger and stronger grew the pressure of the vague ideas that took
+possession of the minds of the three scouts. They even looked hard at
+the pool of water they now led their horses to, as if this also might
+present some supernatural tokens. They had been there before, and they
+now found nothing new, but they felt as if they did, and each in turn
+remarked, "Bad medicine." Something rippled the water away out in the
+middle. Perhaps it was a fish, perhaps it was a frog or a snake or a
+water-rat, or it may be that an old ripple had been tied up at the
+bottom and had just broke loose and come up for air. Whatever it may
+have been, the old story-teller winced when he saw it.
+
+"Ugh!" he said. "More manitou. Chiricahua no fight Kah-go-mish. Bad
+medicine."
+
+None of the white men overheard that remark, and none of them dreamed of
+watching Chiricahuas after what had occurred at the spring. The feud
+between the two bands was supposed to be more bitter than ever.
+
+It was decided by Captain Moore that several miles must be added to the
+day's journey as soon as the horses had fed and were rested, in order
+that something might be done towards catching up with the possible
+movements of Kah-go-mish.
+
+Ping and Tah-nu-nu mounted their ponies, but just before they did so the
+old Chiricahua came and seemed to be spinning to them some of his yarns.
+It must have had reference to the pool, for he pointed at it, and both
+of them nodded as if it were an interesting story.
+
+No story of the past had been told, but one of the immediate future had
+been suggested. In fact, it was all carefully planned out, and all that
+remained was to act it out, for there was no one there to write it.
+
+The intention of the cavalry and cowboys was to take things easy that
+afternoon, and they rode on in a long, straggling cavalcade, among
+groves of trees, reaches of grass, clumps of bushes, and occasional bits
+of rocky ground, while away to the south were evidently mountains such
+as Kah-go-mish led his band through after his great feat in the
+character of a log with a knot on it.
+
+Up to this time Ping and Tah-nu-nu had hardly been separated for a
+moment, but now he seemed willing to lag towards the rear, talking with
+the old Chiricahua, while she rode forward with the others, as if she
+too had become a scout. If any white man had suspected them of a purpose
+of getting away, the suspicion disappeared when this was seen.
+
+Colonel Evans had no suspicion concerning Tah-nu-nu or the two
+Chiricahuas, but he almost wanted to put away his thoughts of Cal, and
+he pushed his big black horse on alongside of her pony. There were
+flashes in her dark eyes and there were tightenings of her lips, and now
+and then she glanced right and left half excitedly. She drew her breath
+very hard and glanced at the Chiricahuas as she and the colonel rode
+past a rugged patch of craggy forest. His face was as if made of wood,
+but he said "Ugh!"
+
+The whip in Tah-nu-nu's hand fell sharply upon her pony's flank. It was
+a blow given in utter vexation, rather than purposely, but the pony
+sprang forward all the same. So did the big black, and the strong hand
+of Colonel Evans reined in the pony.
+
+"No, Tah-nu-nu," he said, "you can't get away."
+
+"Ping is the son of a great chief!" she exclaimed, angrily. "Got away!
+Whoop! Heap good! Tah-nu-nu stay! Die! No pale-face!"
+
+She was intensely excited, her dark, regular features were flushed, and
+the colonel said to himself that she looked like another girl. All three
+of the Chiricahuas were with him at that moment. Not one of them took
+any notice of Tah-nu-nu's utterances, but the colonel straightened in
+the saddle. "Boys," he shouted to the nearest men behind him, "where's
+that young 'Pache? Go for him! The girl's been trying to escape!"
+
+Men in blue uniforms and men in red shirts wheeled at once, shouting to
+others farther in the rear. The whole line wheeled and shouted and
+searched hither and thither, and not any were more active than were the
+three Chiricahuas.
+
+It was all in vain. There was not a trace to be found of
+The-boy-whose-ear-pushed-away-a-piece-of-lead.
+
+Tah-nu-nu was suffering a terrible disappointment, and so was somebody
+else. Colonel Evans felt badly enough, but his caprice for a chat with
+Tah-nu-nu had prevented the superstitious Chiricahuas from entirely
+avoiding the "bad medicine" of Kah-go-mish. Part of it had been put away
+when the old story-teller, riding by Ping's side, had remarked, "Ugh!
+Heap bush." He came out of that bit of chaparral all alone, and, for
+some reason, Ping knew where he ought to expect a meeting with
+Tah-nu-nu. He did not at once walk his pony as the rest were doing, but
+galloped hard for quite a distance. He made a wide circuit in advance
+and at last dismounted upon the summit of a ledgy hill, among crags and
+forest trees. Here he could look down and see what occurred, and almost
+hear what was said as the cavalcade went by.
+
+"Heap rock!" he had exclaimed. "Now Tah-nu-nu come."
+
+Then he saw why she did not, could not come, and his disappointment was
+as bitter as any human disappointment well could be. A light which had
+grown in his dark young face faded from it. He hung his head almost
+listlessly as he wheeled his pony southward. He had escaped and he could
+not return into captivity, but Tah-nu-nu was still a prisoner. What
+should he say to Kah-go-mish and Wah-wah-o-be? That is, indeed, if he
+should succeed in finding his own perilous way to the lodges of his
+band.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV.
+
+HAND TO HAND BY FIRELIGHT.
+
+
+Colonel Evans and Captain Moore were vexed more deeply than they could
+have told by the escape of Ping. How it had been accomplished was a
+mystery. It was of no use whatever to lay the blame upon the
+Chiricahuas, or to ask them any questions. Each had been able to render
+a seemingly good account of himself, and each had taken the occasion to
+declare his undying enmity to Kah-go-mish and all his band. They did not
+tell how much better they felt, now that Ping's part of the "bad
+medicine" which threatened them had galloped away.
+
+As for Tah-nu-nu, she had never before known what it was to feel
+lonesome. So long as Ping had been in the camp she had been able to keep
+up her spirits, but now even her pride almost broke down, and if she had
+not been the daughter of a great chief she could have cried about it
+all.
+
+One of the two securities for Cal's safe return having disappeared,
+there was sure to be greater care taken of the other. Sam Herrick had
+probably never said "Colorado!" more emphatically than he did when he
+added: "Well, now, I'd like to see that gal git away. She won't!"
+
+Cal should have had still greater security held for him by his friends
+instead of less, for the events of the previous night had by no means
+ended when the squaw and pack-mule part of the Apache encampment
+succeeded in getting out into the open desert.
+
+The Mexican commander had made all his plans with caution as well as
+with skill, and their nature had been but imperfectly reported to
+Kah-go-mish. That chief knew that his assailants were drawing near the
+camp, through the woods, on foot, in three detachments. He knew that
+each body of soldiers was too strong for him to face, and that all had
+been cavalry before they dismounted. He was sure, therefore, that away
+in the rear of all must be a drove of several hundreds of horses. What
+he did not calculate upon was the strength and vigilance of the
+detachment left in charge of those horses.
+
+When, therefore, the Apache camp was abandoned, and all its treasures of
+quadrupeds and stores had been hurried out of harm's way, Kah-go-mish
+did not go with his family and household goods. He and a score of his
+best warriors rode away upon an errand worthy of so great a commander.
+They made a wide circuit, along the edge of the plain, entered the deep
+forest once more, dismounted, tied their horses, and pushed rapidly
+forward on foot. They were in the rear of the attacking columns, and
+were very near to the rear-guard and its drove when the Mexicans dashed
+in upon the camp.
+
+Creeping from tree to tree, nearer and nearer, the chief and his chosen
+braves reached the right spot and were entirely ready for the dash which
+they also had prepared at the moment when they heard the rattling
+volleys, the shouts, and the bugle-calls.
+
+Small fires had been kindled by the Mexican rear-guard, and there were
+torches here and there, but these were not enough. The darkness was
+still sufficient to conceal from the creeping Apaches the fact that the
+Mexican commander had left a hundred men to guard his precious
+quadrupeds. He had stationed them well, also, and they were on the alert
+for Indians.
+
+Loud rang the war-whoops of Kah-go-mish and his daring followers, and
+their rifles cracked rapidly for a half-minute before they sprang out of
+their cover. Not many bullets could be expected to reach a human mark by
+firelight and torchlight. Very few soldiers were touched, but quite a
+number of horses received wounds which made them give tenfold effect to
+the panic and fright produced by the yells and rifle-reports. Neighing,
+kicking, screaming, the entire drove broke loose as the Apaches dashed
+in among them, and the shadowy woods around were full of trampling
+hoofs.
+
+As a military manoeuvre, the plan of Kah-go-mish had thus far been a
+complete success, for he wanted only a stampede, and had no idea of
+capturing any of those horses. There, however, his success ended. The
+drove was scattered, so that there could be no immediate pursuit of him
+and his, but the Mexican militia had not been stampeded. They stood
+their ground like brave fellows, and closed in at once upon the whooping
+red-men.
+
+Bitter was the wrath of Kah-go-mish, for he found himself outnumbered
+several times. Half of his own warriors had instantly disappeared among
+the trees, as was their duty. The other half went down around him, man
+by man, whooping, firing swift and deadly shots, but well aware that for
+once their trusted leader had led them into a death-trap.
+
+There came a lurid moment when he stood alone, in front of one of the
+blazing heaps of light-wood, surrounded on all sides by men who had
+drawn their sabres because they could not use firearms for fear of
+hitting one another.
+
+Calm and ringing was the whoop of defiance with which he stood at bay, a
+revolver in one hand and a bowie-knife in the other.
+
+"Kah-go-mish is a great chief!" he shouted.
+
+Another whoop sprang to his lips, but it was not completed. There were
+flashes of steel blades in the shadows around him, and he fell heavily
+upon the grass.
+
+The Mexican commander was as much astonished by the sounds of battle
+behind him as he had been by the deserted condition of the camp he had
+intended to surprise. He ordered his three detachments to wheel at once,
+but they were impeded by the part of the stampeded drove which rushed in
+their direction. There were shouts and exclamations all along the line
+as the frightened animals broke through, but the officers held their men
+well in hand and pushed steadily forward. It was all a riddle until they
+marched out at the line of corral camp-fires. There were the rear-guard,
+drawn up in perfect order, except a few who were out in the woods
+gathering horses, and a few who were wounded, and a few more who would
+never mount again.
+
+Explanations were promptly made, and the officer commanding the
+rear-guard was warmly commended.
+
+"The Apache chief fell," he said. "Kah-go-mish."
+
+"What?" exclaimed the commander. "Kah-go-mish? That is enough. It was
+worth what it cost."
+
+An hour or so later all that was left, a dozen out of the score who had
+ridden with the chief, caught up with their band. They came in silence
+until they were very near. The entire train halted, and a sort of
+shudder seemed to run through it. Not so should a war-party have
+returned, under the leadership of Kah-go-mish. There should have been a
+well-known voice, sounding its accustomed whoop of triumph. Instead of
+it another voice arose, long drawn and mournfully. It was the
+death-whoop of the Apaches, and it was answered by a woman's involuntary
+wail, for Wah-wah-o-be knew that the signal had been given for
+Kah-go-mish.
+
+Crooked Nose had not been with the chief's party, but had ridden by Cal
+as a special keeper. The instant he heard the death-whoop he turned to
+his charge and said, in a not unfriendly manner: "Pull stick got bad
+manitou. Ugh! All Apache heap mad. Heap kill. Great chief gone dead. All
+paleface die. Heap bad medicine."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI.
+
+HOW CAL WAS LEFT ALL ALONE.
+
+
+All that Crooked Nose had said about the grief and wrath of the Apaches
+over the loss of Kah-go-mish was true, but Cal seemed for a few hours to
+be almost forgotten.
+
+"Tan-tan-e-o-tan is a great chief," said the warrior upon whom the
+direction of affairs appeared as a matter of course to fall.
+
+He was the short, intoed, bow-legged brave who had been accustomed to
+command in the now dead leader's absence, and he had never yet told
+anybody how much he envied and hated Kah-go-mish. His first duty was to
+get away from the Mexicans without losing any more braves or horses, and
+there was no time for mourning. He then saw before him an immediate path
+to safety if not to glory, and he determined to follow it. He did not
+know that he had determined to carry out the great plan of Kah-go-mish.
+
+Very faint and difficult to find or follow was the trail left upon the
+sun-baked, wind-swept gravel of the plains by the dejected Mescalero
+cavalcade. It was several hours before Tan-tan-e-o-tan and his warriors
+deemed it safe to turn again towards the line of forest and find a new
+camp-ground.
+
+They knew that they were in no immediate danger, for the Mexican
+cavalry could undertake no pursuit that night. Even when morning came a
+large part of the horses Kah-go-mish had stampeded were yet roving
+through the woods. Scouting parties were sent out in all directions,
+however, and a courier was hurried away with the news of the destruction
+of the dangerous chief and of the eight warriors who had fallen with
+him. Unlucky Colonel Romero, two days' journey westward, was at the same
+hour penning a sad despatch announcing the loss of his mules and
+supplies.
+
+Tah-nu-nu once more awoke as a prisoner in the hands of the pale-faces,
+and the first thought which came to her was that Ping was gone and that
+she was alone. A remarkably good breakfast was provided for her, and
+while she was eating it she heard Captain Moore say, with emphasis: "You
+are right, Colonel Evans. Your best plan is to strike for home by the
+shortest road. You won't hear one word more about Cal before you get
+there. What Kah-go-mish means is plain. He wants to keep as many of your
+horses as he can and trade your boy for his girl. He can't stay in
+Mexico. You'll hear from him at Santa Lucia. My trip is ended and I'm
+willing to push as fast as ever you wish."
+
+Tah-nu-nu asked the Chiricahuas about it soon afterwards, and then she
+knew that she was to be taken to the lodge of the long cowboy chief, and
+kept there until Kah-go-mish should come and pay ponies for her. It was
+an awful thing for an Indian girl to think of, but there was no help for
+it, and she mounted her pony, sure of being well guarded. It was Sam
+Herrick's turn or Bill's, to ride by her side whenever the colonel was
+not there. The Chiricahuas were not needed any more, considering what
+had become of The-boy-whose-ear-pushed-away-a-piece-of-lead.
+
+They did not, indeed, know what had become of him. Perhaps the old
+Chiricahua guessed that he had been hidden among the "heap rock"
+bowlders and crags at one time, and knew why Tah-nu-nu did not join him.
+Even for the dusky scouts all was guess-work beyond that.
+
+Somewhat so had it been to Ping himself, but he had not listened to all
+the wise words of his father and the elders of his band for nothing.
+Even the stories told him by Wah-wah-o-be had been full of instruction.
+From one of these, concerning the feats performed by a great brave of
+the Apaches, he had derived lessons which had just now been of value to
+him. So had the uncommon size of the Reservation-collection trousers
+which had fallen to his share. Even after they were cut off at the knee
+there was room in them for another boy of his size. The pockets were so
+many canvas caves, and they were pretty well filled. Any boy knows that
+a pocket will hold a large part of his property if he keeps on putting
+things in, and Ping had put in everything he or Tah-nu-nu could lay
+their hands on. The pale-faces had his bow and arrows, but he had
+collected their full value. One trouser leg concealed a bowie-knife and
+the other a revolver. There were hooks and lines in one pocket and some
+cartridges, with some hard-tack. A large chunk of boiled beef was in
+another, and it was plain that the Chiricahuas had done something to
+prevent a famine to Ping from bringing upon them more of the "bad
+medicine" of Kah-go-mish. Unless he should meet with enemies or with too
+wide a desert, Ping was fairly well provided for a hunting and fishing
+excursion. He had never in all his life felt so proud and warrior-like
+as when he rode out from among the crags and wheeled his pony southward
+to find the trail of his people. He did not reach it that day, but when
+he made his lonely camp-fire at night, ate for supper some fish he had
+caught and the last of his chunk of beef, he would have been all over
+comfortable and satisfied if only Tah-nu-nu had been with him instead of
+being a long day's march nearer Santa Lucia.
+
+That same night was by no means so comfortable for Cal. Tan-tan-e-o-tan
+had not so much as spoken to him all day long, but neither had he spoken
+to Wah-wah-o-be. He had seemed to grow haughtier and more gloomy from
+hour to hour, and had given orders as if he had been Kah-go-mish and a
+trifle more. The march had been through as much desert and chaparral and
+rocky ground as was convenient, and an early camp was made in order that
+the four-footed wealth of the band might have a long rest and a good
+feed. Tan-tan-e-o-tan declared that they would need it, since the next
+day's trail would be through mountain-passes.
+
+"Good!" said Wah-wah-o-be. "Do what Kah-go-mish say. Heap bad Indian.
+Ugh!"
+
+The band had lost its chief and some warriors, but it was rich in
+horses, ponies, and mules. Part of these were doubtful property so long
+as the band remained in Mexico, but might not be so much so if carried
+north of the boundary line. The Santa Lucia quadrupeds, on the other
+hand, had no Mexican claimant, but would be poor property in the United
+States. These facts presented serious questions, and Tan-tan-e-o-tan
+reflected that Pull Stick was the only person in his camp who not only
+knew the whole story, but would be willing to tell it if he had a chance
+given him. There was much talk among the leading braves that night, as
+well as much mourning for Kah-go-mish and the fallen warriors. No
+decision was reached, and Crooked Nose told Cal that every friend of
+Wah-wah-o-be and her children had been opposed to "Make heap fire all
+over Pull Stick."
+
+Wah-wah-o-be herself was too full of grief to say anything, and Cal was
+left with a pretty clear idea that his case was getting darker. It was
+not easy to keep up much courage, but he was very weary in mind and
+body, and he slept as well as any fellow could, lying on the bare ground
+with his hands tied behind. He was untied when morning came in order to
+eat his breakfast, and he was busily at work upon it when a great shout
+at the other side of the camp was answered by a positive yell of delight
+from Wah-wah-o-be.
+
+"Ping! Ping!" she screamed, and added all the syllables of his best
+name.
+
+There was a grand time after that, and
+The-boy-whose-ear-pushed-away-a-piece-of-lead was a hero and the most
+important person in the entire camp. Even Tan-tan-e-o-tan considered him
+so until his report was made as to what the blue-coats and cowboys were
+doing, and Wah-wah-o-be did not give it up then. She was comforted
+concerning Tah-nu-nu, while Ping listened with all the trained
+steadiness of an Indian brave to the dark, tidings of the death of
+Kah-go-mish.
+
+He listened in silence, looking at Cal, and it may be that he had in his
+mind a picture of the first glimpse which he and Tah-nu-nu had had of
+the young pale-face horseman, for his next inquiry was concerning the
+"heap pony."
+
+Wah-wah-o-be sprang from the ground, where she had seated herself for
+her recital. She darted away; and in a few minutes more Cal saw her
+return.
+
+Well might Ping's delight break through his grief, for with one bound he
+was upon the back of the red mustang. Cal's belt, with its pistol and
+cartridge case, his repeating rifle, his elegant knife, even his Panama
+hat, were duly delivered to The-boy-whose-ear-pushed-away-a-piece-of-lead.
+Saddle and bridle and all, Ping had taken the place of Pull Stick as the
+master of the swiftest, toughest, best mustang in all southern New
+Mexico--just now in old Mexico.
+
+Part of Ping's news had been that he had seen and been seen by a party
+of Mexican cavalry. There were not many of them, apparently, but he was
+now summoned to pilot some braves who were to ride out and take a
+distant look at them. Proud was he, and a proud squaw was Wah-wah-o-be
+when he rode away upon the red mustang.
+
+It was a dark hour for Cal. The preparations for breaking camp went
+swiftly on. They had been nearly completed when Ping appeared, and now
+every pony and mule and horse was soon in motion. No pony was brought
+for Cal. Instead thereof came Tan-tan-e-o-tan, with a grim scowl upon
+his face. He was accompanied by a pair of Apaches as merciless as
+himself, and they had plainly determined to put away the one witness
+whose memory and tongue were dangerous to them. They did not see fit to
+use lead or steel or fire, but Cal was more securely staked out this
+time. No twig was driven into a gopher hole, and he was told, "Pull
+Stick get away now. Ugh! Medicine gone."
+
+Their task accomplished, they remounted and rode away, leaving their
+victim alone and helpless in the shadowy forest.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII.
+
+RESCUED BY THE RED MUSTANG.
+
+
+The scouting party of Mexican cavalry reported by Ping were few in
+number, and were a long distance from any support. They had been willing
+enough to follow the movements of a solitary Indian boy, but were not
+disposed for a skirmish with the braves who now rode out of the forest
+behind Tan-tan-e-o-tan. There would have been no brush at all if it had
+not been for the revengeful tumult in the heart of Ping, and for the
+fact that he was so splendidly armed and mounted.
+
+The men in uniform yonder belonged to the troops who had slain
+Kah-go-mish, and Ping shouted, in Apache, "I am the son of a great
+chief!"
+
+He disobeyed a warning whoop of Tan-tan-e-o-tan, for he was bent upon
+riding within range, and Dick bore him swiftly onward. All the warlike
+thoughts and hopes which make up the thoughts of an Indian boy were
+dancing wildly around in his fevered brain. He was a warrior, facing the
+ancient enemies of his race, the men who had killed his father.
+
+Alas for Ping! Range for him was also range for the now retreating
+cavalry, and his one fruitless shot was replied to by a volley.
+
+"Zst-ping!" he exclaimed, involuntarily shouting his own nickname, as
+the bullets whizzed past him, and then he felt suddenly sick and dizzy.
+One ball had not gone by.
+
+Dick obeyed the rein and wheeled towards the forest, but after that he
+was left to his own guidance. Ping was not unconscious, and he clung
+proudly, courageously to his rifle--Cal's repeater. He held on to the
+pommel of the saddle with one hand, but he hardly knew more than that he
+was riding the "heap pony"--riding, riding, riding--somewhere.
+
+Tan-tan-e-o-tan alone followed, at a considerable distance, the wounded
+son of Kah-go-mish, the other braves dashing away at once to join the
+band upon its eagerly pushed retreat into the mountains.
+
+Under the shade of the forest trees, near the waning camp-fire at which
+Wah-wah-o-be had cooked his breakfast, lay poor Cal. For him,
+apparently, all hope had departed, for he had vainly struggled to loosen
+the forked stakes which held down his hands and his feet.
+
+"I've no chance to pry," he groaned, "or I could do it;" but then that
+is the very reason why the red-men fasten their prisoners in that
+manner. Any man can pull up such a stick, if he can get a pry at it or
+even a direct pull.
+
+"I shall die of hunger and thirst and mosquito bites," he said. "It's
+worse than killing one right off. It's as bad as fire could be!"
+
+Just then he heard the sound of a horse's feet, and he drew his breath
+hard as he listened. Was it one of the Apaches come to torture him?
+Could it be a Mexican? It was a moment of awful expectation, and then
+he exclaimed, "Dick!"
+
+Dick had come, and he had found his way to the camp he had left, and he
+had brought home his young rider, but that was all, for Ping reeled in
+the saddle and then fell heavily to the earth. He was never to become a
+war-chief of the Mescaleros. His first skirmish had been his last.
+
+"Dick!" again shouted Cal, and the faithful fellow at once walked over
+to where his master lay. He seemed to understand that something was
+wrong with Cal, for he pawed the ground and neighed and whinnied as if
+asking, "What does this mean?" Dick's eyes had an excited look, and his
+ears were moving backward and forward, nervously, when again there was a
+sound of coming hoofs. Cal raised his head and saw Tan-tan-e-o-tan
+spring from his horse, stoop and examine poor Ping.
+
+"Ugh!" he exclaimed. "Heap dead!" A whoop followed instantly--a fierce
+and angry whoop.
+
+One of Dick's pawing forefeet had been unintentionally put down close by
+Cal's left hand. It was a quick thought, a lightning flash of hope,
+which led Cal to grasp the hoof with all the strength he had.
+
+Dick lifted his foot, and oh, how Cal's wrist hurt him, in the sudden,
+hard wrench that followed! It was his last chance for life and he held
+on, and the whoop of Tan-tan-e-o-tan was given as he saw the forked
+stake jerked clean out of the ground.
+
+Forward, with another yell, sprang the angry savage, drawing his knife
+as he came, but that screech was too much for the nerves of the red
+mustang. Out went his iron-shod heels, and there was a sharp thud as
+one of them struck between the eyes of Tan-tan-e-o-tan.
+
+"Hurrah for Dick!" shouted Cal, as his enemy rolled over and over upon
+the ferns and leaves. "That fellow won't get up again."
+
+Cal could now toil away with his lame hand to set the other at liberty.
+After that he was glad to find his knife in his pocket, for one of his
+ankle stakes refused to come up, and had to be whittled through. He
+worked with feverish, frantic energy, and he barely finished his task in
+time. He had only to whistle for Dick. His whole body seemed to tremble
+as he hurried forward to regain the belt and rifle which Wah-wah-o-be had
+so proudly given to Ping. The-boy-whose-ear-pushed-away-a-piece-of-lead
+would never need them or the "heap pony" any more.
+
+Cal did not mount, but led Dick away into the cover of the forest.
+
+"We should be seen if I rode away now," he said to Dick.
+
+Hardly was he well concealed behind dense bushes before, as he peered
+out, he saw Wah-wah-o-be, followed closely by Crooked Nose, gallop into
+the deserted camp. She had already heard that Ping was wounded, but not
+how badly, and she threw herself upon the ground beside him with a great
+cry. Crooked Nose bent for one moment over Tan-tan-e-o-tan, and the
+Apache death-whoop rang twice, long and mournfully, through the forest.
+It was followed by fierce and angry utterances, among which Cal caught
+something about Mexicans, and then Crooked Nose looked sharply around
+him.
+
+"Ugh!" he exclaimed. "Heap Pony gone. Pull Stick gone! Big medicine. Bad
+manitou."
+
+Cal's second escape was plainly a greater mystery than the first had
+been. It was as Crooked Nose declared, and he was a boy whose medicine
+enabled him to get out of tight places.
+
+Cal decided that it was time for him to get away, lest others should
+come, for he did not know how fast the band was retreating. He had a
+thought, too, of meeting the Mexicans who had wounded Ping. He picked
+his way carefully, stealthily, among the trees, followed faithfully by
+Dick, and at the outer border of the forest he mounted. No Mexicans were
+in sight, nor any Indians, and he knew that beyond the broken ground
+before him lay the desert. What he did not know was that his father and
+all who were with him were already two days' march on their homeward
+journey.
+
+"I can find my way by the sun and by the stars," he said to himself.
+"I've had my breakfast. Dick can have some grass by and by. I may kill
+game on the way. Never mind if I don't. Santa Lucia is off there to the
+northeast. Now, Dick, this is your business. How many miles can you put
+behind you between this and sunset?"
+
+Dick pawed the ground, but he said nothing. Cal examined his cartridges;
+filled two or three empty chambers in his rifle and revolver; tightened
+the girth of his saddle a little; fixed his belt right--
+
+"Dick!" he shouted. "Now for Santa Lucia!"
+
+Away went the red mustang, and if any Indians had followed him, they
+would have lost the race.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII.
+
+HOW THEY ALL REACHED SANTA LUCIA.
+
+
+A band of Indians who are in a great hurry travel rapidly, even if now
+and then they leave a worn-out pony behind them. They are also pretty
+sure to take short cuts and to save distances, and that was more than
+Cal Evans was able to do.
+
+The Chiricahua scouts with Captain Moore knew every inch of the country,
+and did not permit the cavalry and cowboys to do any needless
+travelling.
+
+Late in the forenoon of the third day after Ping's first and last ride
+upon the "heap pony," all was serenely quiet at Santa Lucia. It was too
+quiet, altogether, because its inmates were in such blue anxiety that
+they did not feel like doing anything. Reading was impossible, and any
+effort at conversation did but repeat the regret that there was no news
+from Cal or his father. The failure of everything else accounted for the
+fact that at this hour Vic and her mother were upon the roof, sweeping
+the horizon with the field-glass.
+
+Suddenly Mrs. Evans held out the glass, exclaiming: "Look! Vic!
+Cavalry!"
+
+"Oh!" shouted Vic, and in a moment more they were hurrying down and out
+of the hacienda.
+
+A roll of the prairie had hidden the approach of a column of mounted men
+until they were pretty near, and now all who wore uniform and a number
+of others halted at a hundred yards from the stockade gate at which Mrs.
+Evans and Vic were standing. One man dismounted and walked forward,
+leading by the hand a strangely dressed but comely-looking Indian girl.
+His face was flushed and troubled, and the eyes of the girl glanced
+timidly in all directions, as if seeking a means of escape from meeting
+those two pale-face squaws.
+
+"Husband!" exclaimed Mrs. Evans, turning very pale, "where is Cal?"
+
+"Cal!" echoed Vic, with painful eagerness.
+
+"He is a prisoner," faltered the colonel.
+
+"Father!" almost screamed Vic. "The Apaches have got him?"
+
+"The same band that took the horses, and that this girl belongs to. Vic,
+this is Tah-nu-nu. We shall hear from Cal."
+
+It was dreadful news, and it was not possible to hear it calmly, but
+Captain Moore now rode up and so did Sam Herrick. They had wished that
+first meeting over, and the report of Cal's captivity made without their
+being too near. Mrs. Evans managed to maintain her dignity fairly well
+to receive them, but they found Vic in an uncontrollable fit of crying.
+
+"Vic," said her father, "don't cry. Cal will surely come back soon, safe
+and sound. Take Tah-nu-nu into the house."
+
+At that moment they were all startled by a burst of cheering from the
+mounted men. Cheer followed cheer, and as the group at the gate turned
+to look, they saw a rider who dashed past the cavalry at full gallop.
+He was swinging his hat tremendously, but seemed unable to hurrah.
+
+"Colorado!" shouted Sam Herrick. "Cal and the red mustang!"
+
+After that nobody could have told what was said by anybody during a full
+three minutes. Then there came a sort of breathing-spell that was almost
+silence. They had begun to walk towards the house, and Vic was leading
+Tah-nu-nu a little in advance of the rest.
+
+"How did you say you managed to get away from Kah-go-mish?" asked
+Captain Moore.
+
+"It's a pretty long story," said Cal, "but there isn't any Kah-go-mish.
+He was killed in a fight with the Mexicans."
+
+"Did Ping get in before you left them?" asked Colonel Evans.
+
+"Yes, he did, father. I felt real bad about that. Such a young fellow.
+Not any older than I am."
+
+"Killed, was he? Colorado! I'm sorry," exclaimed Sam Herrick.
+
+The leading features of Cal's capture and escape had already been told,
+but they were now gone over more minutely, and it was determined not at
+once to tell Tah-nu-nu.
+
+"I must think the matter over," said Mrs. Evans.
+
+"Poor little thing!"
+
+That was what Vic said, but she took Tah-nu-nu to her own room, and the
+shy, frightened look of the lonely Indian girl began to turn into one of
+relief, but also of intense curiosity. She saw nothing but friendliness
+in the face of Vic, and at last she remarked: "Tah-nu-nu glad Heap Pony
+get away."
+
+Vic could laugh heartily at that, and she was joined by Tah-nu-nu when
+the chief's daughter discovered what was next expected of her. She
+rebelled stoutly at first, but Vic was determined to have her own way,
+and when they came out again Tah-nu-nu was too proud and shy to utter a
+word. She wanted to run away and hide, and yet she wished to be seen in
+her new outfit, for Vic had put upon her a dress which she herself had
+refused to wear because it was too brightly gay for her sense of
+dignity. Tah-nu-nu had very pretty moccasins of her own, and now, with
+white metal ornaments at her throat and upon her wrists, and with a
+bright ribbon in her coal-black hair, she was the best-dressed girl of
+the Mescalero Apaches.
+
+It seemed too bad to tell her any saddening news then, and during all
+the rest of that day Tah-nu-nu was treated as an Indian gentleman's
+daughter on a visit to Santa Lucia.
+
+It was a great day for Tah-nu-nu, and Norah McLory and the Mexican
+servants were explaining to her the wonders of the kitchen during the
+long time spent by Cal in telling the minute particulars of his
+adventures in the Cold Spring chaparral and in Mexico. His mother and
+Vic seemed disposed to keep their hands upon him, from the beginning to
+the end of his story, as if for fear that he might again be lost or
+captured.
+
+Captain Moore and his cavalry camped near Santa Lucia that night, and
+marched away early in the morning.
+
+Tah-nu-nu awoke in a pale-face bed, in a great lodge, such as she had
+seen before but never entered, and she hardly felt like a prisoner.
+
+"Kah-go-mish is a great chief," she said, for her first thought was of
+his coming for her release.
+
+An hour or two later she and Vic and Cal took a long horseback ride, and
+once more Tah-nu-nu admired the "heap pony." She was beginning to feel
+very much at ease, especially with Cal, for he had been acquainted with
+her family.
+
+They had been back at the ranch but a short time when Sam Herrick came
+in and beckoned to Colonel Evans.
+
+"What is it, Sam?"
+
+"Colorado!" exclaimed Sam. "There's an Indian and a squaw come. The red
+mustang was out there, and the Indian whooped when he sot eyes onto him.
+They want to see Pull Stick."
+
+"That's my name!" shouted Cal, and he sprang up and hurried out.
+
+He was followed by everybody but Tah-nu-nu, and in a moment he was
+shaking hands with Crooked Nose and Wah-wah-o-be.
+
+Their errand was briefly given. The whole band, what was left of it, had
+decided to return to the Reservation. They knew that in order to do so
+safely they must give up the Santa Lucia horses, and they had sent
+Wah-wah-o-be to say that they were ready to do it. What they did not add
+was that they were rich enough with the other quadrupeds won by
+Kah-go-mish in his successful war with Mexico. They wished to have word
+sent to the blue-coats. Nobody need follow them, and the horses
+belonging to Colonel Evans would be delivered next day, with two good
+Mexican mules to pay for his cattle. It was a capital bargain for him,
+and reduced his loss to a low figure. He agreed to it at once, and then
+Wah-wah-o-be asked for Tah-nu-nu.
+
+"We are going to keep her," said Mrs. Evans. "We will keep you, too, if
+you will come. You need not go to the Reservation."
+
+Wah-wah-o-be's blanket came up over her head, and her loud, wailing cry
+was heard in the adobe. In a moment more Tah-nu-nu's arms were around
+her mother, and she knew that she should never again see Kah-go-mish or
+The-boy-whose-ear-pushed-away-a-piece-of-lead.
+
+Down upon the ground they sat, the great chief's wife and daughter, and
+it was hours before they could be persuaded to speak or to come into the
+house. When they at last did so, the mind of Wah-wah-o-be was made up.
+Kah-go-mish had declared that he would never return to the Reservation.
+Whatever others might do, therefore, she would not. Her proud position
+in her band was also gone, with her wise, brave husband and her
+promising son. She was ready to consent that Tah-nu-nu should remain at
+Santa Lucia. She would herself come back and bring her property with
+her.
+
+Tah-nu-nu would hardly have consented if it had not been for the
+positive commands of her mother, and if these had not been helped by her
+wonderful new dress and by the urgency of Vic. She roundly declared,
+however, that she would never hoe corn.
+
+Crooked Nose had very little to say after his first errand was
+completed, but just before he rode away he led Cal a little to one side.
+They were out in front of the adobe, and Dick was standing near them,
+unsaddled, unbridled, very much as if he were a house-dog, with a right
+to step around anywhere.
+
+"Ugh!" said Crooked Nose. "Pull Stick get away again. How?"
+
+"Heap Pony," said Cal, pointing to the red mustang.
+
+"Ugh!" said Crooked Nose. "Who kill Tan-tan-e-o-tan."
+
+"Heap Pony," replied Cal again.
+
+"Ugh! Heap bad medicine. No like him. Pull Stick got manitou."
+
+Something like that, in a higher and better form, was what Cal's mother
+had been telling him. She also declared that she meant to do all in her
+power for the squaw who brought Cal his gourd of water when he was all
+but dying of thirst, and for her bright-eyed daughter. Something very
+good was, therefore, in store for Tah-nu-nu. Perhaps it was something
+which Ping could not or would not have taken.
+
+Wah-wah-o-be kept her word, and when she returned she brought quite a
+drove of horses, mules, and ponies with her, as the property of
+Kah-go-mish, and Colonel Romero was not there to identify any of them.
+Cal did not know one from another, whether they were Apache bred or
+Mexican, and he said so.
+
+There was really but one horse in the world that he cared much about. In
+fact, not only he and his family, but the cowboys and Wah-wah-o-be and
+Tah-nu-nu were disposed to attach an almost human idea to the uncommon
+qualities of head and heart which had been displayed by the red mustang.
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+    +----------------------------------------------------+
+    |             Transcriber's Note:                    |
+    |                                                    |
+    | Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the       |
+    | original document have been preserved.             |
+    |                                                    |
+    | Typographical errors corrected in the text:        |
+    |                                                    |
+    | Page  60  fale changed to face                     |
+    | Page  61  Chiracahua changed to Chiricahua         |
+    | Page  64  Sante changed to Santa                   |
+    | Page  69  Gringoes changed to Gringos              |
+    | Page  72  woop changed to whoop                    |
+    | Page  81  Chiracahua changed to Chiricahua         |
+    | Page  85  Tar-nu-nu changed to Tah-nu-nu           |
+    | Page 103  discontentetly changed to discontentedly |
+    | Page 154  led changed to lead                      |
+    | Page 217  spirt changed to spirit                  |
+    | Page 223  ranche changed to ranch                  |
+    +----------------------------------------------------+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Red Mustang, by William O. Stoddard
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+  <head>
+    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" />
+    <title>
+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Red Mustang, by W. O. Stoddard.
+    </title>
+    <style type="text/css">
+    p {  margin-top: .5em;
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+    .tdrp     {text-align: right; padding-right: 1em;} /* right align with padding */
+    .tdc      {text-align: center;} /* center align cell */
+    .tdl      {text-align: left;}  /* left align cell */
+    .tr       {margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; margin-top: 5%; margin-bottom: 5%; padding: 1em; background-color: #f6f2f2; color: black; border: dotted black 1px;} /* transcriber's notes */
+
+    .pagenum  { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */
+               /*  visibility: hidden;  */
+               position: absolute; right: 2%;
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+               color: silver;
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+               font-weight: normal;
+               font-variant: normal;} /* page numbers */
+
+    </style>
+   </head>
+<body>
+
+
+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Red Mustang, by William O. Stoddard
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Red Mustang
+
+Author: William O. Stoddard
+
+Release Date: October 30, 2010 [EBook #33897]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RED MUSTANG ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Edwards, Barbara Kosker and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<div class="img">
+<img border="0" src="images/cover.jpg" width="40%" alt="Front Cover" />
+</div>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h1>THE RED MUSTANG</h1>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<div class="centered">
+<table border="0" width="55%" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="List">
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdc" colspan="2">HARPER'S YOUNG PEOPLE'S SERIES</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdc smcap" colspan="2">New Large-type Edition</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl smcap" width="50%" style="border-top: .5pt black solid;">Toby Tyler</td>
+  <td class="tdr" width="50%" style="border-top: .5pt black solid;">James Otis</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl smcap">Mr. Stubb's Brother</td>
+  <td class="tdr">James Otis</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl smcap">Tim and Tip</td>
+  <td class="tdr">James Otis</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl smcap">Raising the "Pearl"</td>
+  <td class="tdr">James Otis</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl smcap">Adventures of Buffalo Bill</td>
+  <td class="tdr">W. F. Cody</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl smcap">Diddie, Dumps and Tot</td>
+  <td class="tdr">Mrs. L. C. Pyrnelle</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl smcap">Music and Musicians</td>
+  <td class="tdr">Lucy C. Lillie</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl smcap">The Cruise of the Canoe Club</td>
+  <td class="tdr">W. L. Alden</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl smcap">The Cruise of the "Ghost"</td>
+  <td class="tdr">W. L. Alden</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl smcap">Moral Pirates</td>
+  <td class="tdr">W. L. Alden</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl smcap">A New Robinson Crusoe</td>
+  <td class="tdr">W. L. Alden</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl smcap">Prince Lazybones</td>
+  <td class="tdr">Mrs. W. J. Hays</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl smcap">The Flamingo Feather</td>
+  <td class="tdr">Kirk Munroe</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl smcap">Derrick Sterling</td>
+  <td class="tdr">Kirk Munroe</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl smcap">Chrystal, Jack &amp; Co.</td>
+  <td class="tdr">Kirk Munroe</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl smcap">Wakulla</td>
+  <td class="tdr">Kirk Munroe</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl smcap">The Ice Queen</td>
+  <td class="tdr">Ernest Ingersoll</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl smcap">The Red Mustang</td>
+  <td class="tdr">W. O. Stoddard</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl smcap">The Talking Leaves</td>
+  <td class="tdr">W. O. Stoddard</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl smcap" style="border-bottom: .5pt black solid;">Two Arrows</td>
+  <td class="tdr" style="border-bottom: .5pt black solid;">W. O. Stoddard</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdc" colspan="2">HARPER &amp; BROTHERS</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdc" colspan="2">PUBLISHERS</td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<div class="img"><a name="frontis" id="frontis"></a>
+<a href="images/frontis.jpg">
+<img border="0" src="images/frontis.jpg" width="50%" alt="NOW FOR SANTA LUCIA!" /></a><br />
+<p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em;">"NOW FOR SANTA LUCIA!"</p>
+</div>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h1> THE RED MUSTANG</h1>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h4> BY</h4>
+
+<h2>WILLIAM O. STODDARD</h2>
+
+<h4> Author of "<span class="smcap">The Talking Leaves</span>"</h4>
+<br />
+
+<h3> ILLUSTRATED</h3>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<div class="img">
+<img border="0" src="images/deco.jpg" width="10%" alt="Publisher's Mark" />
+</div>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h4> HARPER &amp; BROTHERS PUBLISHERS<br />
+ NEW YORK AND LONDON</h4>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+
+
+<h4>THE RED MUSTANG</h4>
+<hr />
+<h5>Copyright, 1890, by Harper &amp; Brothers<br />
+Copyright, 1918, by William O. Stoddard<br />
+Printed in the U. S. A.</h5>
+<hr />
+<h5>B-A</h5>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[Pg v]</a></span>
+
+<hr />
+<br />
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+<div class="centered">
+<table border="0" width="75%" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="Table of Contents">
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdrp" width="15%" style="font-size: 80%;">CHAPTER</td>
+  <td class="tdl" width="75%">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="tdr" width="10%" style="font-size: 80%;">PAGE</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdrp">I.</td>
+  <td class="tdl smcap">The Horse and His Rider</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdrp">II.</td>
+  <td class="tdl smcap">How Cal Evans Rode for Help</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_15">15</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdrp">III.</td>
+  <td class="tdl smcap">The Band of Kah-Go-Mish</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_23">23</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdrp">IV.</td>
+  <td class="tdl smcap">The Garrison of Santa Lucia</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_27">27</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdrp">V.</td>
+  <td class="tdl smcap">Cal and the Cavalry and the Red Mustang</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_32">32</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdrp">VI.</td>
+  <td class="tdl smcap">The Peril of Santa Lucia</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_38">38</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdrp">VII.</td>
+  <td class="tdl smcap">Bound for the Border</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_51">51</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdrp">VIII.</td>
+  <td class="tdl smcap">Getting Ready to Chase Kah-Go-Mish</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_56">56</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdrp">IX.</td>
+  <td class="tdl smcap">The Hacienda of Santa Lucia</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_63">63</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdrp">X.</td>
+  <td class="tdl smcap">The Target on the Rock</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_67">67</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdrp">XI.</td>
+  <td class="tdl smcap">The Story of a Log</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_75">75</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdrp">XII.</td>
+  <td class="tdl smcap">Ping and the Cougar</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_82">82</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdrp">XIII.</td>
+  <td class="tdl smcap">The Return of Kah-Go-Mish</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_89">89</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdrp">XIV.</td>
+  <td class="tdl smcap">The Fountain in the Desert</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_94">94</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdrp">XV.</td>
+  <td class="tdl smcap">Lost in the Chaparral</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_101">101</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdrp">XVI.</td>
+  <td class="tdl smcap">An Invasion of Two Republics</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_107">107</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdrp">XVII.</td>
+  <td class="tdl smcap">How Ping and Tah-Nu-Nu Got to the Spring</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_114">114</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdrp">XVIII.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[Pg vi]</a></span></td>
+  <td class="tdl smcap">How Dick Played Sentinel</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_120">120</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdrp">XIX.</td>
+  <td class="tdl smcap">Bad News for Wah-Wah-O-Be</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_126">126</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdrp">XX.</td>
+  <td class="tdl smcap">How Cal Started for Mexico</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_132">132</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdrp">XXI.</td>
+  <td class="tdl smcap">The Manitou of Cold Spring</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_139">139</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdrp">XXII.</td>
+  <td class="tdl smcap">Across the Desert by Night</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_144">144</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdrp">XXIII.</td>
+  <td class="tdl smcap">At the Ranch and in the Chaparral</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_151">151</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdrp">XXIV.</td>
+  <td class="tdl smcap">Cal's Night Under a Tree</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_157">157</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdrp">XXV.</td>
+  <td class="tdl smcap">A Strange Letter from Mexico</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_163">163</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdrp">XXVI.</td>
+  <td class="tdl smcap">Cal's Visitors and His Breakfast</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_169">169</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdrp">XXVII.</td>
+  <td class="tdl smcap">The Post-boy That Got Away</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_174">174</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdrp">XXVIII.</td>
+  <td class="tdl smcap">The Mystery of the Sticks</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_180">180</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdrp">XXIX.</td>
+  <td class="tdl smcap">How Would You Like Fire?</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_186">186</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdrp">XXX.</td>
+  <td class="tdl smcap">The Manitou Water</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_192">192</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdrp">XXXI.</td>
+  <td class="tdl smcap">Pull Stick and the Hurricane</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_198">198</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdrp">XXXII.</td>
+  <td class="tdl smcap">Under a Fallen Tree</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_204">204</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdrp">XXXIII.</td>
+  <td class="tdl smcap">Leaving the Bad-Medicine Camp</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_210">210</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdrp">XXXIV.</td>
+  <td class="tdl smcap">Tah-Nu-Nu's Disappointment</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_216">216</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdrp">XXXV.</td>
+  <td class="tdl smcap">Hand to Hand by Firelight</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_222">222</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdrp">XXXVI.</td>
+  <td class="tdl smcap">How Cal Was Left All Alone</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_227">227</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdrp">XXXVII.</td>
+  <td class="tdl smcap">Rescued by the Red Mustang</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_234">234</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdrp">XXXVIII.</td>
+  <td class="tdl smcap">How All Reached Santa Lucia</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_239">239</a></td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<br />
+<h2>ILLUSTRATIONS</h2>
+
+<div class="centered">
+<table border="0" width="75%" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="Illustrations">
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl" width="80%"><a href="#frontis">"Now for Santa Lucia!"</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr" width="20%"><i>Frontispiece</i></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="tdr" style="font-size: 80%;">FACING PAGE</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#imagep086">She and Ping Were Stealing Out upon the Broken Ledge</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">86</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#imagep110">"Ugh!" They Said, as They Looked at Him. "Kah-Go-Mish"</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">110</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#imagep184">Cal Took the Leaf, and Used His Knife for a Pen</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">184</td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<hr />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h1>THE RED MUSTANG </h1>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span>
+
+<hr />
+<br />
+<h1>THE RED MUSTANG:</h1>
+
+<h2><i>A STORY OF THE MEXICAN BORDER.</i></h2>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<hr />
+<br />
+<h2><span class="smcap">Chapter I.</span></h2>
+
+<h2>THE HORSE AND HIS RIDER.</h2>
+<br />
+
+<p>Early one bright June morning, not long ago, a high knoll of a prairie
+in southern New Mexico was occupied as it had never been before.
+Rattlesnakes had coiled there; prairie-dog sentinels and wolves and
+antelopes, and even grim old buffalo bulls, had used that swelling mound
+for a lookout station. Mountains in the distance and a great sweep of
+the plains could be seen from it. Never until that hour, however, since
+the grass began to grow, had precisely such a horse pawed and fretted
+there, while precisely such a boy sat in the saddle and looked around.</p>
+
+<p>It is very uncommon for a mustang to show a bright and perfect blood bay
+color, but this one did so, and it seemed as if the glossy beauty of his
+coat only brought out the perfection of his shape and the easy grace of
+his movements. He was a fiery, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span>powerful fellow, and he appeared to have
+some constitutional objection to standing still. The saddle upon his
+back and the bridle held by his rider were of the best Mexican
+workmanship, silver mounted, the very thing to complete the elegance of
+the red mustang.</p>
+
+<p>In the saddle sat a boy about fourteen years of age, a gray-eyed,
+brown-haired young fellow, broad-shouldered and well made, whose
+sunburned face was all aglow with health and who seemed to feel
+altogether at home in the stirrups. He wore a palm-leaf sombrero, a blue
+flannel shirt and trousers, while the revolver case at his belt and the
+carbine slung at his back added to the dashing effect of his outfit.</p>
+
+<p>"Cowboy! I a cowboy!" he exclaimed, as the mustang curveted under him.
+"Look at those cattle! Look at all those horses! I'd rather own Santa
+Lucia ranch and ride Dick all over the range, than to live in any city I
+saw in the Eastern States. Hurrah!"</p>
+
+<p>An exultant, ringing laugh followed the shout, but he still held in
+Dick. He took a long look, in all directions, as if it were part of his
+business to know if anything besides cattle were stirring between that
+knoll and the dim, cloudlike mountain-peaks, or the distant trees which
+marked the horizon of the plain.</p>
+
+<p>Cattle and horses enough were in sight, as he turned from one point of
+the compass to another. The horned animals were not gathered in one
+great drove, but were scattered in larger and smaller gangs, here and
+there, and were busily feeding. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span>Something like half a regiment of
+horses, however, had kept together somewhat better, and the red mustang
+himself seemed to be taking an especial interest in them.</p>
+
+<p>"Be quiet, Dick," said his master. "Are you set on springs?"</p>
+
+<p>A low whinny and something like a suppressed curvet was Dick's reply,
+and it was followed by a sharp exclamation.</p>
+
+<p>"Dick, what's that? What's the matter with Sam Herrick?"</p>
+
+<p>At the same instant Dick was wheeled in an easterly direction and was
+permitted to bound away to meet a horse and rider who were coming
+towards him at furious speed.</p>
+
+<p>Hardly three minutes later both reins were drawn so suddenly as almost
+to compel the two quadrupeds to sit down.</p>
+
+<p>"What's the matter, Sam?"</p>
+
+<p>"Indians, Cal, Indians!"</p>
+
+<p>The news was of an exciting character and was given with emphasis, but
+neither the voice nor the face of the black-bearded, undersized,
+knotty-looking man who gave it betrayed the least trace of emotion. It
+was as if he were mentioning some important but altogether
+matter-of-course part of a cowboy's daily business. He added, in even a
+quieter tone and manner, as his horse came to a standstill, "I scored
+one of 'em. They've kind o' got the lower drove, but mebbe they won't
+drive 'em far. We can race these hosses into the timber. That's what I
+came for, and I'm right down glad you're here to help."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span>Cal's eager young face glowed with something more than health, and his
+eyes were flashing, but he made an effort to seem as calm and
+unconcerned as Sam Herrick himself.</p>
+
+<p>"How far away are they now?" he asked, as he followed Sam's quick dash
+towards the drove of horses.</p>
+
+<p>"Mebbe a mile 'n a half. Mebbe not so much. Mebbe some more. All of 'em,
+except the braves that took after me, went for hosses and fresh beef, or
+seemed to. Guess we'll have time."</p>
+
+<p>"Will they get many cattle? Were there enough of them to gather the
+whole drove?"</p>
+
+<p>"They won't gather any cattle. It's a kind of bufler hunt for 'em. Lots
+of beef handy. They won't think of driving off any horned critters. Too
+slow, my boy. They'll take all the hosses they can get, though, and load
+'em up, too."</p>
+
+<p>Cal's face was in strong contrast with the dark, almost wooden sternness
+of the one he was looking into when he asked:</p>
+
+<p>"Sam, did you say you killed one?"</p>
+
+<p>"Can't say. Guess not. I meant to mark him, but it was his pony that
+seemed to go down. Didn't either of 'em get up, that I saw. He was an
+awful fool to follow me in the way he did."</p>
+
+<p>Sam was shouting at the horses between his short, jerky sentences, and
+his long-lashed, short-handled whip was whirling and cracking in a way
+that they seemed to understand.</p>
+
+<p>"How many were there of them?" asked Cal, the next opportunity he had.</p>
+
+<p>"Hosses? Well, they must have scooped the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span>eastern drove. More'n a
+hundred head. We've got about two hundred here, but your father's lost
+some real good ones, this time. No fault of mine."</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't mean horses," said Cal. "How many Indians?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, the redskins?" said Sam, with a tremendous crack of the long whip.
+"Nobody can guess how many. They seemed to swarm all around. 'Paches, of
+course, but it's a curiosity where they came from. We must work, now.
+Further to the left, Cal. That's it. They're started. What are those
+mules halting for!"</p>
+
+<p>Nearly a score of long-eared fellows knew, in half a minute more, why
+they were trying to reach the woods ahead of the horses. It must be
+dreadfully aggravating to any mule to hear such a yell as that of Sam
+Herrick behind him, and to feel himself whip-stung somewhere at the same
+moment.</p>
+
+<p>Cal Evans whooped and shouted remarkably well, but there was something
+sepulchral and savage and startling in the sounds with which Sam
+encouraged the whole drove to reach the long, irregular line of trees
+and bushes, half a mile to the southward.</p>
+
+<p>"Keep it up, Cal! Whoop it! They're all a-going. Never mind any cattle.
+Whoop it!"</p>
+
+<p>"There come the redskins!" shouted Cal, at that moment, and then he
+seemed to almost hold his breath.</p>
+
+<p>"I saw 'em," coolly responded Sam. "We'll reach good cover before they
+get here. The drove's running fine."</p>
+
+<p>Sam was cool enough, but every muscle of his wiry body seemed to be
+uncommonly alive, and the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span>horse he was on dashed hither and thither as
+if he also understood the matter.</p>
+
+<p>"They're gaining on us," shouted Cal, at the end of another minute.
+"More'n a dozen of 'em. What can we two do against so many?"</p>
+
+<p>"Keep cool, Cal. I'll show you when we get to the timber," replied Sam.
+"We're going to save every hoof of this lot, but they may get away with
+the other drove. I'm only half sure 'bout that, though."</p>
+
+<p>The mob of mules and horses before them had been whipped and shouted
+into a furious run, and the thud of their hoofs was worth hearing. The
+best runners were streaming out ahead, and the heavier, slower animals
+were sagging behind as a sort of rear-guard. Sam worked vigorously for
+the rescue of those slow horses, and he hardly turned his head to take a
+look at the Indians. Cal imitated him as well as he could, except about
+the looking, and with every bound of the red mustang he justified Sam's
+remark:</p>
+
+<p>"He rides like an Indian. Isn't he a fine young feller? Reckon the old
+colonel 'll say I was right. I'll save his boy for him if I have to lose
+the whole drove&mdash;and my own hair, too; but they won't get that for
+nothing."</p>
+
+<p>Cal Evans could not know what was passing in the mind of the swarthy
+cowboy. His own brain and every nerve of his body seemed to be all a
+tingle of excitement. He was now able to think about it and to be proud
+that he felt no fear. That is, no fear concerning anything but the
+horses.</p>
+
+<p>On, on, on, went that tumultuous race, and the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span>line of forest was very
+near now. It was a sort of natural barrier, stretching across the plain
+as if put there to check the sweep of "norther" storms and prairie
+fires, and any sort of stampedes. The middle of it was a winding ravine
+or slough, and at some seasons it was a river, instead of a string of
+ponds for buffalo wallows. All the wild or tame quadrupeds on that plain
+knew the value of Slater's Branch, and some of them, and all of the men,
+knew that it never quite went dry, and that its faculty to become a
+river could be exercised at any time on short notice, when the snow in
+the mountains melted rapidly or when a cloud-burst came on this side of
+the Sierra.</p>
+
+<p>The trees and bushes knew all about Slater's Branch, and they came and
+settled for life on its banks, making a timber-belt thick and tall, with
+here and there dense undergrowths for the deer to lie in.</p>
+
+<p>Cal Evans could not quite understand the present value of that line of
+forest, and yet he felt that it had a sort of sheltering look, and he
+was particularly glad to be galloping nearer and nearer, for there was
+an unpleasant chorus of whoops and yells only about a quarter of a mile
+behind him, and it was manifestly growing louder.</p>
+
+<p>"Cal," growled Sam Herrick, "they've gobbled hosses enough for this
+trip. They can't have any more out of your father's corral. The critters
+are getting into cover. Keep cool, Cal. We may have to throw lead, some;
+but I reckon not much."</p>
+
+<p>"Won't they follow us into the woods, then?" asked Cal, doubtfully.</p>
+
+<p>"That's the question," replied Sam. "If they're <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span>young bucks they may;
+but not if there's a chief or an old brave among 'em. I'll show you."</p>
+
+<p>Cal was conscious of understanding the feelings of young braves who
+needed an old chief to hold them back. He knew that it would be almost a
+disappointment if he and Sam should succeed in saving the horses without
+any shooting. He had no desire to hurt anybody or to be hurt, but then
+the idea of a skirmish and a victory and all that sort of glory made him
+think of all the Indian battles he had ever read about.</p>
+
+<p>Sam Herrick was armed to the teeth, as became a cowboy in that region,
+and yet it had been a long time since any hostile savages had troubled
+it. The herds and droves had multiplied, year after year, almost
+unmolested, for the Apache bands were either driven over the Mexican
+border, or into Arizona, or were gathered on their reservations. If Cal
+had been asked, that morning, why he carried his own weapons, his best
+excuse would have been "I thought I might hunt a little," and his real
+reason would not have been told unless he had said: "I love a gun, and
+I'd rather carry one than not, and a fellow can keep thinking what he'd
+do with it if he had a chance."</p>
+
+<p>He had not tried to do any hunting, but his chance to do something else
+had come, or it looked like it, very suddenly.</p>
+
+<p>"There, Cal. Glad we're here&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Sam Herrick said that as he reined in his horse and sprang to the
+ground. Cal followed his example, and one glance around him made him
+draw a breath of relief. There were great oaks, in all <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span>directions.
+Several of the largest had fallen before the hands of time and some
+strong wind, and he and Sam had ridden in behind them, followed by a
+gust of angry whooping.</p>
+
+<p>"Take your tree, Cal," said Sam, as he raised his repeater and sent a
+warning shot in the direction of the whoops. "Now, my boy, if you was
+one of them 'Paches, how'd you feel about riding into short range of two
+good rifles, knowing what lead'll do for a careless Indian?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'd think twice about it," said Cal, "and so 'll they; but they may
+ride into cover above or below us, and creep up. There's more than a
+dozen of 'em."</p>
+
+<p>"Another time, perhaps, they might," said Sam, "but this isn't that
+other time. They haven't any to spare for scouting and skirmishing if
+they're to get away with their plunder. You and I can stand 'em off. Let
+drive, Cal! They're riding in too near."</p>
+
+<p>Crack, crack, went the two rifles, although the distance was over three
+hundred yards.</p>
+
+<p>"I declare!" exclaimed Sam. "One of us has knocked over a cow, on the
+rise, away beyond. They've seen it, though, and it's a good notice to
+'em. There's just one thing troubles me. Word ought to be sent to the
+ranch. They ought to be warned before any mischief comes to 'em. I don't
+half know what to do."</p>
+
+<p>He fired again, as if in vexation as well as in doubt, and the red men
+wheeled away as they also were uncertain what to do next.</p>
+
+<p>Cal was silent for a moment, but a terrible <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span>thought had flashed into
+his mind. The ranch was his home.</p>
+
+<p>"Sam," he said, in a changed, anxious voice, "is there any danger to
+them? I could dodge these fellows. I could carry the warning."</p>
+
+<p>"I'd never answer to your father for letting you run any risk, Cal.
+You're perfectly safe here, but it might be an awful race to Saint
+Lucy."</p>
+
+<p>Sam Herrick's idea of perfect safety was all his own, but Cal responded:</p>
+
+<p>"I'd be just as safe on Dick's back. There isn't a horse in New
+Mexico&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I know," said Sam, "but a bullet or an arrer 'll out-travel any hoss
+living. If you could ride along under cover, to the left, 'bout half a
+mile, and set off behind the herd, without their sighting you&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Cal, "but why can't you come along and get to the ranch with
+me?"</p>
+
+<p>"My name's Sam Herrick, and I never went back on myself since I was
+born. Colonel Evans's hosses was in my keep, and nigh half on 'em's
+gone, and I'm bound to save the other half. I can stand off this lot of
+red-skins. They haven't an hour to throw away, and they know it. Mount
+and ride! Good-bye, Cal. You're taking all the risk there is."</p>
+
+<p>Cal sprang to the saddle, shook Sam's hand, and cantered away through
+the trees, but he did not hear the muttered words of the man who watched
+his departure.</p>
+
+<p>"I reckon," said Sam, "that was the only way I could have got him to try
+it on. He's clear grit, like his father, and he'd have stayed to fight
+it out in this here death-trap. I couldn't bear to have 'em get <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span>him.
+Besides, what I told him may be true. He may be saving the women folks
+at the ranch, and perhaps these chaps won't ride in. I'll give 'em a
+shot, now and then, till he's well away."</p>
+
+<p>Sam seemed wonderfully relieved, as if a great load had been taken off
+his mind. It was a great thing to him to have nothing but Apaches to
+watch and to have no awful responsibility concerning the boyish rider of
+the red mustang.</p>
+
+<p>If one of Sam's troubles had been in some small part removed, there was
+another question which from time to time came to his lips, and he now
+seemed almost satisfied with his own answer.</p>
+
+<p>"Where did they come from? Well, I'd say they was from the
+Mescalero&mdash;'Pache reservation, east of the mountains. They got tired of
+being cooped up on poor rations. How'd they get through at El Paso? I
+don't know how. Where'll they go next? I don't know that, neither."</p>
+
+<p>When Sam first saw those Indians that morning, no time at all was given
+him for taking notes. He had been suddenly compelled to put spurs to his
+horse and to ride for his life. He had been followed by the only
+Indians, out of more than a hundred, that were mounted, for all the rest
+were on foot. The hundred, and as many more as there might be, included
+dozens of warriors, besides squaws and children. There were a score of
+heavily laden pack-ponies, besides the ponies ridden by the mounted
+braves, but that band was particularly in need of the kind of property
+which Sam Herrick had been set to guard. He guessed very correctly about
+them. They had broken away from the region <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span>of country set apart as
+their reservation, for what they deemed good reasons. They had taken
+with them only such few miserable ponies as a series of disastrous
+seasons had left them.</p>
+
+<p>They saw Sam before he saw them; for, in spite of his customary
+watchfulness, he had been taking things lazily. They had no idea of a
+grand prize so near at hand, and the news brought back by their scouts
+who first made the discovery came as a thrilling surprise to the entire
+band. All the voices of all the dusky men, women, boys, and girls,
+exclaimed "Ugh!"</p>
+
+<p>That was followed by silence and by crouchings in the grass and behind
+ant-hills. The pack-ponies were led back a little distance. A tall
+warrior on foot gave orders with motions of his hands, hardly uttering a
+sound, and, in obedience to his directions, warriors, squaws, boys, and
+even girls, darted off to the right and left.</p>
+
+<p>The horses were feeding quietly, and were not widely scattered, and Sam
+Herrick sat in the saddle, looking at them listlessly and not dreaming
+of peril to them or to himself. He did not see the dusky forms which
+were creeping behind tufts and knolls behind him and away on either side
+of him. So it came to pass that when, at last, all was ready, and the
+braves who had ponies came galloping towards him, it was just as he
+afterwards described it to Cal Evans, "the prairie seemed to swarm with
+them."</p>
+
+<p>His only course was to dash away at the best speed of his horse, and the
+squad that followed him had cared very little whether or not they should
+catch him, except to prevent him from carrying news of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span>their arrival.
+Their miserable used-up ponies had been no match for the racer he was
+riding, but the whole band seemed likely to be better mounted, speedily,
+than it ever had been before.</p>
+
+<p>There was very little whooping done by the horse collectors, for there
+was no wish to cause a stampede. The first horses caught and mounted
+were employed to catch others, and the packs of the pack-ponies were
+rapidly searched for lariats and bridles. Of course there was more than
+a little dismounting as well as mounting, for a number of unbroken colts
+did their entire duty in the way of refusing to be ridden barebacked.
+That would have been better fun at any other time. Just now it was a
+delay, and so a probable danger, and some of the most vigorous kickers
+carried their point, and were driven away instead of being ridden.</p>
+
+<p>There was work for the entire band, for the cattle were next attended
+to, and once more Sam Herrick proved to be a good guesser. Beef was
+wanted, but not on the hoof, and horse after horse and mule after mule
+was laden with fresh meat. A poor, hungry, dismounted gang of Apaches,
+escaped from their reservation limits, had suddenly become almost rich.
+Not a soul of them had ever been taught that there was anything unlawful
+in what they were doing, and there was glee all around, marred only by
+the fact that there was nothing there to cook with, and by the fear that
+the solitary cowboy might get away and bring a lot of angry palefaces to
+take that magnificent plunder away from them. All of that wide plain had
+once been Apache land, with its buffalo, its deer, and its other game,
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span>and whatever might now be found upon it by a band who considered
+themselves very good Indians, was fair game for them. They believed
+themselves to have been plundered by the whites, and to be now obtaining
+something like a part payment for their lost rights. Sam Herrick,
+standing behind the fallen trees, rifle in hand, was obstinately
+interfering with their effort to secure a much larger and better payment
+of the same old debt.</p>
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span>
+
+<hr />
+<br />
+<h2><span class="smcap">Chapter II.</span></h2>
+
+<h2>HOW CAL EVANS RODE FOR HELP.</h2>
+<br />
+
+<p>The excited boy on the red mustang was not allowed to use his own
+judgment altogether as to the right place for riding out from the
+forest. Hundreds and hundreds of cows and bulls and oxen took that
+important matter into their own hoofs. They had not been so sensitive as
+the horses, and had not been whipped or shouted at. They, therefore, had
+not been stampeded so quickly, but they went wild enough as soon as the
+craze took them. They may have been wondering whether a norther or a
+prairie-fire or a travelling earthquake were after Sam and Cal and the
+horses when over the grassy rolls came that squad of yelling red-men.
+The whoops were an awful noise to hear, and one very thin, respectable
+old cow set off at once. In another moment there were tossing horns and
+anxious bellowing in all directions, while some half-grown calves threw
+up their heels and followed the cow. A wiry, vicious-looking ox, with
+only one horn, punched with it the ribs of his next neighbor. That
+example spread like wildfire; and something said by the widest-horned,
+longest-legged, deepest-throated old bull may have really meant:</p>
+
+<p>"Now&mdash;ow, every fellow bellow and run like all ruin&mdash;uin&mdash;uin!"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span>Run like ruin they did, and, of course, they broke for the timber,
+although the Indians who were threatening Sam Herrick were right ahead
+of them. If a regiment of infantry had been in the way it would have
+been scattered all the same, and what were a dozen or so of mere
+pony-riders? Sam was safe among his fallen trees, but the Indians had to
+get out of the way of that stampede. Cal Evans saw the cattle coming,
+and he had his wits about him.</p>
+
+<p>"Hurrah!" he shouted. "I'll put them between me and the redskins. Now,
+Dick, it's our chance."</p>
+
+<p>The red mustang knew that he had been called upon. There was a whinny, a
+bound, a swift dash of nearly two minutes into the open plain, and then
+a burst of whooping announced that he and his rider had been seen.</p>
+
+<p>What of that, when all that tumult of tossing horns was streaming along
+behind them, putting its barrier between Cal and the nearest Apache
+warrior? Follow him? What would ponies already overdriven be worth
+behind the long, swinging, elastic bounds of the red mustang?</p>
+
+<p>"Hurrah, Dick! There's no other such horse living! Hurrah!"</p>
+
+<p>On, on, on! and there was no need of a trail to follow, for Sam
+Herrick's last advice had been, "Ride due north, Cal, and you won't lose
+any distance."</p>
+
+<p>At that very moment the brave cowboy was watching the course of events
+almost breathlessly, but the only token of excitement was a glitter in
+his black eyes, until he exclaimed, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span>"Colorado! Cal's safe! The critters
+have done it. They've done me a good turn, too, if I can manage to keep
+out of their way."</p>
+
+<p>He sprang to the saddle, and hurried along deeper into the forest. Just
+as the foremost bulls were charging in among the trees, Sam rode out
+into an open place on the bank of Slater's Branch. It was bare of trees,
+but it was thronged with horses, and so was the wide, shallow pool
+beyond; and now they all heard once more the crack of Sam's whip.</p>
+
+<p>"The horned critters won't stop," he said to himself, "till their hoofs
+are in the mud. The redskins may follow 'em, but there's time to put the
+hosses on the other side."</p>
+
+<p>There was fright enough among them to prevent any delay, and the last
+mule was braying upon the opposite bank in reply to a shout of Sam's,
+when the cattle began to show in the open space. Bushes and trees had
+checked the stampede somewhat, but there were bellows of pleasure all
+along the line&mdash;bellows of all sorts and sizes, as if calf and cow and
+patriarch alike found mental relief in a sight of Slater's Branch.</p>
+
+<p>"Colorado!" exclaimed Sam; "all the critters are as nigh safe as I can
+make 'em. I'm free, now, to pick my way back to Saint Lucy. Redskins 'll
+go slow through timber with a rifle in it. If the whole band came I'd be
+of no manner of use. They can't catch Dick now he's got a clear start.
+Cal's safe; but what I want now is a fresh mount. I've taken twenty odd
+miles out of this one, and I may have racing to do. That gray's about
+X."</p>
+
+<p>The gray he singled out was caught and saddled <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span>and bridled, but no
+ordinary groom could have performed that feat. Neither could any timid
+horseman have compelled the gray to give up the disposition he had for
+dancing horse-waltzes and polkas among the trees. Sam did it, and forced
+him to go ahead with not more than three or four gaits at once.</p>
+
+<p>"More fire and more mischief and more good running in him," he remarked,
+exultingly. "Nothing could catch him, unless it might be Cal's red
+mustang. My chance is a heap better than it was."</p>
+
+<p>He seemed to have a habit of talking to some imaginary companion. Men
+who pass much of their time alone are very apt to get such a habit, but
+men who live among crowds never do. Away he went a mile or more down the
+Branch, until he came to a place where he could cross it almost dryshod.</p>
+
+<p>"The 'Paches won't come this way," he remarked. "They'll either try to
+strike Saint Lucy, or else they'll head for the Mexican line with their
+plunder."</p>
+
+<p>Sam could make his calculations as coolly as if the Apaches had been so
+many peaceable traders, but there was only one thought in the mind of
+Cal Evans. It grew as he rode, and it kept his mind in a sort of mingled
+fever and chill.</p>
+
+<p>"The ranch and everybody in it! If father is there he might take them
+for friendly Indians until it would be too late. He isn't likely to be
+there. Men all gone! Mother is there! Vic is there!"</p>
+
+<p>Cal's thoughts took terrible shapes as he galloped onward, borrowing
+horrors from all he had ever heard of the deeds of pitiless savages.
+More than once a fierce kind of shout burst from him, but he <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span>had no
+need for urging Dick. The red mustang's racing-blood was up, as if he
+knew that he were riding a great match against danger and death. He
+responded to his master with a short, excited whinny, and seemed to
+lengthen the splendid stride that swept the miles away. He had been set
+free to run his best and wildest, with only a light weight to carry, and
+the distance vanished behind him.</p>
+
+<p>Cal had ridden Dick more than once when there were running deer to
+catch, and had thought him a miracle of speed, but now there were
+moments when he almost found fault with him for going slowly. That, too,
+with the warm wind whistling past him, and his own best horsemanship
+called for to keep the saddle. He guided Dick a little with reference to
+burrows and ant-hills. He knew that there were no ravines worth
+mentioning. He even kept a lookout for possible Indians between him and
+the northern horizon.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll charge through them if I do see any," he said to Dick.</p>
+
+<p>His face had undergone a change for the time, and was hardly boyish, it
+was so full of desperate determination and awful anxiety. He was riding
+for the safety of his home&mdash;of his father, mother, sister. At last
+before him arose a long, gentle roll of prairie that he seemed to know.</p>
+
+<p>"Mother!" burst from him, as Dick sprang up the slope, and at the crest
+of it the good horse was reined in.</p>
+
+<p>"Santa Lucia! The ranch! All right yet, and not an Indian to be seen.
+Hurrah for Dick!"</p>
+
+<p>He deserved it, although he did not look is if he <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span>had been specially
+exerting himself. There was hardly a fleck of perspiration upon his
+glossy coat, and he drew only two or three long breaths, not so much
+because he needed them, perhaps, as that he also was relieved at finding
+everything serene about the ranch.</p>
+
+<p>It was, in fact, a very picture of peace that lazy summer morning. The
+stout stockade, containing fully two acres of ground around the spring
+and the buildings, seemed almost deserted, except for a few cows, some
+dogs, and a couple of tethered horses. The house itself, of one story,
+built of large blocks of sunburned "adobe," made three sides of a
+square, the main entrance being through a gateway in the palisades and
+covered veranda that guarded the fourth side. Each face was over fifty
+feet long, and the outer windows were mere slips. The Spanish Mexicans
+who built Santa Lucia, years and years ago, had planned it for a pretty
+strong fort as well as dwelling, and Cal Evans felt very kindly towards
+them at the present moment.</p>
+
+<p>The gate of the stockade was wide open, unguarded, and he dashed through
+it and up to the house in a manner which attracted attention. The sound
+of a piano ceased at once, and a dignified elderly lady, who came out to
+the veranda, was quickly joined by a younger and slighter form.</p>
+
+<p>"Cal," exclaimed the latter, "has anything happened to father?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, Vic, nothing much has happened&mdash;not yet&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Cal, something has happened! What is it?" said the old lady, with a
+quick flush of anxiety.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span>"I must out with it. The Apaches have scooped the lower drove, every
+horse. They came for the upper drove, but Sam and I got them into the
+timber&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Was he hurt?" asked Mrs. Evans.</p>
+
+<p>"No, mother, but he isn't safe yet&mdash;" and Cal went on to give a rapid
+account of all he knew.</p>
+
+<p>Sam Herrick himself could hardly have shown better nerve than did Cal's
+mother. She grew calm and steady-eyed as she listened, but Victoria's
+pretty face paled and reddened again and again, for she was hardly two
+years older than her brother.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, if only father were here!" she said.</p>
+
+<p>"Where's he gone?" asked Cal.</p>
+
+<p>"Out on the range," replied his mother. "He and all of them will come in
+at the first sign of danger. Everybody knew that the Indians were
+dissatisfied, but I didn't dream of their coming this way."</p>
+
+<p>"They wanted horses, mother, and they may try and strike the ranch,"
+said Cal.</p>
+
+<p>"I think not," she said, decidedly, "but you must carry the news to Fort
+Craig."</p>
+
+<p>"And leave you and Vic here? Never!"</p>
+
+<p>"You must not pause one minute. Not even to eat. Victoria and I and the
+servants can bar the stockade and the house, but no Indians will come.
+If there is really any danger, the sooner the cavalry get here the
+better. Do you think you've tired Dick?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, mother, but it seems as if I'd rather die than leave you here
+alone."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span>"Ride for our safety, my son. Ride steadily. It's a long push for any
+horse, and Dick must last till you get there."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, mother," said Cal, "but he can do it."</p>
+
+<p>"Leave your rifle," she added. "You'll not need it, and it's an extra
+weight."</p>
+
+<p>She did not let him forget to water the red mustang, and while Dick was
+drinking she packed a small haversack with cold meat and bread for Cal's
+use on the road.</p>
+
+<p>He was ready to mount.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, mother, I want to stay and fight for you and Vic&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Bring the cavalry! Go!" she said, and it seemed to cost her something
+to say it.</p>
+
+<p>He hardly knew, after he was in the saddle, in what words he put his
+good-bye. He saw two faces that watched him as Dick sprang through the
+gate. It seemed almost as if he had seen them for the last time, and
+then he thought, again, that perhaps the best hope for Santa Lucia and
+all in it had been confided to the swift feet of the red mustang.</p>
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span>
+
+<hr />
+<br />
+<h2><span class="smcap">Chapter III.</span></h2>
+
+<h2>THE BAND OF KAH-GO-MISH.</h2>
+<br />
+
+<p>New Mexico is a wonderful country. It is full of places that are worth
+going to see, while some of its other places are well worth keeping away
+from. Down through the territory, east of the middle, runs north and
+south the main range of the Rocky Mountains. Among them rise the Picos
+and the Canadian and several other rivers that run away to the south and
+east. Westerly from the main range, with marvellous valleys between, are
+the Organ Mountains, made to show what strange shapes vast masses of
+rock can be broken into. Farther westward is the great valley of the Rio
+Grande and beyond this arise the Sierra Madre and the Sierra San Juan.
+It is all a wonderful region, with great plains as well as mountain
+ranges, and here and there are found remarkable ruins of ancient
+architecture and every way as remarkable remnants of ancient people.
+Some of the wide levels are mere deserts of sand and gravel&mdash;hot,
+barren, terrible&mdash;but others are rich with pasturage for horses and
+cattle, as they once were only for innumerable bisons, deer, and
+antelopes.</p>
+
+<p>The Spanish-Mexican hidalgo who had selected Santa Lucia had shown
+excellent judgment, although even in that day he probably had more or
+less <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span>trouble with his red neighbors. The present owners and occupants
+of the ranch had had none at all until the very hour when Sam Herrick
+found the prairie around him swarming with them.</p>
+
+<p>As for Sam, he had now no suspicion how near he came to again meeting
+the very Apaches who had chased him and Cal and who were now hurrying to
+rejoin their band. They missed Sam and they brought news back with them
+which seemed to receive the approval of the very dignified warrior who
+had directed in the capture of the horses. He was a proud-looking
+commander now, as he sat upon one of Colonel Evans's best horses to
+listen to their report.</p>
+
+<p>"Ugh!" he remarked. "Kah-go-mish is a great chief. Get ranch first. Then
+go for horses in timber."</p>
+
+<p>There was pride in every tone and movement of Kah-go-mish, for he had
+performed a great exploit, and he and his band were no longer in
+poverty. There were many signs, however, that they had not been
+prosperous upon the Reservation, although the chief still wore the very
+high silk hat which had there been given him. He had tied a green veil
+around it to set off its beauty and his own. His only other garments
+were the well-worn buckskin leggings which covered him from the waist to
+the knee, and a pair of long red stockings through which he had thrust
+his arms to the shoulder. Openings in the soles let out the hands, with
+which he gesticulated in explanation of orders which were promptly
+obeyed.</p>
+
+<p>About thirty warriors, now well mounted and all <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span>pretty well armed,
+whirled away northerly, with Kah-go-mish at their head, and their
+purpose did not require any explanation.</p>
+
+<p>Half as many more braves and all the squaws, boys, and girls proceeded
+to complete the beef business. They did it with great rapidity and
+dexterity, and then they, with the horses, dogs, and children, trailed
+away in a caravan that was headed almost due south. It was a very
+picturesque caravan all the time, but it looked more so than ever when
+it halted, after a while, on the bank of Slater's Branch.</p>
+
+<p>Some very good people had been interested in the reservation set apart
+for those Apaches, and had gathered contributions of civilized clothing
+for them. It had not been in rebellion against anything of that sort
+that Kah-go-mish and his people had run away, for the miscellaneous
+goods from away Down East helped the picture at Slater's Branch
+amazingly. The hat and stocking legs had helped the appearance of the
+chief himself, but other things had done more for a fat and very dark
+lady whom he had addressed as Wah-wah-o-be. The many-ribboned straw
+bonnet upon the head of the severe-faced wife of Kah-go-mish was fine.
+So was the blue calico dress with the red flannel skirt over it, and the
+pony she rode seemed to be afraid of the whole outfit. Near her, upon
+two other ponies, sat a boy and girl. They were apparently younger, a
+little, than Cal and Victoria Evans. They were hardly as good-looking,
+in some respects, and were dressed differently. Among the charities at
+the Reservation had been a bale of second-hand trousers, of the style
+worn nowadays by boys, reaching to the knee. The young <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span>lady wore a pair
+of these, and with them a dress of which any Mescalero girl might have
+been vain. A piece of yard-wide red cotton, three yards long, had a hole
+in the middle for the head to pass through. When proper armholes were
+added and a belt of embroidered antelope skin confined the loose cloth
+at the waist, what more was needed by the bright-eyed daughter of
+Kah-go-mish?</p>
+
+<p>The boy on the other pony&mdash;Well, he wore another pair of second-hand
+trousers. They had been planned for a man and were large in the waist,
+requiring a belt, but had been altered to the complete style by cutting
+them off just below the knee. The pony he rode was one of the nearly
+worn-out fellows that had travelled all the way across the mountains
+from the Reservation. He and Cal Evans had been within a few miles of
+each other that morning. Both were uncommonly vigorous young fellows, of
+whom their parents had a right to be proud, but it was not easy to
+discover many points of resemblance between them. There did not seem to
+be the least probability that they would ever be much thrown into each
+other's society; but then no young fellow of fourteen knows precisely
+who his future friends are to be, or where he is to meet them.</p>
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span>
+
+<hr />
+<br />
+<h2><span class="smcap">Chapter IV.</span></h2>
+
+<h2>THE GARRISON OF SANTA LUCIA.</h2>
+<br />
+
+<p>Fully six miles from the threatened home of the Evans family there was a
+deep, round sink-hole, shaped like a funnel. Nobody knew exactly when or
+how it was made, but down at the weedy bottom of it lay the body of an
+Indian pony, and over that there leaned a very tall man.</p>
+
+<p>Up at the margin of the sink-hole were four horses, and three of them
+had riders.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, colonel, how does it pan out?" asked one of the mounted men.</p>
+
+<p>"Either Cal or Sam Herrick did it. Hit him right between the eyes.
+'Tisn't two hours since it was done. The critter rolled down here.
+Joaquin, you and Key ride for the ranch. Tell Mrs. Evans I'll scout a
+little and be right there."</p>
+
+<p>"All right, colonel," shouted one of the horsemen.</p>
+
+<p>"Si, se&ntilde;or," responded the other.</p>
+
+<p>The first was a brawny, freckled old fellow, with nothing to mark him
+for notice but a jaunty sort of roll and swagger, even in the saddle.
+The second speaker was an American, of the race that fought with
+Hernando Cortes for the road to the City of Mexico. He may or may not
+have been a full-blooded Tlascalan, but there was a fierce, tigerish
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span>expression on his face as he glanced at the dead pony. His white teeth
+showed, also, in a way to indicate the state of his mind towards the
+tribe the pony's owner belonged to, but the words he uttered carried a
+surprise with them. Who would have thought that so sweet and musical a
+voice could come from such a thunder-cloud face?</p>
+
+<p>Key and Joaquin galloped away, and Colonel Evans climbed up out of the
+sink-hole.</p>
+
+<p>"Somebody coming," suddenly exclaimed the remaining horseman.</p>
+
+<p>"Reckon it must be Sam."</p>
+
+<p>"Looks like him, Bill," said the colonel. "Coming on the run."</p>
+
+<p>"We'll know now!" and Bill's words came out in a harsh, rasping voice
+that matched exactly with his long, thin body and coarse yellow hair.</p>
+
+<p>The colonel stood by his horse waiting for Sam. Nobody who saw him once
+was likely to forget him. His eyes and hair were like Cal's, but the
+likeness did not go much further. There was silver in his heavy beard
+and mustache, and his eyebrows were bushy, giving him a stern, and, just
+now, a threatening expression. More than that, Colonel Abe Evans, old
+Indian trader and ranch owner, stood six feet and seven inches, although
+he was so well proportioned that at a little distance he did not seem
+unusually large. As to his strength, his men may have exaggerated a
+little, now and then, but they declared that whenever a horse tired
+under him he would take turns and carry the horse, so as not to lose
+time. He hated to lose anything, they said, but most of all he hated to
+lose his temper.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span>There were signs that he was having some difficulty in keeping cool just
+now, but his voice was steady, as yet.</p>
+
+<p>"Is that your work?" he asked, as Sam reined in and stared down at the
+dead pony in the sink-hole.</p>
+
+<p>"Colorado!" exclaimed Sam. "That's where that 'Pache went to. Hit the
+pony, did I? 'Peared to go out of sight powerful sudden."</p>
+
+<p>He paused for a moment, and he wiped his forehead, but there was a
+steely light beginning to dance in the eyes of Colonel Evans, and the
+cowboy continued: "No manner of use blinking it, colonel. The lower
+drove's gone. Took me by surprise. Reg'lar swarm. I reached the upper
+drove in time and stampeded it across Slater's Branch. Every hoof."</p>
+
+<p>"Did they follow you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes, a gang of 'em, but Cal and I stood 'em off."</p>
+
+<p>"Cal!" exclaimed his father, with a start and a shiver, but Sam went
+steadily on in a rapid sketch of the morning's adventures.</p>
+
+<p>"Sam Herrick," said the colonel, "keep the gray you're on. It's your
+horse. I can read the whole thing like a book. Of course they wanted
+beef and horses, but they may go for the ranch. Come on!"</p>
+
+<p>There was an angry shake, now, in the deep, ringing tones of his voice,
+and the veins in his forehead were swelling. He sprang to the saddle of
+the broad-chested, strong limbed thoroughbred held for him, and that
+seemed just the horse for the strongest man in southern New Mexico.</p>
+
+<p>"Sam," said he, as they rode away, "what's your opinion?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span>"Cal got there safe, long before the redskins could. We can do it, too,
+if they worked long enough over their beef. If we get there first, we
+can hold Saint Lucy against twice as many. But if we don't&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Neither of those horsemen said another word after that. Sam knew no more
+than the rest did of what was actually going on at the ranch.</p>
+
+<p>More than a little had been going on, and with quite remarkable results.</p>
+
+<p>Hardly had Cal disappeared through the gateway of the stockade before
+the two in the veranda turned and looked wistfully at one another.</p>
+
+<p>"Mother," said Victoria, "do you think there is really any danger?"</p>
+
+<p>"Terrible danger, my dear," said Mrs. Evans, with a quiver in her firm
+lips.</p>
+
+<p>"Then what made you send Cal away? Oh, mother!"</p>
+
+<p>"We are as safe, almost, without him as with him, and the whole valley
+is in danger until the army officers are warned. They believe that
+everything is quiet."</p>
+
+<p>"How I wish they were here! And father!"</p>
+
+<p>"Victoria," exclaimed Mrs. Evans, with a face that grew very pale, "he
+went to look at the lower drove, the one that the savages have
+captured."</p>
+
+<p>"Sam didn't see him, or Cal would have said so. Mother, you don't
+believe they killed him?"</p>
+
+<p>There was a strange look in the resolute face of Mrs. Evans.</p>
+
+<p>"Vic," she said, "I don't believe they have touched him. He's not the
+man to be caught. We <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span>must work, though, for they'll be here pretty
+soon. We must bar the gate, first, and any prowling Indian needn't be
+told that there are only women behind the stockade."</p>
+
+<p>Vic's quick dash for the gate expressed her feelings fairly, but she put
+up the bars of the gate with more strength and steadiness than might
+have been expected of her. But for the reddish tint of her hair she
+would have looked even more like Cal than she did when she turned and
+said: "There, mother, that's done. Now, what?"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Evans studied the gate for a moment.</p>
+
+<p>"Vic," she said, "everybody must help. I think we can hold the ranch.
+Come with me."</p>
+
+<p>In half a minute more they were standing in the courtyard of the adobe,
+explaining the terrors of the situation to a group of five startled and
+frightened women. Seven in all, they were the only garrison of Santa
+Lucia, and Kah-go-mish and his warriors were coming to surprise it. How
+long could they hold out?</p>
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span>
+
+<hr />
+<br />
+<h2><span class="smcap">Chapter V.</span></h2>
+
+<h2>CAL AND THE CAVALRY AND THE RED MUSTANG.</h2>
+<br />
+
+<p>"Sixty miles to Fort Craig!"</p>
+
+<p>That had been the mournful exclamation of Cal Evans, a little distance
+from Santa Lucia. Then he made a brief calculation, and added: "Dick has
+had ten miles of easy going and ten miles of running. Not many horses
+could stand sixty more. I believe he can, but I'll take care of him, as
+mother said. It's awful! I don't wonder some people want to kill all the
+Indians, right away. I do."</p>
+
+<p>He had some lessons yet to learn about Indians, but now he reined in the
+red mustang to a steady-going gallop instead of the free gait that Dick
+was inclined to take.</p>
+
+<p>An hour went by, and it was a trying hour to Cal Evans, crowded as his
+mind was with fears and with imaginations concerning what might be doing
+at Santa Lucia.</p>
+
+<p>"Wasn't mother beautiful!" was one thought that came to him. "Vic, too,
+and they're brave enough, and they both know how to shoot, but what can
+they do against Indians?"</p>
+
+<p>He felt that he was doing his duty. He was, at all events, obeying his
+mother. He was a boy who wished to be in two places, but his mind grew
+calmer with the regular beat of Dick's hoofs. A sharp <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span>appetite came,
+too, and put him in mind of his haversack. He ate as best he could, and
+the next stream of water he came to invited him to dismount and get
+some, and to let Dick do the same and rest a little. It was very hard
+work to stand still and eat cold meat and bread, and pat Dick and think
+about Santa Lucia.</p>
+
+<p>After that the red mustang was pulled in for a breathing-spell at the
+end of every half-hour, or a little more, but every minute expended in
+that way seemed like an hour to Cal Evans.</p>
+
+<p>Noon came and went, as the long miles went by. Groves, tree-lined
+sloughs, gangs of deer to the right and left, hardly attracted a glance
+from the sore-hearted young messenger. Mountain-tops, easterly, that had
+been cloudy in the morning, were showing more distinctly against the
+sky, when Cal at last pulled the red mustang suddenly in.</p>
+
+<p>"A smoke!" he exclaimed. "It can't be Indians. No danger of their being
+away up here. I'll find out."</p>
+
+<p>Courageously, but warily, he rode some distance nearer, and he was just
+about to dismount when a loud voice hailed him.</p>
+
+<p>"Hullo! What are you scouting around for? What are you afraid of?"</p>
+
+<p>"Hurrah!" shouted Cal, for the hitherto unseen horseman, who now came
+out from behind a clump of mesquit trees, wore the yellow-trimmed
+uniform of the United States cavalry.</p>
+
+<p>Explanations followed fast, and were made more full in front of the
+camp-fire, where rations were cooking for a score or more of what Cal
+thought <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span>were the best-looking men he ever saw. That is, they were the
+very men he wanted to see, and the bronzed, gray-bearded captain in
+command of them was really a fine-looking veteran.</p>
+
+<p>"So," he said, "my young friend, we ought to have set out a day earlier.
+Colonel Sumner had heard that a band had been seen near El Paso, days
+ago, and we were coming your way. Your father isn't the man to be taken
+by surprise. He can hold the ranch."</p>
+
+<p>"Father isn't there, Captain Moore!" exclaimed Cal.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll trust him to get there, then. That's a splendid fellow you're
+riding. What did you say? Twenty miles and more before you left Santa
+Lucia? Forty odd, since, to this place. Pretty near seventy miles.
+That's enough for him or you for one day."</p>
+
+<p>It was in vain for Cal to plead the peril of his family. The cavalry had
+made a long push and must rest their horses. One tough fellow was given
+only time to eat before he was again mounted, on a spare horse fresher
+than the rest, with despatches for the commander at Fort Craig.</p>
+
+<p>Dick was provided with ample rations, and so was his master; but Cal
+Evans needed all the cheerful encouragement of Captain Moore to keep his
+heart from sinking under his heavy forebodings concerning the fate of
+Santa Lucia.</p>
+
+<p>The nearer the sun sank to the horizon the more strongly he felt that it
+was impossible for him to spend that night in the cavalry camp. He said
+so to Captain Moore, stoutly denying that his day of hard riding had
+wearied him.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span>"I know how you feel," said the kindly veteran at last. "There'll be a
+good moon, and you know the way. I'll let you have one of our led
+horses. You mustn't ride to death that red beauty of yours. We'll bring
+him on. Tell your father we shall start at sunrise, and that I've sent
+word to the fort."</p>
+
+<p>Cal was sincerely grateful, but while a soldier was saddling for him a
+good-looking black, he went to say good-bye to Dick, praising and
+caressing him in a manner that brought from him whinny after whinny of
+good-will.</p>
+
+<p>His master had not known how tired he was himself until he mounted the
+black&mdash;so stiff, so sore, so almost without any spring left in him; but
+he felt better the moment the horse began to move under him.</p>
+
+<p>"Take your bearings by the north star," shouted Captain Moore. "Go easy
+and you'll get there. Then I think you'll want to go to bed."</p>
+
+<p>Cal thanked him and cantered away. He was glad enough of the glorious
+moonlight and of the stars, especially the north star. He was carrying
+news of help found quicker than he had expected. What then? Would he
+find Santa Lucia as he had left it? Would it be besieged? How many
+Apaches might he not fall in with before getting there? He knew that
+they never rode around after dark, and that was something.</p>
+
+<p>"If I don't get too tired and tumble off," he said to himself, "and if
+the black holds out, I'll get home before daylight, and I'll ride
+through to the gate if the Apaches are camped all around the ranch."</p>
+
+<p>The black galloped steadily. He was a good <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span>horse, but he lacked the
+easy swing of the red mustang, and there was more weariness in riding
+him. He was allowed to rest, at intervals, and Cal tried hard not to ask
+too much of him.</p>
+
+<p>"Captain Moore said about forty miles to the ranch," remarked the young
+rider to his horse, at last. "You must have done about half of them.
+You're doing well enough, but I never felt so tired in all my life. I'm
+going to make a good, hard push of about ten miles, if it's only to keep
+me from going to sleep."</p>
+
+<p>The push was made and the black stood it well enough, but it grew harder
+and harder on Cal. At the end of it he knew that he could not be more
+than ten miles from the ranch, but he found that the black was disposed
+to walk. It might be unwise to urge him any more. At the same time every
+mile was probably bringing Cal and his news within more or less danger
+of Apache interruption. Oh, how he longed for a glimpse of the Santa
+Lucia stockade! Oh, how sleepy he was, and how hungry and how sick at
+heart!</p>
+
+<p>As the black plodded onward he caught himself nodding heavily, and he
+recovered his senses in the middle of a half-waking dream in which he
+had seen the cavalry arriving and chasing away Indians.</p>
+
+<p>"I may fall off," he said, "if I try that again. I'm afraid if I did
+fall I couldn't climb into the saddle again. I'm stiff and numb all
+over."</p>
+
+<p>Plod, plod, plod, on went the very good-natured black, and Cal did not
+know how long it was before he had another dream.</p>
+
+<p>It seemed to him as if the red mustang came and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span>walked along with the
+black, and as if he himself had said: "Hullo, Dick. Glad you've come.
+You can carry me easier, and you know where to go."</p>
+
+<p>Then, in the dream, Cal rode the red mustang.</p>
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span>
+
+<hr />
+<br />
+<h2><span class="smcap">Chapter VI.</span></h2>
+
+<h2>THE PERIL OF SANTA LUCIA.</h2>
+<br />
+
+<p>After Cal rode away from the cavalry camp on the black, Captain Moore
+made a number of remarks about him.</p>
+
+<p>"Plucky boy," he said. "Tough as whipcord, but he'll be pretty well used
+up before he gets to the ranch."</p>
+
+<p>The other officers and the men agreed with their commander in all he had
+to say about Cal Evans or about his horse.</p>
+
+<p>The red mustang was in the corral. He had been tethered, by a long
+lariat, to the same pin with a mean-looking, wiry little pack-mule, and
+he had given early tokens that he did not like his long-eared company.</p>
+
+<p>Dick had travelled fast and far since sunrise of that day. Cal had given
+him a friendly rubbing down after supper, and he felt pretty well. One
+admiring cavalryman had given him a full army ration of corn, and
+another had brought him some nice pieces of hard-tack, while several
+more had said things about his shape and color and the miles he had
+travelled, all in a way to rouse the jealousy of a sensitive mule. After
+the men went away, Dick considered himself entitled to lie down and did
+so, but the mule did not. There was moonlight enough <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span>to kick by, and it
+was not long before the red mustang was suddenly stirred up. He was not
+hurt, for that first kick had been seemingly experimental, as if the
+mule were getting the exact range of Dick's ribs. A low squeal expressed
+his satisfaction at his success, but it was followed by a
+disappointment, for his own lariat was several feet shorter than the
+brand-new one given to the red mustang, and the latter had stepped
+almost out of danger. It was almost, but not quite, and Dick was
+compelled to keep in motion to get out of harm's way. It was too bad not
+to have quiet, after so hard a day's work, but that mule was a
+bitter-hearted fellow. Dick moved along, backing away and watching, and
+the mule slowly, sullenly, followed him. Santa Lucia was a better place
+than this, Indians or no Indians. Dick had seen Cal depart, and he had
+felt deserted and lonely then, but his homesickness increased rapidly
+under the treatment he was receiving from the wickedly perverse beast he
+was tied up with.</p>
+
+<p>Back, back, back, until both lariats were tightly wound once more around
+the pin. They were shortened eight inches by that twist, and the next
+wind around shortened them nine inches more. The mule grew wickeder and
+made a dash that did not cease until three more twists had shortened the
+lariats. Meantime there had been all sorts of jerks and counter-jerks
+upon the wooden pin, and it was getting loosened in the soft ground.
+Winding up the lariats, the game went on until both tethers were short
+indeed, and that of the mule was less than three yards long. The strain
+of it disgusted him, and he gave a plunge and pull against it just as
+Dick <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span>was drawing hard in the opposite direction. Up came the pin, but
+once more the mule was disappointed. The next dash he made brought him
+and Dick to a stand, for they were on opposite sides of the trunk of an
+oak that caught the lariats in the middle. They could bring their heads
+and shoulders together, but the tree protected Dick from his enemy's
+heels. The tree and the knotted lariats held hard, and the red mustang
+could not prevent that ugly head from coming close to his own.</p>
+
+<p>Would he bite?</p>
+
+<p>No, he was a bad mule, but the mischief in him, except such as naturally
+settled in his heels, was of another kind. He preferred to gnaw a hide
+lariat around a horse's neck rather than the neck itself. Dick was
+compelled to stand still while the gnawing proceeded, and it was very
+unpleasant.</p>
+
+<p>The mule had good teeth, and he knew something about lariats. It was
+remarkable how short a time elapsed before, as Dick gave a sudden start,
+he found himself free.</p>
+
+<p>Liberty was a good thing, but that camp was not an attractive place for
+a horse which had seen his master ride away from it. Besides, it
+contained the tormenting mule, and all of the red mustang's thoughts and
+inclinations turned towards Santa Lucia.</p>
+
+<p>Notable things had occurred there since Dick and Cal came away, and
+after Mrs. Evans made her courageous appeal to her five servants. Four
+of these were evidently Mexicans, and the fifth declared her own
+nationality in the prompt reply that she made to her mistress.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span>"Wud I foight, ma'am? 'Dade'n I'll not be skelped widout foighting. I
+want wan of thim double goons, and the big wash toob full of b'ilin'
+wather and the long butcher knife and the bro'd axe. I'll make wan of
+thim 'Paches pale like a potaty. There's plinty of good blood in Norah
+McLory."</p>
+
+<p>Evidently there was, but Mrs. Evans did not feel so sure of the others.
+Anita, Manuelita, Maria, and a very old woman spoken to as Carlotta,
+seemed at first disposed to call upon an immense list of saints rather
+than listen to a plan which their mistress tried to explain, but Norah
+succeeded in shutting them up.</p>
+
+<p>It was a remarkable military plan, and, when it was all told, "Oh,
+mother!" exclaimed Vic, and in a moment more she added: "Splendid!"</p>
+
+<p>"'Dade, an' I'm ready, ma'am," said Norah, as she made a dash for the
+boiler, and heaped the stove with fuel. "Faith, I'd rather bile thim
+than ate thim."</p>
+
+<p>A bustling time of it followed, and courage grew with work. Weapons were
+plentiful, and the stockade had been regularly pierced for rifle
+practice. All that was needed there or in the adobe was a supply of
+riflemen. There was a tall flagstaff at one corner of the adobe, but its
+halliards had swung emptily for many a day.</p>
+
+<p>"Mother," said Vic, at the end of about twenty minutes, "what will they
+say?"</p>
+
+<p>"The Indians?" said Mrs. Evans, "They may not come at all. Take your
+father's field-glass and go <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span>up to the roof. We must keep a sharp
+lookout. I'll tend to things down here."</p>
+
+<p>Up went Vic, her bright young face all aglow with excitement, and she
+carried Cal's repeating rifle with her, as well as the double
+field-glass with which to sweep the prairie for Indians.</p>
+
+<p>"Not one in sight," she shouted down to her mother. "Guess Cal's safe,
+anyhow. I don't believe they're coming."</p>
+
+<p>She should have questioned Kah-go-mish about that. While she was
+nervously patrolling the roof of the old hacienda and watching for him,
+the prudent leader of the now well-mounted Mescaleros was pushing
+steadily forward. He had given out a careful set of orders, which proved
+his right to be considered an uncommon Apache.</p>
+
+<p>"Ugh!" he said. "No kill. Borrow! Make pale-face lend poor Mescalero
+gun, horse, mule, blanket, knife, cartridges, kettle. Keep 'calp on
+head. No want 'calp now."</p>
+
+<p>He hoped to find the ranch almost if not quite undefended and to take it
+by surprise, getting what he wanted without doing anything to provoke
+the altogether unforgiving vengeance of the military authorities.</p>
+
+<p>Half an hour more went by that was very long to the watchers in the
+adobe.</p>
+
+<p>"Four Indians, mother," shouted Vic, at last, from her station on the
+roof. "'Way off there, eastward. I can't see anything of father or the
+men."</p>
+
+<p>"They will come, Vic. Watch!" replied Mrs. Evans.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span>"If they were near enough," said Vic, "I'd fire at them. They've
+halted."</p>
+
+<p>They had done so, on a roll of the prairie, for they were a mere
+scouting-party, and they quickly hurried away as if they had an
+unexpected report to make concerning the state of things at Santa Lucia.
+Five minutes later Vic laid down her field-glass and took up Cal's
+rifle.</p>
+
+<p>"More Indians, mother!" she shouted, and the loud report which followed
+testified strongly to the condition of Vic's fighting courage.</p>
+
+<p>Nobody seemed to be hit by that bullet; but the warning shot, long as
+was the range, compelled one Indian to remark:</p>
+
+<p>"Ugh! Kah-go-mish is a great chief! Pale-face heap wide-awake."</p>
+
+<p>"They've halted, mother, but I didn't hit anybody. Hurrah! Hurrah!"</p>
+
+<p>"What is it, Vic?" anxiously inquired Mrs. Evans. "Do you see anybody
+else?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not Indians, this time. On the other side. Key and Joaquin. Perhaps
+they won't dare to ride in."</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing could stop your father."</p>
+
+<p>That was very true, and nothing did. Key and Joaquin had had somewhat
+the start of him, but had been delayed on the way, repeatedly, by the
+necessity of keeping out of sight of a dangerous-looking squad of
+Apaches, so that they were but a little in advance of three more white
+men who quickly rode up.</p>
+
+<p>"Colorado!" exclaimed one of these. "What's lit on to the ranch?"</p>
+
+<p>It was a fair question for Sam Herrick or any <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span>other man to ask. A
+wide-winged American flag floated proudly from the flagstaff, at the
+foot of which stood what seemed to be an army officer in very full
+uniform, cocked hat, epaulets, sword, and all. Another flag fluttered at
+the gate, and in front of it paced up and down a sentry in uniform,
+while outside of him, at regular intervals, were ostentatiously stacked
+a complete company's allowance of muskets, bayonets fixed, ready for
+service.</p>
+
+<p>"Colorado!" again exclaimed Sam Herrick; but the angry look was fading
+from the face of his employer. It did not return, even when a score or
+so of yelling Apaches came out in full view at the right.</p>
+
+<p>"Boys," he shouted, "give 'em a volley and ride in. The drove is gone,
+but the ranch is all right."</p>
+
+<p>Crack went the rifles; but the range was long, and not one of the red
+men was harmed. A whoop, a yell, and they wheeled away, for they had no
+idea of storming a stockade defended by an infantry company in addition
+to Colonel Abe Evans and his cowboys.</p>
+
+<p>"Hurrah!" roared the deep voice of the colonel. "There's fun coming!"</p>
+
+<p>Loud rang the answering cheers of the cowboys, but at that instant the
+sentry at the gate threw away his musket, exclaiming: "Howly mother!"</p>
+
+<p>The army officer on the roof made a quick motion as if he were gathering
+his skirts to go down a ladder, and he disappeared, while four soldiers
+inside the stockade dropped their muskets also, and their commander
+ceased a remarkable use she was making of an old drum. The garrison of
+Fort Santa Lucia had been seized with a sudden panic and had
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span>disappeared, leaving the gate open for the colonel and his men to ride
+in and take possession.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Evans had not been in uniform. She had put down her drum, and she
+was now in the doorway ready to meet her husband. Norah had dashed past
+her, exclaiming: "'Dade, ma'am, I'd not let the owld man and the byes
+see me wid the like o' this on me bones."</p>
+
+<p>Reports were quickly exchanged between the colonel and his wife.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing lost but the horses and a few cattle," he said. "It was just
+like you, Laura. You did the best thing, all around. Cal is safe, but if
+the cavalry come, he and I are going to ride after the redskins with
+'em, far as they go."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course," she quietly responded.</p>
+
+<p>"Laura," said he, "I'm glad all that old army stuff was in the
+storeroom; but I shall not take Major Victoria Evans along. I shall
+leave her here to garrison Santa Lucia, with General Laura Evans as
+commander-in-chief."</p>
+
+<p>Sam Herrick and the other cowboys brought in the stacks of muskets and
+closed the gate.</p>
+
+<p>"All that old iron is good for something, after all. So's the flag,"
+said Bill.</p>
+
+<p>"Colorado!" remarked Sam. "The redskins may think they've struck Fort
+Craig, by mistake."</p>
+
+<p>"They'll smell a mouse," said Key, "and they may not give it up so
+easy."</p>
+
+<p>"If they do try it on," said Sam, "it won't be till about daylight
+to-morrow morning. Let's have something to eat."</p>
+
+<p>"Byes," said Norah, as they entered the kitchen. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span>"Hilp me off wid the
+b'iler. It was put there to cook 'Paches, but I'll brile you some bacon
+instid."</p>
+
+<p>The kitchen table looked warlike enough with its collection of the
+weapons required by Norah, but she was no longer in uniform, and looked
+peaceful. She and her Mexican assistants cooked vigorously, but before
+the coffee was hot the colonel sent for Joaquin.</p>
+
+<p>"Eat your dinner," he said, in Spanish, "and then take a fresh horse and
+ride to warn the upper ranches. We're safe enough; even if they try a
+daylight attack, we can stand 'em off till help can get here. Bring me a
+dozen good men. I'm going to chase that band of redskins, cavalry or no
+cavalry."</p>
+
+<p>"Si, se&ntilde;or," replied Joaquin, and he was quickly away, seeming to hardly
+give a thought to any possible interruption by scouting Apaches.</p>
+
+<p>Some work was done by scouting cowboys that afternoon in the vicinity of
+the ranch. No Indians were seen; but for all that the night which
+followed was not a sleep-night. The men slept fairly well, except the
+sentry whose turn it might be, but they were all dressed and had their
+weapons by them. It was nearly so with the female part of the garrison.
+They did not sleep at all well, but they were all dressed, and they kept
+more guns and swords and axes within grasping distance than did the men.</p>
+
+<p>The dawn came at last, and it did not bring any alarm; but, just as the
+sun was rising, the gate in the stockade swung wide open, and a man
+stepped out, gazing earnestly towards the east.</p>
+
+<p>"Colorado! What's that?" he exclaimed. "I <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span>won't rouse the ranch, but it
+beats me all hollow. Hosses. Two of 'em."</p>
+
+<p>There was evidently something curious in the fact that a pair of horses
+were plodding slowly along towards Santa Lucia, all by themselves, at
+that hour of the morning.</p>
+
+<p>Sam stood by the gate as if waiting for an explanation, when there came
+a sound of steps behind him.</p>
+
+<p>"Sam," asked an anxious voice, "do you see anything?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'd say 'twas the red mustang, if there wasn't a pack on him, and a
+black hoss with him. Didn't know you was up, ma'am."</p>
+
+<p>"Cal's mustang, Sam? I've not been abed or asleep."</p>
+
+<p>"Mother, is it Dick? Is it Cal? Are there any Indians?"</p>
+
+<p>"Vic, I'm afraid it's Cal. I'm going to see. He's wounded!"</p>
+
+<p>"Most likely," said Sam, with a sharp change of voice. "They'd better
+turn out. Stay here, madam."</p>
+
+<p>He raised his repeater as he spoke and fired a random shot, the report
+of which brought every soul in Santa Lucia bolt upright, and then he
+started on a swift walk, followed closely by Cal's mother and sister.</p>
+
+<p>There were the two horses, red and black, and Vic reached them first.
+They stood stock-still, as if waiting for her, when she came near, and
+she was sure that the black carried Cal's silver-mounted saddle.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span>Dick carried Cal!</p>
+
+<p>Was he wounded? Was he dead? How came he on Dick's bare back? A dozen
+excited questions burst from Mrs. Evans and Vic, but no answer came
+until Sam Herrick drew a long breath and responded: "Sound asleep! The
+boy's tired clean out, riding, and Dick's been caring for him. He walked
+as if he was treading among eggs. 'Fraid Cal'd fall off."</p>
+
+<p>There was nobody to tell just how many slow miles Cal had ridden,
+unconsciously, or nearly so, with his arms around Dick's neck. Sam was
+just about to lift him off when the deep voice of Colonel Evans, behind
+him, said: "Don't wake him, Sam; I'll take him. There isn't money enough
+anywhere to buy that red mustang."</p>
+
+<p>Dick held as still as a post while his master was gently removed in the
+strong arms of the old colonel, but the moment that was done he
+accompanied a sharp whinny with a weary attempt to throw up his heels.
+Another pair of arms was around his neck now, however, and Vic tried
+hard to make him understand her intense appreciation of him.</p>
+
+<p>"Hope he isn't hurt," said Sam. "I guess he isn't, nor Cal either."</p>
+
+<p>No, Cal was not hurt, but he was a boy who had been through a tremendous
+amount of excitement, as well as of hard riding. Just as he was being
+carried through the gate he opened his eyes for a moment and saw the
+flag floating over Santa Lucia.</p>
+
+<p>"Glad the cavalry got here," he murmured. "Captain Moore said they'd
+start at sunrise." He saw his mother and Vic, and tried to say
+something, but <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span>he was sound asleep again before the smile on his lips
+could be turned into words.</p>
+
+<p>Cal was put upon a bed and his mother sat down by him. Norah McLory had
+teetered fatly around them all the way to the house, whispering
+remarkable exclamations, and she was evidently in great fear, even now,
+of awaking the weary sleeper.</p>
+
+<p>"Wud hot wather do him any good, ma'am?" she huskily suggested.</p>
+
+<p>"Breakfast will, by and by," said Mrs. Evans. "Oh, my boy!"</p>
+
+<p>"Glad the cavalry are coming," said the old colonel, as he turned away
+from gazing down at Cal. "I'll know all about it when he wakes up."</p>
+
+<p>The whole ranch had for many minutes been in a state of turmoil, and
+mere quadrupeds had been left to take care of themselves, for even Sam
+Herrick came pretty near to being excited about Cal. He was out in the
+veranda now, and Cal's watchers heard him exclaim, "Colorado!"</p>
+
+<p>"Something's up," said the colonel, and he and Vic hurried out.</p>
+
+<p>There stood Dick, with no bridle or saddle, but with a look about his
+drooping head which seemed to ask, "Is there anything more wanted of
+me?"</p>
+
+<p>The black waited a few paces behind Dick, as if he also had an idea that
+his task was not completed.</p>
+
+<p>"Dick!" shouted Vic. "What can we do for him, father? Would some milk do
+him any good? Dick, you're the most beautiful horse in the world!"</p>
+
+<p>Milk was not precisely the thing he needed, but Sam led him away, the
+black following; and if <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span>rubbing, feeding, watering, and a careful
+inspection of every hoof and joint could do a tired racer any good, all
+that sort of comfort came abundantly to the red mustang.</p>
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span>
+
+<hr />
+<br />
+<h2><span class="smcap">Chapter VII.</span></h2>
+
+<h2>BOUND FOR THE BORDER.</h2>
+<br />
+
+<p>The warning-shot fired from the roof of the ranch by Major Vic Evans had
+been a great surprise to the Apaches. It had informed them that they
+could not surprise Santa Lucia, and that they were known as enemies. At
+the same time, they had not been supplied with field-glasses for the
+better inspection of the marksman.</p>
+
+<p>Kah-go-mish knew something about the army of the United States.
+Blue-coats at Santa Lucia meant danger to him and his. Loss of horses
+and a possible forced return to the Reservation seemed to stare him in
+the face. Of course, he gave up the ranch, but he had yet a hope
+remaining.</p>
+
+<p>The braves who had chased Sam Herrick that morning had reported one
+lonely cowboy, and no end of horses and cattle stampeded into the timber
+at Slater's Branch. There was the point to strike at, therefore, and
+success was sure if it had not been for the horse from which Sam Herrick
+dismounted when he transferred his saddle to the dancing gray for his
+ride home. He was a good horse, and he had run well when the Apaches
+were behind him. Sam had now left him, but it seemed to him that his
+morning-work had been cut short. Perhaps, too, he had a curiosity as to
+where Sam was riding to upon <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span>the gray. At all events, the dashing
+cowboy was not out of sight before the horse he had unsaddled started
+after him.</p>
+
+<p>That was example enough for a drove which was still tremendously nervous
+from a big stampede. Horse after horse and mule after mule set out in a
+lively four-footed game of "follow my leader." Not one of them was
+willing to be left behind to be captured by Indians or by another
+stampede. Even the horned cattle on the opposite bank began to wade
+through the mud of Slater's Branch as if they thought of joining the
+procession. The self-appointed leader of the horses did not see fit to
+take a very rapid gait, but seemed able to follow the trail of Sam
+Herrick to the ford where the cowboy had returned to the other side.
+Here a half hour or so was expended in feeding, neighing, kicking up of
+heels, and other tokens of horse deliberation. Then one and another of
+the more influential members of the drove decided to try the grass
+nearer Santa Lucia, and began to lead their comrades northerly. Sam's
+friend appeared to be superseded in command, but the net result was bad
+for Kah-go-mish. The chief and his warriors were guided well after
+giving up the ranch, and on their arrival at Slater's Branch they found
+the cattle in the timber. A noble herd; endless beef; but all too heavy
+to carry and too slow to be driven by red men who were likely to be
+pursued by cavalry.</p>
+
+<p>Slater's Branch was crossed at once, and all the muddy margin told of
+the horses which had marched away. Where were they now? The puzzle
+deepened as the disappointed braves rode onward down <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span>the branch. Even
+at the ford a brace of braves dashed across for a search, but they gave
+it up, and came back disappointed. The escaped drove of horses had been
+under too much excitement to halt long anywhere, and had even enjoyed a
+small stampede, which carried them half-way to the ranch.</p>
+
+<p>"Kah-go-mish is a great chief," sullenly remarked the Apache commander.
+"Cavalry come. Save horses. Ugh! Heap bad luck."</p>
+
+<p>It required what seemed almost like rashness, under such circumstances,
+to linger at Slater's Branch, but the Apaches felt bitterly about being
+robbed in that way of Colonel Evans's larger horse-drove. More cattle
+were slaughtered and more fresh beef was prepared for transportation;
+fires were kindled, and an hour of what might have been precious time if
+any cavalry were near, was spent in cooking and eating.</p>
+
+<p>Keen had been the eyes of Kah-go-mish, and they had given him an
+interpretation of the stacks of bayoneted muskets in front of the
+stockade gate. He knew that the garrison of Santa Lucia consisted, as
+yet, of infantry only, and that he and his braves could finish their
+dinner before the supposed return of the dreaded cavalry.</p>
+
+<p>They ate well, nobody could have disputed that, and then they mounted
+and rode away in high spirits. While the people at the ranch were
+anxiously reasoning as to whether or not their enemies would reappear,
+the exultant Mescaleros were miles and miles nearer, with every hour, to
+the Mexican border, and to the point where they were, in due time, to
+meet their equally happy families. Their camp, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span>that night, was as
+peaceful as if it had been a picnic, and at the earliest dawn of day
+they were stirring again, very much as if they had taken for granted the
+march of Captain Moore and the angry determination of Colonel Abe Evans.
+The air rang with whoops and shouts, and among them could be heard a
+very positive assertion concerning himself from the deep voice of
+Kah-go-mish.</p>
+
+<p>At about the same hour, and in as perfect safety, fires were kindling
+and fresh beef was cooking, and eating began at the camp where
+Wah-wah-o-be and all the family part of the band had passed the pleasant
+summer night. It was a number of miles to the southward; it was nearer
+to the very southern edge of the United States, but over every breakfast
+might have been heard expressions of a general desire to be nearer
+still.</p>
+
+<p>That entire party, as well as the warriors in the other, had dismal days
+of poverty and privation to look back upon. Days when most of them were
+compelled to walk instead of riding, and when footsore squaws were
+forced to carry burdens which were now transferred to the strong backs
+of captured mules and ponies. Walking was over and hunger was gone, and
+even the overworked ponies saw their packs put upon fresher carriers. It
+was a great relief to a poor fellow who had panted under a small hill of
+family property all the way from the Reservation to have nothing now but
+a squaw to carry, or a couple of small boys, or perhaps three girls or
+so. No pony had more than that when all was ready for the day's march.</p>
+
+<p>Several of the captured Evans colts had a busy <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span>time that morning. They
+had rebelled too vigorously the previous day, and had reached their
+first Apache camps unbroken. Their time for service had come now,
+however, and they were rapidly instructed how to go along under
+wild-looking riders whom they were unable to throw off. Several there
+were, nevertheless, who earned another day of comparative freedom. Time
+was precious, and too much of it could not be spent in horse-breaking.</p>
+
+<p>"Ugh!" said Wah-wah-o-be. "Pale-face pony kick a heap."</p>
+
+<p>That was when a skilful mustang had pitched a young Apache brave clean
+over his head.</p>
+
+<p>It was a gay cavalcade when at last it got in motion. From one end of it
+to the other there did not seem to be one sign of anxiety. Its immediate
+wants had been provided for wonderfully, and it had great confidence in
+the future. There was something very hopeful to talk about, for every
+Mescalero, young or old, was on tiptoe with eagerness to hear the report
+of the doings of Kah-go-mish and his warriors.</p>
+
+<p>"Sun go down, great chief come," said Wah-wah-o-be, and there was no
+telling what or how much he would bring with him.</p>
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span>
+
+<hr />
+<br />
+<h2><span class="smcap">Chapter VIII.</span></h2>
+
+<h2>GETTING READY TO CHASE KAH-GO-MISH.</h2>
+<br />
+
+<p>It was noon when Cal Evans opened his eyes, and even then the lids came
+apart reluctantly. He saw his mother sitting by him, and Vic was peering
+in at the door, but he did not quite understand matters.</p>
+
+<p>"Mother," he said, "are you all safe?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, we're all safe&mdash;" she began.</p>
+
+<p>"He's awake! Mother, may I come in?" shouted Vic. "Cal! we had such a
+time. We all dressed up in those old uniforms and played soldier. I
+fired at the Apaches from the roof."</p>
+
+<p>Cal struggled to sit up, and found out how sore and stiff he was, while
+he exclaimed:</p>
+
+<p>"Vic, did you? There was an attack? You beat them off?"</p>
+
+<p>"Scared them off," said his mother. "Why, how lame you are!"</p>
+
+<p>"Awful!" he groaned, as he lay back again. "But about the fight&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"There wasn't any," said Vic, and she added a rapid sketch of the
+garrison&mdash;Norah McLory at the gate, and Mrs. Evans with the drum, and
+the Mexican women parading as sentinels.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell us about your ride," she said, as she paused for breath.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span>"Ride?" he said. "Well, yes, it was a great ride, but I don't know the
+whole of it, myself. How's Dick?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sam says he's all right," said Vic, "and there isn't such another horse
+in all New Mexico."</p>
+
+<p>"Guess there isn't," replied Cal, very emphatically. "The black is a
+good fellow, but it was his gait that made me so sore. I can't turn
+over."</p>
+
+<p>He could tell all that he knew, however, and he could hear all that they
+had to say, and he found that he could sit up when Norah brought in his
+breakfast.</p>
+
+<p>"Hungry? I guess I am. Never was so hungry in all my life. But I'm going
+with father after 'em."</p>
+
+<p>He was as much in need of a thorough rubbing as Dick had been, but when
+Sam Herrick gave it to him, a little later, he had to shut his mouth
+hard, for Sam's gentleness was of a cowboy kind, and he did his whole
+duty. After that was over Cal could walk fairly well, and he went out at
+once for a look at the red mustang, and Vic and his mother went with
+him.</p>
+
+<p>"There he is," he said, "that's a fact, but I can't tell how it came to
+be so. I left him picketed in the corral, at the cavalry camp. He must
+have untied himself and got away."</p>
+
+<p>Cal knew nothing about the teeth of the persecuting mule.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you mount him in your sleep?" asked Vic.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know," he said. "I was so tired I went to sleep more than once.
+Dreamed, too. It was all a good deal like a dream. Seems so yet, from
+the beginning. I've a kind of memory that Dick came alongside, crowding
+close and whinnying, and that <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span>he and the black stood still, so I could
+crawl on Dick's back and lie down, somehow, and sleep more comfortably.
+That's all I know about it, except what you've told me."</p>
+
+<p>If the red mustang felt any stiffness as a consequence of his remarkable
+performances, he kept the matter to himself and accepted graciously all
+the petting given him. The black came in for his share of praise, but he
+was regarded as an enlisted private horse of the regular army, while
+Dick's last performance had been altogether as a volunteer.</p>
+
+<p>It was just about noon when Captain Moore, riding at the head of his
+men, listened to a message from Colonel Evans, brought to him by Bill,
+the long, lank, yellow-haired cowboy.</p>
+
+<p>"All right," said the captain. "Glad I needn't push any faster under
+this hot sun. Glad Cal got in safe. Gritty young fellow. You'll have to
+tell him, though, that his horse and one of our pack-mules got away in
+the night. Sorry, but there's no help for it."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, yes, that's so," replied Bill, "but that there red mustang. Why,
+captain, do you know, Cal Evans rid into Saint Lucy on to him? The hoss
+was a-caring for him like a human, and Cal was sound asleep. He hadn't
+begun to wake up when I kem away."</p>
+
+<p>The captain and his fellow-officers had questions enough to ask, then,
+and they learned all about Dick's volunteer work when they reached the
+ranch the next day. They knew nothing about the mule then, but at that
+very hour the long-eared rascal reported himself for garrison duty and
+rations at <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span>Fort Craig, having for the time delivered himself from the
+pack business and from the fatigues of a long chase after Apache
+horse-thieves.</p>
+
+<p>There were delays in the preparations for following the band of
+Kah-go-mish. Captain Moore had to wait for further instructions from
+Fort Craig, and Colonel Evans also waited for Joaquin and the expected
+cowboy recruits from the upper ranches.</p>
+
+<p>Sam and the rest had already gathered, with keen satisfaction, the drove
+of horses which had so nicely dodged Kah-go-mish, and they had scoured
+the plain to Slater's Branch and beyond. They reported all things safe
+and serene, and then Cal and Vic and their mother rode out and went over
+all the scene of his first adventure.</p>
+
+<p>From the mound on the prairie Cal showed them how the cattle and horses
+were stampeded. Then they went to the timber and the fallen trees where
+he and Sam "stood off" the Apaches. Then they rode away down to where
+Sam had first been swarmed around by the Mescaleros, and there was Sam
+to tell about it.</p>
+
+<p>"Colorado!" remarked he, "but didn't they butcher a lot of cattle! They
+got about a dozen mules, thirty good hosses, and sixty or seventy
+second-rates and ponies. Mounted their whole band, I reckon!"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't care so much about that," said Mrs. Evans, but she was looking
+at Cal just then.</p>
+
+<p>"Vic," said Cal, "you was three years at school, away off there in the
+settlements, and so was I."</p>
+
+<p>"No Indians there," said Vic.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span>"Good thing you was," said Sam. "I never had any schooling. Hope you
+learned a heap."</p>
+
+<p>"Hope I did," said Cal, "but I tell you what, it seems to me as if I'd
+learned more in one day's riding."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, yes, like enough," replied Sam, "more of one kind. Glad you
+didn't learn how an arrer feels. I did, once. Bullet, too. Tell you
+what, though, if you go on the trail with your father and the captain, I
+reckon you'll learn some more."</p>
+
+<p>"I've seen a great many Indians," began Vic, "but they were all friendly
+except&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Colorado!" suddenly exclaimed Sam. "Four of 'em! Heading right for us!
+Don't shoot, Cal. Keep a good ready, but don't throw lead if you can
+help it. It beats me!"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Evans reined her horse close along side of Vic's pony, but said
+nothing. Her face was pale, but that of Vic's was flushed fiery red. So
+was Cal's as he touched Dick with his heel and sent him forward
+head-and-head with Sam's gray.</p>
+
+<p>Four unmistakable red warriors, armed to the teeth, were rapidly riding
+nearer.</p>
+
+<p>"Mother," exclaimed Vic, "I'm ready."</p>
+
+<p>"So am I," said Mrs. Evans, sharply. "We can both help."</p>
+
+<p>Each had a revolver in her hand, and Vic afterwards remembered how glad
+she felt, just then, of all her target practice. Her thought was, "I can
+hit one, I know I can."</p>
+
+<p>The leading idea in Cal's mind was that his hero-time had come, and that
+he alone was quite enough for four Apaches. The expression upon his
+face, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span>during about two minutes, was tremendously heroic. He glanced
+behind him and saw just such another look upon that of Vic, but the
+smile his mother gave him made him feel like a whole regiment of
+cavalry.</p>
+
+<p>"Isn't he splendid!" said Vic.</p>
+
+<p>Just then the four red men halted. They were only twenty yards away, and
+it might be that they were getting ready to shoot. They were conferring
+for a brief moment.</p>
+
+<p>Cal drew rein, as Sam did, at the same time, and one of the Indians rode
+forward holding out his right hand, palm up.</p>
+
+<p>"How?" he said. "Chiricahua chief want Sam? Ugh! Heap friend."</p>
+
+<p>"Colorado!" exclaimed the cowboy. "That's it, Cal. They're the friendly
+Chiricahua-Apache scouts the captain sent for first time you met him.
+They want me to go 'long and show 'em the trail. Reg'lar bloodhounds."</p>
+
+<p>He turned in his saddle and shouted, "Ladies, it's all right," and in a
+moment more he and Cal were shaking hands with their new acquaintances.</p>
+
+<p>"What hideous-looking men they are!" exclaimed Vic, for at that moment
+they were smiling, and the one holding Cal's hand was saying, "Ugh! Boy,
+heap ride. Heap good pony. Ride big sleep. 'Pache 'calp him; he no wake
+up. Lose hair all same."</p>
+
+<p>That was evidently meant for a good-humored joke. Mrs. Evans and Vic had
+to shake hands with them next, and then rode away with Cal towards Santa
+Lucia, while Sam and the wild-looking scouts <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span>set out for an examination
+of all the traces left behind by Kah-go-mish and his warriors.</p>
+
+<p>"The two bands, Chiricahuas and Mescaleros, are almost like different
+tribes," was the explanation Vic received from her mother.</p>
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span>
+
+<hr />
+<br />
+<h2><span class="smcap">Chapter IX.</span></h2>
+
+<h2>THE HACIENDA OF SANTA LUCIA.</h2>
+<br />
+
+<p>Early in the afternoon of the fourth day after the red mustang and the
+regular-army black brought Cal home to Santa Lucia, the ranch wore a
+very peaceful appearance. No cavalry were camped near it. There was not
+now any American flag floating from the staff on the roof of the
+hacienda, and there was not wind enough to have made one float if it had
+been there.</p>
+
+<p>No cattle were grazing within sight of anybody standing at the stockade
+gate. That was closed and barred in an unusually inhospitable manner,
+and no wayfarer could ride in without first explaining himself. There
+was reason in it, for Santa Lucia now contained only one man to
+strengthen the brave female garrison which had held it against the
+intended surprise-party of Kah-go-mish. More men would be there at
+sunset, on the return of the herders, and no Indians were believed to be
+within a very long distance.</p>
+
+<p>A wide awning had been stretched out from the veranda, and there were
+two or three chairs under the awning, but they were empty.</p>
+
+<p>Norah McLory and a couple of the Mexican women were busy with some tubs
+in the courtyard. The windows looking into it were not narrow slits like
+those outside. They were wide enough, had <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span>swinging sashes in them, and
+they gave the old adobe less the appearance of being either a fort or a
+prison. Most of them were curtained, and the curtains of a pair opposite
+the open side of the square were very handsome. Just beyond one of these
+curtains stood Mrs. Evans, with her arms around her daughter. If
+anything were troubling Vic's mind, the face she was looking into must
+have had comfort in it. Mrs. Evans was one of those women who are
+remarkable, and have no need of proving it to make people believe it.
+She was of medium height and not at all robust in appearance, although
+in excellent health. There was hardly a tinge of gray in her auburn
+hair, her cheeks were smooth, her brown eyes were bright and pleasant,
+and her voice was full and musical. Those who had heard it once wished
+to hear it again, even if they wondered what there was in it that made
+them go and do just as she told them. It was a grand thing for a young
+cowboy, like Cal Evans, to have such a mother away out there upon the
+plains, and was equally good for Vic, especially at such a time as had
+now come.</p>
+
+<p>The room itself was as nearly like a large parlor in an Eastern mansion
+as such a room in such a building could be made. Colonel Evans had
+refused to count up how many head of cattle the furniture had cost him,
+including the piano and the wagoning of it from Santa F&eacute;.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Evans had not stopped there, for her china and other elegances
+enabled her to set a well-furnished table, and her kitchen garden in one
+corner of the stockade, with her hen-coops, provided something better
+than the beef and bacon and corn-bread <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span>supplied to hungry people at
+most New Mexican ranches.</p>
+
+<p>More than one Indian chief to whom Mrs. Evans had given a dinner had
+declared it "good medicine," not understanding that his own race was
+passing away because the chickens and the potato-patches were coming.</p>
+
+<p>Army-men, officers and soldiers, had ridden away from Santa Lucia,
+remarking of Cal's mother: "Very uncommon woman. But how did she get
+those things to grow 'way down here?"</p>
+
+<p>Mexican herders in the colonel's employ had also discussed the matter,
+and had decided that no melon or bean or hill of corn or other vegetable
+dared refuse to grow after getting orders from the "Se&ntilde;ora."</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps the most remarkable thing, after all, was the fact that such a
+lady, with all her refinement and cultivation, should say that she
+preferred a ranch life at Santa Lucia to any other kind of life
+anywhere.</p>
+
+<p>She was saying so now to Victoria. Vic would have been a smaller pattern
+of her mother, but for a tinge of red in her hair and something saucy
+about her nose and mouth. That is, on ordinary occasions, but not just
+now, for she was looking blue enough.</p>
+
+<p>"Mother," she said, "father never gets hurt, but Cal is so young. The
+Indians, mother, and there may be fighting. I almost hate this country.
+I'd rather be where no savages can come."</p>
+
+<p>"They will never come, Vic."</p>
+
+<p>"They did come, this time! I saw them from the roof. Some of them come
+along here every now and then."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span>"Peaceably, my dear. It's a wonder to me that they touched anything of
+ours. If everybody had dealt with them as your father has there would
+not be any fighting."</p>
+
+<p>"He went away angry enough," said Vic.</p>
+
+<p>"Not angry enough to hurt any Indian without necessity. If there should
+be any fighting&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Seems to me I can't think he could kill anybody, or be killed; but Cal
+is so young!"</p>
+
+<p>"Victoria," said her mother, almost laughing, "Cal is a smaller mark
+than your father, and not half so likely to get hit. I hope they will
+bring the horses back with them."</p>
+
+<p>"You are a wonderful woman, mother. Were you ever really afraid of
+anything?"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Evans thought for a moment, and then replied, "Yes, Vic, the other
+day. I was afraid we'd not get our soldier scarecrows ready before the
+Apaches came. Then, too, they might have met your father. I thought of
+that, but I wasn't really afraid that they had. I think I was made to
+live here."</p>
+
+<p>That was the truth of the matter, and she soon convinced Victoria that
+the time to be nervous had not yet arrived. It was true that Colonel
+Evans and Cal and a dozen cowboys had gone with Captain Moore and the
+cavalry to trail the thieving Mescaleros and bring back the horses, but
+the Indians had three days the start, and were not likely to be caught
+up with at once.</p>
+
+<p>"There may not be any fighting, even then," said Mrs. Evans; but
+Victoria did not find any use for her piano that day.</p>
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span>
+
+<hr />
+<br />
+<h2><span class="smcap">Chapter X.</span></h2>
+
+<h2>THE TARGET ON THE ROCK.</h2>
+<br />
+
+<p>It was the very hour when Mrs. Evans and Vic were talking, at Santa
+Lucia, about the cavalry and cowboy expedition which had gone in search
+of the Apaches. Many a long mile to the southward of the old hacienda
+the sun shone hotly down upon the rugged slope of a spur of a range of
+mountains. At the bottom of the slope ran a wide trail which had been
+used by wagons, and was almost like a road. Along its narrow pathway of
+sand and shale rode a straggling cavalcade of extraordinary-looking
+horsemen. About half of them carried lances and wore a showy green and
+yellow uniform. All had firearms in abundance, and most of them had long
+sabres rattling at their sides. There seemed to be a profusion of silver
+ornaments, even on men as well as upon bridles and saddles, but there
+were also a number of badly battered sombreros and ragged serapes. What
+is a sombrero? It is any sort of very wide-brimmed, low-crowned hat, and
+can be made to carry much tinsel and feathers. As for a serape, one can
+be made out of any blanket by cutting a hole in the middle of it, so
+that it will hang gracefully around the man or woman whose head has been
+pushed through the hole. It was not easy to say whether the gay officer
+commanding the gaudy lancers, or the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span>remarkably tattered peon who led
+the last string of pack-mules, at the rear, was really the most
+picturesque Mexican of that cavalcade.</p>
+
+<p>On the slope above them, less than three hundred yards from the trail, a
+great bowlder of gray granite stood out prominently from the bushes and
+the smaller lumps of rock around it.</p>
+
+<p>On the bowlder, at its very edge, stood the figure of a man who was even
+more noteworthy than were the officer and the peon. His arms were
+folded, so that two red stocking-legs spanned his broad chest; his silk
+hat, with a green-veil streamer, was cocked on one side defiantly; his
+attitude was that of a man who did not fear all Mexico, and the loudly
+uttered words he sent down at the horsemen were: "Kah-go-mish is a great
+chief!"</p>
+
+<p>Whether or not they believed him, and although he had given them no
+apparent cause for considering him an enemy, horseman after horseman
+lifted carbine or revolver and blazed away at the Mescalero leader.
+Bullet after bullet buzzed in among the bushes and rocks above and
+behind him, but not a muscle of his tall form flinched.</p>
+
+<p>All practised riflemen know that a mark posted as he was is difficult to
+hit, even at short range and in shadow, and that the difficulty
+magnifies with distance and a sunny glare.</p>
+
+<p>There stood Kah-go-mish, and while report after report rang out in the
+narrow valley, and called forth echoes from among the crags, he
+exhausted all he knew of Spanish and was compelled to help it with his
+native Apache dialect, and even then seemed unable to express his
+opinion of the marksmen. He <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span>had much to say concerning his own great
+and good qualities and those of his people, but declared that all the
+unpleasant reptiles and insects and quadrupeds he could name were
+serving as Mexicans that afternoon. He shouted to them that they did not
+even know how to shoot. If they had been Gringos (Yankees) of the lowest
+order, he said he might be in danger from their bullets, but, as it was,
+the man they aimed at was safer than any other man within range.</p>
+
+<p>The Mexican caballeros may or may not have been able to understand any
+part of that hailstorm of hard words, but Kah-go-mish had an audience
+and was not wasting his eloquence. He and his bowlder seemed to be
+alone, jutting out from the slope, but that was an optical illusion.
+That knob of granite stood upon the outer rim of a wide, ragged, bushy
+ledge, and at no great distance there began a shadowy growth of forest.
+The broken level behind Kah-go-mish was peopled by scores of braves and
+squaws and younger people, proving that the two sections of his band had
+reunited. Dogs ran hither and thither, while ponies and horses could be
+seen among the trees. One dog in particular did his futile best to climb
+the bowlder, and then sat down under a furze bush and yelped with all
+his might at the cavalcade, as if in sympathy with the chief of his band
+of Apaches.</p>
+
+<p>At the right of the granite bowlder, and several paces from the edge or
+the ledge, were some huge fragments of red basalt rock. In front of
+these crouched a group which gazed at Kah-go-mish with unmistakable
+pride. In the middle sat <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span>Wah-wah-o-be, bonnet and all. Against her, on
+the right, was curled the form of the young lady in the wonderful red
+dress, and she looked almost pretty as her black eyes flashed with
+admiration of her father's magnificent heroism and oratory. At the left
+of Wah-wah-o-be, the boy in the Reservation trousers stood sturdily
+erect, but nothing could make him handsome or take from his broad, dark
+face the look of half-anxious dulness which belonged there. His beady
+eyes glittered, and he showed his white teeth, now and then, but his
+very smile was dull. He leaned back against the rock, and just then a
+something came whizzing past his head, and there was a slightly stinging
+sensation in his left ear. He did not wince, but he lifted his hand
+quickly to his ear, and there sprang to his lips an involuntary
+imitation of the sound made by the ragged ounce ball of lead when it
+struck the crumbling basalt.</p>
+
+<p>"Z-st-ping!" he said, and the sound was caught up by other voices.</p>
+
+<p>"Ping&mdash;ping&mdash;ping," ran from lip to lip, and some laughed merrily, for
+all had heard the whiz and thud of the deadly missiles which were coming
+up from the valley, although they and Wah-wah-o-be had deemed themselves
+entirely sheltered.</p>
+
+<p>Kah-go-mish had at that moment turned for a glance at his family, and he
+uttered a loud whoop, as if of pleasure. At the same breath he came down
+from his rock with a great, staglike bound, and stood among them.</p>
+
+<p>"Wah-wah-o-be, look!" he said. "Ugh!"</p>
+
+<p>He had no need to point, for she was already aware that the ragged edge
+of the bit of lead had <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span>made a deep scratch in her son's ear. She was
+both very proud and very angry.</p>
+
+<p>"Ping!" she exclaimed, as if the sound had acquired a new meaning.</p>
+
+<p>"Ugh!" said Kah-go-mish. "Ping!"</p>
+
+<p>As for the boy himself, the dulness almost vanished from his face in his
+exultation at having been so nearly hit, actually grazed, by a
+rifle-ball. His sister came around to stare at the scratch, and then his
+own quick eyes caught something.</p>
+
+<p>"Tah-nu-nu!" he said, and pointed at the wide fold of her red calico. It
+was torn. A Mexican bullet had found its way through the furze bushes,
+and Tah-nu-nu had been almost as much in peril, the moment she stood
+erect, as her brother had been.</p>
+
+<p>Wah-wah-o-be's wrath boiled over. The Apaches pay more of respect to
+their squaws than do some other tribes, and the chief's wife was a woman
+who was likely to demand all that belonged to her.</p>
+
+<p>Kah-go-mish had stood upon the rock to be fired at by the rancheros for
+the glory of it, and was almost too proud of so great an exploit to lose
+his temper at once. He was beginning to say something about Mexican
+marksmanship when he was interrupted by Wah-wah-o-be. She had feelings
+of her own, if he had not. She pointed at her son's ear, and again she
+said "Ping!"</p>
+
+<p>The bullet might have wantonly murdered any member of her family, or any
+of her neighbors. She made rapid remarks about it, of such a nature that
+Kah-go-mish felt a change going on in his mind. Other ears had heard,
+and the voices of braves and squaws seemed to agree with that of
+Wah-wah-o-be. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span>All had fallen back from the dangerous margin, and it
+would have looked a little like a council if a squaw had not been the
+speaker. There was very little red upon the ear of Ping, but it served
+her as a representative of all the wrongs ever done to the Apaches by
+the white men, including that of cooping them in upon the Reservation,
+where she had obtained her bonnet, and where they had all but starved
+for lack of game.</p>
+
+<p>The blood of Kah-go-mish reached the right heat at last, and his hand
+arose to his mouth to help out the largest, longest, fiercest war-whoop
+he knew anything about.</p>
+
+<p>"Kah-go-mish is a great chief!"</p>
+
+<p>He said this as he strode away towards the trees, waving back all the
+rest with his hands. Warriors and squaws, boys and girls, they at once
+seemed to arrange themselves for a good look at whatever their great man
+might be about to do.</p>
+
+<p>He was gone but a few minutes, and returned, leading a mean-looking,
+undersized, disreputable pony, upon whose head he had placed a
+miserable, worn-out bridle.</p>
+
+<p>He did not utter a word to Wah-wah-o-be, but upon the ground before her
+he deposited a handsome rifle, a bow and arrows, and a lance. He took
+from his belt the revolver and laid it beside the other weapons, and
+upon them all he placed the green-veil-plumed silk hat and the red
+stocking-legs. He ostentatiously called attention to the fact that he
+retained nothing but his heavy bowie-knife. Armed with only that weapon,
+and mounted upon his worst pony, he, the great chief, the hero, was
+about to depart upon <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span>a war-path against the coyotes, the buzzards, the
+tarantulas, the red ants, the lost dogs&mdash;namely, the Mexicans of
+Chihuahua, or any other Mexicans. He would make them pay bitterly for
+having wasted so much ammunition that day.</p>
+
+<p>The announcement of the chief's purpose was received with whoops and
+yells of approbation. Wah-wah-o-be seemed to overlook any possible peril
+of losing her husband altogether. She may have been hardened by a long
+habit of seeing him come home safe.</p>
+
+<p>Kah-go-mish gave some rapid orders to one brave after another, mounted
+his pony while others were gathering their own, and then he rode
+straight into the side of the mountain, followed by his whole
+band&mdash;horses, dogs, and all. That is, it would have so appeared to any
+white man standing at the foot of the granite bowlder, but it was only a
+good illustration of the magical arts by which the Indian medicine-men
+make it so difficult for green white men in blue uniforms to catch red
+runaways. Uniformity of color in quartz and granite, or other ledges,
+provides for a part of the mystery. Shrubs and trees and distances help,
+and so, often, does their absence. A great break in the side of that
+spur of the Sierra was as invisible from the pass as if it had been
+hidden by snow or midnight. It was a chasm which led in two directions
+from that point. Kah-go-mish waved his hand authoritatively and wheeled
+his pony to the left, to the southward, towards Mexico. His warriors and
+his family, and all other members of the band, dogs included, turned
+northward, to the right, carrying with them positive assurances as to
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span>the place, and very nearly as to the time, when they might again hope
+to see and admire their leader.</p>
+
+<p>During his absence the command fell to a short, broad-shouldered
+warrior, who walked dreadfully intoed, and who seemed to stand very much
+in awe of Wah-wah-o-be. She, on the other hand, was evidently well
+satisfied with the course which affairs were taking. She had picked up
+the weapons so heroically laid upon the ground by her husband, and she
+had helped Tah-nu-nu and Ping to gather the ponies of the family. She
+had said a great many things while doing so, for one point in her
+superiority to other squaws was the capacity of her tongue for
+expressing her ideas.</p>
+
+<p>The whole band had an almost prosperous appearance, very different from
+that which it had worn just before it began to swarm around Sam Herrick
+and the drove of horses. Lodge-poles had been cut, now that there were
+ponies to drag them. Hardly anybody was on foot, except a few braves
+whose half-trained, spirited horses were likely to require leading over
+narrow and pokerish mountain-passes.</p>
+
+<p>Kah-go-mish rode on alone in one direction and the band went in the
+other, and both were shortly buried in the deep, cool gloom of the
+shadowy chasms.</p>
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span>
+
+<hr />
+<br />
+<h2><span class="smcap">Chapter XI.</span></h2>
+
+<h2>THE STORY OF A LOG</h2>
+<br />
+
+<p>The red mustang was in excellent health, and he was also in high
+spirits. So was his master, and they were nearly agreed upon another
+point. Dick evidently believed that any trail whatever ought to be
+followed at full speed, and Cal fretted continually over the steady
+plodding commanded by Captain Moore. Cal was glad that in his first
+Indian campaign he was to have so much first-class help, including the
+four Chiricahua-Apache scouts. He had confidence in his father and in
+the captain, as men of experience in such matters, but at last he could
+hardly help mentioning to Sam Herrick the joint criticism made by
+himself and Dick. "Why, Sam," he remarked, "the red-skins have three
+days the start of us, and Captain Moore isn't in any kind of hurry. They
+must be gaining on us."</p>
+
+<p>"That's not of much account, Cal," said Sam, "so long as their trail
+stays in this country. They're camped at the end of it to-night. So they
+will be every night till they get to the far end of it, and there we'll
+find 'em, unless they cross over into Mexico."</p>
+
+<p>"And if they do that?" asked Cal.</p>
+
+<p>"Mexico's a hot place for Indians just now," <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span>replied Sam. "Troops
+moving; militia called out. These fellows couldn't stay there."</p>
+
+<p>The far end of an Indian trail is sometimes a curious thing to hunt for,
+as Sam went on to explain. It may get lost in the sand, or among the
+mountains, or in the snow, or somebody may hide it or steal it, or a
+heavy rain may wash it all out.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Cal, "one thing's sure. If we should come near 'em, and
+have to chase 'em, the horses won't be too travel-tired for good
+running."</p>
+
+<p>"Exactly so," said Sam. "That's what the captain's up to."</p>
+
+<p>The cavalry and cowboy camp, that night, was as safe as Santa Lucia, but
+there was something like a disturbance in another place.</p>
+
+<p>The party of rancheros and Chiricahua militia who had blazed away at
+Kah-go-mish may have been a kind of scouting-party. They had escaped
+destruction by not following him up the slope, and they afterwards had
+not many miles to ride before they reached a camp to which they
+evidently belonged. One small corner of that camp had an appearance of
+good order, where an experienced officer of the Mexican army was in
+command of a few disciplined soldiers. All the remainder of it seemed to
+bear the likeness of a grand military picnic, where all the men who had
+tickets were free to have a good time in any manner they might please.
+Very soon after supper most of them pleased to lie down and go to sleep,
+while others sat up to smoke and play cards.</p>
+
+<p>Of course there could not be any danger threatening a force of over four
+hundred men, all so warlike, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span>so soldierly, so completely ready to whip
+any tribe of mere red Indians. Besides, no important band of hostiles
+was known or believed to be in that vicinity. There might have been a
+better watch kept that night, nevertheless, especially at the corral
+where all their horses were picketed.</p>
+
+<p>This had been made along the bank of the deep, still stream which
+supplied the camp with ice-water from the Sierra Madre. Nobody ever
+heard of any fellow taking a swim in such cold water as that was. It was
+cold enough to chill the bones of a mountain trout. Of course no one did
+undertake to swim in it, but, at about midnight, a log came floating
+down. There was a large knot on one side of the log. The current or
+something carried it against the bank, right in the middle of the
+corral, and either there were two logs, or that log divided, for one log
+floated off down stream, while the other log crept out on shore, stood
+erect, and walked stealthily around among the horses. The knot was
+carried on the upper end of this log, and the other went off without
+any.</p>
+
+<p>Very quickly were four of the best horses fixed with four of the best
+saddles and bridles from among the long rows at the edge of the corral.
+The log did it, and added holsters with revolvers in them and two
+bundles of fine lances and some good American carbines, and two full
+straddle packs of cartridges. The sentries of the corral were all
+stationed away outside of the place where that peculiar log was at work.
+All but two of them were asleep, as the guardians of so strong and
+warlike a camp had a right to be.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span>Now the log crept around until it found a path leading out southerly,
+past a sentry who was sleeping very soundly indeed. Then it went back
+into the corral and led out the four saddled and bridled horses, with
+four others following that wore only halters, but carried securely
+strapped burdens, selected and fitted by the log.</p>
+
+<p>There was a brilliant moonlight, so that there was no danger whatever to
+the camp from Indians, and the log led the horses on until it became
+wise to go ahead and see if there had been any picket posted at the
+place and distance at which one might have been expected.</p>
+
+<p>"Ugh!" exclaimed the log, as it went back for the horses. "Mexican! No
+blue-coat!"</p>
+
+<p>That was a compliment to such men as Captain Moore, but then the log was
+doing what no kind of fellow would have undertaken with "blue-coats." It
+now mounted one of the horses and led on up the stream, to a place it
+seemed to know about, where the water was wide and shallow and could be
+easily forded. On crossing it the log was still at no great distance
+from the camp, but upon higher ground. Looking down, it could have a
+good view of the smouldering camp-fires and the sleeping Mexicans, for
+tents there were not.</p>
+
+<p>"Kah-go-mish is a great chief!" exclaimed the knot at the top of the
+log, exultingly. "Ugh! Got heap hoss, heap saddle, heap gun, heap all
+plunder. Ugh! Mexican shoot at him on rock. Wonder how feel now, pretty
+soon. Ugh!"</p>
+
+<p>An irrepressible whoop of triumph burst from him.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span>"Ugh! Bad medicine," he said. "Great chief let mouth go off like boy."</p>
+
+<p>He had not lost his wits, however, and he followed that whoop with a
+dozen more, a whole series of fierce, ear-splitting screeches, while he
+rapidly emptied the nine chambers of the captured carbine and the six of
+a revolver. He aimed at the camp-fires and with tip-top success,
+testified to by sudden showers of sparks and brands which flew around
+among the startled sleepers.</p>
+
+<p>Great was the uproar in that astonished camp. Seven gallant fellows who
+had bugles began to blow for dear life the moment they were upon their
+feet. Every officer began to shout orders as soon as he was awake, and
+some seemed to begin even earlier. They exhibited tremendous presence of
+mind, but no soldier received the same order from any two of them.
+Within a minute, at least a hundred men were at their posts of danger
+behind something or other, while three hundred more were making a blind
+rush for the corral. The sentries had all fired their pieces at once,
+and now there began a general popping of guns and pistols at the awful
+shadows beyond the little river.</p>
+
+<p>Kah-go-mish could hardly have wished for anything better. He wheeled and
+rode rapidly away, followed by the string of horses which he had
+regarded as the fee due to him for being made a target of.</p>
+
+<p>He had not been killed, then, no thanks to the Mexicans, and he had not
+killed anybody now, deeming it imprudent to take any scalps under the
+circumstances. He had again, however, proved his <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span>claim to be considered
+an extraordinary collector of enemy's horses, and that is a high fame to
+win among the wild tribes of the southwest. As for the righteousness of
+what he had done, in his own eyes, he was a commanding officer of
+Mescalero Apaches, and his people were at war with Mexico, as the
+rancheros and militia had declared so recklessly. He made war in a
+manner every inch as civilized as their own, and thought well of himself
+for so doing. He said so, quite a number of times, that night, as he
+rode on deeper and deeper into the rugged passes of the Sierras. About
+daylight he came to an open, shaded spot, by a spring, where there was
+grass for his prizes, and where he could build a fire and then find out
+what there might be for breakfast in a very fat haversack which hung
+from one of the saddles.</p>
+
+<p>As for the Mexican cavalry, of all sorts, they behaved well, and the
+officer in supreme command at last succeeded in substituting his own
+orders for those of his hasty subordinates. He stationed a strong force
+at the ford, to prevent the supposed tribe of red men which had assailed
+his camp from crossing the river. He threw out scouting-parties,
+encouraged his men by voice and example, urging them to do their duty,
+prove their attachment to their flag, and to die rather than surrender.
+He was answered by enthusiastic cheers, and, when morning came, he
+readily obtained from among them a body of brave volunteers who followed
+him across the ford to search the dangerous underbrush on the hill from
+which the hostile barbarians had fired upon the camp. The more they
+searched the better they felt, and at last they found a trace of the
+enemy. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span>They captured a pony, bridle and all. It was the sad-looking
+beast selected by Kah-go-mish as the most nearly worthless of all that
+he had brought with him from the Reservation.</p>
+
+<p>Eight militiamen, one of them a bugler, already knew that the enemy had
+penetrated the corral, and had gotten away again, but here was a sort of
+a mount for one of them. Well, it was a capture, anyhow, and a proof of
+victory, and was spoken of as "ponies" in the official report of the
+manner in which that night-attack had been baffled by the Chiricahua
+militia.</p>
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span>
+
+<hr />
+<br />
+<h2><span class="smcap">Chapter XII.</span></h2>
+
+<h2>PING AND THE COUGAR.</h2>
+<br />
+
+<p>When Kah-go-mish set out upon his war-path, he went by ways which no
+white man's foot had ever trod. His family and followers began to
+perform the same feat in another direction.</p>
+
+<p>Tah-nu-nu very nearly spoiled a name which was beginning to grow upon
+her brother. It was too long for common use, and it meant:
+"The-boy-whose-ear-pushed-away-a-piece-of-lead." Wah-wah-o-be, every now
+and then, strung all the syllables together, and the whole was like one
+of those mountain-passes, wider here and narrower there, but rugged all
+the way. Tah-nu-nu cut it short and called him Ping.</p>
+
+<p>Wah-wah-o-be's tongue and the use she made of it helped such a trail as
+that amazingly. She had endless tales to tell concerning what her
+husband had done and was yet to do, and of the great deeds of her
+nation, and of the evil deeds and purposes of all pale-faces.</p>
+
+<p>The questions asked by Ping and Tah-nu-nu were also endless. His proved
+that he knew some things already and that he had learned a part of them
+while the band had been upon the Reservation. Those of the little Apache
+girl proved for her as much and more. She must have thinking and
+imagining, and her eyes frequently took on a soft <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span>and dreamy look which
+did not come at all in those of her mother or her brother.</p>
+
+<p>There were not many safer places in all the Sierras than was the little
+valley in which the band of Kah-go-mish encamped, an hour or so before
+the shadows became darkness among the chasms and gorges.</p>
+
+<p>Ping ate a hearty supper, but he was in trouble. Other boys and girls,
+and some of the squaws, had taken a notion of turning their heads on one
+side and saying "Ping" when they met him, just as if they believed that
+he had winced from the touch of the bullet. He knew that he had not done
+so, but the taunt stirred up within him a very hot desire to do
+something heroic, like standing still to be shot at. He felt that it was
+an awful injustice to ridicule him for the very ear he was so proud of.
+The sting to his vanity kept him in motion after supper, and he strolled
+all over the valley. No lodges had been pitched, and the horses were
+scattered around, feeding, under the watchful care of several braves
+whose turn it was to serve as "dog-soldiers," or camp police.</p>
+
+<p>The moonlight was brilliant, but Ping had no idea whether or not the
+mountain scenery it lighted up was grand. He did know that it was just
+the night for his father to do great deeds in, or for any wild animal to
+prowl around after its prey. The cries of several had been heard during
+the afternoon march and since the band halted.</p>
+
+<p>Wah-wah-o-be had told him and Tah-nu-nu that these Mexican mountains
+fairly swarmed with Manitous and magicians, most of whom were <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span>favorable
+to the Apaches, but that all of them were more or less to be feared. For
+all that Ping knew, some of these unseen beings might be wandering up
+and down in that moonshine within arrow-shot of him. He felt safe in the
+camp, but nothing would have induced him to venture out among them. He
+knew very well that any Indian who got himself killed in the dark did
+not go to the Happy Hunting-Grounds, but had an awful time of it
+somewhere. As for the wild animals, he had a settled determination to
+kill a grizzly bear, some day, and to have his claws for a collar of
+honor to wear upon great occasions. He proposed to become a mighty
+hunter and warrior, but just now he felt sleepy, and he went back and
+lay down at the foot of a pine-tree, not far from the rest of his
+family.</p>
+
+<p>Ping's eyes closed, but another pair did not. Tah-nu-nu's remained open
+in spite of her. She had heard more stories than Ping had, and while
+each tale had kept its old shape in his mind it had turned into twenty
+new forms in her own.</p>
+
+<p>That is one difficulty about having an imagination, and Tah-nu-nu's had
+been getting more and more excited ever since the Mexican bullet tore
+her beautiful red dress. She kept thinking, too, of her heroic father
+and of the great things he would have to tell when he should get back
+from his war-path.</p>
+
+<p>Tah-nu-nu lacked only a few years of being a grown-up squaw, and
+Wah-wah-o-be often braided her hair for her, like that of a young
+pale-face lady at the Reservation headquarters. Some day a great brave
+was to come and pay many ponies for her, and she would then rule his
+lodge for him and scold <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span>eloquently, like her mother. She had,
+therefore, a long list of matters to dream about as she lay awake among
+the bushes where Wah-wah-o-be and several other squaws had spread their
+blankets. It was at some distance from the fires which the
+"dog-soldiers" kept slowly burning. Not far away, on the left, were the
+tall pines under one of which Ping had curled down, while outside of all
+was a bare ledge of rock, littered with bowlders and fragments.</p>
+
+<p>There were streaks and patches of shining white quartz here and there.
+Tah-nu-nu had never heard of such a thing as beauty, any more than Ping,
+but she felt its power as he did not. She arose and stole softly out to
+look at the marvellous picture made by that ledge in the moonlight. She
+looked and looked, but she had no Apache word for what she saw. It was
+all utterly still during many minutes, and then Tah-nu-nu was sure she
+saw something moving around at the farther border of the ledge. Her
+first impulse was to go out and see what it was, but her next thought
+was of her bow and arrows and of Ping.</p>
+
+<p>"Ugh!" said Ping, as she shook his arm, and he sprang to his feet.</p>
+
+<p>"Hist!" she said. "Come! Look!"</p>
+
+<p>He strung his bow and fastened his quiver of arrows to his belt, while
+she whispered an exclamation. Then he went to where the family packs had
+been thrown down and brought back a weapon at which Tah-nu-nu nodded
+approval.</p>
+
+<p>Days before that a careless pony had stepped upon and broken one of the
+best lances of Kah-go-mish. The blade was as keen as ever, and there
+were six feet of shaft remaining, below the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span>crosspiece, so that it made
+a pretty dangerous-looking pike, although it was no longer a lance.</p>
+
+<p>Ping followed Tah-nu-nu, and not a word was uttered until they were out
+upon the ledge. Some prowling wolf might be there, attracted by the odor
+of cooked meat and fish, or even some more important animal, for bears
+also have noses. Ping would not have given a useless alarm for anything.
+That would have brought upon him sharper ridicule than had the scratch
+on his ear. He had no idea that any human enemy could be near that
+lonely camp, and wild animals, he knew, were sure to keep at a distance
+from camp-fires. That was true, but then Wah-wah-o-be and her friends
+were not camp-fires, and were not near to any. They were asleep away out
+on that side of the camp, and it was so safe that it had no sentry, and
+the eyes of Tah-nu-nu had been of so much the greater value.</p>
+
+<p>She and Ping were stealing out upon the broken ledge, and he had an
+arrow upon the string, but she had not, as yet.</p>
+
+<p>"Ugh!" he said, as he crouched low and drew his arrow to the head.</p>
+
+<p>Tah-nu-nu uttered a sharp cry. It was the Apache word for "cougar!"</p>
+
+<p>Ping's bowstring twanged, and then he bounded to the right as if he were
+dodging something. So he was, for the whole camp heard the snarling roar
+with which a great "mountain lion" came rushing through the air and
+crashed down a bush close to the children of Kah-go-mish and
+Wah-wah-o-be.</p>
+
+<div class="img"><a name="imagep086" id="imagep086"></a>
+<a href="images/imagep086.jpg">
+<img border="0" src="images/imagep086.jpg" width="75%" alt="SHE AND PING WERE STEALING OUT UPON THE BROKEN LEDGE." /></a><br />
+<p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em;">SHE AND PING WERE STEALING OUT UPON THE BROKEN LEDGE.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Ping's arrow had been well aimed, for it was buried in the breast of the
+cougar. Another went <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span>into his side, as he came down, and that was
+from the hand of a girl-archer. Tah-nu-nu had worked like a flash, and
+her arrow operated as a sting, for the wounded beast made yet another
+tremendous bound.</p>
+
+<p>All the squaws were on their feet, and Wah-wah-o-be could not have told
+why she picked up her blanket as she arose. She was worthy to be the
+wife of a chief, however, for when the cougar alighted almost in front
+of her, she promptly threw the blanket over him. Another and another
+blanket followed, while he rolled upon the ground, mad with pain and
+rage, tearing the unexpected bedclothes and snarling ferociously.</p>
+
+<p>There had come into the dull mind of
+The-boy-whose-ear-pushed-away-a-piece-of-lead a great memory of a story
+he had heard of a warrior who faced a cougar single-handed. With it came
+another, of a chief standing alone upon a rock while a hundred enemies
+fired at him.</p>
+
+<p>"I am the son of Kah-go-mish!" he shouted, exultingly, and before the
+fierce wild beast could free himself, there was Ping in front of him,
+spear in hand.</p>
+
+<p>Any experienced cougar-hunter would have been inclined to say,
+"Good-bye, Ping," but the Apache boy was not thinking of the risk he was
+running. He knew what to do, and he put all the strength of his tough
+young body into the thrust with which he sent his weapon, low down,
+inside the animal's shoulder. The sharp blade went in, up to the
+crosspiece, just as the bow of Tah-nu-nu twanged again, and there were
+piercing shrieks on all sides. The <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span>loudest came from Wah-wah-o-be, as
+the cougar made a convulsive effort to reach his rash assailant, for
+over and over went Ping in spite of all his bracing.</p>
+
+<p>He would have fared worse if the butt of the spear-shaft had not caught
+a better brace against the ground, so that the cougar did not fall upon
+him.</p>
+
+<p>The blade had done its work. There were two or three more long rips made
+in Wah-wah-o-be's woollen treasure and then the cougar lay still.</p>
+
+<p>Ping was beyond all ridicule now, for he had proved himself a young
+brave. Wah-wah-o-be was so proud of him that she had not a word of grief
+to utter over the mess of woollen ribbons which was all that remained of
+her best Reservation blanket.</p>
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span>
+
+<hr />
+<br />
+<h2><span class="smcap">Chapter XIII.</span></h2>
+
+<h2>THE RETURN OF KAH-GO-MISH.</h2>
+<br />
+
+<p>There were no alarms of cougars nor of any human wild people around the
+Santa Lucia ranch. Even the dogs could hardly get up an excuse for
+healthy barking after dark.</p>
+
+<p>Just in the dawn of that next morning, however, the cowboy on guard at
+the stockade gate was taken by surprise. Nobody rode up to the wooden
+barrier, but his quick ears caught a stealthy footstep behind him, and
+he turned sharply around with his hand on the lock of his rifle.</p>
+
+<p>Did she mean to murder him?</p>
+
+<p>There she stood, Norah McLory, with a double-barrelled gun in one hand
+and a cleaver in the other, and a red shawl pinned all around her. She
+made a very striking picture, and the look on her face was very much as
+if she were ready to strike.</p>
+
+<p>"What's up, Norah?" exclaimed the cowboy.</p>
+
+<p>"Faith an' I'm oop mesilf," said she. "I couldn't slape for thinking of
+thim red villains."</p>
+
+<p>"No redskins 'round here," almost yawned the weary sentry.</p>
+
+<p>"Ye don't know that," said Norah, "and I wanted to see was you watchin'.
+We moight all be murdhered in bed."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span>"The dogs'd take care o' that," said he, "and, oh, but I'm hungry."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll have you the cup of hot coffee right soon," said Norah, "and you
+needn't tell the byes I watched ye."</p>
+
+<p>That was a bargain, but before the coffee boiled there was proof of
+other wakefulness besides Norah's. Mrs. Evans and Vic were out to look
+at the garden and to feed the chickens and to talk about what might be
+going on in the far-away camp which contained the red mustang.</p>
+
+<p>After breakfast the cowboys went to their duties. So did Norah and the
+Mexican servants. Vic and her mother took a brisk horseback ride, and
+came back to their home.</p>
+
+<p>"Everything is too quiet, mother," said Vic, impatiently. "There isn't
+anything going on! I want to see somebody! I want to see something! I
+hate this waiting."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid it will be days and days before we can hear from your father
+or Cal," said Mrs. Evans, "but I hope it will be good news when it
+comes."</p>
+
+<p>The entire garrison of Santa Lucia, ladies, servants, and cowboys,
+talked of the men on the trail of Kah-go-mish, and wondered where and
+under what circumstances their camp might be getting breakfast.</p>
+
+<p>Cal Evans himself, although he awoke in the camp they were talking
+about, did not clearly know where it was, and while he was grooming the
+red mustang he said as much to Sam Herrick.</p>
+
+<p>"Colorado!" remarked Sam; "you're just like everybody else. I believe
+those Chiricahuas have <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span>lost the trail, or else they don't mean we shall
+find the Mescaleros."</p>
+
+<p>"What's going to be done?" asked Cal.</p>
+
+<p>"Your father and Captain Moore mean to push right on," said Sam.
+"They've got some plan or other. Tell you what, though, if I was an
+Apache chief, and if I'd gobbled a drove of horses, as they did, I'd
+take my chances over in Mexico. I wouldn't come loafing out hereaway, to
+be followed by cavalry and caught napping. There's a plain of awfully
+dry gravel a little west of where we are now."</p>
+
+<p>Cal finished Dick, and then he carried his questions to his father.</p>
+
+<p>"Sam's right," said the colonel. "He's an old hand at trailing. We
+believe the redskins have crossed the line."</p>
+
+<p>"Into Mexico? Shall we miss 'em?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, Cal, I think not. Captain Moore knows something of what the
+Mexicans are doing. The Apaches won't be comfortable there. What we're
+guessing at is the place where they're likely to come out again. We're
+pretty sure we know about where it's got to be."</p>
+
+<p>He might have been less positive if he could have seen how very
+comfortable the band of Kah-go-mish looked in their camp among the
+Mexican mountains at that very hour.</p>
+
+<p>It was a safe place, but it was not one to remain in for any great
+length of time, for the horses had already eaten up nearly all the
+grass. Some of the braves had gone out after game successfully, while
+others had brought in fish, so that the human beings <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span>had food enough,
+but the quadrupeds would soon wear out the pasturage of so small a
+valley.</p>
+
+<p>Ping's cougar was regarded as capital game, the best kind of meat in the
+world to Indian tastes, as far as he would go.</p>
+
+<p>The discovery had already been made that more plentiful grass could not
+safely be sought for under the Mexican flag. Too many lancers and
+rancheros were out on the war-path, and the thoughts of all the band
+were turning towards some better refuge north of the United States line.
+Everybody was contented for the day, however, or until about the middle
+of the afternoon. Even Wah-wah-o-be was astonished then, and Ping for a
+moment forgot his cougar. The little valley rang with a great whoop,
+which came from its southerly end. Every brave within hearing did his
+best to answer that whoop, and the whole camp was at once in a state of
+excitement, for it was the voice of the returning Kah-go-mish, and it
+was thrilling with triumph.</p>
+
+<p>Here he came, not astride of the doleful pony that had carried him away,
+but riding an elegantly caparisoned steed. Some other horses followed
+him. He had gone out almost weaponless, and he was now overloaded with
+weapons. He had gone bareheaded, and now he wore a gorgeously gold-laced
+and yellow-plumed cocked hat, recently the special pride of a major of
+Mexican militia. Even the Reservation chimney-pot silk beauty, green
+veil and all, was altogether nothing compared with this.</p>
+
+<p>Kah-go-mish had not exactly played Cortes, and conquered Mexico, but
+what he had done was very <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span>nearly the same to Wah-wah-o-be, Tah-nu-nu,
+and The-boy-whose-ear-pushed-away-a-piece-of-lead.</p>
+
+<p>It was a great time, but the chief had the plans of a general in his
+head. No Mexican force would follow him into the Sierra, but one might
+try to head him off on the other side, and take away his horses, and it
+was time to be moving.</p>
+
+<p>The band broke camp at once, to push on through the rugged
+mountain-paths as long as there might be daylight enough to go by. That
+was why the darkness, when it came, found them scattered all along the
+bottom of a tremendous gorge, walled in by vast perpendicular faces of
+quartz and granite rock. Even Ping thought it wonderful, when the
+straggling camp-fires were kindled, that their light did not stream
+half-way up those walls, and left the rest in shadow until the moon rose
+high enough to show them.</p>
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span>
+
+<hr />
+<br />
+<h2><span class="smcap">Chapter XIV.</span></h2>
+
+<h2>THE FOUNTAIN IN THE DESERT.</h2>
+<br />
+
+<p>On the morning of the second day after Ping and Tah-nu-nu and the
+blankets proved to be too much "bad medicine" for one poor cougar, the
+sun arose hotly over one of the dreariest bits of scenery in southern
+New Mexico. It was the gravel desert described to Cal Evans by Sam
+Herrick. No mountains were visible on the south or east, and the ranges
+of tall peaks westerly and northerly were a very long day's journey from
+the most interesting spot in that entire plain. Everywhere else even the
+cactus-plants and scrubby mesquit-trees and stiff-fingered sage-brushes
+were scarce, as if they did not care to struggle for a living in so mean
+a country. Here, on the contrary, there was a dense chaparral of every
+kind of growth, excepting tall trees, that is common to that climate,
+and spreading for miles and miles. In many places the chaparral was so
+high and so thick that a man on horseback could have been hidden in it
+from another man at a short distance.</p>
+
+<p>If any man had ridden into it, however, perhaps his first declaration
+might have been, "All this thorn and famine shrubbery was laid out by a
+lot of crazy spiders."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span>Innumerable paths led through it, crossing or running into each other in
+a manner to have perplexed a carpet-weaver or a military map-maker, and
+everybody knows what tangled patterns they can make. The spiders had not
+done it, but the larger kinds of four-footed wild animals. They had
+worked at those paths for ages, treading them down all the while, and
+preventing any vegetable growth from choking them up.</p>
+
+<p>There was really no tangle, at least none that could perplex the clear
+mind of a bison or an antelope, and all the threads of that spider-web
+had more or less reference to a common centre towards which the main
+lines tended.</p>
+
+<p>The dry and thirsty bushes on the outer circumference of the chaparral
+should not have settled where they did. They ought rather to have
+learned a lesson from the bisons, and have gone in farther. The wide
+main pathways ran into each other, and all the smaller pathways melted
+into them, until only twenty or thirty ends of paths led into a great
+open space, in the middle of which was the one thing needed by all that
+vast plain, with its dreary gravel and sand and alkali.</p>
+
+<p>Water?</p>
+
+<p>Yes, water as clear as crystal, and that seemed to be colder than ice.</p>
+
+<p>The thirsty animals who were from year to year to traverse that plain
+had been provided for as if they had been so many sparrows, and the
+cactus-plants as if they had been lilies of the field.</p>
+
+<p>The greater part of the open space was occupied by a seamed and broken
+face of quartz rock, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span>nowhere rising more than a few feet above the
+general level. Scores and scores of miles away, among the unknown
+recesses of the Sierra, westward, was a lake, a reservoir, into which
+the everlasting snows continually melted. At some point of that
+reservoir a channel had been opened through and under the cloven strata
+of the rock, making a natural aqueduct. Cold and clear ran the
+snow-water, never failing in its wonderful supply, until it burst up
+into the burning sunshine in the very middle of the desert, of the
+chaparral, and of the spider-web of paths. It danced and gurgled, this
+morning, right under the timid noses of a gang of antelopes who had
+trotted in there by the shortest lane, not missing their way for a yard.</p>
+
+<p>A motherly old sage-hen watched them from under a bush upon one side of
+the open, while in the opposite scrubs a large jackass rabbit sat, with
+lifted forefeet and with ears thrust forward, his face wearing such a
+look of surprised disapproval as only a rabbit can put on.</p>
+
+<p>One antelope held his head up and listened while the rest were drinking.
+He turned his head and looked around him, and in every direction he
+could see an extraordinary collection of white or whitening bones, large
+and small. Perhaps, year after year, many over-thirsty animals had
+rushed hastily in and drank too much of that snow-water. At all events,
+they had ended their days there. The antelope, or anybody else, could
+also have said to himself, "Tomato-cans? Empty sardine-boxes? Bottles?
+Old wheels? I wonder how many and what kind of white men or Indians have
+camped around <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span>Fonda des Arenas?" If he had been an American antelope,
+however, he would have said Cold Spring, and not Fountain of the Sands.</p>
+
+<p>The antelopes were divided as to their nationality, and changed their
+citizenship several times, for, right through the middle of the spring
+and along the little rill by which it ran across the rock lay the
+boundary line between the United States and Mexico. Some curious
+chisel-marks in one place had meanings with reference to the boundary,
+and so it must have been there; but even the keen eyes of two buzzard
+eagles, soaring overhead, could not have seen the line itself.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly the antelope chief gave a bleat and a bound, and in a twinkling
+he and his little band disappeared in the southern chaparral. Every one
+of them had fled into Mexico.</p>
+
+<p>Only ears as sensitive as their own could have heard any warning in what
+seemed the almost painful silence of that solitude, but they were right
+in running away. Not many minutes elapsed before several of the paths
+opening towards the spring were occupied by stealthy human forms on
+foot, peering around as if to make sure that no other human beings had
+arrived before them. They answered one another with low calls which
+sounded like suppressed barks of a prairie-wolf, and these were repeated
+in the chaparral behind them.</p>
+
+<p>Then a tall, broad, dignified man, in a red flannel waist-cloth and a
+gorgeous cocked hat, and with red stocking-legs on his arms, strode out
+towards the bubbling fountain with the air of a ruler taking
+possession.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span>"Kah-go-mish is a great chief!" he remarked, emphatically. "Cheat
+pale-face a heap. Ugh!"</p>
+
+<p>If other remarks made by himself and by a dusky throng, now pouring out
+of the chaparral, could have been interpreted, it would have been
+understood that a plan of Kah-go-mish for escaping from some pursuit or
+other had thus far worked well, but that the danger was by no means at
+an end.</p>
+
+<p>Wah-wah-o-be was one of those who shook their heads about it very
+wisely. She said very little, and neither Ping nor Tah-nu-nu was with
+her. If she knew where they were she did not even mention that fact.</p>
+
+<p>There was plenty of room for the whole band of Kah-go-mish, horses and
+all. They had travelled since the dawn of day, or before, and although
+it was still quite early they were hungry and thirsty.</p>
+
+<p>There was the spring for thirst, and fires were kindled. These were as
+quickly put out, after breakfast had been cooked and eaten, and when the
+sun had dried the waters thrown upon the embers no newcomer could have
+guessed how long it might be since the last coal died.</p>
+
+<p>"Leave heap sign," said Kah-go-mish. "Paleface know great chief been
+here. Not know where gone. Ugh!"</p>
+
+<p>Sign enough was made, for now the band moved away westerly by a path of
+the chaparral. Broad and plain was the trail left behind and it was all
+on Mexican sand. It went right along until it reached and crossed
+another wide path at right angles. Here most of the band turned to the
+left, under orders, but the rest, a lot of warriors, went on, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span>making
+false trail as if for a purpose, half a mile farther, to a wide, empty
+patch of hard gravel. No two of the warriors left that patch together,
+and the trail died there. Of the band which turned to the left, at the
+crossing, the squaw part pushed on while some cunning old braves worked
+like beavers to scratch out every trace that they or theirs had entered
+that left-hand path at all.</p>
+
+<p>It was all a very artistic piece of Indian dodging, and when it was
+completed the entire band of Kah-go-mish was encamped in a secluded nook
+of the chaparral about a mile and a half from the spring. So far as any
+tracks they had made were concerned, they would have been about as hard
+to find as the sage-hen, who had now returned to her place under the
+bush by the spring, and had distinguished company to help her watch it.</p>
+
+<p>A sage-hen crouching low in sand and shadowed by wait-a-bit thorn twigs
+is pretty well hidden. So is a great Apache chief when he has left his
+cocked hat and his horse a mile and a half away and is lying at full
+length, in a rabbit path, a few yards behind the sage-hen.</p>
+
+<p>Kah-go-mish had his own military reasons for hurrying back to play spy,
+and his face wore an expression of mingled cunning, patience, and
+self-satisfaction. Something like a crisis had evidently arrived in his
+affairs, and he was meeting it as became a Mescalero-Apache statesman of
+genius. He and the sage-hen lay still for a while, but it was not long
+before there was another arrival at the spring.</p>
+
+<p>No sound escaped the lips of Kah-go-mish, but the expression of his face
+changed suddenly.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span>Perhaps the new arrival had been long in convincing himself that he
+could safely venture to the spring, but he now left his pony at the edge
+of the quartz level and walked on to the water's edge. He was not a
+white man. He was one of the Indians who had said "How" to Vic and Mrs.
+Evans, and the sight of him seemed to arouse all the wolf in
+Kah-go-mish. The eyes of the Mescalero leader glistened like those of a
+serpent as he thrust his rifle forward. There was a sharp report and
+Kah-go-mish bounded from his cover, knife in hand, for the Chiricahua
+scout lay lifeless upon the rock.</p>
+
+<p>"To-da-te-ca-to-da no more be heap eyes for blue coat," said the
+ferociously wrathful chieftain, and a moment later, as he again
+disappeared in the chaparral, he added, bitterly: "Heap sign now. Ugh.
+Pale-face find him. Bad Indian! Ugh!"</p>
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span>
+
+<hr />
+<br />
+<h2><span class="smcap">Chapter XV.</span></h2>
+
+<h2>LOST IN THE CHAPARRAL.</h2>
+<br />
+
+<p>Kah-go-mish and all the other members of his band except two had been
+entirely absorbed in the marching and counter-marching required to make
+other people lose track of them. Meantime the two exceptions had been
+threading the blind paths of the chaparral more rapidly and a great deal
+more anxiously.</p>
+
+<p>Neither of the ponies which carried Ping and Tah-nu-nu was hampered by
+any saddle, and both were somewhat wild, but they were not wild enough
+to have an antelope's learning as to the streets and lanes of that bushy
+wilderness. Their young riders were just as ignorant. After the fight
+with the cougar, Ping remembered that when Tah-nu-nu sent her last arrow
+into the side of the great cat she had seemed to him to be about twice
+her ordinary size. Her bow had twanged at the moment when he had himself
+felt like a very small boy indeed, about to be stepped upon by the worst
+claws in the world. She, at that moment, had thought of her brother as a
+young warrior and a hero. Now, however, they were even, for they both
+had lost their way; and she spoke of him as a mere boy, while he
+described her as a little squaw, from whom, of course, any great amount
+of wisdom was hardly to be expected. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span>Whether they rode fast or slow, up
+one path or down another, seemed to make little difference. They were in
+a complete puzzle, and there were a number of square miles of it.</p>
+
+<p>At last an avenue of more than ordinary width seemed to offer a promise
+that it might lead somewhere in particular, instead of everywhere in
+general, and Ping remarked: "Ugh! Heap trail," as he rode into it.</p>
+
+<p>"Buffalo trail," added Tah-nu-nu, satirically, and she was right, but it
+was the best highway they had yet discovered.</p>
+
+<p>On they rode, for a while, making fewer turns and windings, until they
+came to a problem which halted them. The wide path split into two that
+were equally wide, and made a good place for a lost Apache boy and girl
+to argue a knotty question. Tah-nu-nu favored the right-hand road while
+Ping preferred the left, and neither of them could give a good reason
+for any choice.</p>
+
+<p>After Ping killed the cougar, the heart of it had been given him for
+breakfast and the tongue for dinner, but, whatever else he had gained by
+eating them, he had not acquired that animal's natural-born bush wisdom.
+He may at some time have eaten an antelope's ear, however, for he now
+put up his hand as if another bullet had whizzed past him.</p>
+
+<p>"Ugh!" he exclaimed. "Hear pony! Tah-nu-nu, come!"</p>
+
+<p>They wheeled their own ponies behind the nearest thick bushes and
+dismounted. The newcomer might be a friend, but he was just as likely to
+be an enemy. Ping got an arrow ready, and felt very much <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span>like a young
+cougar waiting for an opportunity to spring.</p>
+
+<p>They had only a minute to wait, and then another exceedingly puzzled
+young person drew his rein at the point where the wide path divided.
+Ping's eyes opened wide and they glittered enviously. Never before had
+he seen so dashing-looking a young paleface, nor any kind of boy mounted
+upon such a beauty of a horse. Oh, how the son of Kah-go-mish did long
+to become the owner of that red mustang.</p>
+
+<p>"Dick," said the boy in the saddle, very much as if he had been talking
+to another human being, "did you know that you and I had lost our way?
+How do you suppose we shall ever get out of this scrape? It's a bad
+one."</p>
+
+<p>Dick neighed discontentedly, and pawed the sand, for he was thirsty, but
+he made no other answer. He was as ignorant as was his master concerning
+those roads and of what was at that moment taking place among the
+bushes.</p>
+
+<p>The Mescalero branch of the great Apache nation, while at war with
+Mexico, was at peace with the United States, although it was by means of
+a treaty which had been badly cracked, if not broken, upon both sides.
+As for The-boy-whose-ear-pushed-away-a-piece-of-lead, however, he felt
+in all his veins that he was at war with the entire white race, and that
+he wanted that red mustang.</p>
+
+<p>His arrow was on the string, and he was lifting his bow, when Tah-nu-nu
+caught him firmly by the arm.</p>
+
+<p>"Ugh!" she whispered. "Kah-go-mish say no <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span>kill. No fight blue-coat. No
+take 'calp. Ping no shoot."</p>
+
+<p>The too eager young warrior struggled a little, but Tah-nu-nu was
+determined. Then he seemed to assent, and she let go of his arm while
+they both listened to something more that the white boy said. They could
+not quite understand the words, but they could read the decision he came
+to.</p>
+
+<p>"Dick," he remarked, "here goes. We'll take to the right, if it leads us
+to China."</p>
+
+<p>With the guiding motion of his hand the red mustang sprang forward. Just
+as he did so, a fiercely driven arrow whizzed by the head of his master.
+It only missed its mark by a few inches, and they had been gained for
+Cal by the quick hand of Tah-nu-nu.</p>
+
+<p>"Indians!" was the exclamation that sprang to Cal's lips. "An ambush."</p>
+
+<p>He rode on rapidly a little distance, and then he pulled in his pony,
+adding: "Things are getting pretty bad for us, Dick."</p>
+
+<p>"Ugh!" Ping had said, as Cal disappeared. "Tah-nu-nu make him lose
+arrow. Lose pony. Heap squaw!"</p>
+
+<p>"Kah-go-mish say, good!" she sharply responded. "Heap mad for kill."</p>
+
+<p>She had saved the life of the young pale-face stranger, and she felt
+sure of her father's approval. She had heard him give his warriors rigid
+orders against unnecessary bloodshed. He had specified blue-coats and
+cowboys with thoughtful care for the future of his band, if not for the
+treaty, but he had said nothing at all about Chiricahua scouts.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span>Ping was compelled to yield the point, but it was plain to both of them
+that if there were more pale-faces to the right, for that one to follow
+after, their own course must be to the left. Down that path they rode,
+accordingly, and they were going right and wrong at the same time.</p>
+
+<p>Cal Evans, on the other hand, was going altogether in the wrong path,
+and was doing it pretty rapidly. It occurred to him that buffaloes
+marching two abreast must have laid out that bush-bordered lane, but
+then other lanes as wide ran into it or crossed it. He at last brought
+Dick down to an easy canter and tried to study the situation carefully.
+He had heard of experienced plainsmen who had lost themselves in
+chaparral. They had wandered around aimlessly, for days and days,
+crossing their own trails again and again. At last they had lost hope
+and had lain down and died of hunger and thirst at only short distances
+from friends who were hunting for them.</p>
+
+<p>Cal's heart beat hard as he recalled those terrible stories. The sun
+seemed to be growing hotter overhead. The wind had almost died out, and
+the air was like that of a furnace. He was painfully thirsty, and he
+knew that Dick had had no water since daylight, and then not a full
+supply, for the expedition had been in the desert since the previous
+afternoon. They had all travelled rapidly, too, in the hope of reaching
+Cold Spring early.</p>
+
+<p>"What will father say," thought Cal, "when he finds out that I'm
+missing? What would mother and Vic say, if they knew? I only rode ahead
+a little way, and I can't guess how I came to lose track of them all."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span>No man who gets lost can ever tell exactly how he managed to do it.</p>
+
+<p>Very mocking were the curves of that seeming road to nowhere, and many
+were the narrower lanes that entered it as if they also wanted to go
+there. Cal could hardly have guessed how many sultry miles he travelled
+before he came suddenly upon a wider, sandier path, bordered by taller
+bushes, that struck straight across the other.</p>
+
+<p>"It's time for us to try something new, Dick," he said, but he said it
+dolefully, as he turned to the left and pushed down the unknown avenue.
+It had its curves, like the other, and it was wider here and narrower
+there, and it led him on for a full hour. He had long since almost
+forgotten about the whizzing arrow, in his deep anxiety, and he knew
+that there could not be ambushes everywhere.</p>
+
+<p>At the end of the long hour he and Dick stood stock-still. They were on
+a slight elevation from which a considerable sweep of the chaparral
+could be overlooked. It was a dreary, dreary prospect, and it seemed to
+be interminable. Cal stared wistfully in all directions, but north and
+south and east and west appeared to be alike without hope. Into that
+lonely path no other human being was likely to come. Dick and Cal were
+like flies, caught in the vast web. In spite of the glowing sunshine,
+all things seemed to be growing very dark indeed, and they even grew
+darker when his feverish imagination wandered away to Santa Lucia.</p>
+
+<p>"It's a fact, Dick," he said, huskily, "you and I are lost."</p>
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span>
+
+<hr />
+<br />
+<h2><span class="smcap">Chapter XVI.</span></h2>
+
+<h2>AN INVASION OF TWO REPUBLICS.</h2>
+<br />
+
+<p>Kah-go-mish was a great chief, and had employed all the cunning in him
+in his arrangements for eluding his pursuers. It now remained to be seen
+whether or not he had made blunders.</p>
+
+<p>The Chiricahua scout lay on the white quartz only a few yards from the
+water's edge. The sage-hen sat under the bush. The Apache leader lay
+once more in his rabbit-path behind her, having regained it by a long
+circuit through the chaparral.</p>
+
+<p>The two buzzards overhead were floating somewhat lower, and they could
+see all over the tangled maze of scrubby growth and buffalo-paths.</p>
+
+<p>From the southward came a soft, warm wind, carrying with it sounds which
+brought a quick, vindictive gleam into the eyes of Kah-go-mish. First
+came the faint, distant music of a bugle, as if to inform both friends
+and enemies that a cavalry column was picking its way through the
+spider-web. A little later shouts could be heard, and then the rattle of
+sabres and the neighing of horses. Nearer and nearer drew the assurance
+that quite a lot of fellows of some sort were at hand, and all the while
+the buzzards overhead, and they only, were aware that a very
+different-looking set were approaching from another direction.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span>This second party was also armed and mounted, but it plodded on in
+silence and not rapidly. They seemed disposed to feel their way with
+some care, although not at all in doubt as to the path they were
+following. Part of these silent horsemen were all the way from Fort
+Craig, hunting some Mescaleros who had left their Reservation, and the
+rest of them were from Santa Lucia ranch and its neighborhood, and had
+come for some stolen horses. Just now many of them seemed disposed to
+discuss the military tactics of Mexican commanders.</p>
+
+<p>"All the Indians in the chaparral have had good bugle-warning, Sam,"
+said Colonel Evans to the cowboy nearest.</p>
+
+<p>"Colorado!" said Sam. "Reckon they have. But then no redskins nor
+anybody else 'd stop here long. We know one thing, though."</p>
+
+<p>"What's that, Sam?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, if our redskins are here away, they've been raced out of Mexico.
+We'll get 'em on American sile."</p>
+
+<p>That appeared to be the opinion of Captain Moore, but the entire party
+had a hot, thirsty, jaded look, as of men and horses who had made a long
+push across a desert and wanted rest and water.</p>
+
+<p>"We'll try and reach the spring first," said the captain, "and claim our
+first choice of a camping-ground."</p>
+
+<p>That was why neither of the two bodies of cavalry got there first, and
+why Kah-go-mish and the sage-hen heard, pretty soon, an American cavalry
+bugle from the east answering the Mexican music from the south.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span>Then the buzzards overhead saw men in uniform and other men in no
+uniform ride out of the chaparral, from opposite sides, into the great
+rocky open around the spring.</p>
+
+<p>Just before that Kah-go-mish had seen three Chiricahuas steal out from
+the cover. They had scouted all around it, and one of them had passed
+very near the lurking Mescalero. He had been in no danger, for
+Kah-go-mish had heard the bugles and knew that he must lie still. All
+three were now grouped around their lost comrade on the rock.</p>
+
+<p>"Ugh!" they said, as they looked at him. "Kah-go-mish."</p>
+
+<p>Captain Moore had been informed of the name of the chief whose band had
+wandered from the Reservation, and now the Chiricahuas were in no doubt
+as to whose work lay before them. It was part of an old personal feud,
+they said, and had nothing to do with pale-faces or stolen horses.</p>
+
+<p>Straight to the margin of the spring rode Captain Moore and the Mexican
+commander, each followed by several other riders, while behind them
+their men filed out of the chaparral.</p>
+
+<p>The meeting of the two officers was ceremoniously polite, and was
+followed by rapid explanations that left them in little doubt but that
+they were pursuing the same enemy.</p>
+
+<p>"Se&ntilde;or," said Captain Moore, with a smile, at last, as he looked around,
+"your forces have invaded the territory of the United States."</p>
+
+<p>"Se&ntilde;or Capitan," smiled the Mexican, with a low bow, "part of the troops
+under your command have broken the treaty and are now in Mexico."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span>"I propose, then, Colonel Romero," said the captain, "that we compromise
+the matter. My command is almost thirsty enough to drink up the American
+half of this spring. How are your own?"</p>
+
+<p>"Dry as the sand," would have been a fair interpretation of the polite
+Mexican's reply, and orders were given on both sides which provided for
+the thirsty men and animals without delay.</p>
+
+<p>There were pleasant-voiced introductions among the gentlemen, and the
+blue-coats and cowboys mingled freely with the lancers and rancheros. If
+Kah-go-mish did not know it before, he now learned that these Mexicans,
+of whom there were nearly two hundred, were not the same force that he
+had collected his target-fee from.</p>
+
+<p>A sort of mutual council of war of all the officers and Colonel Evans
+was held over the body of the dead Chiricahua scout.</p>
+
+<p>"It may indicate the presence of only one warrior," said Captain Moore,
+"or it may mean that the whole band is near&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>At that moment a loud whoop sounded from the chaparral, westerly. It was
+followed by the hasty return of one of the Chiricahuas to announce that
+he had found the trail of the Apaches and that it led towards the south,
+into Mexico.</p>
+
+<p>"You can follow them, then, and I cannot," said Captain Moore to Colonel
+Romero. "I should like to consult with Colonel Evans as to my own
+course."</p>
+
+<p>He looked around as if searching for the owner of Santa Lucia, who had
+been at his elbow, but had suddenly seemed to vanish.</p>
+
+<div class="img"><a name="imagep110" id="imagep110"></a>
+<a href="images/imagep110.jpg">
+<img border="0" src="images/imagep110.jpg" width="52%" alt="KAH-GO-MISH" /></a><br />
+<p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em;">"UGH!" THEY SAID, AS THEY LOOKED AT HIM. "KAH-GO-MISH"</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>"Si, Se&ntilde;or Capitan," replied Colonel Romero. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span>"We will follow the
+trail at once, and I am glad that all the glory is to be ours. We shall,
+at all events, be in a good camping-ground by sunset."</p>
+
+<p>"Your whole command is with you?" asked the captain.</p>
+
+<p>"Except a pack-train and spare horses," replied Colonel Romero. "We
+pushed ahead a little, and they took it easily. They are only a few
+miles behind and will soon catch up with us."</p>
+
+<p>He said more, and he had a good voice. He accompanied his very distinct
+utterances with gestures, not dreaming that the sage-hen or any other
+improper listener was near enough to learn too much.</p>
+
+<p>Even in his rabbit-patch, however, Kah-go-mish could not entirely
+restrain his thoughts.</p>
+
+<p>"Ugh!" he muttered. "Heap pony. Heap mule."</p>
+
+<p>Horses and men had quenched their thirst and both sides were eating
+luncheon. The two commanders separated, and Captain Moore turned away.
+As he did so a large man stood before him with flushed, excited face.</p>
+
+<p>"Captain Moore, Cal is lost! Lost in the chaparral!"</p>
+
+<p>That was why he had stepped away so suddenly, for Sam Herrick had first
+beckoned to him, and then had led him aside to say that Cal had not come
+in with the rest. He had hunted for him all around, but not one of the
+men had seen him for an hour and a half. The colonel himself had at once
+made rapid inquiries, and now he had brought the news to Captain Moore,
+in such a state of mind that he could not think.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span>"Cal!" exclaimed the captain. "Lost! Oh, no. Don't be so agitated. You
+can find him."</p>
+
+<p>The colonel tried to speak, but his voice refused to do its duty.</p>
+
+<p>"Herrick, Sam," said the captain, quietly, "those Greasers have more
+bugles than they need. Buy a couple. I'll lend you mine. Stop. I'll
+speak to Colonel Romero about it."</p>
+
+<p>"Bugles?" said Colonel Evans.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, yes," said the captain, "if Cal is tangled in the chaparral he
+must have something to guide him. I must push on, along the boundary
+line, to see what luck I can have with the Mescaleros. Colonel Romero
+and his men will follow their direct trail, and so they won't find them;
+but we both make it safer for you. Patrol back, blowing all sorts of
+noise, and Cal's pretty sure to ride right up to one bugle or another.
+Scatter 'em wide."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you. Thank you, captain," said the colonel. "Sam, get all the
+bugles you can. Give a horse for a bugle. Give anything!"</p>
+
+<p>The captain at once rode into Mexico for a talk with Colonel Romero.
+There was, indeed, an over-supply of musical instruments in that
+command, and its gallant colonel sympathized impressively with the
+feelings of Cal's father and friends. So did two militiamen who were
+happy enough to own unnecessary bugles. Sam Herrick did not give a horse
+for either, but one battered, crooked tube of sheet brass brought enough
+money to replace it with a new one at least half silver.</p>
+
+<p>Captain Moore hardly needed to explain so simple a plan. He had tried it
+twice, he said, for stray <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span>men of his own, and in each case they had
+ridden safely in. Neither he nor Colonel Evans guessed that Cal had
+already ridden away beyond the stretch of chaparral in which they
+proposed to toot for him.</p>
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span>
+
+<hr />
+<br />
+<h2><span class="smcap">Chapter XVII.</span></h2>
+
+<h2>HOW PING AND TAH-NU-NU GOT TO THE SPRING.</h2>
+<br />
+
+<p>Colonel Romero and his gay lancers and his picturesque ranchero militia
+rode away along the well-marked trail so carefully left for them by the
+Apaches. It led manifestly into their own republic, and there seemed to
+be no danger whatever of their losing it. They had two bugles less than
+when they entered the chaparral, but they made noise enough to notify
+any red men lurking in the bushes ahead of them that they were coming.
+The one special precaution which they continually took was against
+possible ambuscades. They were determined not to be taken by surprise,
+and their wary scouts routed out a considerable number of jackass
+rabbits and sage-hens. Beyond these they met with no excitement whatever
+until they came to the barren gravel patch, beyond which the Apache
+trail did not go.</p>
+
+<p>Here a halt was called&mdash;necessarily. The pride of a Mexican army
+officer, and of a round score of them, was in the way of going back to
+Cold Spring to tell some Americans of a kind of defeat. It was talked
+over, and a decision was wisely reached. The Apaches, it was concluded,
+had not gone down into the earth nor up into the air. They had scattered
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span>through different paths of the chaparral, to come together again at
+some point farther on&mdash;probably at the outer edge of it. Kah-go-mish
+would have fully approved of that piece of sagacity, for it sent the
+Mexican part of the forces pursuing him a number of miles farther into
+Mexico. As for that cunning Apache himself, he seemed a model of human
+patience. The sage-hen had at last deserted him. She had seen the
+Mexicans depart, and that was enough for her. Perhaps she knew of other
+old chaparral ladies like herself to whom she wished to tell the latest
+news.</p>
+
+<p>At all events she scurried suddenly away and left Kah-go-mish trying to
+understand the next military operation going on at the spring.</p>
+
+<p>Of course the slaughtered Chiricahua scout was carried into the bushes
+and buried. Then the blue-coats and their commander rode away upon a
+path which promised to keep them most of the time within the United
+States. After that the cowboy part of the American expedition gathered
+at the spring, and evidently held a sort of council. It was of
+importance to Apache plans to get an idea of what theirs might be, and
+the watcher in the rabbit-path lay very still. He saw man after man take
+a bugle and blow on it, as if trying to see how loud a noise he could
+make. He did not know Joaquin by name, but gave him the prize,
+decidedly, in his own mind.</p>
+
+<p>While all this was going on, it might have been as well for the family
+peace of the chief if he could have been attending to the welfare of his
+two promising children.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span>Ping and Tah-nu-nu rode on, with something like hope and confidence, for
+a while after their glimpse of the red mustang and his rider. Every now
+and then The-boy-whose-ear-pushed-away-a-piece-of-lead had something to
+say about the wonderful pony he had seen, and it was plain that he did
+not quite agree with Tah-nu-nu as to the wickedness of sending the arrow
+after Cal.</p>
+
+<p>His band had left the Reservation and had escaped from all peril of
+becoming civilized, and some day or other he felt sure of going upon the
+war-path against the pale-faces with the hope of killing them all. In
+the meantime they were coming to take away his father's horses, and he
+believed himself at war with them.</p>
+
+<p>He grew moody and silent, and it was partly because he and his pony were
+uncommonly thirsty. He did not say so, for he was a young warrior who
+had already slain a cougar and had eaten the cougar's heart, well
+roasted, and it did not become him to show any signs of fatigue or
+suffering. The path they followed was a strip of yielding sand, up to a
+point where Ping pulled in his pony with a jerk. Another path, as wide,
+ran into it right there, bringing "bad medicine."</p>
+
+<p>"Ugh!" exclaimed Ping. "Pale-face! Blue-coat!"</p>
+
+<p>"Ugh!" was the only response of Tah-nu-nu, as she leaned over and looked
+down at the plain marks left behind by the hoofs of iron-shod horses.</p>
+
+<p>There were many of them, and they all went in one direction.</p>
+
+<p>"Heap blue-coat!" exclaimed Ping, again and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span>again; and it seemed as if
+the troubles of Tah-nu-nu and himself had been multiplied.</p>
+
+<p>The trail of their enemies led to some place in particular beyond a
+doubt, but that must be the very place to which no Apache boy and girl
+wished to go. They must try another path.</p>
+
+<p>Slowly, watchfully, they followed the cavalry trail for a moderate
+distance until another hopeful outlet presented itself. They were agreed
+this time, and rode on side by side, wondering more and more where could
+be the hiding-place of their own people.</p>
+
+<p>They had not by any means wandered so far out of the right track as had
+Cal Evans, but, after their first mistake had been discovered, had
+seemed to find a curious kind of instinct of their own guiding
+them&mdash;just a little like that which might have led a pair of unwise
+young antelopes. They were born children of the plains, and Cal was not.
+Even now their general idea of the direction to be taken led them
+towards the central point which should have been their aim.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps it would be more correct to say that it should not have been
+their aim under the circumstances, for it was the very point to which
+the other winding pathway, the cavalry trail, also tended after making a
+wide sweep.</p>
+
+<p>There was no one to give them any information, but again and again they
+halted to consider the matter and to rest their thirsty ponies. It was
+slow travelling and every way unpleasant to a pair of young people who
+had set out that morning with a merry assurance that the great chief,
+the father of whom they were so proud, had outwitted the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span>Mexicans and
+was about to outwit the blue-coats and the cowboys.</p>
+
+<p>He, lying in his rabbit-path, was now very nearly ready to declare to
+himself what was the best thing for a great Mescalero Apache to do next,
+when he was called upon to witness an extraordinary performance. The
+bugle-practice had closed many minutes; the last horse had eaten his
+rations and had been watered. The last cowboy had sprung to the saddle;
+squads had been counted off; directions had been given by Colonel Evans,
+and each small party was about to enter the chaparral by a different
+path.</p>
+
+<p>The spring was deserted, and its flashing ripples, with the white rock
+around them, could be seen at a distance by any rider coming along one
+of the straighter avenues. Two who came along saw it, and each uttered a
+glad, thirsty cry. A sort of despair left them so instantly that they
+did not pause for thought or consultation. Boy and girl together, they
+lashed their ponies and dashed recklessly forward. Their shouts had been
+heard.</p>
+
+<p>"There's Cal!" exclaimed one cowboy.</p>
+
+<p>"He's coming," said another.</p>
+
+<p>A third had his hat off and was just on the point of hurrahing when the
+deep voice of Colonel Evans, in a distinct though suppressed tone,
+warned them.</p>
+
+<p>"Silence, all! It isn't his voice. Wait."</p>
+
+<p>They waited, and it was barely a full minute before Kah-go-mish saw Ping
+and Tah-nu-nu halt their ponies at the spring.</p>
+
+<p>"Ping!" screamed Tah-nu-nu.</p>
+
+<p>"Ugh!" said he. "Cowboy!"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span>On all sides appeared the mysteriously unexpected horsemen, swiftly
+closing around them. It was of no use to run or to resist. The chief's
+daughter and The-boy-whose-ear-pushed-away-a-piece-of-lead were
+prisoners in the hands of the very men who had come to steal from their
+father all the good horses he had gathered upon Slater's Branch.</p>
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span>
+
+<hr />
+<br />
+<h2><span class="smcap">Chapter XVIII.</span></h2>
+
+<h2>HOW DICK PLAYED SENTINEL.</h2>
+<br />
+
+<p>That had been a warm and also a very busy day at Santa Lucia Ranch. It
+began, like other days, with an early breakfast for all who awoke under
+the roof of the hacienda, and everybody had conjectures to make, of
+course, as to the whereabouts and doings of Cal and his father and the
+Apache-hunting expedition.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Evans and Vic did not care for a horseback ride. In fact, Vic said
+she did not care much for anything. About the middle of the forenoon,
+however, two hammocks that swung under the awning in front of the
+veranda became suddenly empty.</p>
+
+<p>There came a great shouting and whip-cracking out upon the prairie. It
+sounded along the well-marked old wagon-road which came down from the
+north. Whole army trains had travelled that road from time to time, and
+now a great tilted wagon, drawn by six mules and followed by four more,
+came rolling smoothly in the deep old ruts.</p>
+
+<p>There was a cowboy ready to open the gate and let in the wagon. News of
+its coming was already in the house, and every soul hurried out to
+welcome it.</p>
+
+<p>"Sure, and it's glad I am that it's come," said Norah McLory. "There
+wasn't coffee to last the wake, let alone sugar."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span>The beauty of that wagon was all in its cargo. It belonged to Colonel
+Evans, and it brought supplies all the way down from Santa F&eacute;. The
+unloading and investigation of the things under the ample tilt was an
+affair of fun and excitement and surprises worth a whole week of
+shopping in the city.</p>
+
+<p>Full orders had been sent by that six-mule express, for such a trip was
+costly and could not be afforded too frequently; but even Mrs. Evans had
+not been permitted to examine all the lists of goods before they went,
+and Vic knew almost nothing about them. It was, therefore, something
+like a tremendous Christmas morning coming in June.</p>
+
+<p>The groceries, both as to assortment and quantity, delighted the very
+heart of Norah McLory. There were cloths and clothing for all the needs
+of Santa Lucia. One whole packing-case was marked as belonging
+especially to Mrs. Evans, but it might almost as well have been directed
+to Vic. The next was smaller and had no name upon it, but when it was
+opened it compelled Vic to exclaim, again and again: "How I do wish Cal
+were here! What won't he say when he gets home!"</p>
+
+<p>However that might be, Cal heard Ping's arrow whiz past him just a
+little before Vic laid down his new breech-loading double-barrelled
+shotgun and began to admire his neckties, his pocket-knife, compass, and
+a lot of other treasures.</p>
+
+<p>The miscellaneous cargo of the tilted wagon had cost the price obtained
+for a goodly number of horned cattle. The value of two fine mules had
+been expended upon another kind of supplies.</p>
+
+<p>There was no post-office at or near Santa Lucia, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span>and letters found
+their way there as best they might, at long intervals. Newspapers came
+in like manner, if they came at all, but now the tilt of that wagon had
+covered a very large amount of news. Some of it was beginning to get a
+little old in the rest of the world, for there were several files of
+well-known Eastern weekly journals, three months in length. Illustrated
+journals were there, and magazines, for young and old. The remainder of
+those mules had gone for books. One serious element of the loneliness
+Vic had complained of in her ranch life vanished at once.</p>
+
+<p>"I've loads of good company now," she said, after dinner, as she began
+at last to swing in one of the hammocks.</p>
+
+<p>A stack of printed matter lay on the ground beside her, and the thin,
+wide pamphlet in her hand emphasized her declaration: "I always want to
+see all the pictures first."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Evans was in the other hammock. She had finished some letters
+before dinner, and now she was at work with the newspapers, trying to
+find out what great things had happened in the world since it had been
+heard from at Santa Lucia.</p>
+
+<p>The day died slowly away, as it always will in June. The pictures were
+looked at, the news was read, the books were turned over, and if the day
+had not been so very warm more might have been done with the other
+contents of the tilted wagon. Even Norah McLory put away the liberal
+provision made for her department, and sat down to think of it.</p>
+
+<p>"They'll not milt away," she said, "but that's more'n I can prove about
+mesilf. Injins is fond of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span>sugar, and there's two barrels of it here
+now. Oh, the villains."</p>
+
+<p>Vic stood out beyond the awning and watched the sun go down over the
+cloudlike tops of the western mountains.</p>
+
+<p>"What are you thinking of, Vic?" asked her mother, from under the
+awning.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, mother, Cal and father are somewhere away out there. They're
+pretty near the Sierra, maybe. I was wondering in what sort of a camp
+Cal had eaten his supper."</p>
+
+<p>Cal was not in any camp, and he had not eaten any supper. He did not
+ride Dick uselessly the remainder of that hot afternoon. At first he
+took long rests, and then he dismounted altogether and walked. The red
+mustang needed no leading, but seemed to feel better when his human
+company was close beside him, with a hand upon the bridle. He was
+evidently suffering from thirst rather than from fatigue, and so was his
+master. Every now and then any path they happened to be in led out into
+barren reaches of sand and gravel, on any side of which they were at
+liberty to choose among several avenues, and this was one of the
+treacherous puzzles of the chaparral. Cal did not know that the red men
+who had threaded that maze before him had left marks of their own upon
+the trunks of the mesquit scrubs. He could not have read, if he had
+known, for he was worse off than a foreigner in a strange, great city.</p>
+
+<p>Twice he saw a wolf go trotting across the vista ahead of him, and once
+a gang of antelopes dashed away as he came in sight. Somewhere in that
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span>terrible tangle there must be human beings, red and white, he knew, and
+he would almost have welcomed the sight of an Indian when he saw the sun
+go down.</p>
+
+<p>The moon did not rise, at once, and it was very dark and gloomy, as well
+as oppressively warm, in the chaparral. Heat came up from the sun-baked
+sand, and more heat seemed to creep out from among the bushes.</p>
+
+<p>It was a time for Cal to look away down inside of himself and to call
+out all the courage there was in him.</p>
+
+<p>"I can stand it another day, I know I can," he said to himself, "and
+I've got it to do. I won't wear out Dick. We must rest all night. It
+won't be a long night. Soon as it's light we must be moving. It'll be
+cooler then."</p>
+
+<p>The spot that was somehow selected for his lonely bivouac was near the
+point where two broad paths crossed each other. Cal could not guess
+where they came from nor where they went to, nor which of them it would
+be best for him to travel by in the morning.</p>
+
+<p>He fastened Dick's lariat to a bush, but there was no grass for the
+faithful mustang to pick upon. He stood in the path a very picture of
+patience, except that now and then he expressed a little thirsty
+discontent by a dejected pawing of the hot sand.</p>
+
+<p>Cal had a blanket strapped behind the saddle, and he now spread it and
+lay down. He even went to sleep, and how long he had slumbered he did
+not know, when he was awakened by Dick's face close to his own, and a
+whimpering, low neigh. The red <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span>mustang was acting as a sentinel, and
+had heard something.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it, Dick?" asked Cal, as he sprang to his feet, but the answer
+came in an unexpected manner.</p>
+
+<p>There was a tramping sound along the other path, and then Cal heard
+voices. The moon was up, now, and its light fell upon what seemed an
+endless procession of horses and mules. There were mounted men among
+them, and Cal knew who they were.</p>
+
+<p>"That's so," he muttered. "Those are the very Apaches we are after.
+Where can they be going at this time of night?"</p>
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span>
+
+<hr />
+<br />
+<h2><span class="smcap">Chapter XIX.</span></h2>
+
+<h2>BAD NEWS FOR WAH-WAH-O-BE.</h2>
+<br />
+
+<p>Kah-go-mish was an Apache, but he was also a father. He lay in his
+rabbit-path, under the bushes, and saw the surrender of his children. Up
+he came upon all fours, glaring ferociously upon their captors. For a
+moment his whole body seemed to swell and quiver with wrath. Then he lay
+down again, and he even smiled with pride over the excellent behavior of
+Ping and Tah-nu-nu.</p>
+
+<p>Sam Herrick held out his hand to
+The-boy-whose-ear-pushed-away-a-piece-of-lead with a very friendly
+"How!"</p>
+
+<p>"Ugh! Cowboy!" said Ping. "How!"</p>
+
+<p>Tah-nu-nu, on the other hand, remained primly silent, and did not reply
+in any manner when one after the other of the pale-face braves around
+her asked what her name was and where she came from and where she was
+going.</p>
+
+<p>Ping was first questioned in English, but all of that tongue that he had
+picked up upon the Reservation seemed to have gone from him. Then
+Colonel Evans tried him in Spanish, and he looked as if he had never in
+all his life heard a Mexican speak, for the substance of the inquiry in
+both languages was, "Where is Kah-go-mish? Where is your band?"</p>
+
+<p>Tah-nu-nu said something to him in Apache at <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span>that moment, and a
+Chiricahua, whom she had not seen, standing behind her, interpreted it
+to Colonel Evans.</p>
+
+<p>"That's it, is it?" exclaimed Cal's father. "She says that they mustn't
+let us know that the band is in the chaparral. Now I know better what to
+do."</p>
+
+<p>The glances bestowed upon the Chiricahua by Ping and Tah-nu-nu were not
+arrows, or they would have killed him.</p>
+
+<p>"Boys," said the colonel, "treat them first-rate, but they mustn't get
+away. Now let's go after Cal."</p>
+
+<p>Kah-go-mish saw his children supplied with water, fed well, laughed
+with, questioned, every way well-treated, and then he saw them mounted
+upon fresh ponies.</p>
+
+<p>"Ugh!" he muttered. "Pale-face chief heap big man. Got heart. Good. No
+hurt him. Kill Mexican. No kill cowboy."</p>
+
+<p>He lingered a little longer, for he wondered what those pale-faces were
+up to. They rode away in squads, by different paths, and at regular
+intervals he heard them blowing tremendously upon their bugles. They
+fired shots, too, now and then, and the sounds receded farther and
+farther into the chaparral. It was altogether a very remarkable
+proceeding, such as the chief had never before heard of. He said to
+himself that there must be some kind of "medicine" in it. He had no fear
+of any bodily harm to his children, but their capture by the cowboys had
+suddenly put a new element into all the plans he had made. He still had
+the Santa Lucia horses, but the men from that ranch and its vicinity had
+Ping and Tah-nu-nu.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span>Kah-go-mish did not go out to examine a lot of miscellaneous
+camp-property left lying around loose near the spring. He did not wish
+to share the fate he had meted out to the imprudent Chiricahua scout. He
+suspected that a squad of cowboys, guarding the extra horses, was
+lurking near by, under cover of the bushes, and that their rifles
+protected the coffee-pots and kettles. He had, also, a pretty clear idea
+that all the cowboys would soon return, and probably the blue-coats
+also, but he believed himself rid of Colonel Romero's Mexicans. "Ugh!"
+he exclaimed, at last. "Kah-go-mish is a great chief. Know what do, if
+know where Mexicans gone."</p>
+
+<p>Back he crept through the bushes until he deemed it safe for him to
+stand erect, and then he went farther at a rapid rate, considering the
+heat of the weather. He was bent upon an important purpose that called
+for all sorts of activity.</p>
+
+<p>"Where Mexicans gone?" was a question over which there had been several
+badly puzzled arguments already.</p>
+
+<p>Colonel Romero had led his men away along the trail so carefully
+prepared for him by the Apaches. He had had no suspicion that the
+trampled sand, so well marked by dragged lodge-poles, was all a trap.
+His best scouts had fallen into it completely, and the whole command had
+been entirely satisfied until they came to the patch of gravel where the
+trail vanished. Even after that they pushed along until they came out at
+the southwestern border of the chaparral. This was precisely what
+Kah-go-mish had hoped they would do, and right before them lay the other
+part of his cunningly set trap. It was an <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span>ancient trail, which was well
+known by Colonel Romero and by some of his more experienced
+Indian-fighters. It led deeper into their own country, and it also led
+to good grass and water, to be reached by riding on until dark.</p>
+
+<p>A brief council was held, but the arguments seemed to be nearly all upon
+one side. It was set forth that the Apaches must have taken that road
+because they could not remain in the chaparral to die of thirst and
+hunger or to be struck by the American cavalry and the cowboys. The
+Mexican horses and men must have water, and so they must go forward, and
+that was their only road. As to their train of pack-mules and spare
+horses, it was safe, they said. It would reach Cold Spring, and would
+find the Americans there. It would get directions from them, and could
+not lose its way.</p>
+
+<p>All the remaining Mexican bugles sounded the advance, and the command
+moved away along the trail. A solitary Apache boy, a head taller than
+Ping, lurking near among some very thick bushes, saw them go. As soon as
+they were well away he was on the back of his pony, at full gallop, and
+evidently was in no doubt whatever as to the right path for him to take.
+He reached the camp of his people just in time to report to the
+returning Kah-go-mish that the trap set for the Mexicans had been a
+complete success.</p>
+
+<p>The chief had sent away that part of his many perils, but he had rapid
+orders to give now. He had also a very difficult report to make to
+Wah-wah-o-be, and she listened to most of it with her blanket over her
+head.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span>Kah-go-mish told her how well Ping and Tah-nu-nu had been treated, but
+she was inconsolable at first.</p>
+
+<p>The-boy-whose-ear-pushed-away-a-piece-of-lead, the young chief who had
+killed a cougar, and who was yet to surpass the fame of his great
+father, was a prisoner in the hands of the wicked pale-faces. So was the
+beautiful Tah-nu-nu, the most promising young squaw of the entire Apache
+nation. Wah-wah-o-be fully appreciated her children. She knew all their
+good qualities, and she mentioned most of them then and there. What if
+both Ping and his sister were to be carried away to some distant place
+among the great lodges and the terrible magicians of the pale-faces, and
+compelled to become themselves pale-faces? To be turned into something
+different from their noble father and mother? Such things had been done,
+and she had heard of them.</p>
+
+<p>The light of her life seemed to have departed, and Wah-wah-o-be cared
+very little what further disasters might now come to her. She even
+valued all the horses of the band at only a fraction of what they had
+seemed to be worth that morning.</p>
+
+<p>The blanket came down at last, for Kah-go-mish had given all his
+directions to his warriors, and there was work proposed which seemed to
+stir them to a high pitch of enthusiasm. Wah-wah-o-be had her duties
+also to attend to, and she knew that they must all get out of the
+chaparral. She saw her heroic husband ride away, followed by nearly all
+the best braves of the band. Then she and all who were left had some
+rapid packing to do, that every mule and pony might be ready for a
+sudden start <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span>whenever the war-party should return. It was understood
+that Kah-go-mish had outwitted the Mexicans, the blue-coats, and the
+cowboys, and that he was about to do something very remarkable. What,
+thought Wah-wah-o-be, if he should also succeed in winning back Ping and
+Tah-nu-nu?</p>
+
+<p>He did not seem to go after them at once. He led his warriors, as nearly
+directly as the crooked paths permitted, to the very trail by which they
+had entered the chaparral. It was an especially wide and well-marked
+north-and-south path to Cold Spring for anybody coming from Mexico. Half
+a mile or more from the spring, among the bushes along the trail,
+Kah-go-mish carefully hid his dismounted warriors. All their horses were
+well away behind them, and they themselves seemed to be an exceedingly
+cheerful, hopeful, and self-satisfied lot of red men. If there was one
+thing more than another that was exactly suited to them, it was an
+ambush with a dead certainty of surprising somebody.</p>
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span>
+
+<hr />
+<br />
+<h2><span class="smcap">Chapter XX.</span></h2>
+
+<h2>HOW CAL STARTED FOR MEXICO.</h2>
+<br />
+
+<p>Wah-wah-o-be and Kah-go-mish had an advantage over Colonel Evans, for
+they knew what had become of Ping and Tah-nu-nu while his uncertainty
+about Cal grew darker and darker. He and the cowboys faithfully and
+warily threaded the part of the chaparral through which they had marched
+in the earlier hours of that eventful day. The buglers blew regularly,
+taking care not to get out of hearing of each other, but the firing
+ceased after it was discovered that a clear bugle-note could be heard
+farther than could the report of a gun.</p>
+
+<p>As Ping and Tah-nu-nu rode slowly along, they began to comprehend the
+remarkable proceedings which had so completely puzzled their father,
+lying under the bushes. Each had one arm connected by a lariat with the
+arm of a cowboy, but they were not far from one another. They asked no
+questions and had refused to answer any, but they now and then exchanged
+a few words in their own tongue when the Chiricahuas were out of
+hearing.</p>
+
+<p>On went the fruitless search, and at last the two young Apaches were led
+to a place where two paths ran into one. They knew the spot, for Ping
+had lost an arrow there. He remembered, too, how he had lost it, and so
+he said nothing, but Tah-nu-nu had <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span>nothing upon her conscience, and she
+turned to her brother to say, "Ugh! Heap pony!"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah ha! You saw him, did you?" said the sharp-eyed cowboy she was tied
+to, and he at once shouted to Colonel Evans, who was riding a little
+ahead of them.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it, Bill?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, colonel, these two young redskins saw him pass, right here. The
+gal let it out and the boy doesn't deny it."</p>
+
+<p>The secret was out. Ping himself gave up and was willing to use any
+English or Spanish words he knew in telling that he had seen "Heap red
+pony" gallop away by the path which led to the right.</p>
+
+<p>"That's the red mustang," said the colonel, sadly. "Cal's away beyond
+the spring, long ago. No use to hunt hereaway any more. Call in the
+boys. We must try the western chaparral. Maybe he will fall in with the
+cavalry."</p>
+
+<p>He did not say why he shuddered, but the thought he did not utter put
+the Apaches in place of the cavalry. Hot, weary, and disappointed, he
+rode back to the spring and there were Captain Moore and his tired-out
+veterans. They had ridden far enough to satisfy themselves that the
+Apaches had not at once returned to the United States, and they had
+neither a right nor a wish to follow any trail into Mexico.</p>
+
+<p>"Captain," said Colonel Evans, "I wish we were on good terms with the
+Mescaleros. They'd be worth all the white men to hunt for Cal."</p>
+
+<p>"Tell you what I believe, though," said Sam Herrick, "them 'Paches
+didn't go out of this 'ere <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span>chaparral. We're bound to hear from 'em
+again. I've heard of Kah-go-mish before."</p>
+
+<p>At the mention of the chief's name Tah-nu-nu looked at her brother, for
+he was straightening up proudly.</p>
+
+<p>"Kah-go-mish great chief! Ugh!" he said, with great emphasis, and then
+his vanity got the better of him, for he patted himself upon the breast,
+adding all the Apache syllables of
+"The-boy-whose-ear-pushed-away-a-piece-of-lead" and ended with "Son of
+Kah-go-mish."</p>
+
+<p>He did not feel called upon to say that Tah-nu-nu was a daughter, but
+her face told enough.</p>
+
+<p>"That's it," exclaimed Sam Herrick. "We've caught exactly the right
+ones. I wish their dad knew we had 'em. Just as I said, though, we're
+bound to hear more from Kah-go-mish."</p>
+
+<p>So they did, but in a somewhat unexpected manner. Away out near the
+southern border of the chaparral a string of pack-mules and led horses
+came plodding lazily along, late that afternoon, guided by a dozen
+rancheros. They were in no danger, for their own cavalry had swept the
+way before them. They were in no hurry, for they were mentally sure of
+encamping at Cold Spring and of meeting Colonel Romero there. The trail
+before them was abundantly plain. No quadruped would or could wander
+from the train, and two of the rancheros rode ahead, more were scattered
+in the middle, and a pair who seemed almost asleep brought up the rear.</p>
+
+<p>A more helpless military procession never marched anywhere.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span>The two rancheros in front and the pair in the rear suddenly waked up to
+find themselves accompanied by a dozen or more of Indian warriors, all
+apparently in a friendly and agreeable frame of mind. Not a whoop was
+uttered, not a shot was fired, and it almost looked as if no harm were
+intended. The forward rancheros were greeted by a tall chief in a cocked
+hat, with red stocking-legs upon his arms. It was a striking uniform for
+even an Apache commanding officer.</p>
+
+<p>"How!" he said, as he held out his hand. "Kah-go-mish is a great chief.
+Mexican good fellow. Bring heap pony, heap mule, heap plunder. Give all
+to poor Indian. Ugh!"</p>
+
+<p>The warriors at the rear smiled and said, "How," but then they took away
+the lances and other weapons of the train-guards, as fast as they could
+get at them. Resistance was out of the question, of course, and
+Kah-go-mish had good reasons for not wishing any bloodshed. It might
+have interfered with his wonderful plan.</p>
+
+<p>The entire train was quickly under the care of the Mescaleros, and every
+animal in it was turned around, with his head in a southerly direction.
+The unlucky rancheros were collected, on foot, in the very path they had
+expected to follow on horseback. They were then addressed, in tolerably
+good Mexican Spanish, by the chief himself. He told them how great a man
+he was, and gave them a vivid picture, a series of animal and insect
+illustrations, of his opinion of all pale-faces, all Mexicans, and all
+Chiricahuas. He told them they would find some blue-coats at the spring,
+and some Gringo cowboys. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span>The chief of the Gringos was a great man. He
+had given some horses to the great chief Kah-go-mish. All of those
+horses were to be given back to him, but the chief could not bring them
+now. There were too many bad blue-coats in the chaparral. The great
+chief had given his two children in exchange for the horses, and wanted
+to trade back again. He would do so, but not now. He was on his way to
+Mexico, to carry back the pack-mules and horses he had just received
+from the rancheros. The Mexicans might want them. He hoped the rancheros
+would succeed in catching up with the cavalry. They all looked like good
+runners.</p>
+
+<p>It was a great speech, and much of it was cheerfully satirical. Part of
+it meant that Kah-go-mish knew very well that Captain Moore and Colonel
+Evans would deem it their duty to rescue the pack-train if an
+opportunity were given them, and that he must get as far away as he
+could before the news of his exploit reached them.</p>
+
+<p>It was only an hour before sunset when the plundered rancheros were set
+free to find their way to Cold Spring, for they had not so very far to
+go, and Kah-go-mish was cautious. As soon as they were out of sight he
+and his warriors and their prize were in motion. It was very needful
+that they should reach grass and water before morning.</p>
+
+<p>So far the deep plan of the Indian leader had worked remarkably well,
+even the changes called for by the capture of Ping and Tah-nu-nu being
+as yet in the future. This first success had been indicated by Colonel
+Romero himself, when he told Captain Moore about the pack-train. The old
+sage-hen had <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span>been listening at the same time, but she had not profited
+to any known extent. She lacked the ears and the genius of Kah-go-mish,
+and perhaps she was not at war with Mexico.</p>
+
+<p>In due season, among the webby paths of the chaparral, the two sections
+of the Apache band came together. Cold Spring, the blue-coats, and the
+cowboys were far away; the Mexican cavalry were farther; it was entirely
+safe for everybody to whoop, and whoop they did. Once more had the chief
+they were all proud of proved himself one of the greatest men of the
+Apache nation.</p>
+
+<p>Wah-wah-o-be had even a more hopeful feeling concerning Ping and
+Tah-nu-nu when she saw the Mexican pack-mules and the long string of
+horses, but she and all the rest were quickly in motion, for they knew
+that ten miles of desert lay between them and the nearest grass and
+water to the southward. More than one path led from the camping-place to
+the edge of the chaparral, and the Apaches used several in order to get
+out quickly. Suddenly, as they pressed forward, a loud whoop of
+exultation that arose upon one of those lanes was heard by the red
+wayfarers in all the others. It sounded about two minutes after the red
+mustang sentinel awoke his master.</p>
+
+<p>Cal Evans, weary, thirsty, astonished, and wondering what might be best
+for him to do, stood in the shadows, watching the wonderful moonlight
+procession. There was not anything left for him to do. Another part of
+the procession came trampling along behind him, and a loud neigh from
+Dick told him that it was coming. His heart beat very hard for a
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span>moment, and then the whoop of triumph which went to the ears of
+Kah-go-mish and the rest of the band announced that Cal and the red
+mustang were prisoners of the Mescalero Apaches.</p>
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span>
+
+<hr />
+<br />
+<h2><span class="smcap">Chapter XXI.</span></h2>
+
+<h2>THE MANITOU OF COLD SPRING.</h2>
+<br />
+
+<p>"Sorry about Cal," said Captain Moore, after he and Colonel Evans had
+exchanged reports. "We must all get out early in the morning and scour
+the western chaparral. We shall find him."</p>
+
+<p>It was getting too late for any more searching that day. The shadows
+were lengthening in the chaparral. Besides, both men and animals were in
+need of rest.</p>
+
+<p>Every cowboy and cavalryman felt and spoke strongly about Cal, but the
+best that could be obtained from a Chiricahua was, "Ugh! 'Pache get
+boy."</p>
+
+<p>That was an idea in other minds, for even Ping told Tah-nu-nu: "Heap
+pony find Kah-go-mish."</p>
+
+<p>"Kah-go-mish no kill," she said.</p>
+
+<p>Ping was all but dreaming of the red mustang. Never before had he looked
+upon an animal which so fully came up to his idea of what a horse should
+be. That is, a horse for a young Apache of about his size, and the son
+of a great chief.</p>
+
+<p>Tah-nu-nu was not thinking of horses. She and her brother had been
+kindly treated. It was plain that they were not to be cruelly killed; at
+least not right away, for they had been fed abundantly. They were now
+provided with blankets, and the white <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span>chief of the cowboys even went
+further. He was an old Indian trader, and he had not gone out upon such
+an expedition unprepared to negotiate as well as to fight. The first
+essential of any talk with red men is presents, and there were curious
+things in a pack carried by one of the mules. From this collection Cal's
+father now selected two little round mirrors, set in white metal, as
+pretty as silver, and two startling red-white-and-blue yard-wide
+handkerchiefs. The mirrors he hung around the necks of his captives, and
+they puzzled themselves for half an hour over what they should do with
+the brilliant pieces of cotton cloth. Tah-nu-nu found out, for she tied
+hers around her head, and Ping followed her example.</p>
+
+<p>They had been allowed to sit down by the spring, closely watched and
+guarded by one of the Chiricahuas. They proudly refused to speak a word
+to him, although Ping's pride was gratified now with any talk offered
+him by the mighty blue-coats or the cowboy warriors of the pale-faces.</p>
+
+<p>The Chiricahua, however, was quite an old man, and he managed to break
+through the barrier of Ping's reserve.</p>
+
+<p>"Ugh!" he said, pointing to the surveyor's chisel-marks upon the face of
+the rock before them, which told of the boundary line between the two
+republics. "Bad medicine. Drive away Apache manitou."</p>
+
+<p>Wah-wah-o-be herself could not have more cunningly stirred a chord of
+Indian curiosity. Tah-nu-nu was a young squaw, and remained silent, as
+became her, but she stared at the tokens of pale-face magic. Ping did
+the same for a moment.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span>"Ugh!" he said. "Bad medicine for Mescalero. Good for Chiricahua."</p>
+
+<p>"No, no good," said the old man, with strong emphasis, pointing to some
+dark-red stains upon the rock. "Chiricahua die there. Heap fool. Not
+watch for bad manitou."</p>
+
+<p>"Ugh!" replied Ping, and then for the first time he learned of the deed
+his father had done there that very morning.</p>
+
+<p>"Kah-go-mish is a great chief!" he said, swelling with pride, but the
+old Chiricahua shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"Chief heap fool," he said. "Kill Indian. Get kill himself some day."</p>
+
+<p>He had more to say about the spring. It had once been good medicine for
+all Indians, especially for all the branches of the great Apache nation.
+The Mexicans, whom he described in terms as picturesque as those
+employed by Kah-go-mish, had come first. They had drunk of the spring,
+but their medicine had been weak and had failed. The manitou of the
+Apaches had not been driven away. Long afterwards had come the Northern
+pale-faces, among whom were men with red beards, like that of Captain
+Moore, and whose warriors wore blue coats. They had great guns, and
+their medicine was powerful. They had forced the Mexicans to divide the
+spring with them, and had cut a mark in the rock, so that the manitou of
+the Apaches could not stay there.</p>
+
+<p>"Ever since that time," said the old Chiricahua, "the Apache bands could
+visit the spring and drink, but it was not well for them to camp there.
+They were safer anywhere out in the chaparral."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span>He had evidently taken a deep interest in his own narration, and had
+been listened to attentively by Ping and Tah-nu-nu. They had believed
+every word, and wanted to hear more, although the darkness was beginning
+to settle over the camp, and all the sentries and pickets had been
+posted, but just at this moment a shout was heard, and then another,
+among the southerly bushes.</p>
+
+<p>There were sharp questions and answers in Spanish and English, while all
+the men in camp sprang to their feet. So did the old Chiricahua and Ping
+and Tah-nu-nu, and in a moment more they saw a dozen unarmed men, on
+foot, file dejectedly out into the light of the camp-fires.</p>
+
+<p>They were the rancheros who had been in charge of the Mexican spare
+horses and pack-mules.</p>
+
+<p>Captain Moore, his officers, Colonel Evans, and several cowboys listened
+to the remarkable story, helped out as it was by many questions.</p>
+
+<p>"Good thing we caught those youngsters," said Captain Moore. "You did
+well not to fight, and you are lucky to have been allowed to keep your
+scalps. We'll take care of you till morning."</p>
+
+<p>He gave orders about that, and then he turned to Colonel Evans.</p>
+
+<p>"No need for you to hunt for your horses any farther," he said. "They
+are somewhere in Mexico. You may get back most of them, I think, for
+Kah-go-mish has about as many as he knows what to do with."</p>
+
+<p>"Horses!" exclaimed Colonel Evans. "I'm not thinking about horses."</p>
+
+<p>"Cal is not in their hands," said the captain. "We <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span>must hunt for him. I
+think, too, that we shall find him. It is not my duty to cross the
+boundary line after Colonel Romero's lost mules."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course not. Nor for mine either. Kah-go-mish is evidently not the
+kind of red-skin to be easily caught by anybody."</p>
+
+<p>"Perfect old fox!" said the captain, with strong emphasis. "But then he
+has the boundary line to help him."</p>
+
+<p>It was a curious fact, but the three Chiricahua scouts considered
+themselves entirely at liberty to feel elated at the victory obtained by
+Apaches of another band over the traditional Mexican enemies of their
+race.</p>
+
+<p>"Ugh!" said the old brave to Ping and Tah-nu-nu.
+"The-boy-whose-ear-pushed-away-a-piece-of-lead is the son of a great
+chief."</p>
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span>
+
+<hr />
+<br />
+<h2><span class="smcap">Chapter XXII.</span></h2>
+
+<h2>ACROSS THE DESERT BY NIGHT.</h2>
+<br />
+
+<p>The evening which passed under such remarkable circumstances in the
+neighborhood of Cold Spring was uncommonly long and busy at the Santa
+Lucia ranch.</p>
+
+<p>Tallow was abundant where so many cattle were raised and slaughtered
+every season, and Mrs. Evans prided herself upon her skill in the
+manufacture of candles. Whatever other comforts of life in the
+settlements were lacking in the old hacienda, there was always plenty of
+illumination after nightfall. There was usually but a short time for
+candle-light in June, for people who arose so soon after daylight were
+accustomed to go to bed early. On this particular evening, however, the
+parlor wore a very brilliant appearance for two hours longer than
+ordinary.</p>
+
+<p>The first look at the precious things brought by the tilted wagon had
+been only a look, and every article had to undergo another inspection.</p>
+
+<p>All were dropped at last, or, rather, there they lay, except such things
+as were under Norah McLory's care, all scattered around the room.</p>
+
+<p>"I can't help it," said Mrs. Evans; "I feel uneasy about Cal."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span>"So do I, mother," said Vic, leaning back, upon the sofa; "but you never
+said as much before."</p>
+
+<p>"Somehow I didn't feel so, Vic; but it seems to me&mdash;Well, I do wish he
+could be here, looking over his new books, instead of away out there."</p>
+
+<p>"We sha'n't hear from him for ever so long," said Vic. "All sorts of
+things might happen and we not know it."</p>
+
+<p>Somehow or other, as the talk drifted on, the varied assortment with
+which the floor and chairs were littered lost its charm. Mrs. Evans even
+got to telling stories of other times when her husband had been away
+from her. She had more than once been compelled to wait long for news of
+him, and had heard tidings of danger before anything better came. He had
+fought his way out of perilous circumstances, and her eyes kindled, now
+and then, as she related how. Wah-wah-o-be herself was not prouder of
+the deeds of Kah-go-mish.</p>
+
+<p>Vic listened, but her imagination was a little out of joint, for she
+found herself unconsciously putting Cal in his father's place. She knew
+very well that he could not pick up one Indian and knock over another
+with him, as Colonel Abe Evans had done upon an occasion described by
+her mother. She had altogether more confidence in the heels of the red
+mustang, and she said so.</p>
+
+<p>"I hope he will bring Dick back safe and sound," she said. "He's almost
+one of the family."</p>
+
+<p>"Cal would be dreadfully sorry to lose him," said Mrs. Evans. "Come,
+Vic, I don't want to talk any more."</p>
+
+<p>Neither of them was in good condition for going <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span>to sleep, nevertheless,
+and it may be that their eyes were hardly closed when those of Cal were
+opened at the summons of Dick to watch the moonlight procession in the
+chaparral.</p>
+
+<p>The warrior who first laid a hand upon the rein of the red mustang did
+so with a loud whoop. Cal summoned all his presence of mind and held out
+his right hand.</p>
+
+<p>"How," he said, "good friend."</p>
+
+<p>"Ugh!" responded the savage. "Heap boy."</p>
+
+<p>No violence was offered, for none seemed to be called for, and it is a
+mistake to suppose that all the instincts and customs of the red men are
+in favor of slaughter. Just now, moreover, the clansmen of Kah-go-mish
+were under orders of mercy, and Cal was led on at once to the presence
+of the chief. Dick was led with him, and the two friends stood side by
+side in front of the distinguished Mescalero. He had kept on his cocked
+hat, and Cal thought he had never before seen so remarkable a figure,
+especially by moonlight.</p>
+
+<p>One of Cal's accomplishments, a matter of course to a boy with Mexican
+servants in his own house, was a good acquaintance with Spanish, and it
+helped out the chief's English in the questions and answers which
+followed.</p>
+
+<p>Great was the delight of Kah-go-mish. He and the cowboy commander were
+now even. Each had a son of the other as a sort of security, and all the
+horses gathered upon Slater's Branch seemed more likely to remain Apache
+property.</p>
+
+<p>The bugling and random firing among the bushes that day was all
+explained now, and the great plan <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span>of Kah-go-mish looked very well
+indeed. It was needful, however, to put a goodly distance between him
+and the blue-coats, for whose conduct he had no security whatever.</p>
+
+<p>Cal's weapons were taken from him, and he was ordered to mount and ride.
+He at once explained that neither he nor Dick had tasted water since
+morning, that the red mustang was worth several common horses, and that
+he must now be too tired to carry a rider. As for himself, he had slept,
+was rested, and was ready to travel.</p>
+
+<p>Water was scarce in the band of Kah-go-mish at that time, but several
+gourds half full were obtained by the chief. He proposed to treat his
+prisoner pretty well, and was willing to save so very good a pony.</p>
+
+<p>Cal could hardly swallow when the water was brought to him. Not only his
+mouth was parched and his throat husky, but his very heart was sick.</p>
+
+<p>He had heard of the terrific things done by Apaches to their prisoners,
+and he had no confidence at all in the present appearance of good-will.
+He had not been told of Ping and Tah-nu-nu in his own camp, or he might
+have felt better. As it was, he drank a little, and then turned his
+attention to the red mustang. Only a small part of what Dick was ready
+for could be given him, and he was glad enough when his downcast master
+divided water-rations with him. He felt better, and whinnied eagerly for
+more. He pawed the ground and looked around to see if anything like
+grass or corn was also forthcoming. Nothing of the kind came, but a
+Mexican pony was led up, Cal's saddle and bridle <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span>were transferred to
+him, and Dick was hitched to a long lariat by which several other
+quadrupeds were being led. The last he saw of Cal that night was when
+the latter rode forward, side by side with a very lean-looking brave who
+carried a long lance, and who had warned Cal that it would be used at
+once upon any attempt to escape. Before long the entire cavalcade was
+out of the chaparral, and Cal noted that the north star was directly
+behind him.</p>
+
+<p>"Down into Mexico," he said to himself. "It will be long enough before I
+see Santa Lucia again."</p>
+
+<p>It was cooler travelling by night than by day, but the hard-baked soil
+sent up an uncomfortable amount of heat, and it was only now and then
+that even a cactus or a sage-bush was seen along the dreary way. One of
+the captured Mexican horses gave out and was left for the buzzards. An
+hour later an old pony which had travelled all the way from the
+Mescalero Reservation was unable to go any farther, and he too lay down.</p>
+
+<p>Cal thought of Dick, and Dick may have been, thinking of him, but the
+red mustang was really in need of nothing but grass and water. He had no
+idea whatever of giving up, and there were no mules tied to his lariat
+to worry him.</p>
+
+<p>Another hour went by, and the alkaline sand and gravel of the desert
+became strewn with rocks, among which the long cavalcade slowly wound
+its way. There was no straggling, for even the animals seemed anxious to
+get out of that gloomy region. The moon was low towards the horizon,
+when it suddenly occurred to Cal that during ten or fifteen <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span>minutes he
+had seen a greater number of scrubby bushes.</p>
+
+<p>"More chaparral coming?" he thought. "Hope there's a spring in it,
+somewhere. Never was so awfully thirsty in all my life."</p>
+
+<p>He could hardly have said as much aloud, for his voice seemed to have
+dried up. He was hungry, too, for he had not been able to eat much of
+the bit of cold, half-cooked beef brought to him by Wah-wah-o-be before
+the train left the Cold Spring chaparral.</p>
+
+<p>Trees! Yes, right and left of them, and they were a pleasant sight to
+see. How could the red men have found any place in particular, by night,
+across that trackless plain?</p>
+
+<p>They could not, and they had not, for it had been no part of the plan of
+Kah-go-mish to leave a trail behind him, or to travel by any old road.</p>
+
+<p>Grass? There was almost a thrill at Cal's heart. A temporary halt was
+making, and he saw a pony nibble something at the wayside. It must be
+that the southern edge of the desert had been reached at last.</p>
+
+<p>The halt had been made for purposes of exploration. Trees and grass in
+that region were unmistakable signs of water, under the ground or above
+it. Cal sat still upon the pony and the warrior at his side was as
+motionless as a statue. All around them was deep and sombre shadow, but
+the air was cooler, and a breeze began to come out of the darkness
+before them.</p>
+
+<p>Minutes passed, and then a clear, twice-repeated whoop came to their
+ears.</p>
+
+<p>"Ugh!" said the lean Apache, with evident <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span>satisfaction. "Heap water.
+Boy drink plenty now. Sun come, tie up boy and make fire on him. How boy
+like fire? Ugh!"</p>
+
+<p>Cal could make no reply whatever, except by a shudder, and they once
+more rode forward.</p>
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span>
+
+<hr />
+<br />
+<h2><span class="smcap">Chapter XXIII.</span></h2>
+
+<h2>AT THE RANCH AND IN THE CHAPARRAL.</h2>
+<br />
+
+<p>There was a very excellent reason why the old Spanish-Mexican settler
+had chosen that exact spot for the Santa Lucia ranch. It was the little
+spring which bubbled up in the middle of the courtyard around three
+sides of which the adobe was constructed. It had been dug out to a depth
+of several feet and walled in. It had never been known to fail, and it
+always had enough water left, after supplying the household, to furnish
+a tiny rill which ran away at one side of the gate in the palisades of
+the fourth side. This rill was planked over until it got away from the
+ranch, but it ran out into the sunshine then, and travelled gayly on to
+the corral. Here it found a number of acres of land, surrounded by a
+strong wire fence. It also found a long hollow to fill up with water, so
+that cattle and horses corralled there had plenty to drink. Except in
+the winter and spring there was little ever heard of that rill beyond
+the corral, and, if shrubbery had at any time grown upon its margin, it
+had long since been browsed away, for there was none there now.</p>
+
+<p>Beyond the corral were great reaches of maize, and there had this year
+been no drought to hurt it. A wide patch of potatoes and some oats
+seemed to be the only other attempt at anything more than
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span>cattle-farming, and things generally had the bare, camplike look common
+to New Mexican ranches.</p>
+
+<p>Shortly after breakfast, on the morning after the arrival of the tilted
+wagon, Mrs. Evans and Vic walked out on what appeared to be a tour of
+inspection. They had not slept well, and there was just a little touch
+of feverishness in the way they talked about Cal and his father, but
+they were trying hard to be cheerful.</p>
+
+<p>"No, Vic," said Mrs. Evans, "it won't pay to put in any of the seeds
+now, but I'm glad they've come, and I don't believe they will spoil. The
+grape-roots and cuttings won't get here till autumn, but we'll have the
+vineyard planted over there."</p>
+
+<p>"Is there really to be a barn, mother?" asked Vic, doubtfully, as if
+such an ornament as that were almost out of the question.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, my dear. Your father loses stock enough, every year, to pay for
+more shelter, and for keeping hay, and for all sorts of improvements."</p>
+
+<p>"To think of a vineyard and grapes!"</p>
+
+<p>"And fruit-trees, Vic. The brook is to be fenced in up to the corral and
+lined with trees. It won't dry up so easily when it's shaded, and the
+corral is to be a little farther away. It all costs money, though. So
+does fencing."</p>
+
+<p>They were dreaming dreams of the future and of what could be done to
+turn Santa Lucia into a sort of New Mexican Eden. The stockade itself
+was to be clambered over by vines, and so was the veranda, and trees
+were to be coaxed to grow in all directions. Bushes and plants that
+could stand the summer heats were to be planted all around the ranch.
+The old <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span>adobe itself was to be fixed up. It was a very pleasant way of
+spending a morning, but it had its unpleasant thought.</p>
+
+<p>"Vic," said her mother, "there are a great many things that your father
+can't afford to do, if he is to lose all those horses."</p>
+
+<p>"He has plenty left, and the cattle."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but the Indians took away some of his best stock."</p>
+
+<p>"The Indians wouldn't be so likely to come," said Vic, "if everything
+looked more settled."</p>
+
+<p>It seemed so, and there was truth in it, only the whole truth required
+more houses near by, and more men to defend them.</p>
+
+<p>As the talk turned towards the Apaches and their deeds, the dream of
+vines and shrubbery and flowers, of barns and stables, dairy, trees, and
+all faded away, and they walked back into the house, wondering anxiously
+what would be the next news from those who had gone in search of the
+stolen horses and the Apache horse-thieves.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Evans and Vic were not one bit more completely in the dark, that
+morning, than were Colonel Romero and his lancers and his rancheros.
+They had succeeded, the day before, in following the ancient trail until
+it brought them to grass and water and a good camping-ground. It had not
+shown them, however, one track or trace which seemed to have been made
+in modern times. If Kah-go-mish and his band had come that way, they had
+managed to conceal the fact remarkably well. Once more it was easy for
+the brave colonel and his officers to see their duty without any
+argument. They could not <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span>go any farther, if they would, until the
+arrival of the pack-mules and the lead horses. They could not go in any
+direction until they knew which way the Apaches had gone. Therefore they
+must rest in that camp, and send out scouts and trailers, and wait for
+the loads of supplies and for information. Their puzzle was ended for
+that day, at least, and there were trees in abundance to lie down under
+and take it easy.</p>
+
+<p>The men in the bivouac, at Cold Spring, were astir as soon as the
+daylight began to come the next morning. Colonel Evans was the first man
+upon his feet.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll find him," he said, "if I have to search the chaparral inch by
+inch. Poor boy! What a day and night he must have had! No food, no
+water, no hope! Lost in the chaparral!"</p>
+
+<p>It was a dreadful thing to think of, and the next worst idea was that he
+might have been killed by the Apaches. Everybody in camp took a deep
+interest in the proposed search, and all who were to join in it were
+willing to set out before the heat of the day should come. Captain Moore
+had a number of cautious things to say about the danger from Indians and
+ambuscades, but he evidently believed, after all, that Kah-go-mish had
+gone away.</p>
+
+<p>"He won't run any useless risk of losing horses," said the captain. "I
+think, on the whole, we can search away."</p>
+
+<p>The Mexicans who had been in charge of the lost pack-train ate their
+breakfasts in a hurry. The day's journey before them seemed dismal
+enough, for they were to cross the desert on foot to report the work <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span>of
+Kah-go-mish. They were given a supply of provisions, but there were no
+horses or arms for them.</p>
+
+<p>"You won't meet any red-skins," said Sam Herrick to a very melancholy
+ranchero. "They've all gone the other way. You can make better time on
+foot than you could a-driving a pack-mule. You'll git thar. Give the
+colonel my compliments and tell him that old Kah-go-mish ort to just
+love him. I never heard of a train given away for nothing before."</p>
+
+<p>The ranchero nodded a sullen agreement with Sam, but he was not likely
+to give the message accurately to Colonel Romero.</p>
+
+<p>The poor fellows started at once, with a plain enough trail to follow,
+and Sam looked kindly after them.</p>
+
+<p>"They're in luck," he said. "They've nothing to do but to walk. Not even
+a mule to lead or a fence to climb. Colorado! But didn't old Kah-go-mish
+make a clean sweep."</p>
+
+<p>"Left their skelps on 'em," said Bill.</p>
+
+<p>"That was just cunning," replied Sam. "Some redskins haven't sense
+enough to let a skelp alone, but he has."</p>
+
+<p>Only a little later the sentries and pickets posted by Captain Moore
+were all the human beings left in the camp at Cold Spring. They, too,
+were hidden among the bushes, and the proof that it was a camp at all
+consisted of three sacks of corn, a saddle, some camp-kettles and
+coffee-pots, and the smouldering camp-fires.</p>
+
+<p>The bugles began to send their music out over the spider-web wilderness
+of the chaparral west of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span>spring, and Captain Moore declared,
+hopefully, that if Cal were anywhere in all that range he would be sure
+of hearing music before noon.</p>
+
+<p>The trouble was that he was so many long, tiresome miles beyond the
+reach of the loudest bugle, and that he had heard music of an altogether
+different sort before the very earliest riser among them had opened his
+eyes.</p>
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span>
+
+<hr />
+<br />
+<h2><span class="smcap">Chapter XXIV.</span></h2>
+
+<h2>CAL'S NIGHT UNDER A TREE.</h2>
+<br />
+
+<p>The northern edge of Mexico was marked deeply by the surveyor's chisel
+upon the quartz rock at Cold Spring. All the country north and south of
+it had once been Apache land. Away back, nobody knows how long, before
+any Apaches had ever drank of that water, the entire region had belonged
+to another race of people, who disappeared, but left traces behind them,
+here and there. They did not leave any written history.</p>
+
+<p>There are men who hold an opinion that the deserts of the southwest,
+such as Cal Evans made his gloomy march through that night, were not
+always desert. To Cal himself, as he rode along, the waste around him
+had seemed utterly hopeless, as if nothing good ever had been there or
+ever could be.</p>
+
+<p>After the desert was passed, and after the whoop which announced the
+finding of water, he and his grim guard rode on until the forest around
+them became so dark that they and all others were compelled to halt. It
+was only for a few minutes, and then from the head of the cavalcade came
+back braves and squaws and boys carrying blazing torches of resinous
+wood. The huge tree-trunks that Cal now rode among seemed positively
+gigantic. No axe had been at work in that place for an age, and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span>there
+was only a moderate amount of underbrush. What bushes could be seen were
+mostly gathered around and over the decaying trunks of fallen trees, and
+it was easy for the train to pick its winding way.</p>
+
+<p>Before long Cal saw ahead of him great gleams of light, for the Apaches
+were kindling camp-fires, and there was an abundance of dry branches to
+make swift blazes.</p>
+
+<p>The next thing of particular interest to him was a portly-looking squaw,
+who wore a somewhat battered straw bonnet, very much mixed up with gay
+ribbons. She seemed to be looking for somebody, and she carried in one
+hand a large water-gourd and in the other a flaming torch.</p>
+
+<p>"Ugh!" she said, as she came to the side of Cal's pony. "Boy heap dry.
+Want water?"</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you! Thank you!" exclaimed Cal, as he reached out for the gourd,
+and his voice sounded as if he had a bad cold in his head.</p>
+
+<p>It was not a cold by any means, but a sort of fever, as if a sandy
+desert were beginning to form inside of him. He drank and drank again,
+and then passed the gourd to the lean Apache beside him.</p>
+
+<p>"Ugh!" was all the immediate response to his politeness, but something
+said to Wah-wah-o-be in Apache brought back a rapidly spoken and
+seemingly resentful response. The chief's wife was plainly not at all
+afraid of that warrior.</p>
+
+<p>"Boy eat, by and by," she said to Cal, as he handed her back the gourd,
+and he was encouraged to ask her a question.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know what they have done with my <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span>pony?" he said. "I want him to
+have some but not too much, right away."</p>
+
+<p>"Ugh!" she said. "Heap pony!" for she had taken more than one look at a
+horse which she declared to be the right kind of a mount for
+The-boy-whose-ear-pushed-away-a-piece-of-lead. Cal repeated his question
+in Spanish before he was understood, and Wah-wah-o-be promised care for
+Dick. She did not add, however, that the care was to be given on account
+of the absent Ping.</p>
+
+<p>The red mustang had a right to consider that he had been a patient pony,
+under trying circumstances, but his relief came at last. A fat squaw
+came to him, followed by a boy a little older than Cal and not
+resembling him in any way, and they unhitched Dick from his place in the
+train. They led him on among the trees until they came to the edge of a
+small, slowly running stream of water, and here they let him drink about
+a quarter as much as Dick thought would be good for him.</p>
+
+<p>"No kill him," said Wah-wah-o-be. "Pony eat a heap. Drink more then."</p>
+
+<p>Dick was led on after that until he came to a grassy open, where the
+moonlight showed him a large number of quadrupeds of various ranks in
+life. All were picketed at lariat-ends, but some of them had lain down
+at once, while others, in better spirits, had begun to nibble the grass.
+Dick was also picketed, and he tried the grass for a while. Then he
+concluded that he had done enough for one day and night, and he, too,
+lay down, but he would have been all the more comfortable for a few
+words from his master and a good rubbing down.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span>Cal's uncertainty as to what was to become of him was not at all
+relieved by his next experiences. To be sure he was guided onward to a
+place under the trees, not far from one of the camp-fires, and was
+ordered to dismount. More water was brought to him and a liberal piece
+of broiled venison. He ate well, now, but all the soreness at his heart
+seemed to have worked out into his muscles. He was dreadfully weary. He
+felt too badly to care a copper when he saw his saddle and bridle taken
+from the pony he had ridden. They were carried away by the fat squaw who
+had brought him the water. He had caught her name of Wah-wah-o-be from
+her own remarks, but he did not catch the other name she uttered, with a
+motherly chuckle, when she took possession of the saddle and bridle. It
+was a very long name, and was accompanied by expressions of strong
+admiration for the boy it belonged to. The one thing which Cal clearly
+comprehended was, that if he was ever to ride again he would probably
+mount some other steed than Dick and hold some other bridle.</p>
+
+<p>His head was too weary and too busy to take much note of things around
+him then, but he afterwards remembered how wonderful it all looked. The
+scattered camp-fires were surrounded by wild, strange-looking figures,
+and by groups that were the wilder and the stranger the more figures
+there were in them. The firelight danced among the giant trees and
+through the long vines which clung to them or hung from their branches.
+The great shadows seemed to make motions to each other, now and then,
+and it was altogether a very remarkable picture.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span>Cal was beginning to feel sleepy, when out from among the shadows
+marched the chief in the cocked hat and red stocking-leg uniform,
+followed by four other dignified warriors.</p>
+
+<p>"Ugh!" he said. "How boy now? Eat heap?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, thank you," said Cal. "How?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ugh! Good!" said the Apache leader, as Cal slowly arose and stood in
+front of him, but he did not shake the hand Cal offered him.</p>
+
+<p>He turned to the other great men, and they exchanged a few sentences in
+their own tongue. They were hearing further explanations of the plan he
+had formed for the general good, and they nodded a cheerful assent when
+he ended with, "Kah-go-mish is a great chief."</p>
+
+<p>They turned and stalked away, and with them went the lean, grim Apache
+who had hitherto been Cal's guard, and who had latterly seemed to be
+getting almost like a friendly acquaintance. His place was filled by a
+pair of short, bow-legged, swarthy old braves, whom Cal set down as the
+unpleasantest-looking Indians he had ever seen.</p>
+
+<p>Very quickly the prisoner had good reasons for an every way more severe
+opinion of his new guards. They were under strict orders to prevent his
+escape, and no other especial directions had been given them. Of course
+they proposed to perform their sentry duty with as little trouble and as
+complete security as might be. Cal was lying upon the ground, while they
+were busy with their knives among the nearest bushes. He hardly looked
+after them, for his thoughts were wandering to the camp at Cold Spring
+and to the faces of those who had <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span>talked so much about him, all that
+evening, in the parlor at Santa Lucia. He had not the remotest dream of
+the precise experience which was coming to him. The two ill-looking
+braves returned, and one of them had a handful of forked branches,
+trimmed and pointed. They turned Cal over upon his back and stretched
+out his arms. A sharp thrill went through him as he began to comprehend
+what they were doing. Thrill followed thrill as they drove one forked
+stick into the ground over each wrist, and another over each ankle.</p>
+
+<p>"Ugh!" exclaimed one of them. "No get away!"</p>
+
+<p>"I am staked out!" said Cal to himself, huskily. "Staked out!"</p>
+
+<p>Well might the cold shivers come with that terrible thought, for he had
+read of that method of securing prisoners and of what sometimes followed
+it. Staked out in the depths of a Mexican forest!</p>
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span>
+
+<hr />
+<br />
+<h2><span class="smcap">Chapter XXV.</span></h2>
+
+<h2>A STRANGE LETTER FROM MEXICO.</h2>
+<br />
+
+<p>Ping and Tah-nu-nu had not been staked out that first night after their
+capture. Precisely how to keep them safely, yet humanely, had at first
+been a puzzle.</p>
+
+<p>"If they once got away into the brush," said Sam Herrick, "you might as
+well hunt for a pair of sage-hens, and they'd about die before they'd be
+caught again. The boy's a game little critter, and the gal's got an eye
+like a hawk."</p>
+
+<p>It was decided that they must be tied up, but it was so done as to
+inflict very little hardship. A thong of hide, knotted hard, so that
+nothing but a knife could undo the knot, connected an arm of each
+captive with a stout arm of a mesquit bush, close to the sharp-eyed
+sentinel at the head of the widest path.</p>
+
+<p>There was no danger of any escape, and both Ping and his sister were
+wiser and tamer than Sam gave them credit for. They understood the
+kindness of Colonel Evans better and better every time they looked at
+the little mirrors or the stunning handkerchiefs. They were also aware
+that the Apache band had left the chaparral, for the message brought
+from Kah-go-mish by the Mexicans had been <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span>translated to them carefully.
+Their night was, therefore, not at all uncomfortable.</p>
+
+<p>When the cavalry and cowboys set out to hunt for Cal in the morning, the
+old Chiricahua volunteered to act as guard while they were gone. It was
+almost as if he had taken a fancy to Ping and Tah-nu-nu, or it may have
+been that Sam was correct in saying, "The old wolf'd rather loaf under a
+bush and spin yarns than hunt through the chaparral under this kind of
+sunshine."</p>
+
+<p>Loaf he did, in seemingly contented patience; and he had yarns to spin,
+as if he had been Wah-wah-o-be. Not a few of them related to old-time
+fights which had been fought around that very spring, in and out of the
+chaparral. Some of his stories were of a dreadfully blood-curdling kind,
+but they hardly seemed sensational to Ping and Tah-nu-nu. Perhaps the
+story which interested Ping most was a long one of a strong party of an
+unknown, nameless tribe from beyond the Eastern Sierras. They were tall
+braves, almost black, and they came all this distance to strike the
+Apaches.</p>
+
+<p>The strangers camped one night at Cold Spring, and in the morning they
+found themselves penned in by overwhelming numbers of Apaches, who
+poured forth from the chaparral by every path except one. That was a
+path which the Apache chiefs did not know or had overlooked. They and
+their warriors swarmed in upon the strangers, expecting to destroy them
+all, and there was a terrible battle for a little time. Then, to the
+astonishment of all the Apaches, the Eastern war-party grew smaller and
+smaller, retreating across the rock. It left the spring behind, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span>and
+dwindled away, fighting hard all the while. It was dripping out, so to
+speak, through the path in the chaparral that nobody knew anything
+about. The Apache warriors fought wonderfully to prevent that escape,
+and hundreds hurried around through the chaparral to attack the
+strangers in the rear and to cut off their retreat. It was of no use at
+all, said the old Chiricahua.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as the last of the strangers fired his last arrow from the mouth
+of that old buffalo-path it seemed to close up, and the Apaches could
+not find it. They never could, nor did they ever succeed in finding
+where it led to, for the strange warriors escaped entirely, just as if
+they had crawled into the spring. It was "very great medicine," he said,
+and nothing at all like it had been heard of since then. He himself knew
+all the paths now to be found around Cold Spring, and all of them led
+out into the desert.</p>
+
+<p>Thanks to the Chiricahua, Ping and Tah-nu-nu had a fairly comfortable
+morning of it. They even grew curious, instead of frightened, concerning
+what was next to come to them.</p>
+
+<p>The old Chiricahua did not spend all his time stretched out upon the
+sand. He arose and walked around as if the hot sunshine agreed with him,
+and exchanged remarks with the white camp-guard in their sultry covert.</p>
+
+<p>Ping and Tah-nu-nu stared around the open with a deepening interest in a
+spot which had so wonderful a history. Across it, on the opposite side,
+was one dense mass of chaparral, many yards in length, through which no
+opening appeared. In the middle of it arose a giant cactus, with a trunk
+like that of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span>a tree, and with two enormously thick, long arms reaching
+out near the top. One leaf pointed south and the other north, as if the
+cactus were a directing-post. Right there, they agreed, after some
+discussion, must have been the mysterious path that opened to let out
+the strange warriors, and then shut again.</p>
+
+<p>Noon came, and the Chiricahua brought them some army bread, some fried
+bacon, and some coffee. They had tasted such things before, when their
+band was at the Reservation, and they had some for breakfast, but it was
+very wonderful to taste them again.</p>
+
+<p>"Pale-face chief make Ping a blue-coat," said Tah-nu-nu. "Eat a heap."</p>
+
+<p>"Tah-nu-nu squaw for blue-coat chief," said Ping. "Have big lodge. Cook
+his meat. Hoe his corn. Feed pony. Beat her with big stick. Ugh!"</p>
+
+<p>They could rally one another about the prospect before them, but Ping
+stoutly declared that he would run away at the first opportunity. He
+would be a chief of his own people and not of any other. Tah-nu-nu as
+positively asserted her horror of ever becoming the wife of the greatest
+pale-face living. Not if he gave ever so many ponies for her, like a
+warrior of the Apaches.</p>
+
+<p>Two hours later the cavalry squads and the cowboys began to straggle
+back to the spring. Their horses needed water and food and rest, and so
+did they. Hot, weary, disappointed, was the appearance of every man who
+came in, but none of them wore such a face as did Colonel Evans. He
+drank some water, but he did not eat nor did he speak to anybody.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span>"Ugh!" said Ping. "No find boy. Heap pony lose too. Bad medicine."</p>
+
+<p>It was only a little later when something remarkable happened to a
+picket in a path of the southern chaparral. He stood by his horse ready
+to mount, as was his duty, but he was very sure that no Indians were
+around, and he only now and then gave a listless glance along the path.
+Suddenly, within twenty yards of him, an Indian stepped out of the
+bushes.</p>
+
+<p>"Halt!" sprang to the lips of the startled soldier, but the Indian held
+up both hands, empty, above his head, to show that he carried no
+weapons.</p>
+
+<p>The challenge was heard by the men around the spring, and they sprang to
+their feet, while others came out of the bushes. A dozen rifles were
+ready behind the picket as the solitary Indian came forward. He wore
+nothing but a waist-cloth, and from the belt of this he drew something
+which he held out and offered.</p>
+
+<p>"Take it, Brady," said the voice of Captain Moore. "Bring him in. He's a
+messenger of some kind."</p>
+
+<p>The cavalryman took it, but it was nothing more than a leathery cactus
+leaf, as wide as a stretched-out hand.</p>
+
+<p>"How," said the Indian. "Kah-go-mish."</p>
+
+<p>"That's it," exclaimed Sam Herrick. "I reckoned we'd hear from him.
+Colorado!"</p>
+
+<p>The leaf was passed to Captain Moore, and the Apache brave followed him,
+but only as far as the end of that pathway. There he stood, and seemed
+almost like a wooden Indian. He saw both Ping <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span>and Tah-nu-nu, and they
+saw him, but if they knew him they did not say so.</p>
+
+<p>"They thought nobody saw 'em, but they were making signs," said Sam; and
+the old Chiricahua muttered, "Ugh! Good!" as if he had understood
+something.</p>
+
+<p>Just at that moment Captain Moore met Colonel Evans.</p>
+
+<p>"Read that," he said, as he held out the cactus leaf.</p>
+
+<p>There were letters deeply scratched into the smooth, fleshy surface.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Father I'm a Prisoner to Kah-Go-Mish Staked out last night
+Safe now Don't know where he means to go next He says you
+will hear some day</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Cal</span></p>
+
+<p>Send mother my love.</p></div>
+
+<p>It was a wonderful cactus leaf, for it made the strong hand of Colonel
+Abe Evans shake so that he could hardly hold it. Every pair of eyes
+around Cold Spring stared at it and at him, and when they once more
+turned to look at the Apache brave who had brought it he was not to be
+seen. He had vanished as if he had been a dream.</p>
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span>
+
+<hr />
+<br />
+<h2><span class="smcap">Chapter XXVI.</span></h2>
+
+<h2>CAL'S VISITORS AND HIS BREAKFAST.</h2>
+<br />
+
+<p>Even when he was lost in the chaparral, and saw the sun go down without
+any hope of escaping from the spider-web of buffalo-paths, Cal had not
+felt quite so badly as he did when he found himself staked out. There he
+lay upon his back under the vast canopy of an ancient cypress-tree. Near
+him the two uncouth-looking Apaches had thrown themselves upon the
+grass. They seemed to be asleep pretty soon, for there was no more need
+of their watching the prisoner.</p>
+
+<p>Get away?</p>
+
+<p>He could move his hands and feet just enough to keep the blood in
+circulation, and that was all. He could turn his head and look at the
+glow of the camp-fires and at the forms of men that now and then went
+stalking to and fro. They were only dog-soldier Indian police in charge
+of the camp, for the remainder of the band was taking all the sleep it
+could get. Even the dogs were entirely quiet. If he looked up, there was
+nothing but a dense mass of foliage, but it began at a height of fifty
+feet or more from the ground. Great branches reached out, and from these
+hung long ropes of vines of some sort, here and there, to the very
+ground. There was no <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span>opening through which a star could be seen, and it
+seemed to Cal as if his last hope had departed.</p>
+
+<p>The position of a staked-out man is peculiarly uncomfortable, but it is
+the traditional method of the red men for securing captives. The Hurons
+and Shawnees and Iroquois, and other eastern tribes, made a forest-jail
+in precisely the same way before any white men ever came among them. Cal
+found that it was a great affliction not to be able to turn over in bed,
+but that was nothing to the torment of having a mosquito on his chin,
+another on his nose, and ten more humming around his head on all sides,
+with no hand loose to slap among them. He almost ceased thinking of
+Indian cruelties while suffering the merciless torments of those
+insects. Tired as he was, he felt no longer any inclination to sleep.
+His eyes grew accustomed to the dimness about him and over him. As he
+looked up into the branches of the tree, after a while, he heard a
+strange, mournful cry, very much like something that he had listened to
+before, and then something whitish and wide-winged came sweeping down
+from the darkness, and his eyes followed it as it swiftly shot across
+the camp.</p>
+
+<p>"Owl, I guess," groaned Cal. "Never saw one so large before. White owl.
+What a hoot he had! Oh, my nose! These are the biggest kind of
+mosquitoes."</p>
+
+<p>So they were, and they kept their victim in continual misery. It was not
+long before he saw something else, not so large as the owl, fly very
+silently past him. It went and came several times, with a peculiarly
+rapid flight, and he had pretty fair glimpses of it.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span>"What an enormous bat!" exclaimed Cal. "They have almost everything down
+here. What I'm most afraid of are scorpions and centipedes and
+tarantulas. Such woods as these must have lots of 'em, and I couldn't
+get away."</p>
+
+<p>They were dreadful things to think of, but Cal had not remembered all of
+the customary inhabitants of a Mexican forest. He was put in mind of yet
+one more after a while. He heard a rustling sound among the grass and
+leaves near him, and it made him lift his head as high as he could. Just
+then something else lifted its head, and Cal saw a pair of small,
+glittering, greenish eyes that travelled right along at a few inches
+above the ground. The cold sweat broke out all over him, but he held
+perfectly still.</p>
+
+<p>"They don't bite if you don't stir or provoke them," was the thought in
+his mind; but that snake was not of the biting, venomous kind. It was
+only a constrictor, not more than seven or eight feet long, and only
+three inches thick at his thickest point. He was in no hurry, and it
+seemed to Cal as if it took him about half an hour, or half a century,
+he could not tell which, to crawl across the pair of legs which the
+Apaches had pinned down. It was really about a quarter of a minute.</p>
+
+<p>Cal had no idea how hard he had been straining at his fetters, spurred
+by the mosquitoes. He made an unintentional jerk with his right arm as
+the snake disappeared, and was startled by a discovery.</p>
+
+<p>"Loose?" he said to himself. "Then I can loosen it more. I won't disturb
+either of those fellows, but I must scratch these mosquito-bites."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span>A pull, another pull, and that forked stick began to come up, for one of
+its legs had been put down in a gopher's hole, and had no holding. Out
+it came, slowly, softly, and Cal's right hand was free to reach over and
+help his left. That stake was hard pulling, but it came up at last, and
+then the ankles could be set free.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll drive them all down again hard," said Cal to himself, and he did
+so.</p>
+
+<p>"Let them wonder how I got out," he added; "but there isn't any use in
+my trying to run away. They'd only catch me and kill me at once."</p>
+
+<p>He rose to his feet, and it occurred to him that his safest place might
+be by one of the smouldering camp-fires. The short June night was nearly
+over, and the dawn was in the tree-tops when Cal walked away from the
+shadow of the great cypress. He had a sort of desperate feeling, and it
+made him singularly cool and steady. He did not meet anybody on his way.
+His first discovery, as he drew near the fire, was that the Apaches had
+found plentiful supplies in the packs of the Mexican mules. They knew
+how to make coffee, too, for there was a big tin coffee-pot nearly full.
+Cal put it upon some coals to heat, and then he saw a tin cup lying on
+the ground, a box of sugar, a piece of bacon, and a fragment of coarse
+corn-cake.</p>
+
+<p>"That'll do," he said to himself. "I may as well eat."</p>
+
+<p>The coffee boiled quickly, and Cal sat with a cup of it in one hand,
+while with the other he held a stick with a slice of bacon at the fire
+end of it. He did not know what was happening under the cypress.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span>One wrinkle-faced brave opened his beady black eyes and looked at the
+place where the staked-out captive had been. The mocking smile he had
+begun flitted away from his lips.</p>
+
+<p>"Ugh!" he exclaimed as he sprang up and kicked his comrade, and in an
+instant more two dreadfully puzzled Apaches were examining the forked
+stakes which ought to have had a white boy's wrists and ankles in them.
+Hard driven into the ground were all four, but the white boy? Where was
+he?</p>
+
+<p>"Heap bad medicine!" exclaimed one brave, almost despairingly.</p>
+
+<p>"Boy heap gone," said the other.</p>
+
+<p>They looked in all directions, but the last refuge they dreamed of was
+the camp-fire where Cal was sitting.</p>
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span>
+
+<hr />
+<br />
+<h2><span class="smcap">Chapter XXVII.</span></h2>
+
+<h2>THE POST-BOY THAT GOT AWAY.</h2>
+<br />
+
+<p>Colonel Romero and most of his command spent the greater part of the day
+after Cal's capture in waiting for the pack-mule train. Some went out
+after game and did very well, and others went to hunt for signs of the
+Apaches of Kah-go-mish and did not do well at all. The rest, officers,
+cavalry, and rancheros, did nothing, and they all seemed to know how.</p>
+
+<p>Right away after breakfast, and before the search for Cal began, the
+dozen rancheros who no longer had any pack-mules to lead left Cold
+Spring behind them. Out they marched, under careful directions, for the
+way given them by Sam Herrick and the Chiricahuas. They certainly
+marched well, but it was in dejected, disgusted silence. Kah-go-mish,
+and, after him and his Apaches, Colonel Romero and his horsemen, had
+trampled the old trail into a very new and plain one, easy to follow. It
+was well for the peace of mind of the train-guard without any train that
+it was so, for to be lost was for them to be starved, since they had not
+so much as a bow and arrows to kill a jackass rabbit. Not one of them
+now wore a hat, as the braves of Kah-go-mish had imitated their chief,
+so far as a dozen Mexican sombreros went. There was no danger, however,
+that <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span>the rancheros would get themselves tanned any darker. They pushed
+on steadily across the desert, and at about the time when the dispirited
+Americans who searched for Cal in the bushes gave it up and returned to
+Cold Spring there was a great shout in the camp of Colonel Romero. All
+the waiting for pack-mules and supplies was over, but the muleteers had
+arrived, disarmed, hatless, and on foot.</p>
+
+<p>The colonel and every other soul in the camp said as much as they knew
+how to say concerning the cunning, daring, impudence, and wickedness of
+all Apaches, and particularly of Kah-go-mish.</p>
+
+<p>The message of the chief to the colonel was pretty fully given, leaving
+out some of the animals, birds, and insects he had put into it, and a
+council of war was called to consider the matter.</p>
+
+<p>The council was unanimous. Without the supplies that had been lost it
+was out of the question to chase Apaches. Without a good guess as to
+precisely where Kah-go-mish had gone, they knew that he was away beyond
+the desert somewhere, either in Mexico or the United States, and they
+might as well give him up. It was therefore decided that all possible
+hunting and fishing should be done at once, and that the entire command
+must find its way to the nearest Mexican settlements as fast as it could
+go.</p>
+
+<p>So far as Colonel Romero's Mexicans were concerned Kah-go-mish already
+felt pretty safe, but he was by no means sure what other forces of the
+same nation might or might not be out in search of him.</p>
+
+<p>As for the blue-coats and cowboys, the chief knew something about a
+boundary line. There was one around the Mescalero Reservation, and he
+had <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span>broken it, but he was sure that pale-faces never did such "bad
+medicine." He was safe from the Americans until he should see fit to
+re-enter the United States. That is, however, that he was proud to feel
+and say that so great a chief as himself could not long be entirely safe
+anywhere. Too many army-men wanted to see him.</p>
+
+<p>In the camp at Cold Spring, Colonel Evans and all his friends felt that
+they would give a great deal to know the exact circumstances under which
+Cal had written his cactus-leaf letter. It passed from hand to hand, for
+every man to take a look at it. The cavalry company was short of
+officers, not having brought along even one lieutenant. The orderly
+sergeant, therefore, was the man next in rank to the captain, but there
+was another sergeant and two corporals, and they each had much more to
+say than could rightly have been said by mere private soldiers.</p>
+
+<p>All agreed that it was a remarkable letter; all were glad to hear that
+Cal was safe, and all were glad that there was to be no more need of
+bushwhacking and bugle-work in the hot chaparral.</p>
+
+<p>The cowboys had opinions of their own, and most of them looked a little
+blue.</p>
+
+<p>"Staked out!" exclaimed Sam Herrick. "Colorado! To think of Cal Evans
+staked out!"</p>
+
+<p>"Wall, now, they let him up again," said Bill. "Looks as if they didn't
+allow to torter him, leastwise not right away. What a lot of
+wooden-heads we were, though, to let that there 'Pache that brought the
+leaf slip out of reach the way he did."</p>
+
+<p>"The cavalry had him," said Sam. "I took my <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span>eyes off him just a second,
+and when I looked again he wasn't thar."</p>
+
+<p>The cactus leaf came back to Colonel Evans, and once more he studied
+every dent and scratch upon it. The writing looked as if it had been
+done with the point of a knife. There could be no doubt but what it was
+Cal's work.</p>
+
+<p>"You'll see him again," said Captain Moore, encouragingly.</p>
+
+<p>"It'll be about the time that Kah-go-mish sees his own children, I
+reckon," replied the colonel. "They're a sort of security, but something
+might happen to him in spite of their being here."</p>
+
+<p>"Indians are uncertain; that's a fact," said the captain, "but you must
+keep up your spirits. Do you believe in Providence, colonel? I do."</p>
+
+<p>"Do I?" said Cal's father. "Of course I do. Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, isn't it curious that Cal hasn't been hurt, through all this, up
+to the time when he wrote that letter? Wasn't he taken care of?" asked
+the captain.</p>
+
+<p>"He got lost in the chaparral, didn't he? Isn't he a prisoner now?"</p>
+
+<p>"They found him, and it may be a good thing that they did. Hold on a
+bit. Anyhow we'll keep a tight grip on those two young redskins."</p>
+
+<p>"Ping," said the colonel. "That's a queer name for an Indian boy.
+Tah-nu-nu isn't so bad for a young squaw. We'll camp here to-night?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course," said the captain, "but we'll make an early start in the
+morning, and go back close along the boundary line. There's good grass
+beyond the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span>desert; wouldn't mind forgetting the line for a few miles if
+we came near enough to any Apaches. Sorry I didn't get another talk with
+the chief's messenger. It beats me how he slipped away."</p>
+
+<p>The wild-looking-Mescalero postman who brought the cactus-leaf letter
+may have had another errand on his hands. When he halted at the head of
+the path, in full view of everybody, he did not look as if he meant to
+go away without an answer, and he did not. He obtained one from Ping and
+Tah-nu-nu, to carry to their father and mother. The Chiricahuas saw it
+given, and afterwards reported that the signs exchanged told that all
+were well, and that the young folk would soon be at liberty. Some other
+messages came and went, through hands and feet and features, and then
+the postman sank down into a sitting posture at the edge of the
+chaparral. That was where Captain Moore now remembered seeing the last
+of him.</p>
+
+<p>The excitement over the cactus leaf absorbed all minds for a minute or
+so, then, and the Apache warrior went under a bush as if he had been a
+sage-hen. Once beyond it he was hidden, but he went snake-fashion some
+distance farther. As soon as he deemed it safe to stand erect he did so.</p>
+
+<p>"Ugh!" he remarked. "Pa-de-to-pah-kah-tse-caugh-to-kah-no-tan heap great
+brave. Heap get away."</p>
+
+<p>That was evidently his longest name, and he was a pretty tall Indian,
+and had a right to compliment himself just then. The men who hurried out
+after him, when they found that he was gone, went back again with a
+mental assurance that he was <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span>somewhere in the chaparral, but that only
+he himself knew precisely where. While they were hunting, he was walking
+rapidly through the cross-paths of the spider-web. He came to a place
+where one of the horses won by his band near Slater's Branch was tied to
+a bush. He was saddled and bridled, and he carried also one of the small
+water-barrels found among the equipments of the Mexican pack-mules. The
+warrior picked up his weapons from the sand near the horse, drank some
+water, complimented himself again, and went off on foot to complete his
+day's business. He drew stealthily nearer and nearer to the cavalry and
+cowboy camp at Cold Spring, and now, while Captain Moore and Colonel
+Evans were expressing so much regret that the postman of Kah-go-mish was
+beyond their reach, a pair of eyes under a thorn-bush, within a hundred
+yards, watched their every movement and took note of whatever was going
+on around the spring.</p>
+
+<p>The lurking Apache could see much, but he could hear little. Least of
+all could even his quick ears catch the suppressed whisper of Colonel
+Evans when at last he lay down upon his blanket for a few hours of rest.</p>
+
+<p>"Cal," he said, "if I don't take you home with me, what shall I say to
+your mother?"</p>
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span>
+
+<hr />
+<br />
+<h2><span class="smcap">Chapter XXVIII.</span></h2>
+
+<h2>THE MYSTERY OF THE STICKS.</h2>
+<br />
+
+<p>Cal Evans, sitting by the fire and toasting his bacon in the camp of the
+Apaches, knew nothing of what was to happen that day in all those other
+places. He was ignorant of what had already occurred, except to himself.
+His strongest feeling, at that moment, was grief for what he knew must
+be the anxiety of his father, and for what he feared that his mother
+would suffer when his father should get home without him. He had passed
+a wonderful night, and it seemed to have made an older boy of him.</p>
+
+<p>The dawn was brightening fast when he took his first cup of coffee. He
+was very hungry, and he picked up a piece of corn bread to eat with it.
+The fact that it was stale, and that it had been upon the ground, did
+not make any difference to a fellow who had been staked out, and who was
+very likely to be upon his back again very soon, or tied to a
+torture-post.</p>
+
+<p>As for his two guards, he did not know nor care that they had aroused
+several other braves, and that all of them were rummaging the forest,
+near the cypress, in search of any trail he might have left behind him.
+Each brave in turn had re-examined the forked stakes and had expressed
+his wonder. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span>According to them, Cal was "Heap snake" and "Heap bad
+medicine." They were at work upon their mystery, and he upon a piece of
+toasted bacon, when he heard an almost musical "Ugh," behind him,
+followed by other grunts, in which there was no music whatever.</p>
+
+<p>The first sound came from a woman's voice, and, when he turned around,
+there stood Wah-wah-o-be. She had risen early in order that the chief's
+breakfast might be ready for him upon his return from his morning look
+at the corral. The other exclamations were uttered by three
+dog-soldiers, whose patrol duty had brought them to that camp-fire.</p>
+
+<p>"How," said Cal, holding out his hand. "Good squaw. Give boy water."</p>
+
+<p>Then he remembered that she had answered him very well in Spanish, and
+he said something in that tongue about the coffee and bacon, and told
+the three dog-soldiers that they were very fine-looking fellows.</p>
+
+<p>It was not impudence, and it was not cunning, for it was nothing more
+nor less than desperation, but he could not have acted more wisely.
+While he was exchanging morning greetings with the dusky policemen, yet
+another brave came hurriedly up, and, the moment he saw Cal, he uttered
+an astonished whoop. He was one of the pair set to watch him, and he had
+come in great trepidation to announce the escape of the prisoner. Under
+other circumstances he might have even used violence, but a captive was
+safe in the hands of the dog-soldiers, and he did but stare in Cal's
+face as if in doubt as to his being there.</p>
+
+<p>Cal's mocking coolness was not at all exhausted, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span>for he felt too badly
+to be afraid. He held out his hand.</p>
+
+<p>"How," he said. "Good-looking Indian. Drive heap stick."</p>
+
+<p>"Ugh!" said the puzzled savage. "How boy get away?"</p>
+
+<p>"Leave stick there," said Cal. "Pull off arm. Put hand on again. Cut off
+foot. Put on again. Want coffee."</p>
+
+<p>He explained more fully, by signs, that he had taken himself to pieces
+to get out of his wooden fetters, and had put himself together again to
+come and eat his breakfast.</p>
+
+<p>Almost all Indians have a vein of satirical fun in them, and Cal's
+explanation was thoroughly appreciated by his hearers, excepting the
+wrinkled-faced warrior who was made to look like a cheated watchman.
+Wah-wah-o-be laughed aloud, and a deep, sonorous voice behind them
+joined her in what was half-way between a chuckle and a cough.</p>
+
+<p>"Ugh!" it added. "Heap boy. Son of long paleface chief. How boy like
+stake out? Kah-go-mish!"</p>
+
+<p>"Kah-go-mish is a great chief," said Cal. "Steal heap pony. Hear a great
+deal about him. Bad Indian."</p>
+
+<p>He had touched, half bitterly, the right chord&mdash;the Apache leader's
+intense vanity about his fame. Wah-wah-o-be was also pleased to hear
+that the pale-faces talked about Kah-go-mish.</p>
+
+<p>Before the chief could unbend for any more conversation, however, his
+duty required that he should investigate the affair of the forked
+stakes. They were a mystery even to him for a moment. He <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span>reprimanded
+the two guards severely for using them at all. They were needless. They
+had been carelessly put down. The braves who had done it were mere
+squaws, and did not know how to drive a stake. He was stooping over one
+of the fetters when he said that, and the truth flashed upon him. Cal
+had driven it down hard, and it was plain that no human ankle had ever
+been under that fork. The chief's derision of the unlucky guards broke
+out afresh, but he expressed great admiration for the skill and conduct
+of the young pale-face brave, the worthy son of the long,
+broad-shouldered chief of the Santa Lucia cowboys.</p>
+
+<p>Wah-wah-o-be had no need to explain to the dog-soldiers that Cal was to
+be permitted to finish his breakfast in peace. They were decidedly
+inclined to favor a youngster who had performed a feat so remarkable,
+and whose courage was evidently equal to his cunning.</p>
+
+<p>Other Indians and other squaws came and went, and boys and girls,
+although the larger part of the band was inclined to sleep a little late
+that morning.</p>
+
+<p>Kah-go-mish came back from his inspection of the stakes, and he came
+with another part of his plan ready for action. He now felt pretty sure
+of getting back Ping and Tah-nu-nu without giving up too many horses,
+and he had decided upon a safe method for opening negotiations with the
+pale-faces. Nothing whatever could be done successfully as long as the
+blue-coats were in the way. He had dealt with army officers before, and
+their methods had been unpleasant. They had always persisted in speaking
+of captured horses as stolen property, and they were in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span>a sort of
+league with the Mexicans as to such matters. His first business was to
+get beyond their reach, after letting them know that he held a hostage
+for their present good behavior. He ate his breakfast while he was
+thinking over the matter, and then he summoned one of his most cunning
+warriors and told him to bring his swiftest horse and a cactus-leaf.</p>
+
+<p>Cal's heart jumped for joy when he found that he was to write to his
+father, even with such materials. He took the leaf and he used his knife
+for a pen. He saw the Apache messenger spring upon his horse and ride
+away, and it seemed to him that one of the heaviest parts of his burden
+had been taken off.</p>
+
+<p>Kah-go-mish took pains to explain to his prisoner that if he should run
+away to the northward he would die of thirst in the desert, and if to
+the southward, he would only lose himself among forests and mountains.</p>
+
+<p>"Stake him out again?" said Cal. "Pull up stakes and come for coffee."</p>
+
+<p>Once more the grim Apache smiled not unkindly, and there was less danger
+of any sort of handcuffs or shackles.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as the entire band had eaten its morning meal, Cal had something
+worth looking at. The packs taken from the Mexican army mules had not
+been searched, up to that hour, except for present supplies. It was now
+needful to ascertain exactly what they contained, and they were all
+brought out and laid upon the ground in order. It was speedily evident
+that a company of Mexican cavalry, with a reinforcement of mounted
+militia, required few luxuries, but meant to have enough of such as it
+wanted.</p>
+
+<div class="img"><a name="imagep184" id="imagep184"></a>
+<a href="images/imagep184.jpg">
+<img border="0" src="images/imagep184.jpg" width="75%" alt="CAL USED HIS KNIFE FOR A PEN." /></a><br />
+<p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em;">CAL TOOK THE LEAF, AND USED HIS KNIFE FOR A PEN.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span>Corn-meal for tortillas, or Mexican cakes, was plentiful, and the Apache
+squaws knew what to do with it. So was bacon. There was an abundance of
+coffee and a fair supply of sugar. There were several small bales of
+tobacco in the leaf, for cigaritas, and some in manufactured shape.
+There were whole mule-loads of blankets, for possible use in mountain
+camps. There was ammunition, as if Colonel Romero had expected much
+fighting. Miscellaneous plunder filled out the list, and the band of the
+great Kah-go-mish considered itself very rich indeed.</p>
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span>
+
+<hr />
+<br />
+<h2><span class="smcap">Chapter XXIX.</span></h2>
+
+<h2>HOW WOULD YOU LIKE FIRE?</h2>
+<br />
+
+<p>The needs of human beings are very much the same the world over, but
+they are satisfied in different ways. The tilted wagon from Santa F&eacute;
+brought to Santa Lucia coffee and sugar of a better quality than the
+Apaches found in the packs of the Mexican army mules, but it was sugar
+and coffee after all. The magazines and papers had been full of news and
+information for Vic and her mother, and the escaped train-guard brought
+very interesting matter to Colonel Romero. Letters came with the wagon,
+but not one so interesting as was the epistle which Cal had written upon
+the cactus-leaf. No story of any sort, in any of the books or pamphlets
+which Vic turned over so eagerly, was likely to be more absorbingly
+interesting to her or to any other reader than were to Ping and
+Tah-nu-nu the tales told by the old Chiricahua under the shadow of the
+mesquit bushes near the Manitou Water. He told more, that evening. Some
+of them were about himself and some were about things that he had seen
+among the blue-coats at the forts where he had been. They were in a good
+frame of mind for listening, since the sign-language letter brought to
+them by the messenger of Kah-go-mish. They knew from him that their band
+was to leave no trail behind it, and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span>that the son of the long chief of
+the cowboys was as much a prisoner as they were. If they did not give up
+the idea of trying to make their own escape, they felt more contented,
+and could joke and laugh about their captivity.</p>
+
+<p>"Ping pale-face by and by," said Tah-nu-nu, almost merrily. "Heap
+blue-coat chief. Kah-go-mish make Cal big Apache brave."</p>
+
+<p>Her quick ears had caught his name, but Ping more frequently spoke of
+him as "Heap pony."</p>
+
+<p>Before the arrival of that quiet evening hour, Cal had added somewhat to
+his rapidly growing list of new experiences. He felt better after
+writing the cactus-leaf letter, and he ate a fair second breakfast,
+cooked for him by Wah-wah-o-be. He made her acquaintance very fast, but
+Kah-go-mish had his hands full of duties belonging to his pack-mule
+cargo, and he did not come again.</p>
+
+<p>Quite a different sort of fellow did come, for the wrinkled-faced old
+warrior was ready to burst with curiosity as to how Cal had managed to
+get out of his forked-stake prison. With Wah-wah-o-be's help he managed
+to say so, and Cal volunteered to show him. Several other braves went
+with them to the foot of the giant cypress, and in a minute or so more
+that Apache was described by all the voices around him as
+"The-old-man-who-put-a-peg-into-a-gopher-hole." He already had a fine
+long warrior name of his own, or the new one would have stuck to him for
+the remainder of his life. As it was, he evidently regarded Cal with
+more than a little admiration.</p>
+
+<p>"What do now?" he said. "No more get away?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span>"More eat, by and by," said Cal. "See red pony, now. Medicine pony."</p>
+
+<p>There was no reason why the prisoner, under a sufficient guard, should
+not be permitted such a privilege, and the wrinkled-faced brave nodded.
+He dropped his long Apache names, however, both of them, and used one
+which Cal discovered had been given him at the Mescalero Reservation.</p>
+
+<p>"Crooked Nose go," he said. "Pull Stick see medicine pony."</p>
+
+<p>The now numerous drove of quadrupeds belonging to the prosperous and
+wealthy band of Kah-go-mish were no longer picketed. Free of lariats,
+but attended by watchful red drovers, they had been conducted to a strip
+of natural prairie at some distance from the rear of the camp where Cal
+had eaten his breakfast.</p>
+
+<p>They were of all sorts, good, bad and middling, horses, ponies, and
+mules; and Cal was able to pick out, as he went along, quite a number
+that had come all the way from the bank of Slater's Branch. He was
+looking around him for one horse that was worth more than all the rest,
+in his opinion, when a loud neigh sounded from behind some bushes near
+him.</p>
+
+<p>Very much to the surprise of Crooked Nose, the handsomest mustang he had
+ever seen came out with a vigorous bound, a cavort, and a throwing up of
+heels, and dashed straight towards Pull Stick, as he had several times
+called Cal Evans.</p>
+
+<p>"Ugh!" he exclaimed. "Heap pony!"</p>
+
+<p>"Hurrah, Dick!" shouted Cal, and he threw his arms around the neck of
+the red mustang.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span>One of the dog-soldier keepers of the horses came riding towards them at
+that moment, however, and Crooked Nose touched Cal on the shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"Pull Stick come. Pony stay."</p>
+
+<p>He added a string of Apache words that Cal could make nothing of, but
+that described Dick as being now the property of
+The-boy-whose-ear-pushed-away-a-piece-of-lead. He conversed for a minute
+or two with the mounted Apache, and the latter pointed sternly towards
+the camp. There was no such thing as disputing with a Mescalero
+policeman, and Dick himself received a sharp blow from the loose end of
+a lariat when he attempted to follow the only master he recognized as
+having any right to him.</p>
+
+<p>Cal was glad to find that his four-footed friend was in good condition,
+after his pretty severe share in the adventures which began in the
+chaparral. Still, it was an uncomfortable thing to think of, that the
+red mustang was likely to end his days as an Apache pony instead of as
+the pet of all the household at Santa Lucia.</p>
+
+<p>The camp was regained, and Cal at once took note of changes. The fires
+had been kindled the previous evening, in a straggling line along the
+bank or a small stream of water. Tangled bushes marked the course of the
+stream, and great trees leaned over it, dropping the swinging ropes of
+vines from their branches to its very surface. The more distant fires
+had been entirely hidden, except for the glare they made.</p>
+
+<p>The band had bivouacked that first night, but now there were lodges
+going up, and Cal knew what that meant.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span>"They mean to stay here," he said to himself. "I might as well be in
+jail."</p>
+
+<p>It was nearly so. The neighboring wilderness had been found to be full
+of game, and the plan of Kah-go-mish called for liberal supplies of
+fresh meat, in addition to what he had found upon Colonel Romero's
+pack-mules. He felt sure that any Mexican force hunting after him would
+look almost anywhere else, and none was likely to come for a long time.
+He and his band were happy; they were safe; they could have a good time
+until continued happiness and safety might require another move.</p>
+
+<p>Cal and Crooked Nose were met by a summons to come before the chief, and
+went to find him waiting their arrival.</p>
+
+<p>"Pull Stick here! Ugh!" said Crooked Nose.</p>
+
+<p>"Kah-go-mish is a great chief!" remarked the Apache commander
+dignifiedly, but he had more to say. He repeated to Cal his previous
+counsel against an attempt to escape, but after that he raked out some
+hot coals from the smouldering camp-fire near him.</p>
+
+<p>"Boy see?" he said, as he pointed at the red warning. "How boy like?
+Ugh!"</p>
+
+<p>Cal shuddered and nodded, but he could not find a word to say in reply.</p>
+
+<p>"Look!" said the chief again, pointing to the ground a few paces away,
+and Cal looked.</p>
+
+<p>There lay the forked sticks which he had escaped from that very morning,
+and the meaning of Kah-go-mish was very plain indeed.</p>
+
+<p>"Boy, son of pale-face chief," he said. "No heap fool. Go. Ugh."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span>"Pull Stick come," said Crooked Nose, in a not unfriendly manner, and
+Cal walked away with him, to be more minutely informed that he could do
+about as he pleased, until further orders, unless he chose to do
+something like trying to escape, which would make it proper for his
+excellent Apache friends to stake him out again, and "make heap fire all
+over Pull Stick."</p>
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span>
+
+<hr />
+<br />
+<h2><span class="smcap">Chapter XXX.</span></h2>
+
+<h2>THE MANITOU WATER.</h2>
+<br />
+
+<p>That second afternoon, after the arrival of the tilted wagon at Santa
+Lucia, was dull enough, in spite of the ample supply of news and
+literature. All the news from all the world seemed worthless without
+news from Cal and his father. All the stories ever told were
+uninteresting until they should come home and tell the story of their
+expedition after Kah-go-mish and his Apaches. It had been so all day.
+The projected improvements, in and around the old hacienda, had somehow
+lost their attraction, and were discussed no more. In fact every time
+one of them had been referred to it had compelled somebody to mention
+the absent man or boy who was likely to have an opinion to be consulted
+concerning it. Vic and her mother went out on horseback in the morning,
+and they made an uncommonly long ride of it, for they went to Slater's
+Branch and back, galloping almost all the way home, and putting each
+other in mind of Cal's dash upon the back of the red mustang to warn
+them that the Indians were coming.</p>
+
+<p>Duller and duller, yet more unquiet had the day grown after dinner, and
+now the shadows were growing longer, and they seemed to bring more
+anxiety with them.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span>"Mother," said Vic at last, "I've been trying my best not to think of
+Cal or of father, and I can't."</p>
+
+<p>"It's the best thing we could do," almost sighed Mrs. Evans.</p>
+
+<p>"They may be fighting!" said Vic.</p>
+
+<p>"Most likely they're going into camp somewhere, all tired out," said her
+mother.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I do hope," said Vic, "they are on their way home. I can't read,
+and I won't."</p>
+
+<p>So all the printed things were put aside, and it may be that some of
+Vic's thinking made pictures for her a little like the reality that was
+enacting at Cold Spring and in the Mexican forest. No imagination of
+hers could have drawn anything quite equal to either of them.</p>
+
+<p>Something almost as well worth making a picture of was taking place a
+number of long miles farther westward. Away up among the crags and
+forests of the Sierra, but below the snow-range at that season, there
+lay all day in the sunshine a very tranquil little lake. All around the
+lake were the steep sides of mountains, and at no point was there any
+visible outlet. Streams of various sizes ran into it, and one of them
+came plunging over the edge of a perpendicular rock, in a foamy,
+feathery waterfall. There was plenty of room in the valley for the lake
+to grow larger in, but the trees at its margin seemed to say that this
+was its customary size. On the northern side the sloping steep went up,
+up, up, until all its rocks became hidden under a covering of snow.</p>
+
+<p>Just above the snow-line the June sun had been working hard, day after
+day, melting snow for the lake, until it had undermined a vast icy mass
+several <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span>acres in extent. Nobody could guess how many winters had been
+required to make that heap of frost so deep and hard, or how many
+summers had made everything ready for that hot day to finish the work.</p>
+
+<p>Just before sunset a moaning sound came down the mountain and filled the
+valley. Then something like thunder, or the report or a cannon, echoed
+among the crags.</p>
+
+<p>The avalanche had broken its bonds! Down it came, slowly at first, then
+more swiftly, and the tall pines were snapped off and swept away, and
+great bowlders were caught up and carried with it. Down, down, down it
+came, and at last, with a great surging plunge, it went head foremost
+into the lake. Crash! splash! dash! the flying sheets of water reached
+the tree-tops on the margin. The avalanche found deep water, for it
+almost disappeared, but it made the lake several feet deeper, and then
+its own fragments came up from their dive to be floated around and to be
+dashed against the shore by the waves.</p>
+
+<p>It did not take a great while for the surface of the lake to become calm
+again, with the snow-cakes and the ice-cakes almost motionless in the
+fading light. Not any human eye had seen the avalanche fall, or had
+noted its grandeur or any of its consequences.</p>
+
+<p>All things were peaceful at Cold Spring. Everybody had eaten supper long
+before sunset, and was glad of feeling sure that only the coming night
+was to be spent in a spot where nothing more civilized than a jackass
+rabbit seemed to have any permanent business.</p>
+
+<p>Colonel Evans had said all he had to say about <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span>Cal, and he stood near
+the spring, making vague speculations as to how and when he should get
+into better communication with Kah-go-mish. Near him, sitting upon a
+ledge, were Ping and Tah-nu-nu, and the old Chiricahua, who seemed to be
+telling his young friends something more about the bubbling water, when
+Captain Moore strolled up to within a few paces.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you see that, colonel?" he said. "I know sign language well enough
+if I can't understand the words. There's no wonder they're superstitious
+about Fonda des Arenas."</p>
+
+<p>"Cold Spring?" replied the colonel. "What do they say about it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ask the scout. He says it's Manitou Water in the old tongue. I can't
+work the Apache syllables."</p>
+
+<p>Neither could Colonel Evans, when the Chiricahua repeated them. He was
+even eager to tell more, and what he did tell was curious, if true. Just
+before the great and noble Chiricahuas and Apaches came to own that
+country, he said, there had been a hill there, a sort of mountain with
+forests, and there was no desert there, and no chaparral. The
+Chiricahuas would have preferred a hill and trees and grass, but the old
+manitou who had lived there had to go away, and everything sunk down to
+a level. The trees died and rotted away, and all was dry and desolate,
+until one terribly hot day when a band of Apaches reached the rocky
+level, almost dying of thirst. Their ponies were unable to go any
+farther, and they had given up all hope. They sat around upon the rock,
+and their ponies lay down. All night long they sat there, and then, just
+as the sun was rising, they saw <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span>something white spring into the air in
+the middle of the wide rock. A new manitou had arrived, friendly to the
+Apaches. He brought the Manitou Water, and it had run continually to the
+present time. Generally it was quiet, but if the manitou heard good
+news, the water would sometimes jump away up, as it did when it first
+came.</p>
+
+<p>"Very pretty story," began Captain Moore, but at that moment the air
+suddenly was filled with excited exclamations.</p>
+
+<p>The old Chiricahua uttered a loud whoop as he sprang to his feet.</p>
+
+<p>"Ugh!" he said. "Heap manitou!"</p>
+
+<p>He added a few rapid sentences in his own tongue, while Ping and
+Tah-nu-nu darted away to the edge of the chaparral and stood there,
+clinging to each other as if in terror.</p>
+
+<p>"Colorado!" shouted Sam Herrick. "What on earth's got into Cold Spring?"</p>
+
+<p>The colonel and the captain also retreated rapidly, shivering from the
+shock of a sudden cold bath, for they both were wet to the skin.</p>
+
+<p>Twenty feet high sprang the water, with a sharp hiss and a report like a
+pistol-shot. The first leap subsided, but was instantly followed by
+another and another, each less lofty than the one before it. Then the
+stream became fairly steady, but with about three times its customary
+supply, so that quite a rill of water ran away across the quartz, to be
+absorbed by the thirsty sand and gravel among the bushes.</p>
+
+<p>Neither Ping nor Tah-nu-nu nor the Chiricahuas could be induced to come
+near the fountain again, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span>but all the white men gathered around it and
+made guesses as to what had made it jump.</p>
+
+<p>"Something volcanic," said the captain.</p>
+
+<p>"Been an earthquake somewhere, it may be," said the colonel.</p>
+
+<p>All that evening there was more or less discussion of the remarkable
+performance of Cold Spring, and everybody missed the right guess. It was
+only a splash caused by the avalanche when it plunged into the mountain
+reservoir which supplied the chaparral and the sage-hens and the jackass
+rabbits and the other wild animals there with water. Nothing could well
+be more simple, and there was no soundness whatever in the grave remark
+made to Ping and Tah-nu-nu by the old Chiricahua.</p>
+
+<p>"Ugh!" he said. "Manitou Water heap good medicine. Good Apache manitou.
+Kah-go-mish get away now. Keep all pony."</p>
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span>
+
+<hr />
+<br />
+<h2><span class="smcap">Chapter XXXI.</span></h2>
+
+<h2>PULL STICK AND THE HURRICANE.</h2>
+<br />
+
+<p>Ping and Tah-nu-nu had had no good reason for complaining of their
+captivity. They had been well fed, they had each a magnificent
+handkerchief and a looking-glass medal, they had heard any number of new
+stories from the old Chiricahua, and they had seen how high the old
+manitou could make the spring jump when he heard good news. They were
+almost conscience-smitten to find how friendly were their feelings
+towards all those wicked cowboys and blue-coats, but they were sure that
+they could get over it all and be good Apaches again as soon as they
+should get out of that camp.</p>
+
+<p>One thought came, every now and then, to trouble Tah-nu-nu. Colonel
+Evans had said that he meant to take Ping home with him and make a
+farmer of him, and Tah-nu-nu's mind drew a humiliating picture of
+The-boy-whose-ear-pushed-away-a-piece-of-lead come down to work in a
+cornfield with a hoe.</p>
+
+<p>She spoke about it to Ping, and he replied with some awful reminders of
+stories he had heard of the cruel manner in which little Indian girls
+were sometimes treated by hardhearted pale-face squaws. She might have
+felt worse but for a memory she had of a beautiful ribbon given her by a
+white lady at the Reservation headquarters.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span>Both of them knew that the cowboys and the blue-coats intended to march
+away early the next morning, and it added more than a little to their
+respect for the Apache manitou who managed the Cold Spring water-works.
+They believed that the great jump of the fountain had produced such an
+effect upon the pale-faces that their chiefs had determined to give up
+the pursuit of Kah-go-mish. The old Chiricahua was still detailed to
+watch the movements of the chief's children, but they were not tied up
+that night.</p>
+
+<p>Neither had Cal been all day in the camp where he had been staked out
+the night before. He had seemed to listen so attentively to the stern
+warnings given him against any attempt at running away, and he had shown
+such good sense that very morning, that he was allowed to walk around as
+he pleased. He did so, and he succeeded in putting on an air of easy
+unconcern, although he knew that his movements were all closely noted by
+the keenest kind of human eyes. He could hardly for a moment be beyond
+the range of those of the dog-soldier police, but their watch was
+blindness itself compared to that of the squaws and the young people.</p>
+
+<p>The boys, of all sizes, avoided coming too near him, but it was not long
+before he made up his mind that every large tuft of weeds around that
+camp contained a Mescalero in his teens or under them. Little
+six-year-olders stepped away from behind trees, or sauntered out of
+bushes, or seemed to have errands which led them right past him. All of
+his own faculties were in a state of strained wakefulness, and he did
+not allow such things to escape him.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span>"I'll see the whole camp, anyhow," he said to himself, somewhat late in
+the day, after he had become accustomed to the queer sort of freedom
+given him. "I won't give them any excuse for piling fire upon me, but I
+want to know all about this place."</p>
+
+<p>The stream along which the camp lay was hardly more than two yards wide
+in many places, but it ran slowly and seemed to be deep. There were
+places clear of bushes, here and there, where it could be seen, and it
+had a black look, from the density of the shadows which lay upon it. It
+was good water, pretty cool, and the Apaches had taken some fine fish
+out of it, but there was something remarkable in the fact that it ran in
+a straight line.</p>
+
+<p>Cal walked slowly on, glancing at lodge after lodge. Most of them were
+pretty well peopled, and one that was not so had a guard before it, for
+it contained the treasures of the Mexican pack-mule train. There was not
+an Apache in the band wicked enough to have stolen anything out of that
+storehouse lodge, and the solitary dog-soldier who lounged in front of
+it was not there as a protection against human thieves. He was to keep
+out dogs, snakes, and any other kind of "bad medicine" that might
+attempt an investigation of the good things the loss of which Colonel
+Romero's cavalry were at that time growling about. He probably had other
+duties, but none of them related to Pull Stick, and Cal sauntered on,
+barely catching a glimpse of a pair of Apache boys who were doing the
+same among the trees on the other side of the brook.</p>
+
+<p>He had never seen finer trees, nor had he ever before noticed precisely
+such a run of water, for just <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span>a little distance beyond the last of the
+widely separated lodges he came to a point where the stream turned off
+at right angles.</p>
+
+<p>"It never did that of its own accord," suddenly flashed into the mind of
+Cal, and he added, aloud: "Some time or other it was dug out!"</p>
+
+<p>"Ugh!" exclaimed a voice behind him. "What Pull Stick see?"</p>
+
+<p>Cal pointed to the water and tried to explain himself, startled as he
+was a little by finding Crooked Nose so near him.</p>
+
+<p>The deeply wrinkled, forbidding face of the Apache brave put on a look
+of very dark solemnity as he lifted a hand and pointed at something
+about a hundred yards beyond the turn in the stream.</p>
+
+<p>"Ugh!" he said. "Pull Stick good eye."</p>
+
+<p>The first thing that caught Cal's attention was an enormous dead tree,
+whose gaunt, leafless arms reached grimly out above a great mound that
+it leaned over. He looked again, following the line of the water, and
+saw something else that was remarkable. The small rill which fed that
+long, deep, shadowed channel fell into it out of a massive stone tank.
+The masonry was overgrown with vegetation everywhere except at the place
+where the rill poured out.</p>
+
+<p>At some unknown day, away back in the past, when not one of those old
+trees had been more than a sapling, some people had been civilized
+enough and prosperous enough to construct that granite reservoir.</p>
+
+<p>Cal stared intently, for the shadows were beginning to deepen, and he
+knew that he would be <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span>interfered with if he went too far in his first
+ramble. The stone tank did not contain all the masonry over which the
+dead tree was leaning. The mound itself arose four-square.</p>
+
+<p>"It's one of those Mexican pyramids," exclaimed Cal. "I've read about
+them. Didn't know that any of them were ever found away up here."</p>
+
+<p>He may or may not have been correct about that, but in a moment more he
+turned to Crooked Stick.</p>
+
+<p>"Sun go down?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Ugh! No. Pull Stick get heap water."</p>
+
+<p>The deepening of the shadows had not been altogether because that
+notable day of Cal's life had nearly gone. It was rather because black
+masses of thunderclouds had suddenly arrived, and had hidden all the sky
+above that part of the ancient Aztec forest.</p>
+
+<p>Swiftly enough came a darkness that walked in among the tree-trunks and
+covered them so that they could not be seen at twenty feet away.</p>
+
+<p>A vivid gleam of quivering lightning made everything stand out clearly
+for a second. Then came a deafening roll of thunder, and that was
+followed by another burst of sound that Cal did not recognize. He did
+not even know the Apache word for cougar, which sprang to the lips of
+Crooked Nose. The beast which had uttered the terrified roar, however,
+came leaping past with tremendous bounds, as if the thunderbolt had
+fallen near him and he hoped to get away from it. Cal stood still,
+mainly because no time was given him for doing anything else, but the
+cougar almost brushed his shoulder as it sprang by him.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span>"Ugh!" said Crooked Nose. "Pull Stick great brave by and by. Good!"</p>
+
+<p>Flash after flash, almost incessantly, followed the tremulous glare of
+lightning, and peal on peal followed the thunder, during a full minute,
+before any rain fell. Then it seemed to Cal as if one awful flash went
+through everything around him, bringing its rattling volume of deafening
+thunder with it. He was half-blinded, half-stunned, for a moment.</p>
+
+<p>"That flash must have struck close by," he exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>So it had, for the next gleam showed him the gigantic trunk of the
+withered tree splintered through near the earth, its whitened stem, with
+its drapery of vines, toppling over to come down with a great crash upon
+the mound above which it so long had stood sentinel.</p>
+
+<p>The next instant all was densely dark, for the rain came down in sheets,
+and all other sounds except that of the thunder were drowned in the roar
+of a great wind. Cal Evans had come into that forest to witness a
+hurricane.</p>
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span>
+
+<hr />
+<br />
+<h2><span class="smcap">Chapter XXXII.</span></h2>
+
+<h2>UNDER A FALLEN TREE.</h2>
+<br />
+
+<p>Cal had been all day in a chaparral without water, and he knew by
+experience how very dry an alkali desert could be, whether under a hot
+sun or a brilliant moon. He had seen sudden storms before, for he was a
+ranch-boy, and there are wonders of electricity and rain at times upon
+the plains. Up to the moment when the hurricane struck the tree-tops,
+however, he had never fully understood what could be done by wind and
+water and thunder and lightning, at their very best working strength,
+working together. No wonder a poor cougar should be in a hurry to get
+under safe cover if he had any clear idea that all this was coming.</p>
+
+<p>As for the trees, the healthy ones stood up to it admirably. They had
+all been through hurricanes time and again, and were, moreover,
+something of a protection to each other. Any tree whose strength had at
+all been sapped by internal decay, however, or which had failed to send
+out roots in due proportion to its height, was in more or less danger.
+Every now and then the crash of some old forest prince made Cal look up
+at the trees near him to see how they were doing. Crooked Nose crouched
+upon the ground in silence, not looking at anything. The <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span>trunk behind
+which they were partly sheltered was apparently worthy of especial
+confidence, it was so very thick and seemed so completely beyond the
+power of any wind to break.</p>
+
+<p>"If any tree can stand it, this will," said Cal to Crooked Nose.</p>
+
+<p>"Ugh!" grunted the Indian. "Heap wind. Heap bad manitou."</p>
+
+<p>The trunk of that tree fully justified Cal's confidence. It did not
+snap. At that very moment, however, there was a strong hand of the
+hurricane upon its broad top, and the general uproar was increased by a
+groaning, tearing sound.</p>
+
+<p>"It's coming! it's coming!" shouted Cal, as he made a great spring into
+the gloom at its left, but Crooked Nose only lay flat upon the ground.</p>
+
+<p>Ripping, tearing, splitting the earth on the windward side of the tree,
+and breaking off, with reports like pistol-shots, the roots of the giant
+growth gave way. Down, down, down came the grand old oak, crashing
+through branches and smaller trees in the way. It left a great hollow
+where its roots had been, but Cal need not have stirred one inch. If he
+had been twenty feet high he could have walked under that fallen trunk
+without touching it.</p>
+
+<p>"Safest place there is," he said to Crooked Nose. "Hear that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ugh!" replied he. "Bad medicine!"</p>
+
+<p>Bad for something, perhaps, for it was the squall of an enormous cat in
+fright and trouble. It seemed as if the hurricane must have come for
+that particular tree, since it began at once to die away after the
+crash. The thunder ceased and the flashes grew <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span>fainter, while the small
+remains of daylight came back and made the dripping forest visible. The
+spirits of Crooked Nose did not at once return. He glanced at the mound,
+where the lightning-splintered wreck of the dead tree had fallen. He
+looked up at the oak-trunk over him, and he shivered as if from cold.</p>
+
+<p>Once more the cry of the cat in trouble sounded just across the brook.
+The carbine carried by Crooked Nose lay upon the ground, and Cal picked
+it up. It was loaded, and its owner did not make the least objection
+when Cal took the weapon, sprang across the narrow channel, and began to
+search for that angry cry.</p>
+
+<p>Yet again it sounded, and now it plainly came from among the branches of
+the fallen tree.</p>
+
+<p>"That's so," said Cal. "Must be the same fellow. Hid in these bushes and
+got pinned down."</p>
+
+<p>The frightened cougar had not thought of a trap, when he cowered in a
+little hollow behind a rotten log. It had not been set for him by either
+the oak or the hurricane, but it caught him, for a fork of one of the
+heavier limbs came down over that very hollow.</p>
+
+<p>Cal thought he had never seen any real scratching done until that
+moment. The earth and leaves and sticks and bits of bark flew fast, as
+the powerful claws tore a passage out of that captivity.</p>
+
+<p>"He's fighting to get away," said Cal.</p>
+
+<p>"So'd I, if I saw any use in it. I could escape, too, in such a storm as
+this. If another should come, I'll try and be ready. His head and
+shoulders are free&mdash;there he comes!"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span>Crack! and the report of the rifle was answered by a loud whoop from
+Crooked Nose.</p>
+
+<p>Out from his trap came the entire body of the cougar, in a convulsive
+struggle, and he lay dead upon the wet leaves, an ounce ball through his
+head requiring no second shot.</p>
+
+<p>Whoop after whoop answered that of Crooked Nose, but Cal stood still,
+wet, very wet indeed, and almost wondering how he came to kill that
+tremendous wild beast.</p>
+
+<p>The wrinkled, ugly face of the old Apache peered over his shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"Ugh! Heap bad manitou gone!"</p>
+
+<p>Boys and braves came hurrying to the spot, and half a dozen angry
+dog-soldiers were eager to know who had fired a shot within the limits
+of the camp, contrary to rule.</p>
+
+<p>"Crooked Nose kill cougar," was the first bit of broken English heard by
+Cal.</p>
+
+<p>"Ugh!" was the reply. "Pull Stick."</p>
+
+<p>There was a kind of fraud at work. The Apaches believed that Pull Stick
+had faced the very dangerous animal before him without any help. They
+had heard the wrathful squall, but knew nothing of the trap. Even when
+Cal explained it, the glory accorded to him was hardly diminished, for
+there lay the cougar, claws and all. He had performed a feat precisely
+equal to that of Ping.</p>
+
+<p>Among the last to come was Kah-go-mish himself, and yet he did not look
+like himself. The red stocking-legs on his arms were soaking wet, and he
+wore no hat, while his entire visage had a look of intense dejection. It
+remained there until he caught <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span>a glimpse of the cougar's body, and he
+nearly repeated the exclamation of Crooked Nose: "Bad medicine gone!
+Ugh! Heap good!"</p>
+
+<p>Slowly Cal began to understand the meaning of several things which
+Crooked Nose had told him when he pointed at the tank and the mound.
+That was a place which, as all Apaches knew, was "bad medicine" for
+them. They ought not to have camped there or put up lodges, and when the
+hurricane came it aroused all their superstitious fears. They had been
+dreadfully frightened; as much so as the poor cougar himself, and they
+would have cowered in any hole just as he did.</p>
+
+<p>Cal's unexpected feat, therefore, had broken a sort of evil charm of
+that dangerous locality. He had used a gun, however, to which, as a
+prisoner, he had no right, and there were serious questions to be
+considered. He had not undertaken to escape, but he had trespassed upon
+the "bad-medicine" ground. A storm had come and the bad manitou had
+thrown trees at him to kill him. Then he had sent a cougar to tear him
+to pieces. The bad manitou had not been strong enough, and Pull Stick
+had thus far escaped, but it was all very wonderful.</p>
+
+<p>Kah-go-mish beckoned Cal to follow him, and they all recrossed the
+little stream and walked on to the lodge of the chief. Several other
+lodges stood near it, for none of them had been blown down, but all
+things wore a soaked, miserable appearance in the dull gloom now
+settling down over the "bad-medicine camp." The squaws were trying to
+rekindle the deluged fires, but without any success. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span>Wah-wah-o-be, at
+her own heap of wet ashes in front of the lodge, was ready to give up in
+despair.</p>
+
+<p>Kah-go-mish was exchanging guttural sentences with a group of
+gloomy-looking, elderly warriors, when Cal took out his pocket-knife,
+picked up a piece of pine wood and began to make splinters and shavings
+of it. He then took from an inner pocket a case of wax-matches, and in
+half a minute more he handed Wah-wah-o-be a blazing bunch of what to her
+was comfort.</p>
+
+<p>"Ugh!" said Kah-go-mish to his counsellors. "Pull Stick good medicine.
+Heap bring fire. Friend."</p>
+
+<p>That was the turning-point, and Cal had but barely escaped a much worse
+fate than that of Jonah. At that very moment, however, a mounted brave
+galloped in from the forest and drew rein before the chief with a sharp,
+warning exclamation that was echoed by every tongue. Even Cal exclaimed
+aloud: "Mexicans? Cavalry? Rancheros? What next?"</p>
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span>
+
+<hr />
+<br />
+<h2><span class="smcap">Chapter XXXIII.</span></h2>
+
+<h2>LEAVING THE BAD-MEDICINE CAMP.</h2>
+<br />
+
+<p>The camp in the chaparral at Cold Spring was astir before daylight that
+next morning. Every soul seemed to want a look at the Manitou Water, as
+well as a drink of it, immediately upon waking. Tongue after tongue
+declared, in English, Spanish, or Apache: "Just as it was before, only
+it runs a little stronger." That is, the avalanche had raised the level
+of the water in the mountain reservoir and the pressure was greater.
+Every season must have witnessed very much the same changes in the
+conduct of Cold Spring, but, as a rule, without any human eyes to take
+note of them. The sage-hens, the jackass rabbits and the antelopes had
+kept no record.</p>
+
+<p>Cal's father was a sad-hearted man when he mounted his big black horse.
+He was turning his face homeward without Cal, and he almost forgot that
+he had come in search of stolen horses.</p>
+
+<p>Ping and Tah-nu-nu were given their own ponies, and were as ready for a
+start as was anybody else. As they reached the path-opening by which
+they were to go away, they turned and took a long look at the Manitou
+Water. It flowed on steadily, without a jump of any sort.</p>
+
+<p>"Ugh!" said Ping. "Manitou sleep."</p>
+
+<p>Colonel Evans and his cowboys, Captain Moore and his cavalry, all did
+the same thing, but not one <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span>of them made the same remark. The three
+remaining Chiricahua scouts also looked, and the old brave who had told
+stories to Ping and Tah-nu-nu shook his head, saying something about
+Kah-go-mish and bad medicine. He was thinking of the fourth Chiricahua
+who had been the first man of that expedition to drink of the bubbling
+snow-water.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you any idea when or where we shall get our next news of Cal?"
+asked Captain Moore, as he rode along at the head of his column.</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Colonel Evans, "but you can count upon one thing, they will
+try to steal away Ping and Tah-nu-nu. Every movement must be watched.
+Kah-go-mish and his band are far enough away by this time."</p>
+
+<p>The keenest calculations are sometimes at fault. A sharp gallop of three
+or four hours across the desert might have brought a rider from the
+chaparral very near the camp of the Apaches. If the palefaces, moreover,
+knew nothing of the movements or plans of the chief, he did not propose
+to be equally ignorant of their own. Hardly were they well away from the
+spring before something began to stir under the bushes behind the great
+cactus on the western side of the open. Then a human head became
+visible, and in a minute more a tall Apache warrior was stalking around
+the spring as if he were trying to find anything which the pale-faces
+might have left behind them. He was in no manner disposed to talk to
+himself, and his inspection was soon completed. After that, a half-mile
+of walking through the chaparral brought him to a bush where one of the
+stolen Evans horses was tied. He mounted and rode away, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span>and when he
+left the chaparral he did not take the trail which the band had before
+followed, but struck off across the desert in a southeasterly direction.</p>
+
+<p>If he had any intention of going back to the "bad-medicine camp-ground,"
+he was making a mistake, because the lodges of Kah-go-mish were no
+longer there. The Apache scout who came hurrying in, after the hurricane
+was over and just before sunset the previous evening, had been very near
+to not getting in at all. He had been all but intercepted by a strong
+column of Mexican horsemen. The storm had helped him to escape from
+them, but beyond all doubt he would be followed.</p>
+
+<p>"Kah-go-mish is a great chief!" loudly exclaimed the Mescalero
+statesman, and he added his own explanation of this new peril. These
+were not the Mexicans who had lost the pack-mules; not the command of
+Colonel Romero. They were probably the very force which had made a
+target of him as he stood so heroically upon the bowlder, and into whose
+camp he had afterwards so daringly ventured after horses and plunder.</p>
+
+<p>He knew that they were numerous, and he had no thought of fighting them.
+It was too late and too dark, he said, to begin any march that evening,
+but every lodge must come down, every pack must be made ready, and the
+band must move before daylight.</p>
+
+<p>Cal had no idea how narrow had been his own escape from the cruel
+results of Indian superstition, but he had overheard enough to
+understand the present flurry and the packing. He sat down, not far from
+one of the rekindled camp-fires, and watched <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span>the proceedings. It made
+him feel bluer than ever to know that civilized soldiers were so very
+near. He saw his cougar brought in and skinned, and he ate a piece of
+the broiled meat cooked for him by Wah-wah-o-be. The moon arose and
+looked down through the tree-tops, but Cal did not feel like sleeping,
+although his wet clothing had ceased to steam, and he felt almost dry.</p>
+
+<p>The lodges were all down at last, and everything seemed quiet, when
+there came to Cal's ears precisely the same boding hoot that had sounded
+among the cypress branches above him when he was staked out.</p>
+
+<p>"Must be the biggest kind of an owl," he muttered, but instantly he
+heard just such a sound again very near him.</p>
+
+<p>He turned to look for the second owl, and there he stood, with one hand
+at his mouth, for this owl was Kah-go-mish, and he was distributing news
+and orders among his band.</p>
+
+<p>There were rapid movements in all directions after that hooting.
+Pack-mules were led in. Squaws toiled hard and warriors worked like so
+many squaws. The horses of Kah-go-mish were led to the spot where his
+lodge had been, and one of them, bridled but without any saddle, was
+assigned to Cal with orders to mount at once. He had hardly done so
+before he heard near him a whinny that he knew.</p>
+
+<p>"Dick," he said, "old fellow! Don't I wish I were on your back!"</p>
+
+<p>His own saddle was there, and his own rifle and some other weapons were
+strapped to it. Other property was securely fastened upon them, and for
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span>that journey, at least, the red mustang had been turned into a
+pack-pony. He seemed to almost feel humiliated and downcast, but was
+otherwise in his usual condition, so far as his master could see.</p>
+
+<p>Hoot! Hoot! Hoot! came the owl cries from the forest westward, and the
+braves in charge of the shadowy train began to urge it forward.</p>
+
+<p>"Pull Stick, look!"</p>
+
+<p>It was the voice of Crooked Nose, and he was tapping his carbine
+meaningly.</p>
+
+<p>Cal nodded, but did not speak, for he understood the warning. His life
+was hanging by a thread, and he was in need of all the caution he
+possessed.</p>
+
+<p>Every camp-fire was heaped high with fuel before it was left behind, and
+the forest was all the darker by contrast. The Apaches managed to pick
+their way, with the aid of torches. It did not seem to Cal that they had
+ridden far before the trees grew thinner, and there was more moonlight.
+Then there were no trees; a little farther on and there were no bushes;
+all was plain enough then, for the bare desert was reached, and Cal knew
+by the stars that the band was heading in an easterly direction well out
+from the line of timber.</p>
+
+<p>Hardly had he said to himself, "Kah-go-mish got away in time, anyhow,"
+before he heard a muffled tumult in the forest behind him. Every animal
+in the train was pushed more rapidly.</p>
+
+<p>"Mexicans!" exclaimed Wah-wah-o-be. "Find fire. No find Kah-go-mish.
+Ugh!"</p>
+
+<p>A sharp rattle of distant musketry offered her a sort of angry reply,
+but it only drew a laugh from Wah-wah-o-be.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span>The great chief she admired had been compelled to hurry up his plans,
+but he had not been caught in the surprise skilfully prepared for him by
+the Mexican commander. That officer had acted with energy and good
+judgment. He had determined to attack the Apaches in their camp at
+night, and he had not wasted an hour. He had deserved success, but he
+had not won it. The Apache owls had defeated him.</p>
+
+<p>As the silent Mexican columns worked their slow way through the forest,
+they had remarked upon the uncommon number and wakefulness of those
+night-birds. They were in three divisions, dismounted for better work in
+the woods, and each division met its own owls, or seemed to. They saw
+the glare of the camp-fires and moved more slowly, with greater caution,
+in excellent order, until they had all but surrounded the bad-medicine
+camp-ground. A bugle-note gave them a signal for a simultaneous shout,
+and they shouted. Another bade them fire a volley towards the
+camp-fires, and they fired it. A third bugle sounded the charge, and the
+Mexicans dashed in magnificently. If there had been any Apaches there,
+not an Indian could have escaped, or at least not a pony or a lodge.</p>
+
+<p>"Kah-go-mish has gone!" roared the disappointed officer, and his entire
+command agreed with him, but not a soul of them all could guess in what
+direction, by any light that the chief had left behind him.</p>
+
+<p>As for Cal Evans, he had received an important lesson concerning the
+ways and wiles of Indian warfare, and his own escape seemed more
+impossible than before.</p>
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span>
+
+<hr />
+<br />
+<h2><span class="smcap">Chapter XXXIV.</span></h2>
+
+<h2>TAH-NU-NU'S DISAPPOINTMENT.</h2>
+<br />
+
+<p>Santa Lucia seemed to be under a cloud, in spite of the bright June
+weather. Vic grew more and more uneasy, and did not try to conceal it.
+She was not able to understand how her mother maintained such an
+external appearance of self-possession.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish we had two letters a day from them," she exclaimed for the third
+or fourth time.</p>
+
+<p>"One would satisfy me. Oh dear! Why can't we know something about them!"
+responded Mrs. Evans, and the broken serenity helped Vic.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps it was as well that no letter came, since any written from Cold
+Spring would have carried the dark tidings which Colonel Evans was
+bringing home with him.</p>
+
+<p>Captain Moore made a push that morning straight across the desert, that
+he might reach water and pasturage before noon if possible. The sun was
+hot, and frequent halts were needful for the horses, but the forced
+march was made with perfect success.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, boys," exclaimed the captain, at last, "I'm glad to see grass
+again."</p>
+
+<p>"Seven hours," the sergeant responded, "is a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span>sharp pull, captain; how
+far do you think we've come?"</p>
+
+<p>"Twenty-five miles of gravel," said the captain. "There! Glad of that!"</p>
+
+<p>A whoop from a Chiricahua scout, in advance, announced at that moment
+that water had been found. It was a tree-shaded pool, evidently fed by
+springs. Around it was a bit of forest, and outside of that were
+scattered patches of chaparral.</p>
+
+<p>"Well on my way home!" groaned Colonel Evans, "and Cal is not with me."</p>
+
+<p>Through all that weary ride Ping and Tah-nu-nu had plodded along
+cheerfully. They had talked with anybody who wished to have a chat, and
+had given no token of discontent. They did not look at all like a pair
+of plotters, but they had conferred much in their own tongue when no
+Chiricahua was within hearing. They had plenty of opportunities, for
+those three red-men had undergone a change. Even the story-teller had
+been moody and silent ever since the great spirit of the Manitou Water.</p>
+
+<p>Although of another band, which had become nominally friendly to the
+pale-faces, the Chiricahuas were as much Apaches as were the Mescaleros,
+and had been every way as bitterly opposed to life on any Reservation.
+Their present friendship was with American blue-coats only, and not with
+Mexicans, and Kah-go-mish had smitten their old enemies in a way to
+merit their approbation. All that, and their traditions and
+superstitions, laid a capital foundation for the Manitou Water to work
+upon. To their minds they had been notified that it was "bad medicine"
+for them to do anything against Kah-go-mish <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span>upon his present war-path.
+If they were ever to kill him, it must be at some future time when
+things were going against him and his medicine was defective.</p>
+
+<p>Stronger and stronger grew the pressure of the vague ideas that took
+possession of the minds of the three scouts. They even looked hard at
+the pool of water they now led their horses to, as if this also might
+present some supernatural tokens. They had been there before, and they
+now found nothing new, but they felt as if they did, and each in turn
+remarked, "Bad medicine." Something rippled the water away out in the
+middle. Perhaps it was a fish, perhaps it was a frog or a snake or a
+water-rat, or it may be that an old ripple had been tied up at the
+bottom and had just broke loose and come up for air. Whatever it may
+have been, the old story-teller winced when he saw it.</p>
+
+<p>"Ugh!" he said. "More manitou. Chiricahua no fight Kah-go-mish. Bad
+medicine."</p>
+
+<p>None of the white men overheard that remark, and none of them dreamed of
+watching Chiricahuas after what had occurred at the spring. The feud
+between the two bands was supposed to be more bitter than ever.</p>
+
+<p>It was decided by Captain Moore that several miles must be added to the
+day's journey as soon as the horses had fed and were rested, in order
+that something might be done towards catching up with the possible
+movements of Kah-go-mish.</p>
+
+<p>Ping and Tah-nu-nu mounted their ponies, but just before they did so the
+old Chiricahua came and seemed to be spinning to them some of his yarns.
+It must have had reference to the pool, for he pointed <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span>at it, and both
+of them nodded as if it were an interesting story.</p>
+
+<p>No story of the past had been told, but one of the immediate future had
+been suggested. In fact, it was all carefully planned out, and all that
+remained was to act it out, for there was no one there to write it.</p>
+
+<p>The intention of the cavalry and cowboys was to take things easy that
+afternoon, and they rode on in a long, straggling cavalcade, among
+groves of trees, reaches of grass, clumps of bushes, and occasional bits
+of rocky ground, while away to the south were evidently mountains such
+as Kah-go-mish led his band through after his great feat in the
+character of a log with a knot on it.</p>
+
+<p>Up to this time Ping and Tah-nu-nu had hardly been separated for a
+moment, but now he seemed willing to lag towards the rear, talking with
+the old Chiricahua, while she rode forward with the others, as if she
+too had become a scout. If any white man had suspected them of a purpose
+of getting away, the suspicion disappeared when this was seen.</p>
+
+<p>Colonel Evans had no suspicion concerning Tah-nu-nu or the two
+Chiricahuas, but he almost wanted to put away his thoughts of Cal, and
+he pushed his big black horse on alongside of her pony. There were
+flashes in her dark eyes and there were tightenings of her lips, and now
+and then she glanced right and left half excitedly. She drew her breath
+very hard and glanced at the Chiricahuas as she and the colonel rode
+past a rugged patch of craggy forest. His face was as if made of wood,
+but he said "Ugh!"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span>The whip in Tah-nu-nu's hand fell sharply upon her pony's flank. It was
+a blow given in utter vexation, rather than purposely, but the pony
+sprang forward all the same. So did the big black, and the strong hand
+of Colonel Evans reined in the pony.</p>
+
+<p>"No, Tah-nu-nu," he said, "you can't get away."</p>
+
+<p>"Ping is the son of a great chief!" she exclaimed, angrily. "Got away!
+Whoop! Heap good! Tah-nu-nu stay! Die! No pale-face!"</p>
+
+<p>She was intensely excited, her dark, regular features were flushed, and
+the colonel said to himself that she looked like another girl. All three
+of the Chiricahuas were with him at that moment. Not one of them took
+any notice of Tah-nu-nu's utterances, but the colonel straightened in
+the saddle. "Boys," he shouted to the nearest men behind him, "where's
+that young 'Pache? Go for him! The girl's been trying to escape!"</p>
+
+<p>Men in blue uniforms and men in red shirts wheeled at once, shouting to
+others farther in the rear. The whole line wheeled and shouted and
+searched hither and thither, and not any were more active than were the
+three Chiricahuas.</p>
+
+<p>It was all in vain. There was not a trace to be found of
+The-boy-whose-ear-pushed-away-a-piece-of-lead.</p>
+
+<p>Tah-nu-nu was suffering a terrible disappointment, and so was somebody
+else. Colonel Evans felt badly enough, but his caprice for a chat with
+Tah-nu-nu had prevented the superstitious Chiricahuas from entirely
+avoiding the "bad medicine" of Kah-go-mish. Part of it had been put away
+when the old story-teller, riding by Ping's side, had remarked, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span>"Ugh!
+Heap bush." He came out of that bit of chaparral all alone, and, for
+some reason, Ping knew where he ought to expect a meeting with
+Tah-nu-nu. He did not at once walk his pony as the rest were doing, but
+galloped hard for quite a distance. He made a wide circuit in advance
+and at last dismounted upon the summit of a ledgy hill, among crags and
+forest trees. Here he could look down and see what occurred, and almost
+hear what was said as the cavalcade went by.</p>
+
+<p>"Heap rock!" he had exclaimed. "Now Tah-nu-nu come."</p>
+
+<p>Then he saw why she did not, could not come, and his disappointment was
+as bitter as any human disappointment well could be. A light which had
+grown in his dark young face faded from it. He hung his head almost
+listlessly as he wheeled his pony southward. He had escaped and he could
+not return into captivity, but Tah-nu-nu was still a prisoner. What
+should he say to Kah-go-mish and Wah-wah-o-be? That is, indeed, if he
+should succeed in finding his own perilous way to the lodges of his
+band.</p>
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span>
+
+<hr />
+<br />
+<h2><span class="smcap">Chapter XXXV.</span></h2>
+
+<h2>HAND TO HAND BY FIRELIGHT.</h2>
+<br />
+
+<p>Colonel Evans and Captain Moore were vexed more deeply than they could
+have told by the escape of Ping. How it had been accomplished was a
+mystery. It was of no use whatever to lay the blame upon the
+Chiricahuas, or to ask them any questions. Each had been able to render
+a seemingly good account of himself, and each had taken the occasion to
+declare his undying enmity to Kah-go-mish and all his band. They did not
+tell how much better they felt, now that Ping's part of the "bad
+medicine" which threatened them had galloped away.</p>
+
+<p>As for Tah-nu-nu, she had never before known what it was to feel
+lonesome. So long as Ping had been in the camp she had been able to keep
+up her spirits, but now even her pride almost broke down, and if she had
+not been the daughter of a great chief she could have cried about it
+all.</p>
+
+<p>One of the two securities for Cal's safe return having disappeared,
+there was sure to be greater care taken of the other. Sam Herrick had
+probably never said "Colorado!" more emphatically than he did when he
+added: "Well, now, I'd like to see that gal git away. She won't!"</p>
+
+<p>Cal should have had still greater security held for <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span>him by his friends
+instead of less, for the events of the previous night had by no means
+ended when the squaw and pack-mule part of the Apache encampment
+succeeded in getting out into the open desert.</p>
+
+<p>The Mexican commander had made all his plans with caution as well as
+with skill, and their nature had been but imperfectly reported to
+Kah-go-mish. That chief knew that his assailants were drawing near the
+camp, through the woods, on foot, in three detachments. He knew that
+each body of soldiers was too strong for him to face, and that all had
+been cavalry before they dismounted. He was sure, therefore, that away
+in the rear of all must be a drove of several hundreds of horses. What
+he did not calculate upon was the strength and vigilance of the
+detachment left in charge of those horses.</p>
+
+<p>When, therefore, the Apache camp was abandoned, and all its treasures of
+quadrupeds and stores had been hurried out of harm's way, Kah-go-mish
+did not go with his family and household goods. He and a score of his
+best warriors rode away upon an errand worthy of so great a commander.
+They made a wide circuit, along the edge of the plain, entered the deep
+forest once more, dismounted, tied their horses, and pushed rapidly
+forward on foot. They were in the rear of the attacking columns, and
+were very near to the rear-guard and its drove when the Mexicans dashed
+in upon the camp.</p>
+
+<p>Creeping from tree to tree, nearer and nearer, the chief and his chosen
+braves reached the right spot and were entirely ready for the dash which
+they also had prepared at the moment when they heard the rattling
+volleys, the shouts, and the bugle-calls.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span>Small fires had been kindled by the Mexican rear-guard, and there were
+torches here and there, but these were not enough. The darkness was
+still sufficient to conceal from the creeping Apaches the fact that the
+Mexican commander had left a hundred men to guard his precious
+quadrupeds. He had stationed them well, also, and they were on the alert
+for Indians.</p>
+
+<p>Loud rang the war-whoops of Kah-go-mish and his daring followers, and
+their rifles cracked rapidly for a half-minute before they sprang out of
+their cover. Not many bullets could be expected to reach a human mark by
+firelight and torchlight. Very few soldiers were touched, but quite a
+number of horses received wounds which made them give tenfold effect to
+the panic and fright produced by the yells and rifle-reports. Neighing,
+kicking, screaming, the entire drove broke loose as the Apaches dashed
+in among them, and the shadowy woods around were full of trampling
+hoofs.</p>
+
+<p>As a military man&oelig;uvre, the plan of Kah-go-mish had thus far been a
+complete success, for he wanted only a stampede, and had no idea of
+capturing any of those horses. There, however, his success ended. The
+drove was scattered, so that there could be no immediate pursuit of him
+and his, but the Mexican militia had not been stampeded. They stood
+their ground like brave fellows, and closed in at once upon the whooping
+red-men.</p>
+
+<p>Bitter was the wrath of Kah-go-mish, for he found himself outnumbered
+several times. Half of his own warriors had instantly disappeared among
+the trees, as was their duty. The other half went down <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span>around him, man
+by man, whooping, firing swift and deadly shots, but well aware that for
+once their trusted leader had led them into a death-trap.</p>
+
+<p>There came a lurid moment when he stood alone, in front of one of the
+blazing heaps of light-wood, surrounded on all sides by men who had
+drawn their sabres because they could not use firearms for fear of
+hitting one another.</p>
+
+<p>Calm and ringing was the whoop of defiance with which he stood at bay, a
+revolver in one hand and a bowie-knife in the other.</p>
+
+<p>"Kah-go-mish is a great chief!" he shouted.</p>
+
+<p>Another whoop sprang to his lips, but it was not completed. There were
+flashes of steel blades in the shadows around him, and he fell heavily
+upon the grass.</p>
+
+<p>The Mexican commander was as much astonished by the sounds of battle
+behind him as he had been by the deserted condition of the camp he had
+intended to surprise. He ordered his three detachments to wheel at once,
+but they were impeded by the part of the stampeded drove which rushed in
+their direction. There were shouts and exclamations all along the line
+as the frightened animals broke through, but the officers held their men
+well in hand and pushed steadily forward. It was all a riddle until they
+marched out at the line of corral camp-fires. There were the rear-guard,
+drawn up in perfect order, except a few who were out in the woods
+gathering horses, and a few who were wounded, and a few more who would
+never mount again.</p>
+
+<p>Explanations were promptly made, and the officer commanding the
+rear-guard was warmly commended.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span>"The Apache chief fell," he said. "Kah-go-mish."</p>
+
+<p>"What?" exclaimed the commander. "Kah-go-mish? That is enough. It was
+worth what it cost."</p>
+
+<p>An hour or so later all that was left, a dozen out of the score who had
+ridden with the chief, caught up with their band. They came in silence
+until they were very near. The entire train halted, and a sort of
+shudder seemed to run through it. Not so should a war-party have
+returned, under the leadership of Kah-go-mish. There should have been a
+well-known voice, sounding its accustomed whoop of triumph. Instead of
+it another voice arose, long drawn and mournfully. It was the
+death-whoop of the Apaches, and it was answered by a woman's involuntary
+wail, for Wah-wah-o-be knew that the signal had been given for
+Kah-go-mish.</p>
+
+<p>Crooked Nose had not been with the chief's party, but had ridden by Cal
+as a special keeper. The instant he heard the death-whoop he turned to
+his charge and said, in a not unfriendly manner: "Pull stick got bad
+manitou. Ugh! All Apache heap mad. Heap kill. Great chief gone dead. All
+paleface die. Heap bad medicine."</p>
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span>
+
+<hr />
+<br />
+<h2><span class="smcap">Chapter XXXVI.</span></h2>
+
+<h2>HOW CAL WAS LEFT ALL ALONE.</h2>
+<br />
+
+<p>All that Crooked Nose had said about the grief and wrath of the Apaches
+over the loss of Kah-go-mish was true, but Cal seemed for a few hours to
+be almost forgotten.</p>
+
+<p>"Tan-tan-e-o-tan is a great chief," said the warrior upon whom the
+direction of affairs appeared as a matter of course to fall.</p>
+
+<p>He was the short, intoed, bow-legged brave who had been accustomed to
+command in the now dead leader's absence, and he had never yet told
+anybody how much he envied and hated Kah-go-mish. His first duty was to
+get away from the Mexicans without losing any more braves or horses, and
+there was no time for mourning. He then saw before him an immediate path
+to safety if not to glory, and he determined to follow it. He did not
+know that he had determined to carry out the great plan of Kah-go-mish.</p>
+
+<p>Very faint and difficult to find or follow was the trail left upon the
+sun-baked, wind-swept gravel of the plains by the dejected Mescalero
+cavalcade. It was several hours before Tan-tan-e-o-tan and his warriors
+deemed it safe to turn again towards the line of forest and find a new
+camp-ground.</p>
+
+<p>They knew that they were in no immediate <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span>danger, for the Mexican
+cavalry could undertake no pursuit that night. Even when morning came a
+large part of the horses Kah-go-mish had stampeded were yet roving
+through the woods. Scouting parties were sent out in all directions,
+however, and a courier was hurried away with the news of the destruction
+of the dangerous chief and of the eight warriors who had fallen with
+him. Unlucky Colonel Romero, two days' journey westward, was at the same
+hour penning a sad despatch announcing the loss of his mules and
+supplies.</p>
+
+<p>Tah-nu-nu once more awoke as a prisoner in the hands of the pale-faces,
+and the first thought which came to her was that Ping was gone and that
+she was alone. A remarkably good breakfast was provided for her, and
+while she was eating it she heard Captain Moore say, with emphasis: "You
+are right, Colonel Evans. Your best plan is to strike for home by the
+shortest road. You won't hear one word more about Cal before you get
+there. What Kah-go-mish means is plain. He wants to keep as many of your
+horses as he can and trade your boy for his girl. He can't stay in
+Mexico. You'll hear from him at Santa Lucia. My trip is ended and I'm
+willing to push as fast as ever you wish."</p>
+
+<p>Tah-nu-nu asked the Chiricahuas about it soon afterwards, and then she
+knew that she was to be taken to the lodge of the long cowboy chief, and
+kept there until Kah-go-mish should come and pay ponies for her. It was
+an awful thing for an Indian girl to think of, but there was no help for
+it, and she mounted her pony, sure of being well guarded. It was Sam
+Herrick's turn or Bill's, to ride by her side <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span>whenever the colonel was
+not there. The Chiricahuas were not needed any more, considering what
+had become of The-boy-whose-ear-pushed-away-a-piece-of-lead.</p>
+
+<p>They did not, indeed, know what had become of him. Perhaps the old
+Chiricahua guessed that he had been hidden among the "heap rock"
+bowlders and crags at one time, and knew why Tah-nu-nu did not join him.
+Even for the dusky scouts all was guess-work beyond that.</p>
+
+<p>Somewhat so had it been to Ping himself, but he had not listened to all
+the wise words of his father and the elders of his band for nothing.
+Even the stories told him by Wah-wah-o-be had been full of instruction.
+From one of these, concerning the feats performed by a great brave of
+the Apaches, he had derived lessons which had just now been of value to
+him. So had the uncommon size of the Reservation-collection trousers
+which had fallen to his share. Even after they were cut off at the knee
+there was room in them for another boy of his size. The pockets were so
+many canvas caves, and they were pretty well filled. Any boy knows that
+a pocket will hold a large part of his property if he keeps on putting
+things in, and Ping had put in everything he or Tah-nu-nu could lay
+their hands on. The pale-faces had his bow and arrows, but he had
+collected their full value. One trouser leg concealed a bowie-knife and
+the other a revolver. There were hooks and lines in one pocket and some
+cartridges, with some hard-tack. A large chunk of boiled beef was in
+another, and it was plain that the Chiricahuas had done something to
+prevent a famine to Ping from <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span>bringing upon them more of the "bad
+medicine" of Kah-go-mish. Unless he should meet with enemies or with too
+wide a desert, Ping was fairly well provided for a hunting and fishing
+excursion. He had never in all his life felt so proud and warrior-like
+as when he rode out from among the crags and wheeled his pony southward
+to find the trail of his people. He did not reach it that day, but when
+he made his lonely camp-fire at night, ate for supper some fish he had
+caught and the last of his chunk of beef, he would have been all over
+comfortable and satisfied if only Tah-nu-nu had been with him instead of
+being a long day's march nearer Santa Lucia.</p>
+
+<p>That same night was by no means so comfortable for Cal. Tan-tan-e-o-tan
+had not so much as spoken to him all day long, but neither had he spoken
+to Wah-wah-o-be. He had seemed to grow haughtier and more gloomy from
+hour to hour, and had given orders as if he had been Kah-go-mish and a
+trifle more. The march had been through as much desert and chaparral and
+rocky ground as was convenient, and an early camp was made in order that
+the four-footed wealth of the band might have a long rest and a good
+feed. Tan-tan-e-o-tan declared that they would need it, since the next
+day's trail would be through mountain-passes.</p>
+
+<p>"Good!" said Wah-wah-o-be. "Do what Kah-go-mish say. Heap bad Indian.
+Ugh!"</p>
+
+<p>The band had lost its chief and some warriors, but it was rich in
+horses, ponies, and mules. Part of these were doubtful property so long
+as the band remained in Mexico, but might not be so much so if carried
+north of the boundary line. The Santa <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span>Lucia quadrupeds, on the other
+hand, had no Mexican claimant, but would be poor property in the United
+States. These facts presented serious questions, and Tan-tan-e-o-tan
+reflected that Pull Stick was the only person in his camp who not only
+knew the whole story, but would be willing to tell it if he had a chance
+given him. There was much talk among the leading braves that night, as
+well as much mourning for Kah-go-mish and the fallen warriors. No
+decision was reached, and Crooked Nose told Cal that every friend of
+Wah-wah-o-be and her children had been opposed to "Make heap fire all
+over Pull Stick."</p>
+
+<p>Wah-wah-o-be herself was too full of grief to say anything, and Cal was
+left with a pretty clear idea that his case was getting darker. It was
+not easy to keep up much courage, but he was very weary in mind and
+body, and he slept as well as any fellow could, lying on the bare ground
+with his hands tied behind. He was untied when morning came in order to
+eat his breakfast, and he was busily at work upon it when a great shout
+at the other side of the camp was answered by a positive yell of delight
+from Wah-wah-o-be.</p>
+
+<p>"Ping! Ping!" she screamed, and added all the syllables of his best
+name.</p>
+
+<p>There was a grand time after that, and
+The-boy-whose-ear-pushed-away-a-piece-of-lead was a hero and the most
+important person in the entire camp. Even Tan-tan-e-o-tan considered him
+so until his report was made as to what the blue-coats and cowboys were
+doing, and Wah-wah-o-be did not give it up then. She was comforted
+concerning Tah-nu-nu, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span>while Ping listened with all the trained
+steadiness of an Indian brave to the dark, tidings of the death of
+Kah-go-mish.</p>
+
+<p>He listened in silence, looking at Cal, and it may be that he had in his
+mind a picture of the first glimpse which he and Tah-nu-nu had had of
+the young pale-face horseman, for his next inquiry was concerning the
+"heap pony."</p>
+
+<p>Wah-wah-o-be sprang from the ground, where she had seated herself for
+her recital. She darted away; and in a few minutes more Cal saw her
+return.</p>
+
+<p>Well might Ping's delight break through his grief, for with one bound he
+was upon the back of the red mustang. Cal's belt, with its pistol and
+cartridge case, his repeating rifle, his elegant knife, even his Panama
+hat, were duly delivered to
+The-boy-whose-ear-pushed-away-a-piece-of-lead. Saddle and bridle and
+all, Ping had taken the place of Pull Stick as the master of the
+swiftest, toughest, best mustang in all southern New Mexico&mdash;just now in
+old Mexico.</p>
+
+<p>Part of Ping's news had been that he had seen and been seen by a party
+of Mexican cavalry. There were not many of them, apparently, but he was
+now summoned to pilot some braves who were to ride out and take a
+distant look at them. Proud was he, and a proud squaw was Wah-wah-o-be
+when he rode away upon the red mustang.</p>
+
+<p>It was a dark hour for Cal. The preparations for breaking camp went
+swiftly on. They had been nearly completed when Ping appeared, and now
+every pony and mule and horse was soon in motion. No pony was brought
+for Cal. Instead thereof came <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span>Tan-tan-e-o-tan, with a grim scowl upon
+his face. He was accompanied by a pair of Apaches as merciless as
+himself, and they had plainly determined to put away the one witness
+whose memory and tongue were dangerous to them. They did not see fit to
+use lead or steel or fire, but Cal was more securely staked out this
+time. No twig was driven into a gopher hole, and he was told, "Pull
+Stick get away now. Ugh! Medicine gone."</p>
+
+<p>Their task accomplished, they remounted and rode away, leaving their
+victim alone and helpless in the shadowy forest.</p>
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span>
+
+<hr />
+<br />
+<h2><span class="smcap">Chapter XXXVII.</span></h2>
+
+<h2>RESCUED BY THE RED MUSTANG.</h2>
+<br />
+
+<p>The scouting party of Mexican cavalry reported by Ping were few in
+number, and were a long distance from any support. They had been willing
+enough to follow the movements of a solitary Indian boy, but were not
+disposed for a skirmish with the braves who now rode out of the forest
+behind Tan-tan-e-o-tan. There would have been no brush at all if it had
+not been for the revengeful tumult in the heart of Ping, and for the
+fact that he was so splendidly armed and mounted.</p>
+
+<p>The men in uniform yonder belonged to the troops who had slain
+Kah-go-mish, and Ping shouted, in Apache, "I am the son of a great
+chief!"</p>
+
+<p>He disobeyed a warning whoop of Tan-tan-e-o-tan, for he was bent upon
+riding within range, and Dick bore him swiftly onward. All the warlike
+thoughts and hopes which make up the thoughts of an Indian boy were
+dancing wildly around in his fevered brain. He was a warrior, facing the
+ancient enemies of his race, the men who had killed his father.</p>
+
+<p>Alas for Ping! Range for him was also range for the now retreating
+cavalry, and his one fruitless shot was replied to by a volley.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span>"Zst-ping!" he exclaimed, involuntarily shouting his own nickname, as
+the bullets whizzed past him, and then he felt suddenly sick and dizzy.
+One ball had not gone by.</p>
+
+<p>Dick obeyed the rein and wheeled towards the forest, but after that he
+was left to his own guidance. Ping was not unconscious, and he clung
+proudly, courageously to his rifle&mdash;Cal's repeater. He held on to the
+pommel of the saddle with one hand, but he hardly knew more than that he
+was riding the "heap pony"&mdash;riding, riding, riding&mdash;somewhere.</p>
+
+<p>Tan-tan-e-o-tan alone followed, at a considerable distance, the wounded
+son of Kah-go-mish, the other braves dashing away at once to join the
+band upon its eagerly pushed retreat into the mountains.</p>
+
+<p>Under the shade of the forest trees, near the waning camp-fire at which
+Wah-wah-o-be had cooked his breakfast, lay poor Cal. For him,
+apparently, all hope had departed, for he had vainly struggled to loosen
+the forked stakes which held down his hands and his feet.</p>
+
+<p>"I've no chance to pry," he groaned, "or I could do it;" but then that
+is the very reason why the red-men fasten their prisoners in that
+manner. Any man can pull up such a stick, if he can get a pry at it or
+even a direct pull.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall die of hunger and thirst and mosquito bites," he said. "It's
+worse than killing one right off. It's as bad as fire could be!"</p>
+
+<p>Just then he heard the sound of a horse's feet, and he drew his breath
+hard as he listened. Was it one of the Apaches come to torture him?
+Could it <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span>be a Mexican? It was a moment of awful expectation, and then
+he exclaimed, "Dick!"</p>
+
+<p>Dick had come, and he had found his way to the camp he had left, and he
+had brought home his young rider, but that was all, for Ping reeled in
+the saddle and then fell heavily to the earth. He was never to become a
+war-chief of the Mescaleros. His first skirmish had been his last.</p>
+
+<p>"Dick!" again shouted Cal, and the faithful fellow at once walked over
+to where his master lay. He seemed to understand that something was
+wrong with Cal, for he pawed the ground and neighed and whinnied as if
+asking, "What does this mean?" Dick's eyes had an excited look, and his
+ears were moving backward and forward, nervously, when again there was a
+sound of coming hoofs. Cal raised his head and saw Tan-tan-e-o-tan
+spring from his horse, stoop and examine poor Ping.</p>
+
+<p>"Ugh!" he exclaimed. "Heap dead!" A whoop followed instantly&mdash;a fierce
+and angry whoop.</p>
+
+<p>One of Dick's pawing forefeet had been unintentionally put down close by
+Cal's left hand. It was a quick thought, a lightning flash of hope,
+which led Cal to grasp the hoof with all the strength he had.</p>
+
+<p>Dick lifted his foot, and oh, how Cal's wrist hurt him, in the sudden,
+hard wrench that followed! It was his last chance for life and he held
+on, and the whoop of Tan-tan-e-o-tan was given as he saw the forked
+stake jerked clean out of the ground.</p>
+
+<p>Forward, with another yell, sprang the angry savage, drawing his knife
+as he came, but that screech was too much for the nerves of the red
+mustang. Out went his iron-shod heels, and there <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span>was a sharp thud as
+one of them struck between the eyes of Tan-tan-e-o-tan.</p>
+
+<p>"Hurrah for Dick!" shouted Cal, as his enemy rolled over and over upon
+the ferns and leaves. "That fellow won't get up again."</p>
+
+<p>Cal could now toil away with his lame hand to set the other at liberty.
+After that he was glad to find his knife in his pocket, for one of his
+ankle stakes refused to come up, and had to be whittled through. He
+worked with feverish, frantic energy, and he barely finished his task in
+time. He had only to whistle for Dick. His whole body seemed to tremble
+as he hurried forward to regain the belt and rifle which Wah-wah-o-be
+had so proudly given to Ping.
+The-boy-whose-ear-pushed-away-a-piece-of-lead would never need them or
+the "heap pony" any more.</p>
+
+<p>Cal did not mount, but led Dick away into the cover of the forest.</p>
+
+<p>"We should be seen if I rode away now," he said to Dick.</p>
+
+<p>Hardly was he well concealed behind dense bushes before, as he peered
+out, he saw Wah-wah-o-be, followed closely by Crooked Nose, gallop into
+the deserted camp. She had already heard that Ping was wounded, but not
+how badly, and she threw herself upon the ground beside him with a great
+cry. Crooked Nose bent for one moment over Tan-tan-e-o-tan, and the
+Apache death-whoop rang twice, long and mournfully, through the forest.
+It was followed by fierce and angry utterances, among which Cal caught
+something about Mexicans, and then Crooked Nose looked sharply around
+him.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span>"Ugh!" he exclaimed. "Heap Pony gone. Pull Stick gone! Big medicine. Bad
+manitou."</p>
+
+<p>Cal's second escape was plainly a greater mystery than the first had
+been. It was as Crooked Nose declared, and he was a boy whose medicine
+enabled him to get out of tight places.</p>
+
+<p>Cal decided that it was time for him to get away, lest others should
+come, for he did not know how fast the band was retreating. He had a
+thought, too, of meeting the Mexicans who had wounded Ping. He picked
+his way carefully, stealthily, among the trees, followed faithfully by
+Dick, and at the outer border of the forest he mounted. No Mexicans were
+in sight, nor any Indians, and he knew that beyond the broken ground
+before him lay the desert. What he did not know was that his father and
+all who were with him were already two days' march on their homeward
+journey.</p>
+
+<p>"I can find my way by the sun and by the stars," he said to himself.
+"I've had my breakfast. Dick can have some grass by and by. I may kill
+game on the way. Never mind if I don't. Santa Lucia is off there to the
+northeast. Now, Dick, this is your business. How many miles can you put
+behind you between this and sunset?"</p>
+
+<p>Dick pawed the ground, but he said nothing. Cal examined his cartridges;
+filled two or three empty chambers in his rifle and revolver; tightened
+the girth of his saddle a little; fixed his belt right&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Dick!" he shouted. "Now for Santa Lucia!"</p>
+
+<p>Away went the red mustang, and if any Indians had followed him, they
+would have lost the race.</p>
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span>
+
+<hr />
+<br />
+<h2><span class="smcap">Chapter XXXVIII.</span></h2>
+
+<h2>HOW THEY ALL REACHED SANTA LUCIA.</h2>
+<br />
+
+<p>A band of Indians who are in a great hurry travel rapidly, even if now
+and then they leave a worn-out pony behind them. They are also pretty
+sure to take short cuts and to save distances, and that was more than
+Cal Evans was able to do.</p>
+
+<p>The Chiricahua scouts with Captain Moore knew every inch of the country,
+and did not permit the cavalry and cowboys to do any needless
+travelling.</p>
+
+<p>Late in the forenoon of the third day after Ping's first and last ride
+upon the "heap pony," all was serenely quiet at Santa Lucia. It was too
+quiet, altogether, because its inmates were in such blue anxiety that
+they did not feel like doing anything. Reading was impossible, and any
+effort at conversation did but repeat the regret that there was no news
+from Cal or his father. The failure of everything else accounted for the
+fact that at this hour Vic and her mother were upon the roof, sweeping
+the horizon with the field-glass.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly Mrs. Evans held out the glass, exclaiming: "Look! Vic!
+Cavalry!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" shouted Vic, and in a moment more they were hurrying down and out
+of the hacienda.</p>
+
+<p>A roll of the prairie had hidden the approach of a column of mounted men
+until they were pretty <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span>near, and now all who wore uniform and a number
+of others halted at a hundred yards from the stockade gate at which Mrs.
+Evans and Vic were standing. One man dismounted and walked forward,
+leading by the hand a strangely dressed but comely-looking Indian girl.
+His face was flushed and troubled, and the eyes of the girl glanced
+timidly in all directions, as if seeking a means of escape from meeting
+those two pale-face squaws.</p>
+
+<p>"Husband!" exclaimed Mrs. Evans, turning very pale, "where is Cal?"</p>
+
+<p>"Cal!" echoed Vic, with painful eagerness.</p>
+
+<p>"He is a prisoner," faltered the colonel.</p>
+
+<p>"Father!" almost screamed Vic. "The Apaches have got him?"</p>
+
+<p>"The same band that took the horses, and that this girl belongs to. Vic,
+this is Tah-nu-nu. We shall hear from Cal."</p>
+
+<p>It was dreadful news, and it was not possible to hear it calmly, but
+Captain Moore now rode up and so did Sam Herrick. They had wished that
+first meeting over, and the report of Cal's captivity made without their
+being too near. Mrs. Evans managed to maintain her dignity fairly well
+to receive them, but they found Vic in an uncontrollable fit of crying.</p>
+
+<p>"Vic," said her father, "don't cry. Cal will surely come back soon, safe
+and sound. Take Tah-nu-nu into the house."</p>
+
+<p>At that moment they were all startled by a burst of cheering from the
+mounted men. Cheer followed cheer, and as the group at the gate turned
+to look, they saw a rider who dashed past the cavalry at full <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span>gallop.
+He was swinging his hat tremendously, but seemed unable to hurrah.</p>
+
+<p>"Colorado!" shouted Sam Herrick. "Cal and the red mustang!"</p>
+
+<p>After that nobody could have told what was said by anybody during a full
+three minutes. Then there came a sort of breathing-spell that was almost
+silence. They had begun to walk towards the house, and Vic was leading
+Tah-nu-nu a little in advance of the rest.</p>
+
+<p>"How did you say you managed to get away from Kah-go-mish?" asked
+Captain Moore.</p>
+
+<p>"It's a pretty long story," said Cal, "but there isn't any Kah-go-mish.
+He was killed in a fight with the Mexicans."</p>
+
+<p>"Did Ping get in before you left them?" asked Colonel Evans.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, he did, father. I felt real bad about that. Such a young fellow.
+Not any older than I am."</p>
+
+<p>"Killed, was he? Colorado! I'm sorry," exclaimed Sam Herrick.</p>
+
+<p>The leading features of Cal's capture and escape had already been told,
+but they were now gone over more minutely, and it was determined not at
+once to tell Tah-nu-nu.</p>
+
+<p>"I must think the matter over," said Mrs. Evans.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor little thing!"</p>
+
+<p>That was what Vic said, but she took Tah-nu-nu to her own room, and the
+shy, frightened look of the lonely Indian girl began to turn into one of
+relief, but also of intense curiosity. She saw nothing but friendliness
+in the face of Vic, and at last she <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span>remarked: "Tah-nu-nu glad Heap Pony
+get away."</p>
+
+<p>Vic could laugh heartily at that, and she was joined by Tah-nu-nu when
+the chief's daughter discovered what was next expected of her. She
+rebelled stoutly at first, but Vic was determined to have her own way,
+and when they came out again Tah-nu-nu was too proud and shy to utter a
+word. She wanted to run away and hide, and yet she wished to be seen in
+her new outfit, for Vic had put upon her a dress which she herself had
+refused to wear because it was too brightly gay for her sense of
+dignity. Tah-nu-nu had very pretty moccasins of her own, and now, with
+white metal ornaments at her throat and upon her wrists, and with a
+bright ribbon in her coal-black hair, she was the best-dressed girl of
+the Mescalero Apaches.</p>
+
+<p>It seemed too bad to tell her any saddening news then, and during all
+the rest of that day Tah-nu-nu was treated as an Indian gentleman's
+daughter on a visit to Santa Lucia.</p>
+
+<p>It was a great day for Tah-nu-nu, and Norah McLory and the Mexican
+servants were explaining to her the wonders of the kitchen during the
+long time spent by Cal in telling the minute particulars of his
+adventures in the Cold Spring chaparral and in Mexico. His mother and
+Vic seemed disposed to keep their hands upon him, from the beginning to
+the end of his story, as if for fear that he might again be lost or
+captured.</p>
+
+<p>Captain Moore and his cavalry camped near Santa Lucia that night, and
+marched away early in the morning.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span>Tah-nu-nu awoke in a pale-face bed, in a great lodge, such as she had
+seen before but never entered, and she hardly felt like a prisoner.</p>
+
+<p>"Kah-go-mish is a great chief," she said, for her first thought was of
+his coming for her release.</p>
+
+<p>An hour or two later she and Vic and Cal took a long horseback ride, and
+once more Tah-nu-nu admired the "heap pony." She was beginning to feel
+very much at ease, especially with Cal, for he had been acquainted with
+her family.</p>
+
+<p>They had been back at the ranch but a short time when Sam Herrick came
+in and beckoned to Colonel Evans.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it, Sam?"</p>
+
+<p>"Colorado!" exclaimed Sam. "There's an Indian and a squaw come. The red
+mustang was out there, and the Indian whooped when he sot eyes onto him.
+They want to see Pull Stick."</p>
+
+<p>"That's my name!" shouted Cal, and he sprang up and hurried out.</p>
+
+<p>He was followed by everybody but Tah-nu-nu, and in a moment he was
+shaking hands with Crooked Nose and Wah-wah-o-be.</p>
+
+<p>Their errand was briefly given. The whole band, what was left of it, had
+decided to return to the Reservation. They knew that in order to do so
+safely they must give up the Santa Lucia horses, and they had sent
+Wah-wah-o-be to say that they were ready to do it. What they did not add
+was that they were rich enough with the other quadrupeds won by
+Kah-go-mish in his successful war with Mexico. They wished to have word
+sent to the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span>blue-coats. Nobody need follow them, and the horses
+belonging to Colonel Evans would be delivered next day, with two good
+Mexican mules to pay for his cattle. It was a capital bargain for him,
+and reduced his loss to a low figure. He agreed to it at once, and then
+Wah-wah-o-be asked for Tah-nu-nu.</p>
+
+<p>"We are going to keep her," said Mrs. Evans. "We will keep you, too, if
+you will come. You need not go to the Reservation."</p>
+
+<p>Wah-wah-o-be's blanket came up over her head, and her loud, wailing cry
+was heard in the adobe. In a moment more Tah-nu-nu's arms were around
+her mother, and she knew that she should never again see Kah-go-mish or
+The-boy-whose-ear-pushed-away-a-piece-of-lead.</p>
+
+<p>Down upon the ground they sat, the great chief's wife and daughter, and
+it was hours before they could be persuaded to speak or to come into the
+house. When they at last did so, the mind of Wah-wah-o-be was made up.
+Kah-go-mish had declared that he would never return to the Reservation.
+Whatever others might do, therefore, she would not. Her proud position
+in her band was also gone, with her wise, brave husband and her
+promising son. She was ready to consent that Tah-nu-nu should remain at
+Santa Lucia. She would herself come back and bring her property with
+her.</p>
+
+<p>Tah-nu-nu would hardly have consented if it had not been for the
+positive commands of her mother, and if these had not been helped by her
+wonderful new dress and by the urgency of Vic. She roundly <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span>declared,
+however, that she would never hoe corn.</p>
+
+<p>Crooked Nose had very little to say after his first errand was
+completed, but just before he rode away he led Cal a little to one side.
+They were out in front of the adobe, and Dick was standing near them,
+unsaddled, unbridled, very much as if he were a house-dog, with a right
+to step around anywhere.</p>
+
+<p>"Ugh!" said Crooked Nose. "Pull Stick get away again. How?"</p>
+
+<p>"Heap Pony," said Cal, pointing to the red mustang.</p>
+
+<p>"Ugh!" said Crooked Nose. "Who kill Tan-tan-e-o-tan."</p>
+
+<p>"Heap Pony," replied Cal again.</p>
+
+<p>"Ugh! Heap bad medicine. No like him. Pull Stick got manitou."</p>
+
+<p>Something like that, in a higher and better form, was what Cal's mother
+had been telling him. She also declared that she meant to do all in her
+power for the squaw who brought Cal his gourd of water when he was all
+but dying of thirst, and for her bright-eyed daughter. Something very
+good was, therefore, in store for Tah-nu-nu. Perhaps it was something
+which Ping could not or would not have taken.</p>
+
+<p>Wah-wah-o-be kept her word, and when she returned she brought quite a
+drove of horses, mules, and ponies with her, as the property of
+Kah-go-mish, and Colonel Romero was not there to identify any of them.
+Cal did not know one from another, whether they were Apache bred or
+Mexican, and he said so.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span>There was really but one horse in the world that he cared much about. In
+fact, not only he and his family, but the cowboys and Wah-wah-o-be and
+Tah-nu-nu were disposed to attach an almost human idea to the uncommon
+qualities of head and heart which had been displayed by the red mustang.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h2>THE END.</h2>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<div class="tr">
+<p class="cen"><a name="TN" id="TN"></a>Transcriber's Note</p>
+<br />
+
+Some inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in
+the original document has been preserved.<br />
+<br />
+Typographical errors corrected in the text:<br />
+<br />
+
+Page&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;  60&nbsp;  fale changed to face<br />
+Page&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;  61&nbsp;  Chiracahua changed to Chiricahua<br />
+Page&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;  64&nbsp;  Sante changed to Santa<br />
+Page&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;  69&nbsp;  Gringoes changed to Gringos<br />
+Page&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;  72&nbsp;  woop changed to whoop<br />
+Page&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;  81&nbsp;  Chiracahua changed to Chiricahua<br />
+Page&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;  85&nbsp;  Tar-nu-nu changed to Tah-nu-nu<br />
+Page&nbsp; 103&nbsp;  discontentetly changed to discontentedly<br />
+Page&nbsp; 154&nbsp;  led changed to lead<br />
+Page&nbsp; 217&nbsp;  spirt changed to spirit<br />
+Page&nbsp; 223&nbsp;  ranche changed to ranch<br />
+
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Red Mustang, by William O. Stoddard
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Red Mustang, by William O. Stoddard
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Red Mustang
+
+Author: William O. Stoddard
+
+Release Date: October 30, 2010 [EBook #33897]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RED MUSTANG ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Edwards, Barbara Kosker and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+ THE RED
+
+ MUSTANG
+
+ _by_ W. O. STODDARD
+
+
+
+
+THE RED MUSTANG
+
+
+
+
+ HARPER'S YOUNG PEOPLE'S SERIES
+ NEW LARGE-TYPE EDITION
+
+ TOBY TYLER                      James Otis
+
+ MR. STUBBS'S BROTHER            James Otis
+
+ TIM AND TIP                     James Otis
+
+ RAISING THE "PEARL"             James Otis
+
+ ADVENTURES OF BUFFALO BILL      W. F. Cody
+
+ DIDDIE, DUMPS AND TOT           Mrs. L. C. Pyrnelle
+
+ MUSIC AND MUSICIANS             Lucy C. Lillie
+
+ THE CRUISE OF THE CANOE CLUB    W. L. Alden
+
+ THE CRUISE OF THE "GHOST"       W. L. Alden
+
+ MORAL PIRATES                   W. L. Alden
+
+ A NEW ROBINSON CRUSOE           W. L. Alden
+
+ PRINCE LAZYBONES                Mrs. W. J. Hays
+
+ THE FLAMINGO FEATHER            Kirk Munroe
+
+ DERRICK STERLING                Kirk Munroe
+
+ CHRYSTAL, JACK & CO.            Kirk Munroe
+
+ WAKULLA                         Kirk Munroe
+
+ THE ICE QUEEN                   Ernest Ingersoll
+
+ THE RED MUSTANG                 W. O. Stoddard
+
+ THE TALKING LEAVES              W. O. Stoddard
+
+ TWO ARROWS                      W. O. Stoddard
+
+ HARPER & BROTHERS
+ PUBLISHERS
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: "NOW FOR SANTA LUCIA!"]
+
+
+
+
+ THE
+ RED MUSTANG
+
+
+
+
+ BY
+ WILLIAM O. STODDARD
+
+ Author of "THE TALKING LEAVES"
+
+
+
+
+ ILLUSTRATED
+
+
+ [Illustration]
+
+
+
+ HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
+ NEW YORK AND LONDON
+
+
+
+
+ THE RED MUSTANG
+
+ Copyright, 1890, by Harper & Brothers
+ Copyright, 1918, by William O. Stoddard
+ Printed in the U. S. A.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+ CHAPTER                                                PAGE
+
+       I. THE HORSE AND HIS RIDER                          1
+
+      II. HOW CAL EVANS RODE FOR HELP                     15
+
+     III. THE BAND OF KAH-GO-MISH                         23
+
+      IV. THE GARRISON OF SANTA LUCIA                     27
+
+       V. CAL AND THE CAVALRY AND THE RED MUSTANG         32
+
+      VI. THE PERIL OF SANTA LUCIA                        38
+
+     VII. BOUND FOR THE BORDER                            51
+
+    VIII. GETTING READY TO CHASE KAH-GO-MISH              56
+
+      IX. THE HACIENDA OF SANTA LUCIA                     63
+
+       X. THE TARGET ON THE ROCK                          67
+
+      XI. THE STORY OF A LOG                              75
+
+     XII. PING AND THE COUGAR                             82
+
+    XIII. THE RETURN OF KAH-GO-MISH                       89
+
+     XIV. THE FOUNTAIN IN THE DESERT                      94
+
+      XV. LOST IN THE CHAPARRAL                          101
+
+     XVI. AN INVASION OF TWO REPUBLICS                   107
+
+    XVII. HOW PING AND TAH-NU-NU GOT TO THE SPRING       114
+
+   XVIII. HOW DICK PLAYED SENTINEL                       120
+
+     XIX. BAD NEWS FOR WAH-WAH-O-BE                      126
+
+      XX. HOW CAL STARTED FOR MEXICO                     132
+
+     XXI. THE MANITOU OF COLD SPRING                     139
+
+    XXII. ACROSS THE DESERT BY NIGHT                     144
+
+   XXIII. AT THE RANCH AND IN THE CHAPARRAL              151
+
+    XXIV. CAL'S NIGHT UNDER A TREE                       157
+
+     XXV. A STRANGE LETTER FROM MEXICO                   163
+
+    XXVI. CAL'S VISITORS AND HIS BREAKFAST               169
+
+   XXVII. THE POST-BOY THAT GOT AWAY                     174
+
+  XXVIII. THE MYSTERY OF THE STICKS                      180
+
+    XXIX. HOW WOULD YOU LIKE FIRE?                       186
+
+     XXX. THE MANITOU WATER                              192
+
+    XXXI. PULL STICK AND THE HURRICANE                   198
+
+   XXXII. UNDER A FALLEN TREE                            204
+
+  XXXIII. LEAVING THE BAD-MEDICINE CAMP                  210
+
+   XXXIV. TAH-NU-NU'S DISAPPOINTMENT                     216
+
+    XXXV. HAND TO HAND BY FIRELIGHT                      222
+
+   XXXVI. HOW CAL WAS LEFT ALL ALONE                     227
+
+  XXXVII. RESCUED BY THE RED MUSTANG                     234
+
+ XXXVIII. HOW THEY ALL REACHED SANTA LUCIA               239
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+ "Now for Santa Lucia!"                            _Frontispiece_
+
+                                                      FACING PAGE
+
+ She and Ping Were Stealing Out upon the Broken Ledge          86
+
+ "Ugh!" They Said, as They Looked at Him. "Kah-Go-Mish"       110
+
+ Cal Took the Leaf, and Used His Knife for a Pen              184
+
+
+
+
+THE RED MUSTANG THE RED MUSTANG:
+
+_A STORY OF THE MEXICAN BORDER._
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE HORSE AND HIS RIDER.
+
+
+Early one bright June morning, not long ago, a high knoll of a prairie
+in southern New Mexico was occupied as it had never been before.
+Rattlesnakes had coiled there; prairie-dog sentinels and wolves and
+antelopes, and even grim old buffalo bulls, had used that swelling mound
+for a lookout station. Mountains in the distance and a great sweep of
+the plains could be seen from it. Never until that hour, however, since
+the grass began to grow, had precisely such a horse pawed and fretted
+there, while precisely such a boy sat in the saddle and looked around.
+
+It is very uncommon for a mustang to show a bright and perfect blood bay
+color, but this one did so, and it seemed as if the glossy beauty of his
+coat only brought out the perfection of his shape and the easy grace of
+his movements. He was a fiery, powerful fellow, and he appeared to have
+some constitutional objection to standing still. The saddle upon his
+back and the bridle held by his rider were of the best Mexican
+workmanship, silver mounted, the very thing to complete the elegance of
+the red mustang.
+
+In the saddle sat a boy about fourteen years of age, a gray-eyed,
+brown-haired young fellow, broad-shouldered and well made, whose
+sunburned face was all aglow with health and who seemed to feel
+altogether at home in the stirrups. He wore a palm-leaf sombrero, a blue
+flannel shirt and trousers, while the revolver case at his belt and the
+carbine slung at his back added to the dashing effect of his outfit.
+
+"Cowboy! I a cowboy!" he exclaimed, as the mustang curveted under him.
+"Look at those cattle! Look at all those horses! I'd rather own Santa
+Lucia ranch and ride Dick all over the range, than to live in any city I
+saw in the Eastern States. Hurrah!"
+
+An exultant, ringing laugh followed the shout, but he still held in
+Dick. He took a long look, in all directions, as if it were part of his
+business to know if anything besides cattle were stirring between that
+knoll and the dim, cloudlike mountain-peaks, or the distant trees which
+marked the horizon of the plain.
+
+Cattle and horses enough were in sight, as he turned from one point of
+the compass to another. The horned animals were not gathered in one
+great drove, but were scattered in larger and smaller gangs, here and
+there, and were busily feeding. Something like half a regiment of
+horses, however, had kept together somewhat better, and the red mustang
+himself seemed to be taking an especial interest in them.
+
+"Be quiet, Dick," said his master. "Are you set on springs?"
+
+A low whinny and something like a suppressed curvet was Dick's reply,
+and it was followed by a sharp exclamation.
+
+"Dick, what's that? What's the matter with Sam Herrick?"
+
+At the same instant Dick was wheeled in an easterly direction and was
+permitted to bound away to meet a horse and rider who were coming
+towards him at furious speed.
+
+Hardly three minutes later both reins were drawn so suddenly as almost
+to compel the two quadrupeds to sit down.
+
+"What's the matter, Sam?"
+
+"Indians, Cal, Indians!"
+
+The news was of an exciting character and was given with emphasis, but
+neither the voice nor the face of the black-bearded, undersized,
+knotty-looking man who gave it betrayed the least trace of emotion. It
+was as if he were mentioning some important but altogether
+matter-of-course part of a cowboy's daily business. He added, in even a
+quieter tone and manner, as his horse came to a standstill, "I scored
+one of 'em. They've kind o' got the lower drove, but mebbe they won't
+drive 'em far. We can race these hosses into the timber. That's what I
+came for, and I'm right down glad you're here to help."
+
+Cal's eager young face glowed with something more than health, and his
+eyes were flashing, but he made an effort to seem as calm and
+unconcerned as Sam Herrick himself.
+
+"How far away are they now?" he asked, as he followed Sam's quick dash
+towards the drove of horses.
+
+"Mebbe a mile 'n a half. Mebbe not so much. Mebbe some more. All of 'em,
+except the braves that took after me, went for hosses and fresh beef, or
+seemed to. Guess we'll have time."
+
+"Will they get many cattle? Were there enough of them to gather the
+whole drove?"
+
+"They won't gather any cattle. It's a kind of bufler hunt for 'em. Lots
+of beef handy. They won't think of driving off any horned critters. Too
+slow, my boy. They'll take all the hosses they can get, though, and load
+'em up, too."
+
+Cal's face was in strong contrast with the dark, almost wooden sternness
+of the one he was looking into when he asked:
+
+"Sam, did you say you killed one?"
+
+"Can't say. Guess not. I meant to mark him, but it was his pony that
+seemed to go down. Didn't either of 'em get up, that I saw. He was an
+awful fool to follow me in the way he did."
+
+Sam was shouting at the horses between his short, jerky sentences, and
+his long-lashed, short-handled whip was whirling and cracking in a way
+that they seemed to understand.
+
+"How many were there of them?" asked Cal, the next opportunity he had.
+
+"Hosses? Well, they must have scooped the eastern drove. More'n a
+hundred head. We've got about two hundred here, but your father's lost
+some real good ones, this time. No fault of mine."
+
+"I didn't mean horses," said Cal. "How many Indians?"
+
+"Oh, the redskins?" said Sam, with a tremendous crack of the long whip.
+"Nobody can guess how many. They seemed to swarm all around. 'Paches, of
+course, but it's a curiosity where they came from. We must work, now.
+Further to the left, Cal. That's it. They're started. What are those
+mules halting for!"
+
+Nearly a score of long-eared fellows knew, in half a minute more, why
+they were trying to reach the woods ahead of the horses. It must be
+dreadfully aggravating to any mule to hear such a yell as that of Sam
+Herrick behind him, and to feel himself whip-stung somewhere at the same
+moment.
+
+Cal Evans whooped and shouted remarkably well, but there was something
+sepulchral and savage and startling in the sounds with which Sam
+encouraged the whole drove to reach the long, irregular line of trees
+and bushes, half a mile to the southward.
+
+"Keep it up, Cal! Whoop it! They're all a-going. Never mind any cattle.
+Whoop it!"
+
+"There come the redskins!" shouted Cal, at that moment, and then he
+seemed to almost hold his breath.
+
+"I saw 'em," coolly responded Sam. "We'll reach good cover before they
+get here. The drove's running fine."
+
+Sam was cool enough, but every muscle of his wiry body seemed to be
+uncommonly alive, and the horse he was on dashed hither and thither as
+if he also understood the matter.
+
+"They're gaining on us," shouted Cal, at the end of another minute.
+"More'n a dozen of 'em. What can we two do against so many?"
+
+"Keep cool, Cal. I'll show you when we get to the timber," replied Sam.
+"We're going to save every hoof of this lot, but they may get away with
+the other drove. I'm only half sure 'bout that, though."
+
+The mob of mules and horses before them had been whipped and shouted
+into a furious run, and the thud of their hoofs was worth hearing. The
+best runners were streaming out ahead, and the heavier, slower animals
+were sagging behind as a sort of rear-guard. Sam worked vigorously for
+the rescue of those slow horses, and he hardly turned his head to take a
+look at the Indians. Cal imitated him as well as he could, except about
+the looking, and with every bound of the red mustang he justified Sam's
+remark:
+
+"He rides like an Indian. Isn't he a fine young feller? Reckon the old
+colonel 'll say I was right. I'll save his boy for him if I have to lose
+the whole drove--and my own hair, too; but they won't get that for
+nothing."
+
+Cal Evans could not know what was passing in the mind of the swarthy
+cowboy. His own brain and every nerve of his body seemed to be all a
+tingle of excitement. He was now able to think about it and to be proud
+that he felt no fear. That is, no fear concerning anything but the
+horses.
+
+On, on, on, went that tumultuous race, and the line of forest was very
+near now. It was a sort of natural barrier, stretching across the plain
+as if put there to check the sweep of "norther" storms and prairie
+fires, and any sort of stampedes. The middle of it was a winding ravine
+or slough, and at some seasons it was a river, instead of a string of
+ponds for buffalo wallows. All the wild or tame quadrupeds on that plain
+knew the value of Slater's Branch, and some of them, and all of the men,
+knew that it never quite went dry, and that its faculty to become a
+river could be exercised at any time on short notice, when the snow in
+the mountains melted rapidly or when a cloud-burst came on this side of
+the Sierra.
+
+The trees and bushes knew all about Slater's Branch, and they came and
+settled for life on its banks, making a timber-belt thick and tall, with
+here and there dense undergrowths for the deer to lie in.
+
+Cal Evans could not quite understand the present value of that line of
+forest, and yet he felt that it had a sort of sheltering look, and he
+was particularly glad to be galloping nearer and nearer, for there was
+an unpleasant chorus of whoops and yells only about a quarter of a mile
+behind him, and it was manifestly growing louder.
+
+"Cal," growled Sam Herrick, "they've gobbled hosses enough for this
+trip. They can't have any more out of your father's corral. The critters
+are getting into cover. Keep cool, Cal. We may have to throw lead, some;
+but I reckon not much."
+
+"Won't they follow us into the woods, then?" asked Cal, doubtfully.
+
+"That's the question," replied Sam. "If they're young bucks they may;
+but not if there's a chief or an old brave among 'em. I'll show you."
+
+Cal was conscious of understanding the feelings of young braves who
+needed an old chief to hold them back. He knew that it would be almost a
+disappointment if he and Sam should succeed in saving the horses without
+any shooting. He had no desire to hurt anybody or to be hurt, but then
+the idea of a skirmish and a victory and all that sort of glory made him
+think of all the Indian battles he had ever read about.
+
+Sam Herrick was armed to the teeth, as became a cowboy in that region,
+and yet it had been a long time since any hostile savages had troubled
+it. The herds and droves had multiplied, year after year, almost
+unmolested, for the Apache bands were either driven over the Mexican
+border, or into Arizona, or were gathered on their reservations. If Cal
+had been asked, that morning, why he carried his own weapons, his best
+excuse would have been "I thought I might hunt a little," and his real
+reason would not have been told unless he had said: "I love a gun, and
+I'd rather carry one than not, and a fellow can keep thinking what he'd
+do with it if he had a chance."
+
+He had not tried to do any hunting, but his chance to do something else
+had come, or it looked like it, very suddenly.
+
+"There, Cal. Glad we're here--"
+
+Sam Herrick said that as he reined in his horse and sprang to the
+ground. Cal followed his example, and one glance around him made him
+draw a breath of relief. There were great oaks, in all directions.
+Several of the largest had fallen before the hands of time and some
+strong wind, and he and Sam had ridden in behind them, followed by a
+gust of angry whooping.
+
+"Take your tree, Cal," said Sam, as he raised his repeater and sent a
+warning shot in the direction of the whoops. "Now, my boy, if you was
+one of them 'Paches, how'd you feel about riding into short range of two
+good rifles, knowing what lead'll do for a careless Indian?"
+
+"I'd think twice about it," said Cal, "and so 'll they; but they may
+ride into cover above or below us, and creep up. There's more than a
+dozen of 'em."
+
+"Another time, perhaps, they might," said Sam, "but this isn't that
+other time. They haven't any to spare for scouting and skirmishing if
+they're to get away with their plunder. You and I can stand 'em off. Let
+drive, Cal! They're riding in too near."
+
+Crack, crack, went the two rifles, although the distance was over three
+hundred yards.
+
+"I declare!" exclaimed Sam. "One of us has knocked over a cow, on the
+rise, away beyond. They've seen it, though, and it's a good notice to
+'em. There's just one thing troubles me. Word ought to be sent to the
+ranch. They ought to be warned before any mischief comes to 'em. I don't
+half know what to do."
+
+He fired again, as if in vexation as well as in doubt, and the red men
+wheeled away as they also were uncertain what to do next.
+
+Cal was silent for a moment, but a terrible thought had flashed into
+his mind. The ranch was his home.
+
+"Sam," he said, in a changed, anxious voice, "is there any danger to
+them? I could dodge these fellows. I could carry the warning."
+
+"I'd never answer to your father for letting you run any risk, Cal.
+You're perfectly safe here, but it might be an awful race to Saint
+Lucy."
+
+Sam Herrick's idea of perfect safety was all his own, but Cal responded:
+
+"I'd be just as safe on Dick's back. There isn't a horse in New
+Mexico--"
+
+"I know," said Sam, "but a bullet or an arrer 'll out-travel any hoss
+living. If you could ride along under cover, to the left, 'bout half a
+mile, and set off behind the herd, without their sighting you--"
+
+"Yes," said Cal, "but why can't you come along and get to the ranch with
+me?"
+
+"My name's Sam Herrick, and I never went back on myself since I was
+born. Colonel Evans's hosses was in my keep, and nigh half on 'em's
+gone, and I'm bound to save the other half. I can stand off this lot of
+red-skins. They haven't an hour to throw away, and they know it. Mount
+and ride! Good-bye, Cal. You're taking all the risk there is."
+
+Cal sprang to the saddle, shook Sam's hand, and cantered away through
+the trees, but he did not hear the muttered words of the man who watched
+his departure.
+
+"I reckon," said Sam, "that was the only way I could have got him to try
+it on. He's clear grit, like his father, and he'd have stayed to fight
+it out in this here death-trap. I couldn't bear to have 'em get him.
+Besides, what I told him may be true. He may be saving the women folks
+at the ranch, and perhaps these chaps won't ride in. I'll give 'em a
+shot, now and then, till he's well away."
+
+Sam seemed wonderfully relieved, as if a great load had been taken off
+his mind. It was a great thing to him to have nothing but Apaches to
+watch and to have no awful responsibility concerning the boyish rider of
+the red mustang.
+
+If one of Sam's troubles had been in some small part removed, there was
+another question which from time to time came to his lips, and he now
+seemed almost satisfied with his own answer.
+
+"Where did they come from? Well, I'd say they was from the
+Mescalero--'Pache reservation, east of the mountains. They got tired of
+being cooped up on poor rations. How'd they get through at El Paso? I
+don't know how. Where'll they go next? I don't know that, neither."
+
+When Sam first saw those Indians that morning, no time at all was given
+him for taking notes. He had been suddenly compelled to put spurs to his
+horse and to ride for his life. He had been followed by the only
+Indians, out of more than a hundred, that were mounted, for all the rest
+were on foot. The hundred, and as many more as there might be, included
+dozens of warriors, besides squaws and children. There were a score of
+heavily laden pack-ponies, besides the ponies ridden by the mounted
+braves, but that band was particularly in need of the kind of property
+which Sam Herrick had been set to guard. He guessed very correctly about
+them. They had broken away from the region of country set apart as
+their reservation, for what they deemed good reasons. They had taken
+with them only such few miserable ponies as a series of disastrous
+seasons had left them.
+
+They saw Sam before he saw them; for, in spite of his customary
+watchfulness, he had been taking things lazily. They had no idea of a
+grand prize so near at hand, and the news brought back by their scouts
+who first made the discovery came as a thrilling surprise to the entire
+band. All the voices of all the dusky men, women, boys, and girls,
+exclaimed "Ugh!"
+
+That was followed by silence and by crouchings in the grass and behind
+ant-hills. The pack-ponies were led back a little distance. A tall
+warrior on foot gave orders with motions of his hands, hardly uttering a
+sound, and, in obedience to his directions, warriors, squaws, boys, and
+even girls, darted off to the right and left.
+
+The horses were feeding quietly, and were not widely scattered, and Sam
+Herrick sat in the saddle, looking at them listlessly and not dreaming
+of peril to them or to himself. He did not see the dusky forms which
+were creeping behind tufts and knolls behind him and away on either side
+of him. So it came to pass that when, at last, all was ready, and the
+braves who had ponies came galloping towards him, it was just as he
+afterwards described it to Cal Evans, "the prairie seemed to swarm with
+them."
+
+His only course was to dash away at the best speed of his horse, and the
+squad that followed him had cared very little whether or not they should
+catch him, except to prevent him from carrying news of their arrival.
+Their miserable used-up ponies had been no match for the racer he was
+riding, but the whole band seemed likely to be better mounted, speedily,
+than it ever had been before.
+
+There was very little whooping done by the horse collectors, for there
+was no wish to cause a stampede. The first horses caught and mounted
+were employed to catch others, and the packs of the pack-ponies were
+rapidly searched for lariats and bridles. Of course there was more than
+a little dismounting as well as mounting, for a number of unbroken colts
+did their entire duty in the way of refusing to be ridden barebacked.
+That would have been better fun at any other time. Just now it was a
+delay, and so a probable danger, and some of the most vigorous kickers
+carried their point, and were driven away instead of being ridden.
+
+There was work for the entire band, for the cattle were next attended
+to, and once more Sam Herrick proved to be a good guesser. Beef was
+wanted, but not on the hoof, and horse after horse and mule after mule
+was laden with fresh meat. A poor, hungry, dismounted gang of Apaches,
+escaped from their reservation limits, had suddenly become almost rich.
+Not a soul of them had ever been taught that there was anything unlawful
+in what they were doing, and there was glee all around, marred only by
+the fact that there was nothing there to cook with, and by the fear that
+the solitary cowboy might get away and bring a lot of angry palefaces to
+take that magnificent plunder away from them. All of that wide plain had
+once been Apache land, with its buffalo, its deer, and its other game,
+and whatever might now be found upon it by a band who considered
+themselves very good Indians, was fair game for them. They believed
+themselves to have been plundered by the whites, and to be now obtaining
+something like a part payment for their lost rights. Sam Herrick,
+standing behind the fallen trees, rifle in hand, was obstinately
+interfering with their effort to secure a much larger and better payment
+of the same old debt.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+HOW CAL EVANS RODE FOR HELP.
+
+
+The excited boy on the red mustang was not allowed to use his own
+judgment altogether as to the right place for riding out from the
+forest. Hundreds and hundreds of cows and bulls and oxen took that
+important matter into their own hoofs. They had not been so sensitive as
+the horses, and had not been whipped or shouted at. They, therefore, had
+not been stampeded so quickly, but they went wild enough as soon as the
+craze took them. They may have been wondering whether a norther or a
+prairie-fire or a travelling earthquake were after Sam and Cal and the
+horses when over the grassy rolls came that squad of yelling red-men.
+The whoops were an awful noise to hear, and one very thin, respectable
+old cow set off at once. In another moment there were tossing horns and
+anxious bellowing in all directions, while some half-grown calves threw
+up their heels and followed the cow. A wiry, vicious-looking ox, with
+only one horn, punched with it the ribs of his next neighbor. That
+example spread like wildfire; and something said by the widest-horned,
+longest-legged, deepest-throated old bull may have really meant:
+
+"Now--ow, every fellow bellow and run like all ruin--uin--uin!"
+
+Run like ruin they did, and, of course, they broke for the timber,
+although the Indians who were threatening Sam Herrick were right ahead
+of them. If a regiment of infantry had been in the way it would have
+been scattered all the same, and what were a dozen or so of mere
+pony-riders? Sam was safe among his fallen trees, but the Indians had to
+get out of the way of that stampede. Cal Evans saw the cattle coming,
+and he had his wits about him.
+
+"Hurrah!" he shouted. "I'll put them between me and the redskins. Now,
+Dick, it's our chance."
+
+The red mustang knew that he had been called upon. There was a whinny, a
+bound, a swift dash of nearly two minutes into the open plain, and then
+a burst of whooping announced that he and his rider had been seen.
+
+What of that, when all that tumult of tossing horns was streaming along
+behind them, putting its barrier between Cal and the nearest Apache
+warrior? Follow him? What would ponies already overdriven be worth
+behind the long, swinging, elastic bounds of the red mustang?
+
+"Hurrah, Dick! There's no other such horse living! Hurrah!"
+
+On, on, on! and there was no need of a trail to follow, for Sam
+Herrick's last advice had been, "Ride due north, Cal, and you won't lose
+any distance."
+
+At that very moment the brave cowboy was watching the course of events
+almost breathlessly, but the only token of excitement was a glitter in
+his black eyes, until he exclaimed, "Colorado! Cal's safe! The critters
+have done it. They've done me a good turn, too, if I can manage to keep
+out of their way."
+
+He sprang to the saddle, and hurried along deeper into the forest. Just
+as the foremost bulls were charging in among the trees, Sam rode out
+into an open place on the bank of Slater's Branch. It was bare of trees,
+but it was thronged with horses, and so was the wide, shallow pool
+beyond; and now they all heard once more the crack of Sam's whip.
+
+"The horned critters won't stop," he said to himself, "till their hoofs
+are in the mud. The redskins may follow 'em, but there's time to put the
+hosses on the other side."
+
+There was fright enough among them to prevent any delay, and the last
+mule was braying upon the opposite bank in reply to a shout of Sam's,
+when the cattle began to show in the open space. Bushes and trees had
+checked the stampede somewhat, but there were bellows of pleasure all
+along the line--bellows of all sorts and sizes, as if calf and cow and
+patriarch alike found mental relief in a sight of Slater's Branch.
+
+"Colorado!" exclaimed Sam; "all the critters are as nigh safe as I can
+make 'em. I'm free, now, to pick my way back to Saint Lucy. Redskins 'll
+go slow through timber with a rifle in it. If the whole band came I'd be
+of no manner of use. They can't catch Dick now he's got a clear start.
+Cal's safe; but what I want now is a fresh mount. I've taken twenty odd
+miles out of this one, and I may have racing to do. That gray's about
+X."
+
+The gray he singled out was caught and saddled and bridled, but no
+ordinary groom could have performed that feat. Neither could any timid
+horseman have compelled the gray to give up the disposition he had for
+dancing horse-waltzes and polkas among the trees. Sam did it, and forced
+him to go ahead with not more than three or four gaits at once.
+
+"More fire and more mischief and more good running in him," he remarked,
+exultingly. "Nothing could catch him, unless it might be Cal's red
+mustang. My chance is a heap better than it was."
+
+He seemed to have a habit of talking to some imaginary companion. Men
+who pass much of their time alone are very apt to get such a habit, but
+men who live among crowds never do. Away he went a mile or more down the
+Branch, until he came to a place where he could cross it almost dryshod.
+
+"The 'Paches won't come this way," he remarked. "They'll either try to
+strike Saint Lucy, or else they'll head for the Mexican line with their
+plunder."
+
+Sam could make his calculations as coolly as if the Apaches had been so
+many peaceable traders, but there was only one thought in the mind of
+Cal Evans. It grew as he rode, and it kept his mind in a sort of mingled
+fever and chill.
+
+"The ranch and everybody in it! If father is there he might take them
+for friendly Indians until it would be too late. He isn't likely to be
+there. Men all gone! Mother is there! Vic is there!"
+
+Cal's thoughts took terrible shapes as he galloped onward, borrowing
+horrors from all he had ever heard of the deeds of pitiless savages.
+More than once a fierce kind of shout burst from him, but he had no
+need for urging Dick. The red mustang's racing-blood was up, as if he
+knew that he were riding a great match against danger and death. He
+responded to his master with a short, excited whinny, and seemed to
+lengthen the splendid stride that swept the miles away. He had been set
+free to run his best and wildest, with only a light weight to carry, and
+the distance vanished behind him.
+
+Cal had ridden Dick more than once when there were running deer to
+catch, and had thought him a miracle of speed, but now there were
+moments when he almost found fault with him for going slowly. That, too,
+with the warm wind whistling past him, and his own best horsemanship
+called for to keep the saddle. He guided Dick a little with reference to
+burrows and ant-hills. He knew that there were no ravines worth
+mentioning. He even kept a lookout for possible Indians between him and
+the northern horizon.
+
+"I'll charge through them if I do see any," he said to Dick.
+
+His face had undergone a change for the time, and was hardly boyish, it
+was so full of desperate determination and awful anxiety. He was riding
+for the safety of his home--of his father, mother, sister. At last
+before him arose a long, gentle roll of prairie that he seemed to know.
+
+"Mother!" burst from him, as Dick sprang up the slope, and at the crest
+of it the good horse was reined in.
+
+"Santa Lucia! The ranch! All right yet, and not an Indian to be seen.
+Hurrah for Dick!"
+
+He deserved it, although he did not look is if he had been specially
+exerting himself. There was hardly a fleck of perspiration upon his
+glossy coat, and he drew only two or three long breaths, not so much
+because he needed them, perhaps, as that he also was relieved at finding
+everything serene about the ranch.
+
+It was, in fact, a very picture of peace that lazy summer morning. The
+stout stockade, containing fully two acres of ground around the spring
+and the buildings, seemed almost deserted, except for a few cows, some
+dogs, and a couple of tethered horses. The house itself, of one story,
+built of large blocks of sunburned "adobe," made three sides of a
+square, the main entrance being through a gateway in the palisades and
+covered veranda that guarded the fourth side. Each face was over fifty
+feet long, and the outer windows were mere slips. The Spanish Mexicans
+who built Santa Lucia, years and years ago, had planned it for a pretty
+strong fort as well as dwelling, and Cal Evans felt very kindly towards
+them at the present moment.
+
+The gate of the stockade was wide open, unguarded, and he dashed through
+it and up to the house in a manner which attracted attention. The sound
+of a piano ceased at once, and a dignified elderly lady, who came out to
+the veranda, was quickly joined by a younger and slighter form.
+
+"Cal," exclaimed the latter, "has anything happened to father?"
+
+"No, Vic, nothing much has happened--not yet--"
+
+"Cal, something has happened! What is it?" said the old lady, with a
+quick flush of anxiety.
+
+"I must out with it. The Apaches have scooped the lower drove, every
+horse. They came for the upper drove, but Sam and I got them into the
+timber--"
+
+"Was he hurt?" asked Mrs. Evans.
+
+"No, mother, but he isn't safe yet--" and Cal went on to give a rapid
+account of all he knew.
+
+Sam Herrick himself could hardly have shown better nerve than did Cal's
+mother. She grew calm and steady-eyed as she listened, but Victoria's
+pretty face paled and reddened again and again, for she was hardly two
+years older than her brother.
+
+"Oh, if only father were here!" she said.
+
+"Where's he gone?" asked Cal.
+
+"Out on the range," replied his mother. "He and all of them will come in
+at the first sign of danger. Everybody knew that the Indians were
+dissatisfied, but I didn't dream of their coming this way."
+
+"They wanted horses, mother, and they may try and strike the ranch,"
+said Cal.
+
+"I think not," she said, decidedly, "but you must carry the news to Fort
+Craig."
+
+"And leave you and Vic here? Never!"
+
+"You must not pause one minute. Not even to eat. Victoria and I and the
+servants can bar the stockade and the house, but no Indians will come.
+If there is really any danger, the sooner the cavalry get here the
+better. Do you think you've tired Dick?"
+
+"No, mother, but it seems as if I'd rather die than leave you here
+alone."
+
+"Ride for our safety, my son. Ride steadily. It's a long push for any
+horse, and Dick must last till you get there."
+
+"Yes, mother," said Cal, "but he can do it."
+
+"Leave your rifle," she added. "You'll not need it, and it's an extra
+weight."
+
+She did not let him forget to water the red mustang, and while Dick was
+drinking she packed a small haversack with cold meat and bread for Cal's
+use on the road.
+
+He was ready to mount.
+
+"Oh, mother, I want to stay and fight for you and Vic--"
+
+"Bring the cavalry! Go!" she said, and it seemed to cost her something
+to say it.
+
+He hardly knew, after he was in the saddle, in what words he put his
+good-bye. He saw two faces that watched him as Dick sprang through the
+gate. It seemed almost as if he had seen them for the last time, and
+then he thought, again, that perhaps the best hope for Santa Lucia and
+all in it had been confided to the swift feet of the red mustang.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+THE BAND OF KAH-GO-MISH.
+
+
+New Mexico is a wonderful country. It is full of places that are worth
+going to see, while some of its other places are well worth keeping away
+from. Down through the territory, east of the middle, runs north and
+south the main range of the Rocky Mountains. Among them rise the Picos
+and the Canadian and several other rivers that run away to the south and
+east. Westerly from the main range, with marvellous valleys between, are
+the Organ Mountains, made to show what strange shapes vast masses of
+rock can be broken into. Farther westward is the great valley of the Rio
+Grande and beyond this arise the Sierra Madre and the Sierra San Juan.
+It is all a wonderful region, with great plains as well as mountain
+ranges, and here and there are found remarkable ruins of ancient
+architecture and every way as remarkable remnants of ancient people.
+Some of the wide levels are mere deserts of sand and gravel--hot,
+barren, terrible--but others are rich with pasturage for horses and
+cattle, as they once were only for innumerable bisons, deer, and
+antelopes.
+
+The Spanish-Mexican hidalgo who had selected Santa Lucia had shown
+excellent judgment, although even in that day he probably had more or
+less trouble with his red neighbors. The present owners and occupants
+of the ranch had had none at all until the very hour when Sam Herrick
+found the prairie around him swarming with them.
+
+As for Sam, he had now no suspicion how near he came to again meeting
+the very Apaches who had chased him and Cal and who were now hurrying to
+rejoin their band. They missed Sam and they brought news back with them
+which seemed to receive the approval of the very dignified warrior who
+had directed in the capture of the horses. He was a proud-looking
+commander now, as he sat upon one of Colonel Evans's best horses to
+listen to their report.
+
+"Ugh!" he remarked. "Kah-go-mish is a great chief. Get ranch first. Then
+go for horses in timber."
+
+There was pride in every tone and movement of Kah-go-mish, for he had
+performed a great exploit, and he and his band were no longer in
+poverty. There were many signs, however, that they had not been
+prosperous upon the Reservation, although the chief still wore the very
+high silk hat which had there been given him. He had tied a green veil
+around it to set off its beauty and his own. His only other garments
+were the well-worn buckskin leggings which covered him from the waist to
+the knee, and a pair of long red stockings through which he had thrust
+his arms to the shoulder. Openings in the soles let out the hands, with
+which he gesticulated in explanation of orders which were promptly
+obeyed.
+
+About thirty warriors, now well mounted and all pretty well armed,
+whirled away northerly, with Kah-go-mish at their head, and their
+purpose did not require any explanation.
+
+Half as many more braves and all the squaws, boys, and girls proceeded
+to complete the beef business. They did it with great rapidity and
+dexterity, and then they, with the horses, dogs, and children, trailed
+away in a caravan that was headed almost due south. It was a very
+picturesque caravan all the time, but it looked more so than ever when
+it halted, after a while, on the bank of Slater's Branch.
+
+Some very good people had been interested in the reservation set apart
+for those Apaches, and had gathered contributions of civilized clothing
+for them. It had not been in rebellion against anything of that sort
+that Kah-go-mish and his people had run away, for the miscellaneous
+goods from away Down East helped the picture at Slater's Branch
+amazingly. The hat and stocking legs had helped the appearance of the
+chief himself, but other things had done more for a fat and very dark
+lady whom he had addressed as Wah-wah-o-be. The many-ribboned straw
+bonnet upon the head of the severe-faced wife of Kah-go-mish was fine.
+So was the blue calico dress with the red flannel skirt over it, and the
+pony she rode seemed to be afraid of the whole outfit. Near her, upon
+two other ponies, sat a boy and girl. They were apparently younger, a
+little, than Cal and Victoria Evans. They were hardly as good-looking,
+in some respects, and were dressed differently. Among the charities at
+the Reservation had been a bale of second-hand trousers, of the style
+worn nowadays by boys, reaching to the knee. The young lady wore a pair
+of these, and with them a dress of which any Mescalero girl might have
+been vain. A piece of yard-wide red cotton, three yards long, had a hole
+in the middle for the head to pass through. When proper armholes were
+added and a belt of embroidered antelope skin confined the loose cloth
+at the waist, what more was needed by the bright-eyed daughter of
+Kah-go-mish?
+
+The boy on the other pony--Well, he wore another pair of second-hand
+trousers. They had been planned for a man and were large in the waist,
+requiring a belt, but had been altered to the complete style by cutting
+them off just below the knee. The pony he rode was one of the nearly
+worn-out fellows that had travelled all the way across the mountains
+from the Reservation. He and Cal Evans had been within a few miles of
+each other that morning. Both were uncommonly vigorous young fellows, of
+whom their parents had a right to be proud, but it was not easy to
+discover many points of resemblance between them. There did not seem to
+be the least probability that they would ever be much thrown into each
+other's society; but then no young fellow of fourteen knows precisely
+who his future friends are to be, or where he is to meet them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+THE GARRISON OF SANTA LUCIA.
+
+
+Fully six miles from the threatened home of the Evans family there was a
+deep, round sink-hole, shaped like a funnel. Nobody knew exactly when or
+how it was made, but down at the weedy bottom of it lay the body of an
+Indian pony, and over that there leaned a very tall man.
+
+Up at the margin of the sink-hole were four horses, and three of them
+had riders.
+
+"Well, colonel, how does it pan out?" asked one of the mounted men.
+
+"Either Cal or Sam Herrick did it. Hit him right between the eyes.
+'Tisn't two hours since it was done. The critter rolled down here.
+Joaquin, you and Key ride for the ranch. Tell Mrs. Evans I'll scout a
+little and be right there."
+
+"All right, colonel," shouted one of the horsemen.
+
+"Si, senor," responded the other.
+
+The first was a brawny, freckled old fellow, with nothing to mark him
+for notice but a jaunty sort of roll and swagger, even in the saddle.
+The second speaker was an American, of the race that fought with
+Hernando Cortes for the road to the City of Mexico. He may or may not
+have been a full-blooded Tlascalan, but there was a fierce, tigerish
+expression on his face as he glanced at the dead pony. His white teeth
+showed, also, in a way to indicate the state of his mind towards the
+tribe the pony's owner belonged to, but the words he uttered carried a
+surprise with them. Who would have thought that so sweet and musical a
+voice could come from such a thunder-cloud face?
+
+Key and Joaquin galloped away, and Colonel Evans climbed up out of the
+sink-hole.
+
+"Somebody coming," suddenly exclaimed the remaining horseman.
+
+"Reckon it must be Sam."
+
+"Looks like him, Bill," said the colonel. "Coming on the run."
+
+"We'll know now!" and Bill's words came out in a harsh, rasping voice
+that matched exactly with his long, thin body and coarse yellow hair.
+
+The colonel stood by his horse waiting for Sam. Nobody who saw him once
+was likely to forget him. His eyes and hair were like Cal's, but the
+likeness did not go much further. There was silver in his heavy beard
+and mustache, and his eyebrows were bushy, giving him a stern, and, just
+now, a threatening expression. More than that, Colonel Abe Evans, old
+Indian trader and ranch owner, stood six feet and seven inches, although
+he was so well proportioned that at a little distance he did not seem
+unusually large. As to his strength, his men may have exaggerated a
+little, now and then, but they declared that whenever a horse tired
+under him he would take turns and carry the horse, so as not to lose
+time. He hated to lose anything, they said, but most of all he hated to
+lose his temper.
+
+There were signs that he was having some difficulty in keeping cool just
+now, but his voice was steady, as yet.
+
+"Is that your work?" he asked, as Sam reined in and stared down at the
+dead pony in the sink-hole.
+
+"Colorado!" exclaimed Sam. "That's where that 'Pache went to. Hit the
+pony, did I? 'Peared to go out of sight powerful sudden."
+
+He paused for a moment, and he wiped his forehead, but there was a
+steely light beginning to dance in the eyes of Colonel Evans, and the
+cowboy continued: "No manner of use blinking it, colonel. The lower
+drove's gone. Took me by surprise. Reg'lar swarm. I reached the upper
+drove in time and stampeded it across Slater's Branch. Every hoof."
+
+"Did they follow you?"
+
+"Oh, yes, a gang of 'em, but Cal and I stood 'em off."
+
+"Cal!" exclaimed his father, with a start and a shiver, but Sam went
+steadily on in a rapid sketch of the morning's adventures.
+
+"Sam Herrick," said the colonel, "keep the gray you're on. It's your
+horse. I can read the whole thing like a book. Of course they wanted
+beef and horses, but they may go for the ranch. Come on!"
+
+There was an angry shake, now, in the deep, ringing tones of his voice,
+and the veins in his forehead were swelling. He sprang to the saddle of
+the broad-chested, strong limbed thoroughbred held for him, and that
+seemed just the horse for the strongest man in southern New Mexico.
+
+"Sam," said he, as they rode away, "what's your opinion?"
+
+"Cal got there safe, long before the redskins could. We can do it, too,
+if they worked long enough over their beef. If we get there first, we
+can hold Saint Lucy against twice as many. But if we don't--"
+
+Neither of those horsemen said another word after that. Sam knew no more
+than the rest did of what was actually going on at the ranch.
+
+More than a little had been going on, and with quite remarkable results.
+
+Hardly had Cal disappeared through the gateway of the stockade before
+the two in the veranda turned and looked wistfully at one another.
+
+"Mother," said Victoria, "do you think there is really any danger?"
+
+"Terrible danger, my dear," said Mrs. Evans, with a quiver in her firm
+lips.
+
+"Then what made you send Cal away? Oh, mother!"
+
+"We are as safe, almost, without him as with him, and the whole valley
+is in danger until the army officers are warned. They believe that
+everything is quiet."
+
+"How I wish they were here! And father!"
+
+"Victoria," exclaimed Mrs. Evans, with a face that grew very pale, "he
+went to look at the lower drove, the one that the savages have
+captured."
+
+"Sam didn't see him, or Cal would have said so. Mother, you don't
+believe they killed him?"
+
+There was a strange look in the resolute face of Mrs. Evans.
+
+"Vic," she said, "I don't believe they have touched him. He's not the
+man to be caught. We must work, though, for they'll be here pretty
+soon. We must bar the gate, first, and any prowling Indian needn't be
+told that there are only women behind the stockade."
+
+Vic's quick dash for the gate expressed her feelings fairly, but she put
+up the bars of the gate with more strength and steadiness than might
+have been expected of her. But for the reddish tint of her hair she
+would have looked even more like Cal than she did when she turned and
+said: "There, mother, that's done. Now, what?"
+
+Mrs. Evans studied the gate for a moment.
+
+"Vic," she said, "everybody must help. I think we can hold the ranch.
+Come with me."
+
+In half a minute more they were standing in the courtyard of the adobe,
+explaining the terrors of the situation to a group of five startled and
+frightened women. Seven in all, they were the only garrison of Santa
+Lucia, and Kah-go-mish and his warriors were coming to surprise it. How
+long could they hold out?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+CAL AND THE CAVALRY AND THE RED MUSTANG.
+
+
+"Sixty miles to Fort Craig!"
+
+That had been the mournful exclamation of Cal Evans, a little distance
+from Santa Lucia. Then he made a brief calculation, and added: "Dick has
+had ten miles of easy going and ten miles of running. Not many horses
+could stand sixty more. I believe he can, but I'll take care of him, as
+mother said. It's awful! I don't wonder some people want to kill all the
+Indians, right away. I do."
+
+He had some lessons yet to learn about Indians, but now he reined in the
+red mustang to a steady-going gallop instead of the free gait that Dick
+was inclined to take.
+
+An hour went by, and it was a trying hour to Cal Evans, crowded as his
+mind was with fears and with imaginations concerning what might be doing
+at Santa Lucia.
+
+"Wasn't mother beautiful!" was one thought that came to him. "Vic, too,
+and they're brave enough, and they both know how to shoot, but what can
+they do against Indians?"
+
+He felt that he was doing his duty. He was, at all events, obeying his
+mother. He was a boy who wished to be in two places, but his mind grew
+calmer with the regular beat of Dick's hoofs. A sharp appetite came,
+too, and put him in mind of his haversack. He ate as best he could, and
+the next stream of water he came to invited him to dismount and get
+some, and to let Dick do the same and rest a little. It was very hard
+work to stand still and eat cold meat and bread, and pat Dick and think
+about Santa Lucia.
+
+After that the red mustang was pulled in for a breathing-spell at the
+end of every half-hour, or a little more, but every minute expended in
+that way seemed like an hour to Cal Evans.
+
+Noon came and went, as the long miles went by. Groves, tree-lined
+sloughs, gangs of deer to the right and left, hardly attracted a glance
+from the sore-hearted young messenger. Mountain-tops, easterly, that had
+been cloudy in the morning, were showing more distinctly against the
+sky, when Cal at last pulled the red mustang suddenly in.
+
+"A smoke!" he exclaimed. "It can't be Indians. No danger of their being
+away up here. I'll find out."
+
+Courageously, but warily, he rode some distance nearer, and he was just
+about to dismount when a loud voice hailed him.
+
+"Hullo! What are you scouting around for? What are you afraid of?"
+
+"Hurrah!" shouted Cal, for the hitherto unseen horseman, who now came
+out from behind a clump of mesquit trees, wore the yellow-trimmed
+uniform of the United States cavalry.
+
+Explanations followed fast, and were made more full in front of the
+camp-fire, where rations were cooking for a score or more of what Cal
+thought were the best-looking men he ever saw. That is, they were the
+very men he wanted to see, and the bronzed, gray-bearded captain in
+command of them was really a fine-looking veteran.
+
+"So," he said, "my young friend, we ought to have set out a day earlier.
+Colonel Sumner had heard that a band had been seen near El Paso, days
+ago, and we were coming your way. Your father isn't the man to be taken
+by surprise. He can hold the ranch."
+
+"Father isn't there, Captain Moore!" exclaimed Cal.
+
+"I'll trust him to get there, then. That's a splendid fellow you're
+riding. What did you say? Twenty miles and more before you left Santa
+Lucia? Forty odd, since, to this place. Pretty near seventy miles.
+That's enough for him or you for one day."
+
+It was in vain for Cal to plead the peril of his family. The cavalry had
+made a long push and must rest their horses. One tough fellow was given
+only time to eat before he was again mounted, on a spare horse fresher
+than the rest, with despatches for the commander at Fort Craig.
+
+Dick was provided with ample rations, and so was his master; but Cal
+Evans needed all the cheerful encouragement of Captain Moore to keep his
+heart from sinking under his heavy forebodings concerning the fate of
+Santa Lucia.
+
+The nearer the sun sank to the horizon the more strongly he felt that it
+was impossible for him to spend that night in the cavalry camp. He said
+so to Captain Moore, stoutly denying that his day of hard riding had
+wearied him.
+
+"I know how you feel," said the kindly veteran at last. "There'll be a
+good moon, and you know the way. I'll let you have one of our led
+horses. You mustn't ride to death that red beauty of yours. We'll bring
+him on. Tell your father we shall start at sunrise, and that I've sent
+word to the fort."
+
+Cal was sincerely grateful, but while a soldier was saddling for him a
+good-looking black, he went to say good-bye to Dick, praising and
+caressing him in a manner that brought from him whinny after whinny of
+good-will.
+
+His master had not known how tired he was himself until he mounted the
+black--so stiff, so sore, so almost without any spring left in him; but
+he felt better the moment the horse began to move under him.
+
+"Take your bearings by the north star," shouted Captain Moore. "Go easy
+and you'll get there. Then I think you'll want to go to bed."
+
+Cal thanked him and cantered away. He was glad enough of the glorious
+moonlight and of the stars, especially the north star. He was carrying
+news of help found quicker than he had expected. What then? Would he
+find Santa Lucia as he had left it? Would it be besieged? How many
+Apaches might he not fall in with before getting there? He knew that
+they never rode around after dark, and that was something.
+
+"If I don't get too tired and tumble off," he said to himself, "and if
+the black holds out, I'll get home before daylight, and I'll ride
+through to the gate if the Apaches are camped all around the ranch."
+
+The black galloped steadily. He was a good horse, but he lacked the
+easy swing of the red mustang, and there was more weariness in riding
+him. He was allowed to rest, at intervals, and Cal tried hard not to ask
+too much of him.
+
+"Captain Moore said about forty miles to the ranch," remarked the young
+rider to his horse, at last. "You must have done about half of them.
+You're doing well enough, but I never felt so tired in all my life. I'm
+going to make a good, hard push of about ten miles, if it's only to keep
+me from going to sleep."
+
+The push was made and the black stood it well enough, but it grew harder
+and harder on Cal. At the end of it he knew that he could not be more
+than ten miles from the ranch, but he found that the black was disposed
+to walk. It might be unwise to urge him any more. At the same time every
+mile was probably bringing Cal and his news within more or less danger
+of Apache interruption. Oh, how he longed for a glimpse of the Santa
+Lucia stockade! Oh, how sleepy he was, and how hungry and how sick at
+heart!
+
+As the black plodded onward he caught himself nodding heavily, and he
+recovered his senses in the middle of a half-waking dream in which he
+had seen the cavalry arriving and chasing away Indians.
+
+"I may fall off," he said, "if I try that again. I'm afraid if I did
+fall I couldn't climb into the saddle again. I'm stiff and numb all
+over."
+
+Plod, plod, plod, on went the very good-natured black, and Cal did not
+know how long it was before he had another dream.
+
+It seemed to him as if the red mustang came and walked along with the
+black, and as if he himself had said: "Hullo, Dick. Glad you've come.
+You can carry me easier, and you know where to go."
+
+Then, in the dream, Cal rode the red mustang.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE PERIL OF SANTA LUCIA.
+
+
+After Cal rode away from the cavalry camp on the black, Captain Moore
+made a number of remarks about him.
+
+"Plucky boy," he said. "Tough as whipcord, but he'll be pretty well used
+up before he gets to the ranch."
+
+The other officers and the men agreed with their commander in all he had
+to say about Cal Evans or about his horse.
+
+The red mustang was in the corral. He had been tethered, by a long
+lariat, to the same pin with a mean-looking, wiry little pack-mule, and
+he had given early tokens that he did not like his long-eared company.
+
+Dick had travelled fast and far since sunrise of that day. Cal had given
+him a friendly rubbing down after supper, and he felt pretty well. One
+admiring cavalryman had given him a full army ration of corn, and
+another had brought him some nice pieces of hard-tack, while several
+more had said things about his shape and color and the miles he had
+travelled, all in a way to rouse the jealousy of a sensitive mule. After
+the men went away, Dick considered himself entitled to lie down and did
+so, but the mule did not. There was moonlight enough to kick by, and it
+was not long before the red mustang was suddenly stirred up. He was not
+hurt, for that first kick had been seemingly experimental, as if the
+mule were getting the exact range of Dick's ribs. A low squeal expressed
+his satisfaction at his success, but it was followed by a
+disappointment, for his own lariat was several feet shorter than the
+brand-new one given to the red mustang, and the latter had stepped
+almost out of danger. It was almost, but not quite, and Dick was
+compelled to keep in motion to get out of harm's way. It was too bad not
+to have quiet, after so hard a day's work, but that mule was a
+bitter-hearted fellow. Dick moved along, backing away and watching, and
+the mule slowly, sullenly, followed him. Santa Lucia was a better place
+than this, Indians or no Indians. Dick had seen Cal depart, and he had
+felt deserted and lonely then, but his homesickness increased rapidly
+under the treatment he was receiving from the wickedly perverse beast he
+was tied up with.
+
+Back, back, back, until both lariats were tightly wound once more around
+the pin. They were shortened eight inches by that twist, and the next
+wind around shortened them nine inches more. The mule grew wickeder and
+made a dash that did not cease until three more twists had shortened the
+lariats. Meantime there had been all sorts of jerks and counter-jerks
+upon the wooden pin, and it was getting loosened in the soft ground.
+Winding up the lariats, the game went on until both tethers were short
+indeed, and that of the mule was less than three yards long. The strain
+of it disgusted him, and he gave a plunge and pull against it just as
+Dick was drawing hard in the opposite direction. Up came the pin, but
+once more the mule was disappointed. The next dash he made brought him
+and Dick to a stand, for they were on opposite sides of the trunk of an
+oak that caught the lariats in the middle. They could bring their heads
+and shoulders together, but the tree protected Dick from his enemy's
+heels. The tree and the knotted lariats held hard, and the red mustang
+could not prevent that ugly head from coming close to his own.
+
+Would he bite?
+
+No, he was a bad mule, but the mischief in him, except such as naturally
+settled in his heels, was of another kind. He preferred to gnaw a hide
+lariat around a horse's neck rather than the neck itself. Dick was
+compelled to stand still while the gnawing proceeded, and it was very
+unpleasant.
+
+The mule had good teeth, and he knew something about lariats. It was
+remarkable how short a time elapsed before, as Dick gave a sudden start,
+he found himself free.
+
+Liberty was a good thing, but that camp was not an attractive place for
+a horse which had seen his master ride away from it. Besides, it
+contained the tormenting mule, and all of the red mustang's thoughts and
+inclinations turned towards Santa Lucia.
+
+Notable things had occurred there since Dick and Cal came away, and
+after Mrs. Evans made her courageous appeal to her five servants. Four
+of these were evidently Mexicans, and the fifth declared her own
+nationality in the prompt reply that she made to her mistress.
+
+"Wud I foight, ma'am? 'Dade'n I'll not be skelped widout foighting. I
+want wan of thim double goons, and the big wash toob full of b'ilin'
+wather and the long butcher knife and the bro'd axe. I'll make wan of
+thim 'Paches pale like a potaty. There's plinty of good blood in Norah
+McLory."
+
+Evidently there was, but Mrs. Evans did not feel so sure of the others.
+Anita, Manuelita, Maria, and a very old woman spoken to as Carlotta,
+seemed at first disposed to call upon an immense list of saints rather
+than listen to a plan which their mistress tried to explain, but Norah
+succeeded in shutting them up.
+
+It was a remarkable military plan, and, when it was all told, "Oh,
+mother!" exclaimed Vic, and in a moment more she added: "Splendid!"
+
+"'Dade, an' I'm ready, ma'am," said Norah, as she made a dash for the
+boiler, and heaped the stove with fuel. "Faith, I'd rather bile thim
+than ate thim."
+
+A bustling time of it followed, and courage grew with work. Weapons were
+plentiful, and the stockade had been regularly pierced for rifle
+practice. All that was needed there or in the adobe was a supply of
+riflemen. There was a tall flagstaff at one corner of the adobe, but its
+halliards had swung emptily for many a day.
+
+"Mother," said Vic, at the end of about twenty minutes, "what will they
+say?"
+
+"The Indians?" said Mrs. Evans, "They may not come at all. Take your
+father's field-glass and go up to the roof. We must keep a sharp
+lookout. I'll tend to things down here."
+
+Up went Vic, her bright young face all aglow with excitement, and she
+carried Cal's repeating rifle with her, as well as the double
+field-glass with which to sweep the prairie for Indians.
+
+"Not one in sight," she shouted down to her mother. "Guess Cal's safe,
+anyhow. I don't believe they're coming."
+
+She should have questioned Kah-go-mish about that. While she was
+nervously patrolling the roof of the old hacienda and watching for him,
+the prudent leader of the now well-mounted Mescaleros was pushing
+steadily forward. He had given out a careful set of orders, which proved
+his right to be considered an uncommon Apache.
+
+"Ugh!" he said. "No kill. Borrow! Make pale-face lend poor Mescalero
+gun, horse, mule, blanket, knife, cartridges, kettle. Keep 'calp on
+head. No want 'calp now."
+
+He hoped to find the ranch almost if not quite undefended and to take it
+by surprise, getting what he wanted without doing anything to provoke
+the altogether unforgiving vengeance of the military authorities.
+
+Half an hour more went by that was very long to the watchers in the
+adobe.
+
+"Four Indians, mother," shouted Vic, at last, from her station on the
+roof. "'Way off there, eastward. I can't see anything of father or the
+men."
+
+"They will come, Vic. Watch!" replied Mrs. Evans.
+
+"If they were near enough," said Vic, "I'd fire at them. They've
+halted."
+
+They had done so, on a roll of the prairie, for they were a mere
+scouting-party, and they quickly hurried away as if they had an
+unexpected report to make concerning the state of things at Santa Lucia.
+Five minutes later Vic laid down her field-glass and took up Cal's
+rifle.
+
+"More Indians, mother!" she shouted, and the loud report which followed
+testified strongly to the condition of Vic's fighting courage.
+
+Nobody seemed to be hit by that bullet; but the warning shot, long as
+was the range, compelled one Indian to remark:
+
+"Ugh! Kah-go-mish is a great chief! Pale-face heap wide-awake."
+
+"They've halted, mother, but I didn't hit anybody. Hurrah! Hurrah!"
+
+"What is it, Vic?" anxiously inquired Mrs. Evans. "Do you see anybody
+else?"
+
+"Not Indians, this time. On the other side. Key and Joaquin. Perhaps
+they won't dare to ride in."
+
+"Nothing could stop your father."
+
+That was very true, and nothing did. Key and Joaquin had had somewhat
+the start of him, but had been delayed on the way, repeatedly, by the
+necessity of keeping out of sight of a dangerous-looking squad of
+Apaches, so that they were but a little in advance of three more white
+men who quickly rode up.
+
+"Colorado!" exclaimed one of these. "What's lit on to the ranch?"
+
+It was a fair question for Sam Herrick or any other man to ask. A
+wide-winged American flag floated proudly from the flagstaff, at the
+foot of which stood what seemed to be an army officer in very full
+uniform, cocked hat, epaulets, sword, and all. Another flag fluttered at
+the gate, and in front of it paced up and down a sentry in uniform,
+while outside of him, at regular intervals, were ostentatiously stacked
+a complete company's allowance of muskets, bayonets fixed, ready for
+service.
+
+"Colorado!" again exclaimed Sam Herrick; but the angry look was fading
+from the face of his employer. It did not return, even when a score or
+so of yelling Apaches came out in full view at the right.
+
+"Boys," he shouted, "give 'em a volley and ride in. The drove is gone,
+but the ranch is all right."
+
+Crack went the rifles; but the range was long, and not one of the red
+men was harmed. A whoop, a yell, and they wheeled away, for they had no
+idea of storming a stockade defended by an infantry company in addition
+to Colonel Abe Evans and his cowboys.
+
+"Hurrah!" roared the deep voice of the colonel. "There's fun coming!"
+
+Loud rang the answering cheers of the cowboys, but at that instant the
+sentry at the gate threw away his musket, exclaiming: "Howly mother!"
+
+The army officer on the roof made a quick motion as if he were gathering
+his skirts to go down a ladder, and he disappeared, while four soldiers
+inside the stockade dropped their muskets also, and their commander
+ceased a remarkable use she was making of an old drum. The garrison of
+Fort Santa Lucia had been seized with a sudden panic and had
+disappeared, leaving the gate open for the colonel and his men to ride
+in and take possession.
+
+Mrs. Evans had not been in uniform. She had put down her drum, and she
+was now in the doorway ready to meet her husband. Norah had dashed past
+her, exclaiming: "'Dade, ma'am, I'd not let the owld man and the byes
+see me wid the like o' this on me bones."
+
+Reports were quickly exchanged between the colonel and his wife.
+
+"Nothing lost but the horses and a few cattle," he said. "It was just
+like you, Laura. You did the best thing, all around. Cal is safe, but if
+the cavalry come, he and I are going to ride after the redskins with
+'em, far as they go."
+
+"Of course," she quietly responded.
+
+"Laura," said he, "I'm glad all that old army stuff was in the
+storeroom; but I shall not take Major Victoria Evans along. I shall
+leave her here to garrison Santa Lucia, with General Laura Evans as
+commander-in-chief."
+
+Sam Herrick and the other cowboys brought in the stacks of muskets and
+closed the gate.
+
+"All that old iron is good for something, after all. So's the flag,"
+said Bill.
+
+"Colorado!" remarked Sam. "The redskins may think they've struck Fort
+Craig, by mistake."
+
+"They'll smell a mouse," said Key, "and they may not give it up so
+easy."
+
+"If they do try it on," said Sam, "it won't be till about daylight
+to-morrow morning. Let's have something to eat."
+
+"Byes," said Norah, as they entered the kitchen. "Hilp me off wid the
+b'iler. It was put there to cook 'Paches, but I'll brile you some bacon
+instid."
+
+The kitchen table looked warlike enough with its collection of the
+weapons required by Norah, but she was no longer in uniform, and looked
+peaceful. She and her Mexican assistants cooked vigorously, but before
+the coffee was hot the colonel sent for Joaquin.
+
+"Eat your dinner," he said, in Spanish, "and then take a fresh horse and
+ride to warn the upper ranches. We're safe enough; even if they try a
+daylight attack, we can stand 'em off till help can get here. Bring me a
+dozen good men. I'm going to chase that band of redskins, cavalry or no
+cavalry."
+
+"Si, senor," replied Joaquin, and he was quickly away, seeming to hardly
+give a thought to any possible interruption by scouting Apaches.
+
+Some work was done by scouting cowboys that afternoon in the vicinity of
+the ranch. No Indians were seen; but for all that the night which
+followed was not a sleep-night. The men slept fairly well, except the
+sentry whose turn it might be, but they were all dressed and had their
+weapons by them. It was nearly so with the female part of the garrison.
+They did not sleep at all well, but they were all dressed, and they kept
+more guns and swords and axes within grasping distance than did the men.
+
+The dawn came at last, and it did not bring any alarm; but, just as the
+sun was rising, the gate in the stockade swung wide open, and a man
+stepped out, gazing earnestly towards the east.
+
+"Colorado! What's that?" he exclaimed. "I won't rouse the ranch, but it
+beats me all hollow. Hosses. Two of 'em."
+
+There was evidently something curious in the fact that a pair of horses
+were plodding slowly along towards Santa Lucia, all by themselves, at
+that hour of the morning.
+
+Sam stood by the gate as if waiting for an explanation, when there came
+a sound of steps behind him.
+
+"Sam," asked an anxious voice, "do you see anything?"
+
+"I'd say 'twas the red mustang, if there wasn't a pack on him, and a
+black hoss with him. Didn't know you was up, ma'am."
+
+"Cal's mustang, Sam? I've not been abed or asleep."
+
+"Mother, is it Dick? Is it Cal? Are there any Indians?"
+
+"Vic, I'm afraid it's Cal. I'm going to see. He's wounded!"
+
+"Most likely," said Sam, with a sharp change of voice. "They'd better
+turn out. Stay here, madam."
+
+He raised his repeater as he spoke and fired a random shot, the report
+of which brought every soul in Santa Lucia bolt upright, and then he
+started on a swift walk, followed closely by Cal's mother and sister.
+
+There were the two horses, red and black, and Vic reached them first.
+They stood stock-still, as if waiting for her, when she came near, and
+she was sure that the black carried Cal's silver-mounted saddle.
+
+Dick carried Cal!
+
+Was he wounded? Was he dead? How came he on Dick's bare back? A dozen
+excited questions burst from Mrs. Evans and Vic, but no answer came
+until Sam Herrick drew a long breath and responded: "Sound asleep! The
+boy's tired clean out, riding, and Dick's been caring for him. He walked
+as if he was treading among eggs. 'Fraid Cal'd fall off."
+
+There was nobody to tell just how many slow miles Cal had ridden,
+unconsciously, or nearly so, with his arms around Dick's neck. Sam was
+just about to lift him off when the deep voice of Colonel Evans, behind
+him, said: "Don't wake him, Sam; I'll take him. There isn't money enough
+anywhere to buy that red mustang."
+
+Dick held as still as a post while his master was gently removed in the
+strong arms of the old colonel, but the moment that was done he
+accompanied a sharp whinny with a weary attempt to throw up his heels.
+Another pair of arms was around his neck now, however, and Vic tried
+hard to make him understand her intense appreciation of him.
+
+"Hope he isn't hurt," said Sam. "I guess he isn't, nor Cal either."
+
+No, Cal was not hurt, but he was a boy who had been through a tremendous
+amount of excitement, as well as of hard riding. Just as he was being
+carried through the gate he opened his eyes for a moment and saw the
+flag floating over Santa Lucia.
+
+"Glad the cavalry got here," he murmured. "Captain Moore said they'd
+start at sunrise." He saw his mother and Vic, and tried to say
+something, but he was sound asleep again before the smile on his lips
+could be turned into words.
+
+Cal was put upon a bed and his mother sat down by him. Norah McLory had
+teetered fatly around them all the way to the house, whispering
+remarkable exclamations, and she was evidently in great fear, even now,
+of awaking the weary sleeper.
+
+"Wud hot wather do him any good, ma'am?" she huskily suggested.
+
+"Breakfast will, by and by," said Mrs. Evans. "Oh, my boy!"
+
+"Glad the cavalry are coming," said the old colonel, as he turned away
+from gazing down at Cal. "I'll know all about it when he wakes up."
+
+The whole ranch had for many minutes been in a state of turmoil, and
+mere quadrupeds had been left to take care of themselves, for even Sam
+Herrick came pretty near to being excited about Cal. He was out in the
+veranda now, and Cal's watchers heard him exclaim, "Colorado!"
+
+"Something's up," said the colonel, and he and Vic hurried out.
+
+There stood Dick, with no bridle or saddle, but with a look about his
+drooping head which seemed to ask, "Is there anything more wanted of
+me?"
+
+The black waited a few paces behind Dick, as if he also had an idea that
+his task was not completed.
+
+"Dick!" shouted Vic. "What can we do for him, father? Would some milk do
+him any good? Dick, you're the most beautiful horse in the world!"
+
+Milk was not precisely the thing he needed, but Sam led him away, the
+black following; and if rubbing, feeding, watering, and a careful
+inspection of every hoof and joint could do a tired racer any good, all
+that sort of comfort came abundantly to the red mustang.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+BOUND FOR THE BORDER.
+
+
+The warning-shot fired from the roof of the ranch by Major Vic Evans had
+been a great surprise to the Apaches. It had informed them that they
+could not surprise Santa Lucia, and that they were known as enemies. At
+the same time, they had not been supplied with field-glasses for the
+better inspection of the marksman.
+
+Kah-go-mish knew something about the army of the United States.
+Blue-coats at Santa Lucia meant danger to him and his. Loss of horses
+and a possible forced return to the Reservation seemed to stare him in
+the face. Of course, he gave up the ranch, but he had yet a hope
+remaining.
+
+The braves who had chased Sam Herrick that morning had reported one
+lonely cowboy, and no end of horses and cattle stampeded into the timber
+at Slater's Branch. There was the point to strike at, therefore, and
+success was sure if it had not been for the horse from which Sam Herrick
+dismounted when he transferred his saddle to the dancing gray for his
+ride home. He was a good horse, and he had run well when the Apaches
+were behind him. Sam had now left him, but it seemed to him that his
+morning-work had been cut short. Perhaps, too, he had a curiosity as to
+where Sam was riding to upon the gray. At all events, the dashing
+cowboy was not out of sight before the horse he had unsaddled started
+after him.
+
+That was example enough for a drove which was still tremendously nervous
+from a big stampede. Horse after horse and mule after mule set out in a
+lively four-footed game of "follow my leader." Not one of them was
+willing to be left behind to be captured by Indians or by another
+stampede. Even the horned cattle on the opposite bank began to wade
+through the mud of Slater's Branch as if they thought of joining the
+procession. The self-appointed leader of the horses did not see fit to
+take a very rapid gait, but seemed able to follow the trail of Sam
+Herrick to the ford where the cowboy had returned to the other side.
+Here a half hour or so was expended in feeding, neighing, kicking up of
+heels, and other tokens of horse deliberation. Then one and another of
+the more influential members of the drove decided to try the grass
+nearer Santa Lucia, and began to lead their comrades northerly. Sam's
+friend appeared to be superseded in command, but the net result was bad
+for Kah-go-mish. The chief and his warriors were guided well after
+giving up the ranch, and on their arrival at Slater's Branch they found
+the cattle in the timber. A noble herd; endless beef; but all too heavy
+to carry and too slow to be driven by red men who were likely to be
+pursued by cavalry.
+
+Slater's Branch was crossed at once, and all the muddy margin told of
+the horses which had marched away. Where were they now? The puzzle
+deepened as the disappointed braves rode onward down the branch. Even
+at the ford a brace of braves dashed across for a search, but they gave
+it up, and came back disappointed. The escaped drove of horses had been
+under too much excitement to halt long anywhere, and had even enjoyed a
+small stampede, which carried them half-way to the ranch.
+
+"Kah-go-mish is a great chief," sullenly remarked the Apache commander.
+"Cavalry come. Save horses. Ugh! Heap bad luck."
+
+It required what seemed almost like rashness, under such circumstances,
+to linger at Slater's Branch, but the Apaches felt bitterly about being
+robbed in that way of Colonel Evans's larger horse-drove. More cattle
+were slaughtered and more fresh beef was prepared for transportation;
+fires were kindled, and an hour of what might have been precious time if
+any cavalry were near, was spent in cooking and eating.
+
+Keen had been the eyes of Kah-go-mish, and they had given him an
+interpretation of the stacks of bayoneted muskets in front of the
+stockade gate. He knew that the garrison of Santa Lucia consisted, as
+yet, of infantry only, and that he and his braves could finish their
+dinner before the supposed return of the dreaded cavalry.
+
+They ate well, nobody could have disputed that, and then they mounted
+and rode away in high spirits. While the people at the ranch were
+anxiously reasoning as to whether or not their enemies would reappear,
+the exultant Mescaleros were miles and miles nearer, with every hour, to
+the Mexican border, and to the point where they were, in due time, to
+meet their equally happy families. Their camp, that night, was as
+peaceful as if it had been a picnic, and at the earliest dawn of day
+they were stirring again, very much as if they had taken for granted the
+march of Captain Moore and the angry determination of Colonel Abe Evans.
+The air rang with whoops and shouts, and among them could be heard a
+very positive assertion concerning himself from the deep voice of
+Kah-go-mish.
+
+At about the same hour, and in as perfect safety, fires were kindling
+and fresh beef was cooking, and eating began at the camp where
+Wah-wah-o-be and all the family part of the band had passed the pleasant
+summer night. It was a number of miles to the southward; it was nearer
+to the very southern edge of the United States, but over every breakfast
+might have been heard expressions of a general desire to be nearer
+still.
+
+That entire party, as well as the warriors in the other, had dismal days
+of poverty and privation to look back upon. Days when most of them were
+compelled to walk instead of riding, and when footsore squaws were
+forced to carry burdens which were now transferred to the strong backs
+of captured mules and ponies. Walking was over and hunger was gone, and
+even the overworked ponies saw their packs put upon fresher carriers. It
+was a great relief to a poor fellow who had panted under a small hill of
+family property all the way from the Reservation to have nothing now but
+a squaw to carry, or a couple of small boys, or perhaps three girls or
+so. No pony had more than that when all was ready for the day's march.
+
+Several of the captured Evans colts had a busy time that morning. They
+had rebelled too vigorously the previous day, and had reached their
+first Apache camps unbroken. Their time for service had come now,
+however, and they were rapidly instructed how to go along under
+wild-looking riders whom they were unable to throw off. Several there
+were, nevertheless, who earned another day of comparative freedom. Time
+was precious, and too much of it could not be spent in horse-breaking.
+
+"Ugh!" said Wah-wah-o-be. "Pale-face pony kick a heap."
+
+That was when a skilful mustang had pitched a young Apache brave clean
+over his head.
+
+It was a gay cavalcade when at last it got in motion. From one end of it
+to the other there did not seem to be one sign of anxiety. Its immediate
+wants had been provided for wonderfully, and it had great confidence in
+the future. There was something very hopeful to talk about, for every
+Mescalero, young or old, was on tiptoe with eagerness to hear the report
+of the doings of Kah-go-mish and his warriors.
+
+"Sun go down, great chief come," said Wah-wah-o-be, and there was no
+telling what or how much he would bring with him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+GETTING READY TO CHASE KAH-GO-MISH.
+
+
+It was noon when Cal Evans opened his eyes, and even then the lids came
+apart reluctantly. He saw his mother sitting by him, and Vic was peering
+in at the door, but he did not quite understand matters.
+
+"Mother," he said, "are you all safe?"
+
+"Yes, we're all safe--" she began.
+
+"He's awake! Mother, may I come in?" shouted Vic. "Cal! we had such a
+time. We all dressed up in those old uniforms and played soldier. I
+fired at the Apaches from the roof."
+
+Cal struggled to sit up, and found out how sore and stiff he was, while
+he exclaimed:
+
+"Vic, did you? There was an attack? You beat them off?"
+
+"Scared them off," said his mother. "Why, how lame you are!"
+
+"Awful!" he groaned, as he lay back again. "But about the fight--"
+
+"There wasn't any," said Vic, and she added a rapid sketch of the
+garrison--Norah McLory at the gate, and Mrs. Evans with the drum, and
+the Mexican women parading as sentinels.
+
+"Tell us about your ride," she said, as she paused for breath.
+
+"Ride?" he said. "Well, yes, it was a great ride, but I don't know the
+whole of it, myself. How's Dick?"
+
+"Sam says he's all right," said Vic, "and there isn't such another horse
+in all New Mexico."
+
+"Guess there isn't," replied Cal, very emphatically. "The black is a
+good fellow, but it was his gait that made me so sore. I can't turn
+over."
+
+He could tell all that he knew, however, and he could hear all that they
+had to say, and he found that he could sit up when Norah brought in his
+breakfast.
+
+"Hungry? I guess I am. Never was so hungry in all my life. But I'm going
+with father after 'em."
+
+He was as much in need of a thorough rubbing as Dick had been, but when
+Sam Herrick gave it to him, a little later, he had to shut his mouth
+hard, for Sam's gentleness was of a cowboy kind, and he did his whole
+duty. After that was over Cal could walk fairly well, and he went out at
+once for a look at the red mustang, and Vic and his mother went with
+him.
+
+"There he is," he said, "that's a fact, but I can't tell how it came to
+be so. I left him picketed in the corral, at the cavalry camp. He must
+have untied himself and got away."
+
+Cal knew nothing about the teeth of the persecuting mule.
+
+"Did you mount him in your sleep?" asked Vic.
+
+"I don't know," he said. "I was so tired I went to sleep more than once.
+Dreamed, too. It was all a good deal like a dream. Seems so yet, from
+the beginning. I've a kind of memory that Dick came alongside, crowding
+close and whinnying, and that he and the black stood still, so I could
+crawl on Dick's back and lie down, somehow, and sleep more comfortably.
+That's all I know about it, except what you've told me."
+
+If the red mustang felt any stiffness as a consequence of his remarkable
+performances, he kept the matter to himself and accepted graciously all
+the petting given him. The black came in for his share of praise, but he
+was regarded as an enlisted private horse of the regular army, while
+Dick's last performance had been altogether as a volunteer.
+
+It was just about noon when Captain Moore, riding at the head of his
+men, listened to a message from Colonel Evans, brought to him by Bill,
+the long, lank, yellow-haired cowboy.
+
+"All right," said the captain. "Glad I needn't push any faster under
+this hot sun. Glad Cal got in safe. Gritty young fellow. You'll have to
+tell him, though, that his horse and one of our pack-mules got away in
+the night. Sorry, but there's no help for it."
+
+"Well, yes, that's so," replied Bill, "but that there red mustang. Why,
+captain, do you know, Cal Evans rid into Saint Lucy on to him? The hoss
+was a-caring for him like a human, and Cal was sound asleep. He hadn't
+begun to wake up when I kem away."
+
+The captain and his fellow-officers had questions enough to ask, then,
+and they learned all about Dick's volunteer work when they reached the
+ranch the next day. They knew nothing about the mule then, but at that
+very hour the long-eared rascal reported himself for garrison duty and
+rations at Fort Craig, having for the time delivered himself from the
+pack business and from the fatigues of a long chase after Apache
+horse-thieves.
+
+There were delays in the preparations for following the band of
+Kah-go-mish. Captain Moore had to wait for further instructions from
+Fort Craig, and Colonel Evans also waited for Joaquin and the expected
+cowboy recruits from the upper ranches.
+
+Sam and the rest had already gathered, with keen satisfaction, the drove
+of horses which had so nicely dodged Kah-go-mish, and they had scoured
+the plain to Slater's Branch and beyond. They reported all things safe
+and serene, and then Cal and Vic and their mother rode out and went over
+all the scene of his first adventure.
+
+From the mound on the prairie Cal showed them how the cattle and horses
+were stampeded. Then they went to the timber and the fallen trees where
+he and Sam "stood off" the Apaches. Then they rode away down to where
+Sam had first been swarmed around by the Mescaleros, and there was Sam
+to tell about it.
+
+"Colorado!" remarked he, "but didn't they butcher a lot of cattle! They
+got about a dozen mules, thirty good hosses, and sixty or seventy
+second-rates and ponies. Mounted their whole band, I reckon!"
+
+"I don't care so much about that," said Mrs. Evans, but she was looking
+at Cal just then.
+
+"Vic," said Cal, "you was three years at school, away off there in the
+settlements, and so was I."
+
+"No Indians there," said Vic.
+
+"Good thing you was," said Sam. "I never had any schooling. Hope you
+learned a heap."
+
+"Hope I did," said Cal, "but I tell you what, it seems to me as if I'd
+learned more in one day's riding."
+
+"Well, yes, like enough," replied Sam, "more of one kind. Glad you
+didn't learn how an arrer feels. I did, once. Bullet, too. Tell you
+what, though, if you go on the trail with your father and the captain, I
+reckon you'll learn some more."
+
+"I've seen a great many Indians," began Vic, "but they were all friendly
+except--"
+
+"Colorado!" suddenly exclaimed Sam. "Four of 'em! Heading right for us!
+Don't shoot, Cal. Keep a good ready, but don't throw lead if you can
+help it. It beats me!"
+
+Mrs. Evans reined her horse close along side of Vic's pony, but said
+nothing. Her face was pale, but that of Vic's was flushed fiery red. So
+was Cal's as he touched Dick with his heel and sent him forward
+head-and-head with Sam's gray.
+
+Four unmistakable red warriors, armed to the teeth, were rapidly riding
+nearer.
+
+"Mother," exclaimed Vic, "I'm ready."
+
+"So am I," said Mrs. Evans, sharply. "We can both help."
+
+Each had a revolver in her hand, and Vic afterwards remembered how glad
+she felt, just then, of all her target practice. Her thought was, "I can
+hit one, I know I can."
+
+The leading idea in Cal's mind was that his hero-time had come, and that
+he alone was quite enough for four Apaches. The expression upon his
+face, during about two minutes, was tremendously heroic. He glanced
+behind him and saw just such another look upon that of Vic, but the
+smile his mother gave him made him feel like a whole regiment of
+cavalry.
+
+"Isn't he splendid!" said Vic.
+
+Just then the four red men halted. They were only twenty yards away, and
+it might be that they were getting ready to shoot. They were conferring
+for a brief moment.
+
+Cal drew rein, as Sam did, at the same time, and one of the Indians rode
+forward holding out his right hand, palm up.
+
+"How?" he said. "Chiricahua chief want Sam? Ugh! Heap friend."
+
+"Colorado!" exclaimed the cowboy. "That's it, Cal. They're the friendly
+Chiricahua-Apache scouts the captain sent for first time you met him.
+They want me to go 'long and show 'em the trail. Reg'lar bloodhounds."
+
+He turned in his saddle and shouted, "Ladies, it's all right," and in a
+moment more he and Cal were shaking hands with their new acquaintances.
+
+"What hideous-looking men they are!" exclaimed Vic, for at that moment
+they were smiling, and the one holding Cal's hand was saying, "Ugh! Boy,
+heap ride. Heap good pony. Ride big sleep. 'Pache 'calp him; he no wake
+up. Lose hair all same."
+
+That was evidently meant for a good-humored joke. Mrs. Evans and Vic had
+to shake hands with them next, and then rode away with Cal towards Santa
+Lucia, while Sam and the wild-looking scouts set out for an examination
+of all the traces left behind by Kah-go-mish and his warriors.
+
+"The two bands, Chiricahuas and Mescaleros, are almost like different
+tribes," was the explanation Vic received from her mother.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+THE HACIENDA OF SANTA LUCIA.
+
+
+Early in the afternoon of the fourth day after the red mustang and the
+regular-army black brought Cal home to Santa Lucia, the ranch wore a
+very peaceful appearance. No cavalry were camped near it. There was not
+now any American flag floating from the staff on the roof of the
+hacienda, and there was not wind enough to have made one float if it had
+been there.
+
+No cattle were grazing within sight of anybody standing at the stockade
+gate. That was closed and barred in an unusually inhospitable manner,
+and no wayfarer could ride in without first explaining himself. There
+was reason in it, for Santa Lucia now contained only one man to
+strengthen the brave female garrison which had held it against the
+intended surprise-party of Kah-go-mish. More men would be there at
+sunset, on the return of the herders, and no Indians were believed to be
+within a very long distance.
+
+A wide awning had been stretched out from the veranda, and there were
+two or three chairs under the awning, but they were empty.
+
+Norah McLory and a couple of the Mexican women were busy with some tubs
+in the courtyard. The windows looking into it were not narrow slits like
+those outside. They were wide enough, had swinging sashes in them, and
+they gave the old adobe less the appearance of being either a fort or a
+prison. Most of them were curtained, and the curtains of a pair opposite
+the open side of the square were very handsome. Just beyond one of these
+curtains stood Mrs. Evans, with her arms around her daughter. If
+anything were troubling Vic's mind, the face she was looking into must
+have had comfort in it. Mrs. Evans was one of those women who are
+remarkable, and have no need of proving it to make people believe it.
+She was of medium height and not at all robust in appearance, although
+in excellent health. There was hardly a tinge of gray in her auburn
+hair, her cheeks were smooth, her brown eyes were bright and pleasant,
+and her voice was full and musical. Those who had heard it once wished
+to hear it again, even if they wondered what there was in it that made
+them go and do just as she told them. It was a grand thing for a young
+cowboy, like Cal Evans, to have such a mother away out there upon the
+plains, and was equally good for Vic, especially at such a time as had
+now come.
+
+The room itself was as nearly like a large parlor in an Eastern mansion
+as such a room in such a building could be made. Colonel Evans had
+refused to count up how many head of cattle the furniture had cost him,
+including the piano and the wagoning of it from Santa Fe.
+
+Mrs. Evans had not stopped there, for her china and other elegances
+enabled her to set a well-furnished table, and her kitchen garden in one
+corner of the stockade, with her hen-coops, provided something better
+than the beef and bacon and corn-bread supplied to hungry people at
+most New Mexican ranches.
+
+More than one Indian chief to whom Mrs. Evans had given a dinner had
+declared it "good medicine," not understanding that his own race was
+passing away because the chickens and the potato-patches were coming.
+
+Army-men, officers and soldiers, had ridden away from Santa Lucia,
+remarking of Cal's mother: "Very uncommon woman. But how did she get
+those things to grow 'way down here?"
+
+Mexican herders in the colonel's employ had also discussed the matter,
+and had decided that no melon or bean or hill of corn or other vegetable
+dared refuse to grow after getting orders from the "Senora."
+
+Perhaps the most remarkable thing, after all, was the fact that such a
+lady, with all her refinement and cultivation, should say that she
+preferred a ranch life at Santa Lucia to any other kind of life
+anywhere.
+
+She was saying so now to Victoria. Vic would have been a smaller pattern
+of her mother, but for a tinge of red in her hair and something saucy
+about her nose and mouth. That is, on ordinary occasions, but not just
+now, for she was looking blue enough.
+
+"Mother," she said, "father never gets hurt, but Cal is so young. The
+Indians, mother, and there may be fighting. I almost hate this country.
+I'd rather be where no savages can come."
+
+"They will never come, Vic."
+
+"They did come, this time! I saw them from the roof. Some of them come
+along here every now and then."
+
+"Peaceably, my dear. It's a wonder to me that they touched anything of
+ours. If everybody had dealt with them as your father has there would
+not be any fighting."
+
+"He went away angry enough," said Vic.
+
+"Not angry enough to hurt any Indian without necessity. If there should
+be any fighting--"
+
+"Seems to me I can't think he could kill anybody, or be killed; but Cal
+is so young!"
+
+"Victoria," said her mother, almost laughing, "Cal is a smaller mark
+than your father, and not half so likely to get hit. I hope they will
+bring the horses back with them."
+
+"You are a wonderful woman, mother. Were you ever really afraid of
+anything?"
+
+Mrs. Evans thought for a moment, and then replied, "Yes, Vic, the other
+day. I was afraid we'd not get our soldier scarecrows ready before the
+Apaches came. Then, too, they might have met your father. I thought of
+that, but I wasn't really afraid that they had. I think I was made to
+live here."
+
+That was the truth of the matter, and she soon convinced Victoria that
+the time to be nervous had not yet arrived. It was true that Colonel
+Evans and Cal and a dozen cowboys had gone with Captain Moore and the
+cavalry to trail the thieving Mescaleros and bring back the horses, but
+the Indians had three days the start, and were not likely to be caught
+up with at once.
+
+"There may not be any fighting, even then," said Mrs. Evans; but
+Victoria did not find any use for her piano that day.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+THE TARGET ON THE ROCK.
+
+
+It was the very hour when Mrs. Evans and Vic were talking, at Santa
+Lucia, about the cavalry and cowboy expedition which had gone in search
+of the Apaches. Many a long mile to the southward of the old hacienda
+the sun shone hotly down upon the rugged slope of a spur of a range of
+mountains. At the bottom of the slope ran a wide trail which had been
+used by wagons, and was almost like a road. Along its narrow pathway of
+sand and shale rode a straggling cavalcade of extraordinary-looking
+horsemen. About half of them carried lances and wore a showy green and
+yellow uniform. All had firearms in abundance, and most of them had long
+sabres rattling at their sides. There seemed to be a profusion of silver
+ornaments, even on men as well as upon bridles and saddles, but there
+were also a number of badly battered sombreros and ragged serapes. What
+is a sombrero? It is any sort of very wide-brimmed, low-crowned hat, and
+can be made to carry much tinsel and feathers. As for a serape, one can
+be made out of any blanket by cutting a hole in the middle of it, so
+that it will hang gracefully around the man or woman whose head has been
+pushed through the hole. It was not easy to say whether the gay officer
+commanding the gaudy lancers, or the remarkably tattered peon who led
+the last string of pack-mules, at the rear, was really the most
+picturesque Mexican of that cavalcade.
+
+On the slope above them, less than three hundred yards from the trail, a
+great bowlder of gray granite stood out prominently from the bushes and
+the smaller lumps of rock around it.
+
+On the bowlder, at its very edge, stood the figure of a man who was even
+more noteworthy than were the officer and the peon. His arms were
+folded, so that two red stocking-legs spanned his broad chest; his silk
+hat, with a green-veil streamer, was cocked on one side defiantly; his
+attitude was that of a man who did not fear all Mexico, and the loudly
+uttered words he sent down at the horsemen were: "Kah-go-mish is a great
+chief!"
+
+Whether or not they believed him, and although he had given them no
+apparent cause for considering him an enemy, horseman after horseman
+lifted carbine or revolver and blazed away at the Mescalero leader.
+Bullet after bullet buzzed in among the bushes and rocks above and
+behind him, but not a muscle of his tall form flinched.
+
+All practised riflemen know that a mark posted as he was is difficult to
+hit, even at short range and in shadow, and that the difficulty
+magnifies with distance and a sunny glare.
+
+There stood Kah-go-mish, and while report after report rang out in the
+narrow valley, and called forth echoes from among the crags, he
+exhausted all he knew of Spanish and was compelled to help it with his
+native Apache dialect, and even then seemed unable to express his
+opinion of the marksmen. He had much to say concerning his own great
+and good qualities and those of his people, but declared that all the
+unpleasant reptiles and insects and quadrupeds he could name were
+serving as Mexicans that afternoon. He shouted to them that they did not
+even know how to shoot. If they had been Gringos (Yankees) of the lowest
+order, he said he might be in danger from their bullets, but, as it was,
+the man they aimed at was safer than any other man within range.
+
+The Mexican caballeros may or may not have been able to understand any
+part of that hailstorm of hard words, but Kah-go-mish had an audience
+and was not wasting his eloquence. He and his bowlder seemed to be
+alone, jutting out from the slope, but that was an optical illusion.
+That knob of granite stood upon the outer rim of a wide, ragged, bushy
+ledge, and at no great distance there began a shadowy growth of forest.
+The broken level behind Kah-go-mish was peopled by scores of braves and
+squaws and younger people, proving that the two sections of his band had
+reunited. Dogs ran hither and thither, while ponies and horses could be
+seen among the trees. One dog in particular did his futile best to climb
+the bowlder, and then sat down under a furze bush and yelped with all
+his might at the cavalcade, as if in sympathy with the chief of his band
+of Apaches.
+
+At the right of the granite bowlder, and several paces from the edge or
+the ledge, were some huge fragments of red basalt rock. In front of
+these crouched a group which gazed at Kah-go-mish with unmistakable
+pride. In the middle sat Wah-wah-o-be, bonnet and all. Against her, on
+the right, was curled the form of the young lady in the wonderful red
+dress, and she looked almost pretty as her black eyes flashed with
+admiration of her father's magnificent heroism and oratory. At the left
+of Wah-wah-o-be, the boy in the Reservation trousers stood sturdily
+erect, but nothing could make him handsome or take from his broad, dark
+face the look of half-anxious dulness which belonged there. His beady
+eyes glittered, and he showed his white teeth, now and then, but his
+very smile was dull. He leaned back against the rock, and just then a
+something came whizzing past his head, and there was a slightly stinging
+sensation in his left ear. He did not wince, but he lifted his hand
+quickly to his ear, and there sprang to his lips an involuntary
+imitation of the sound made by the ragged ounce ball of lead when it
+struck the crumbling basalt.
+
+"Z-st-ping!" he said, and the sound was caught up by other voices.
+
+"Ping--ping--ping," ran from lip to lip, and some laughed merrily, for
+all had heard the whiz and thud of the deadly missiles which were coming
+up from the valley, although they and Wah-wah-o-be had deemed themselves
+entirely sheltered.
+
+Kah-go-mish had at that moment turned for a glance at his family, and he
+uttered a loud whoop, as if of pleasure. At the same breath he came down
+from his rock with a great, staglike bound, and stood among them.
+
+"Wah-wah-o-be, look!" he said. "Ugh!"
+
+He had no need to point, for she was already aware that the ragged edge
+of the bit of lead had made a deep scratch in her son's ear. She was
+both very proud and very angry.
+
+"Ping!" she exclaimed, as if the sound had acquired a new meaning.
+
+"Ugh!" said Kah-go-mish. "Ping!"
+
+As for the boy himself, the dulness almost vanished from his face in his
+exultation at having been so nearly hit, actually grazed, by a
+rifle-ball. His sister came around to stare at the scratch, and then his
+own quick eyes caught something.
+
+"Tah-nu-nu!" he said, and pointed at the wide fold of her red calico. It
+was torn. A Mexican bullet had found its way through the furze bushes,
+and Tah-nu-nu had been almost as much in peril, the moment she stood
+erect, as her brother had been.
+
+Wah-wah-o-be's wrath boiled over. The Apaches pay more of respect to
+their squaws than do some other tribes, and the chief's wife was a woman
+who was likely to demand all that belonged to her.
+
+Kah-go-mish had stood upon the rock to be fired at by the rancheros for
+the glory of it, and was almost too proud of so great an exploit to lose
+his temper at once. He was beginning to say something about Mexican
+marksmanship when he was interrupted by Wah-wah-o-be. She had feelings
+of her own, if he had not. She pointed at her son's ear, and again she
+said "Ping!"
+
+The bullet might have wantonly murdered any member of her family, or any
+of her neighbors. She made rapid remarks about it, of such a nature that
+Kah-go-mish felt a change going on in his mind. Other ears had heard,
+and the voices of braves and squaws seemed to agree with that of
+Wah-wah-o-be. All had fallen back from the dangerous margin, and it
+would have looked a little like a council if a squaw had not been the
+speaker. There was very little red upon the ear of Ping, but it served
+her as a representative of all the wrongs ever done to the Apaches by
+the white men, including that of cooping them in upon the Reservation,
+where she had obtained her bonnet, and where they had all but starved
+for lack of game.
+
+The blood of Kah-go-mish reached the right heat at last, and his hand
+arose to his mouth to help out the largest, longest, fiercest war-whoop
+he knew anything about.
+
+"Kah-go-mish is a great chief!"
+
+He said this as he strode away towards the trees, waving back all the
+rest with his hands. Warriors and squaws, boys and girls, they at once
+seemed to arrange themselves for a good look at whatever their great man
+might be about to do.
+
+He was gone but a few minutes, and returned, leading a mean-looking,
+undersized, disreputable pony, upon whose head he had placed a
+miserable, worn-out bridle.
+
+He did not utter a word to Wah-wah-o-be, but upon the ground before her
+he deposited a handsome rifle, a bow and arrows, and a lance. He took
+from his belt the revolver and laid it beside the other weapons, and
+upon them all he placed the green-veil-plumed silk hat and the red
+stocking-legs. He ostentatiously called attention to the fact that he
+retained nothing but his heavy bowie-knife. Armed with only that weapon,
+and mounted upon his worst pony, he, the great chief, the hero, was
+about to depart upon a war-path against the coyotes, the buzzards, the
+tarantulas, the red ants, the lost dogs--namely, the Mexicans of
+Chihuahua, or any other Mexicans. He would make them pay bitterly for
+having wasted so much ammunition that day.
+
+The announcement of the chief's purpose was received with whoops and
+yells of approbation. Wah-wah-o-be seemed to overlook any possible peril
+of losing her husband altogether. She may have been hardened by a long
+habit of seeing him come home safe.
+
+Kah-go-mish gave some rapid orders to one brave after another, mounted
+his pony while others were gathering their own, and then he rode
+straight into the side of the mountain, followed by his whole
+band--horses, dogs, and all. That is, it would have so appeared to any
+white man standing at the foot of the granite bowlder, but it was only a
+good illustration of the magical arts by which the Indian medicine-men
+make it so difficult for green white men in blue uniforms to catch red
+runaways. Uniformity of color in quartz and granite, or other ledges,
+provides for a part of the mystery. Shrubs and trees and distances help,
+and so, often, does their absence. A great break in the side of that
+spur of the Sierra was as invisible from the pass as if it had been
+hidden by snow or midnight. It was a chasm which led in two directions
+from that point. Kah-go-mish waved his hand authoritatively and wheeled
+his pony to the left, to the southward, towards Mexico. His warriors and
+his family, and all other members of the band, dogs included, turned
+northward, to the right, carrying with them positive assurances as to
+the place, and very nearly as to the time, when they might again hope
+to see and admire their leader.
+
+During his absence the command fell to a short, broad-shouldered
+warrior, who walked dreadfully intoed, and who seemed to stand very much
+in awe of Wah-wah-o-be. She, on the other hand, was evidently well
+satisfied with the course which affairs were taking. She had picked up
+the weapons so heroically laid upon the ground by her husband, and she
+had helped Tah-nu-nu and Ping to gather the ponies of the family. She
+had said a great many things while doing so, for one point in her
+superiority to other squaws was the capacity of her tongue for
+expressing her ideas.
+
+The whole band had an almost prosperous appearance, very different from
+that which it had worn just before it began to swarm around Sam Herrick
+and the drove of horses. Lodge-poles had been cut, now that there were
+ponies to drag them. Hardly anybody was on foot, except a few braves
+whose half-trained, spirited horses were likely to require leading over
+narrow and pokerish mountain-passes.
+
+Kah-go-mish rode on alone in one direction and the band went in the
+other, and both were shortly buried in the deep, cool gloom of the
+shadowy chasms.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+THE STORY OF A LOG
+
+
+The red mustang was in excellent health, and he was also in high
+spirits. So was his master, and they were nearly agreed upon another
+point. Dick evidently believed that any trail whatever ought to be
+followed at full speed, and Cal fretted continually over the steady
+plodding commanded by Captain Moore. Cal was glad that in his first
+Indian campaign he was to have so much first-class help, including the
+four Chiricahua-Apache scouts. He had confidence in his father and in
+the captain, as men of experience in such matters, but at last he could
+hardly help mentioning to Sam Herrick the joint criticism made by
+himself and Dick. "Why, Sam," he remarked, "the red-skins have three
+days the start of us, and Captain Moore isn't in any kind of hurry. They
+must be gaining on us."
+
+"That's not of much account, Cal," said Sam, "so long as their trail
+stays in this country. They're camped at the end of it to-night. So they
+will be every night till they get to the far end of it, and there we'll
+find 'em, unless they cross over into Mexico."
+
+"And if they do that?" asked Cal.
+
+"Mexico's a hot place for Indians just now," replied Sam. "Troops
+moving; militia called out. These fellows couldn't stay there."
+
+The far end of an Indian trail is sometimes a curious thing to hunt for,
+as Sam went on to explain. It may get lost in the sand, or among the
+mountains, or in the snow, or somebody may hide it or steal it, or a
+heavy rain may wash it all out.
+
+"Well," said Cal, "one thing's sure. If we should come near 'em, and
+have to chase 'em, the horses won't be too travel-tired for good
+running."
+
+"Exactly so," said Sam. "That's what the captain's up to."
+
+The cavalry and cowboy camp, that night, was as safe as Santa Lucia, but
+there was something like a disturbance in another place.
+
+The party of rancheros and Chiricahua militia who had blazed away at
+Kah-go-mish may have been a kind of scouting-party. They had escaped
+destruction by not following him up the slope, and they afterwards had
+not many miles to ride before they reached a camp to which they
+evidently belonged. One small corner of that camp had an appearance of
+good order, where an experienced officer of the Mexican army was in
+command of a few disciplined soldiers. All the remainder of it seemed to
+bear the likeness of a grand military picnic, where all the men who had
+tickets were free to have a good time in any manner they might please.
+Very soon after supper most of them pleased to lie down and go to sleep,
+while others sat up to smoke and play cards.
+
+Of course there could not be any danger threatening a force of over four
+hundred men, all so warlike, so soldierly, so completely ready to whip
+any tribe of mere red Indians. Besides, no important band of hostiles
+was known or believed to be in that vicinity. There might have been a
+better watch kept that night, nevertheless, especially at the corral
+where all their horses were picketed.
+
+This had been made along the bank of the deep, still stream which
+supplied the camp with ice-water from the Sierra Madre. Nobody ever
+heard of any fellow taking a swim in such cold water as that was. It was
+cold enough to chill the bones of a mountain trout. Of course no one did
+undertake to swim in it, but, at about midnight, a log came floating
+down. There was a large knot on one side of the log. The current or
+something carried it against the bank, right in the middle of the
+corral, and either there were two logs, or that log divided, for one log
+floated off down stream, while the other log crept out on shore, stood
+erect, and walked stealthily around among the horses. The knot was
+carried on the upper end of this log, and the other went off without
+any.
+
+Very quickly were four of the best horses fixed with four of the best
+saddles and bridles from among the long rows at the edge of the corral.
+The log did it, and added holsters with revolvers in them and two
+bundles of fine lances and some good American carbines, and two full
+straddle packs of cartridges. The sentries of the corral were all
+stationed away outside of the place where that peculiar log was at work.
+All but two of them were asleep, as the guardians of so strong and
+warlike a camp had a right to be.
+
+Now the log crept around until it found a path leading out southerly,
+past a sentry who was sleeping very soundly indeed. Then it went back
+into the corral and led out the four saddled and bridled horses, with
+four others following that wore only halters, but carried securely
+strapped burdens, selected and fitted by the log.
+
+There was a brilliant moonlight, so that there was no danger whatever to
+the camp from Indians, and the log led the horses on until it became
+wise to go ahead and see if there had been any picket posted at the
+place and distance at which one might have been expected.
+
+"Ugh!" exclaimed the log, as it went back for the horses. "Mexican! No
+blue-coat!"
+
+That was a compliment to such men as Captain Moore, but then the log was
+doing what no kind of fellow would have undertaken with "blue-coats." It
+now mounted one of the horses and led on up the stream, to a place it
+seemed to know about, where the water was wide and shallow and could be
+easily forded. On crossing it the log was still at no great distance
+from the camp, but upon higher ground. Looking down, it could have a
+good view of the smouldering camp-fires and the sleeping Mexicans, for
+tents there were not.
+
+"Kah-go-mish is a great chief!" exclaimed the knot at the top of the
+log, exultingly. "Ugh! Got heap hoss, heap saddle, heap gun, heap all
+plunder. Ugh! Mexican shoot at him on rock. Wonder how feel now, pretty
+soon. Ugh!"
+
+An irrepressible whoop of triumph burst from him.
+
+"Ugh! Bad medicine," he said. "Great chief let mouth go off like boy."
+
+He had not lost his wits, however, and he followed that whoop with a
+dozen more, a whole series of fierce, ear-splitting screeches, while he
+rapidly emptied the nine chambers of the captured carbine and the six of
+a revolver. He aimed at the camp-fires and with tip-top success,
+testified to by sudden showers of sparks and brands which flew around
+among the startled sleepers.
+
+Great was the uproar in that astonished camp. Seven gallant fellows who
+had bugles began to blow for dear life the moment they were upon their
+feet. Every officer began to shout orders as soon as he was awake, and
+some seemed to begin even earlier. They exhibited tremendous presence of
+mind, but no soldier received the same order from any two of them.
+Within a minute, at least a hundred men were at their posts of danger
+behind something or other, while three hundred more were making a blind
+rush for the corral. The sentries had all fired their pieces at once,
+and now there began a general popping of guns and pistols at the awful
+shadows beyond the little river.
+
+Kah-go-mish could hardly have wished for anything better. He wheeled and
+rode rapidly away, followed by the string of horses which he had
+regarded as the fee due to him for being made a target of.
+
+He had not been killed, then, no thanks to the Mexicans, and he had not
+killed anybody now, deeming it imprudent to take any scalps under the
+circumstances. He had again, however, proved his claim to be considered
+an extraordinary collector of enemy's horses, and that is a high fame to
+win among the wild tribes of the southwest. As for the righteousness of
+what he had done, in his own eyes, he was a commanding officer of
+Mescalero Apaches, and his people were at war with Mexico, as the
+rancheros and militia had declared so recklessly. He made war in a
+manner every inch as civilized as their own, and thought well of himself
+for so doing. He said so, quite a number of times, that night, as he
+rode on deeper and deeper into the rugged passes of the Sierras. About
+daylight he came to an open, shaded spot, by a spring, where there was
+grass for his prizes, and where he could build a fire and then find out
+what there might be for breakfast in a very fat haversack which hung
+from one of the saddles.
+
+As for the Mexican cavalry, of all sorts, they behaved well, and the
+officer in supreme command at last succeeded in substituting his own
+orders for those of his hasty subordinates. He stationed a strong force
+at the ford, to prevent the supposed tribe of red men which had assailed
+his camp from crossing the river. He threw out scouting-parties,
+encouraged his men by voice and example, urging them to do their duty,
+prove their attachment to their flag, and to die rather than surrender.
+He was answered by enthusiastic cheers, and, when morning came, he
+readily obtained from among them a body of brave volunteers who followed
+him across the ford to search the dangerous underbrush on the hill from
+which the hostile barbarians had fired upon the camp. The more they
+searched the better they felt, and at last they found a trace of the
+enemy. They captured a pony, bridle and all. It was the sad-looking
+beast selected by Kah-go-mish as the most nearly worthless of all that
+he had brought with him from the Reservation.
+
+Eight militiamen, one of them a bugler, already knew that the enemy had
+penetrated the corral, and had gotten away again, but here was a sort of
+a mount for one of them. Well, it was a capture, anyhow, and a proof of
+victory, and was spoken of as "ponies" in the official report of the
+manner in which that night-attack had been baffled by the Chiricahua
+militia.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+PING AND THE COUGAR.
+
+
+When Kah-go-mish set out upon his war-path, he went by ways which no
+white man's foot had ever trod. His family and followers began to
+perform the same feat in another direction.
+
+Tah-nu-nu very nearly spoiled a name which was beginning to grow upon
+her brother. It was too long for common use, and it meant:
+"The-boy-whose-ear-pushed-away-a-piece-of-lead." Wah-wah-o-be, every now
+and then, strung all the syllables together, and the whole was like one
+of those mountain-passes, wider here and narrower there, but rugged all
+the way. Tah-nu-nu cut it short and called him Ping.
+
+Wah-wah-o-be's tongue and the use she made of it helped such a trail as
+that amazingly. She had endless tales to tell concerning what her
+husband had done and was yet to do, and of the great deeds of her
+nation, and of the evil deeds and purposes of all pale-faces.
+
+The questions asked by Ping and Tah-nu-nu were also endless. His proved
+that he knew some things already and that he had learned a part of them
+while the band had been upon the Reservation. Those of the little Apache
+girl proved for her as much and more. She must have thinking and
+imagining, and her eyes frequently took on a soft and dreamy look which
+did not come at all in those of her mother or her brother.
+
+There were not many safer places in all the Sierras than was the little
+valley in which the band of Kah-go-mish encamped, an hour or so before
+the shadows became darkness among the chasms and gorges.
+
+Ping ate a hearty supper, but he was in trouble. Other boys and girls,
+and some of the squaws, had taken a notion of turning their heads on one
+side and saying "Ping" when they met him, just as if they believed that
+he had winced from the touch of the bullet. He knew that he had not done
+so, but the taunt stirred up within him a very hot desire to do
+something heroic, like standing still to be shot at. He felt that it was
+an awful injustice to ridicule him for the very ear he was so proud of.
+The sting to his vanity kept him in motion after supper, and he strolled
+all over the valley. No lodges had been pitched, and the horses were
+scattered around, feeding, under the watchful care of several braves
+whose turn it was to serve as "dog-soldiers," or camp police.
+
+The moonlight was brilliant, but Ping had no idea whether or not the
+mountain scenery it lighted up was grand. He did know that it was just
+the night for his father to do great deeds in, or for any wild animal to
+prowl around after its prey. The cries of several had been heard during
+the afternoon march and since the band halted.
+
+Wah-wah-o-be had told him and Tah-nu-nu that these Mexican mountains
+fairly swarmed with Manitous and magicians, most of whom were favorable
+to the Apaches, but that all of them were more or less to be feared. For
+all that Ping knew, some of these unseen beings might be wandering up
+and down in that moonshine within arrow-shot of him. He felt safe in the
+camp, but nothing would have induced him to venture out among them. He
+knew very well that any Indian who got himself killed in the dark did
+not go to the Happy Hunting-Grounds, but had an awful time of it
+somewhere. As for the wild animals, he had a settled determination to
+kill a grizzly bear, some day, and to have his claws for a collar of
+honor to wear upon great occasions. He proposed to become a mighty
+hunter and warrior, but just now he felt sleepy, and he went back and
+lay down at the foot of a pine-tree, not far from the rest of his
+family.
+
+Ping's eyes closed, but another pair did not. Tah-nu-nu's remained open
+in spite of her. She had heard more stories than Ping had, and while
+each tale had kept its old shape in his mind it had turned into twenty
+new forms in her own.
+
+That is one difficulty about having an imagination, and Tah-nu-nu's had
+been getting more and more excited ever since the Mexican bullet tore
+her beautiful red dress. She kept thinking, too, of her heroic father
+and of the great things he would have to tell when he should get back
+from his war-path.
+
+Tah-nu-nu lacked only a few years of being a grown-up squaw, and
+Wah-wah-o-be often braided her hair for her, like that of a young
+pale-face lady at the Reservation headquarters. Some day a great brave
+was to come and pay many ponies for her, and she would then rule his
+lodge for him and scold eloquently, like her mother. She had,
+therefore, a long list of matters to dream about as she lay awake among
+the bushes where Wah-wah-o-be and several other squaws had spread their
+blankets. It was at some distance from the fires which the
+"dog-soldiers" kept slowly burning. Not far away, on the left, were the
+tall pines under one of which Ping had curled down, while outside of all
+was a bare ledge of rock, littered with bowlders and fragments.
+
+There were streaks and patches of shining white quartz here and there.
+Tah-nu-nu had never heard of such a thing as beauty, any more than Ping,
+but she felt its power as he did not. She arose and stole softly out to
+look at the marvellous picture made by that ledge in the moonlight. She
+looked and looked, but she had no Apache word for what she saw. It was
+all utterly still during many minutes, and then Tah-nu-nu was sure she
+saw something moving around at the farther border of the ledge. Her
+first impulse was to go out and see what it was, but her next thought
+was of her bow and arrows and of Ping.
+
+"Ugh!" said Ping, as she shook his arm, and he sprang to his feet.
+
+"Hist!" she said. "Come! Look!"
+
+He strung his bow and fastened his quiver of arrows to his belt, while
+she whispered an exclamation. Then he went to where the family packs had
+been thrown down and brought back a weapon at which Tah-nu-nu nodded
+approval.
+
+Days before that a careless pony had stepped upon and broken one of the
+best lances of Kah-go-mish. The blade was as keen as ever, and there
+were six feet of shaft remaining, below the crosspiece, so that it made
+a pretty dangerous-looking pike, although it was no longer a lance.
+
+Ping followed Tah-nu-nu, and not a word was uttered until they were out
+upon the ledge. Some prowling wolf might be there, attracted by the odor
+of cooked meat and fish, or even some more important animal, for bears
+also have noses. Ping would not have given a useless alarm for anything.
+That would have brought upon him sharper ridicule than had the scratch
+on his ear. He had no idea that any human enemy could be near that
+lonely camp, and wild animals, he knew, were sure to keep at a distance
+from camp-fires. That was true, but then Wah-wah-o-be and her friends
+were not camp-fires, and were not near to any. They were asleep away out
+on that side of the camp, and it was so safe that it had no sentry, and
+the eyes of Tah-nu-nu had been of so much the greater value.
+
+She and Ping were stealing out upon the broken ledge, and he had an
+arrow upon the string, but she had not, as yet.
+
+"Ugh!" he said, as he crouched low and drew his arrow to the head.
+
+Tah-nu-nu uttered a sharp cry. It was the Apache word for "cougar!"
+
+Ping's bowstring twanged, and then he bounded to the right as if he were
+dodging something. So he was, for the whole camp heard the snarling roar
+with which a great "mountain lion" came rushing through the air and
+crashed down a bush close to the children of Kah-go-mish and
+Wah-wah-o-be.
+
+[Illustration: SHE AND PING WERE STEALING OUT UPON THE BROKEN LEDGE.]
+
+Ping's arrow had been well aimed, for it was buried in the breast of the
+cougar. Another went into his side, as he came down, and that was
+from the hand of a girl-archer. Tah-nu-nu had worked like a flash, and
+her arrow operated as a sting, for the wounded beast made yet another
+tremendous bound.
+
+All the squaws were on their feet, and Wah-wah-o-be could not have told
+why she picked up her blanket as she arose. She was worthy to be the
+wife of a chief, however, for when the cougar alighted almost in front
+of her, she promptly threw the blanket over him. Another and another
+blanket followed, while he rolled upon the ground, mad with pain and
+rage, tearing the unexpected bedclothes and snarling ferociously.
+
+There had come into the dull mind of
+The-boy-whose-ear-pushed-away-a-piece-of-lead a great memory of a story
+he had heard of a warrior who faced a cougar single-handed. With it came
+another, of a chief standing alone upon a rock while a hundred enemies
+fired at him.
+
+"I am the son of Kah-go-mish!" he shouted, exultingly, and before the
+fierce wild beast could free himself, there was Ping in front of him,
+spear in hand.
+
+Any experienced cougar-hunter would have been inclined to say,
+"Good-bye, Ping," but the Apache boy was not thinking of the risk he was
+running. He knew what to do, and he put all the strength of his tough
+young body into the thrust with which he sent his weapon, low down,
+inside the animal's shoulder. The sharp blade went in, up to the
+crosspiece, just as the bow of Tah-nu-nu twanged again, and there were
+piercing shrieks on all sides. The loudest came from Wah-wah-o-be, as
+the cougar made a convulsive effort to reach his rash assailant, for
+over and over went Ping in spite of all his bracing.
+
+He would have fared worse if the butt of the spear-shaft had not caught
+a better brace against the ground, so that the cougar did not fall upon
+him.
+
+The blade had done its work. There were two or three more long rips made
+in Wah-wah-o-be's woollen treasure and then the cougar lay still.
+
+Ping was beyond all ridicule now, for he had proved himself a young
+brave. Wah-wah-o-be was so proud of him that she had not a word of grief
+to utter over the mess of woollen ribbons which was all that remained of
+her best Reservation blanket.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+THE RETURN OF KAH-GO-MISH.
+
+
+There were no alarms of cougars nor of any human wild people around the
+Santa Lucia ranch. Even the dogs could hardly get up an excuse for
+healthy barking after dark.
+
+Just in the dawn of that next morning, however, the cowboy on guard at
+the stockade gate was taken by surprise. Nobody rode up to the wooden
+barrier, but his quick ears caught a stealthy footstep behind him, and
+he turned sharply around with his hand on the lock of his rifle.
+
+Did she mean to murder him?
+
+There she stood, Norah McLory, with a double-barrelled gun in one hand
+and a cleaver in the other, and a red shawl pinned all around her. She
+made a very striking picture, and the look on her face was very much as
+if she were ready to strike.
+
+"What's up, Norah?" exclaimed the cowboy.
+
+"Faith an' I'm oop mesilf," said she. "I couldn't slape for thinking of
+thim red villains."
+
+"No redskins 'round here," almost yawned the weary sentry.
+
+"Ye don't know that," said Norah, "and I wanted to see was you watchin'.
+We moight all be murdhered in bed."
+
+"The dogs'd take care o' that," said he, "and, oh, but I'm hungry."
+
+"I'll have you the cup of hot coffee right soon," said Norah, "and you
+needn't tell the byes I watched ye."
+
+That was a bargain, but before the coffee boiled there was proof of
+other wakefulness besides Norah's. Mrs. Evans and Vic were out to look
+at the garden and to feed the chickens and to talk about what might be
+going on in the far-away camp which contained the red mustang.
+
+After breakfast the cowboys went to their duties. So did Norah and the
+Mexican servants. Vic and her mother took a brisk horseback ride, and
+came back to their home.
+
+"Everything is too quiet, mother," said Vic, impatiently. "There isn't
+anything going on! I want to see somebody! I want to see something! I
+hate this waiting."
+
+"I'm afraid it will be days and days before we can hear from your father
+or Cal," said Mrs. Evans, "but I hope it will be good news when it
+comes."
+
+The entire garrison of Santa Lucia, ladies, servants, and cowboys,
+talked of the men on the trail of Kah-go-mish, and wondered where and
+under what circumstances their camp might be getting breakfast.
+
+Cal Evans himself, although he awoke in the camp they were talking
+about, did not clearly know where it was, and while he was grooming the
+red mustang he said as much to Sam Herrick.
+
+"Colorado!" remarked Sam; "you're just like everybody else. I believe
+those Chiricahuas have lost the trail, or else they don't mean we shall
+find the Mescaleros."
+
+"What's going to be done?" asked Cal.
+
+"Your father and Captain Moore mean to push right on," said Sam.
+"They've got some plan or other. Tell you what, though, if I was an
+Apache chief, and if I'd gobbled a drove of horses, as they did, I'd
+take my chances over in Mexico. I wouldn't come loafing out hereaway, to
+be followed by cavalry and caught napping. There's a plain of awfully
+dry gravel a little west of where we are now."
+
+Cal finished Dick, and then he carried his questions to his father.
+
+"Sam's right," said the colonel. "He's an old hand at trailing. We
+believe the redskins have crossed the line."
+
+"Into Mexico? Shall we miss 'em?"
+
+"No, Cal, I think not. Captain Moore knows something of what the
+Mexicans are doing. The Apaches won't be comfortable there. What we're
+guessing at is the place where they're likely to come out again. We're
+pretty sure we know about where it's got to be."
+
+He might have been less positive if he could have seen how very
+comfortable the band of Kah-go-mish looked in their camp among the
+Mexican mountains at that very hour.
+
+It was a safe place, but it was not one to remain in for any great
+length of time, for the horses had already eaten up nearly all the
+grass. Some of the braves had gone out after game successfully, while
+others had brought in fish, so that the human beings had food enough,
+but the quadrupeds would soon wear out the pasturage of so small a
+valley.
+
+Ping's cougar was regarded as capital game, the best kind of meat in the
+world to Indian tastes, as far as he would go.
+
+The discovery had already been made that more plentiful grass could not
+safely be sought for under the Mexican flag. Too many lancers and
+rancheros were out on the war-path, and the thoughts of all the band
+were turning towards some better refuge north of the United States line.
+Everybody was contented for the day, however, or until about the middle
+of the afternoon. Even Wah-wah-o-be was astonished then, and Ping for a
+moment forgot his cougar. The little valley rang with a great whoop,
+which came from its southerly end. Every brave within hearing did his
+best to answer that whoop, and the whole camp was at once in a state of
+excitement, for it was the voice of the returning Kah-go-mish, and it
+was thrilling with triumph.
+
+Here he came, not astride of the doleful pony that had carried him away,
+but riding an elegantly caparisoned steed. Some other horses followed
+him. He had gone out almost weaponless, and he was now overloaded with
+weapons. He had gone bareheaded, and now he wore a gorgeously gold-laced
+and yellow-plumed cocked hat, recently the special pride of a major of
+Mexican militia. Even the Reservation chimney-pot silk beauty, green
+veil and all, was altogether nothing compared with this.
+
+Kah-go-mish had not exactly played Cortes, and conquered Mexico, but
+what he had done was very nearly the same to Wah-wah-o-be, Tah-nu-nu,
+and The-boy-whose-ear-pushed-away-a-piece-of-lead.
+
+It was a great time, but the chief had the plans of a general in his
+head. No Mexican force would follow him into the Sierra, but one might
+try to head him off on the other side, and take away his horses, and it
+was time to be moving.
+
+The band broke camp at once, to push on through the rugged
+mountain-paths as long as there might be daylight enough to go by. That
+was why the darkness, when it came, found them scattered all along the
+bottom of a tremendous gorge, walled in by vast perpendicular faces of
+quartz and granite rock. Even Ping thought it wonderful, when the
+straggling camp-fires were kindled, that their light did not stream
+half-way up those walls, and left the rest in shadow until the moon rose
+high enough to show them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+THE FOUNTAIN IN THE DESERT.
+
+
+On the morning of the second day after Ping and Tah-nu-nu and the
+blankets proved to be too much "bad medicine" for one poor cougar, the
+sun arose hotly over one of the dreariest bits of scenery in southern
+New Mexico. It was the gravel desert described to Cal Evans by Sam
+Herrick. No mountains were visible on the south or east, and the ranges
+of tall peaks westerly and northerly were a very long day's journey from
+the most interesting spot in that entire plain. Everywhere else even the
+cactus-plants and scrubby mesquit-trees and stiff-fingered sage-brushes
+were scarce, as if they did not care to struggle for a living in so mean
+a country. Here, on the contrary, there was a dense chaparral of every
+kind of growth, excepting tall trees, that is common to that climate,
+and spreading for miles and miles. In many places the chaparral was so
+high and so thick that a man on horseback could have been hidden in it
+from another man at a short distance.
+
+If any man had ridden into it, however, perhaps his first declaration
+might have been, "All this thorn and famine shrubbery was laid out by a
+lot of crazy spiders."
+
+Innumerable paths led through it, crossing or running into each other in
+a manner to have perplexed a carpet-weaver or a military map-maker, and
+everybody knows what tangled patterns they can make. The spiders had not
+done it, but the larger kinds of four-footed wild animals. They had
+worked at those paths for ages, treading them down all the while, and
+preventing any vegetable growth from choking them up.
+
+There was really no tangle, at least none that could perplex the clear
+mind of a bison or an antelope, and all the threads of that spider-web
+had more or less reference to a common centre towards which the main
+lines tended.
+
+The dry and thirsty bushes on the outer circumference of the chaparral
+should not have settled where they did. They ought rather to have
+learned a lesson from the bisons, and have gone in farther. The wide
+main pathways ran into each other, and all the smaller pathways melted
+into them, until only twenty or thirty ends of paths led into a great
+open space, in the middle of which was the one thing needed by all that
+vast plain, with its dreary gravel and sand and alkali.
+
+Water?
+
+Yes, water as clear as crystal, and that seemed to be colder than ice.
+
+The thirsty animals who were from year to year to traverse that plain
+had been provided for as if they had been so many sparrows, and the
+cactus-plants as if they had been lilies of the field.
+
+The greater part of the open space was occupied by a seamed and broken
+face of quartz rock, nowhere rising more than a few feet above the
+general level. Scores and scores of miles away, among the unknown
+recesses of the Sierra, westward, was a lake, a reservoir, into which
+the everlasting snows continually melted. At some point of that
+reservoir a channel had been opened through and under the cloven strata
+of the rock, making a natural aqueduct. Cold and clear ran the
+snow-water, never failing in its wonderful supply, until it burst up
+into the burning sunshine in the very middle of the desert, of the
+chaparral, and of the spider-web of paths. It danced and gurgled, this
+morning, right under the timid noses of a gang of antelopes who had
+trotted in there by the shortest lane, not missing their way for a yard.
+
+A motherly old sage-hen watched them from under a bush upon one side of
+the open, while in the opposite scrubs a large jackass rabbit sat, with
+lifted forefeet and with ears thrust forward, his face wearing such a
+look of surprised disapproval as only a rabbit can put on.
+
+One antelope held his head up and listened while the rest were drinking.
+He turned his head and looked around him, and in every direction he
+could see an extraordinary collection of white or whitening bones, large
+and small. Perhaps, year after year, many over-thirsty animals had
+rushed hastily in and drank too much of that snow-water. At all events,
+they had ended their days there. The antelope, or anybody else, could
+also have said to himself, "Tomato-cans? Empty sardine-boxes? Bottles?
+Old wheels? I wonder how many and what kind of white men or Indians have
+camped around Fonda des Arenas?" If he had been an American antelope,
+however, he would have said Cold Spring, and not Fountain of the Sands.
+
+The antelopes were divided as to their nationality, and changed their
+citizenship several times, for, right through the middle of the spring
+and along the little rill by which it ran across the rock lay the
+boundary line between the United States and Mexico. Some curious
+chisel-marks in one place had meanings with reference to the boundary,
+and so it must have been there; but even the keen eyes of two buzzard
+eagles, soaring overhead, could not have seen the line itself.
+
+Suddenly the antelope chief gave a bleat and a bound, and in a twinkling
+he and his little band disappeared in the southern chaparral. Every one
+of them had fled into Mexico.
+
+Only ears as sensitive as their own could have heard any warning in what
+seemed the almost painful silence of that solitude, but they were right
+in running away. Not many minutes elapsed before several of the paths
+opening towards the spring were occupied by stealthy human forms on
+foot, peering around as if to make sure that no other human beings had
+arrived before them. They answered one another with low calls which
+sounded like suppressed barks of a prairie-wolf, and these were repeated
+in the chaparral behind them.
+
+Then a tall, broad, dignified man, in a red flannel waist-cloth and a
+gorgeous cocked hat, and with red stocking-legs on his arms, strode out
+towards the bubbling fountain with the air of a ruler taking
+possession.
+
+"Kah-go-mish is a great chief!" he remarked, emphatically. "Cheat
+pale-face a heap. Ugh!"
+
+If other remarks made by himself and by a dusky throng, now pouring out
+of the chaparral, could have been interpreted, it would have been
+understood that a plan of Kah-go-mish for escaping from some pursuit or
+other had thus far worked well, but that the danger was by no means at
+an end.
+
+Wah-wah-o-be was one of those who shook their heads about it very
+wisely. She said very little, and neither Ping nor Tah-nu-nu was with
+her. If she knew where they were she did not even mention that fact.
+
+There was plenty of room for the whole band of Kah-go-mish, horses and
+all. They had travelled since the dawn of day, or before, and although
+it was still quite early they were hungry and thirsty.
+
+There was the spring for thirst, and fires were kindled. These were as
+quickly put out, after breakfast had been cooked and eaten, and when the
+sun had dried the waters thrown upon the embers no newcomer could have
+guessed how long it might be since the last coal died.
+
+"Leave heap sign," said Kah-go-mish. "Paleface know great chief been
+here. Not know where gone. Ugh!"
+
+Sign enough was made, for now the band moved away westerly by a path of
+the chaparral. Broad and plain was the trail left behind and it was all
+on Mexican sand. It went right along until it reached and crossed
+another wide path at right angles. Here most of the band turned to the
+left, under orders, but the rest, a lot of warriors, went on, making
+false trail as if for a purpose, half a mile farther, to a wide, empty
+patch of hard gravel. No two of the warriors left that patch together,
+and the trail died there. Of the band which turned to the left, at the
+crossing, the squaw part pushed on while some cunning old braves worked
+like beavers to scratch out every trace that they or theirs had entered
+that left-hand path at all.
+
+It was all a very artistic piece of Indian dodging, and when it was
+completed the entire band of Kah-go-mish was encamped in a secluded nook
+of the chaparral about a mile and a half from the spring. So far as any
+tracks they had made were concerned, they would have been about as hard
+to find as the sage-hen, who had now returned to her place under the
+bush by the spring, and had distinguished company to help her watch it.
+
+A sage-hen crouching low in sand and shadowed by wait-a-bit thorn twigs
+is pretty well hidden. So is a great Apache chief when he has left his
+cocked hat and his horse a mile and a half away and is lying at full
+length, in a rabbit path, a few yards behind the sage-hen.
+
+Kah-go-mish had his own military reasons for hurrying back to play spy,
+and his face wore an expression of mingled cunning, patience, and
+self-satisfaction. Something like a crisis had evidently arrived in his
+affairs, and he was meeting it as became a Mescalero-Apache statesman of
+genius. He and the sage-hen lay still for a while, but it was not long
+before there was another arrival at the spring.
+
+No sound escaped the lips of Kah-go-mish, but the expression of his face
+changed suddenly.
+
+Perhaps the new arrival had been long in convincing himself that he
+could safely venture to the spring, but he now left his pony at the edge
+of the quartz level and walked on to the water's edge. He was not a
+white man. He was one of the Indians who had said "How" to Vic and Mrs.
+Evans, and the sight of him seemed to arouse all the wolf in
+Kah-go-mish. The eyes of the Mescalero leader glistened like those of a
+serpent as he thrust his rifle forward. There was a sharp report and
+Kah-go-mish bounded from his cover, knife in hand, for the Chiricahua
+scout lay lifeless upon the rock.
+
+"To-da-te-ca-to-da no more be heap eyes for blue coat," said the
+ferociously wrathful chieftain, and a moment later, as he again
+disappeared in the chaparral, he added, bitterly: "Heap sign now. Ugh.
+Pale-face find him. Bad Indian! Ugh!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+LOST IN THE CHAPARRAL.
+
+
+Kah-go-mish and all the other members of his band except two had been
+entirely absorbed in the marching and counter-marching required to make
+other people lose track of them. Meantime the two exceptions had been
+threading the blind paths of the chaparral more rapidly and a great deal
+more anxiously.
+
+Neither of the ponies which carried Ping and Tah-nu-nu was hampered by
+any saddle, and both were somewhat wild, but they were not wild enough
+to have an antelope's learning as to the streets and lanes of that bushy
+wilderness. Their young riders were just as ignorant. After the fight
+with the cougar, Ping remembered that when Tah-nu-nu sent her last arrow
+into the side of the great cat she had seemed to him to be about twice
+her ordinary size. Her bow had twanged at the moment when he had himself
+felt like a very small boy indeed, about to be stepped upon by the worst
+claws in the world. She, at that moment, had thought of her brother as a
+young warrior and a hero. Now, however, they were even, for they both
+had lost their way; and she spoke of him as a mere boy, while he
+described her as a little squaw, from whom, of course, any great amount
+of wisdom was hardly to be expected. Whether they rode fast or slow, up
+one path or down another, seemed to make little difference. They were in
+a complete puzzle, and there were a number of square miles of it.
+
+At last an avenue of more than ordinary width seemed to offer a promise
+that it might lead somewhere in particular, instead of everywhere in
+general, and Ping remarked: "Ugh! Heap trail," as he rode into it.
+
+"Buffalo trail," added Tah-nu-nu, satirically, and she was right, but it
+was the best highway they had yet discovered.
+
+On they rode, for a while, making fewer turns and windings, until they
+came to a problem which halted them. The wide path split into two that
+were equally wide, and made a good place for a lost Apache boy and girl
+to argue a knotty question. Tah-nu-nu favored the right-hand road while
+Ping preferred the left, and neither of them could give a good reason
+for any choice.
+
+After Ping killed the cougar, the heart of it had been given him for
+breakfast and the tongue for dinner, but, whatever else he had gained by
+eating them, he had not acquired that animal's natural-born bush wisdom.
+He may at some time have eaten an antelope's ear, however, for he now
+put up his hand as if another bullet had whizzed past him.
+
+"Ugh!" he exclaimed. "Hear pony! Tah-nu-nu, come!"
+
+They wheeled their own ponies behind the nearest thick bushes and
+dismounted. The newcomer might be a friend, but he was just as likely to
+be an enemy. Ping got an arrow ready, and felt very much like a young
+cougar waiting for an opportunity to spring.
+
+They had only a minute to wait, and then another exceedingly puzzled
+young person drew his rein at the point where the wide path divided.
+Ping's eyes opened wide and they glittered enviously. Never before had
+he seen so dashing-looking a young paleface, nor any kind of boy mounted
+upon such a beauty of a horse. Oh, how the son of Kah-go-mish did long
+to become the owner of that red mustang.
+
+"Dick," said the boy in the saddle, very much as if he had been talking
+to another human being, "did you know that you and I had lost our way?
+How do you suppose we shall ever get out of this scrape? It's a bad
+one."
+
+Dick neighed discontentedly, and pawed the sand, for he was thirsty, but
+he made no other answer. He was as ignorant as was his master concerning
+those roads and of what was at that moment taking place among the
+bushes.
+
+The Mescalero branch of the great Apache nation, while at war with
+Mexico, was at peace with the United States, although it was by means of
+a treaty which had been badly cracked, if not broken, upon both sides.
+As for The-boy-whose-ear-pushed-away-a-piece-of-lead, however, he felt
+in all his veins that he was at war with the entire white race, and that
+he wanted that red mustang.
+
+His arrow was on the string, and he was lifting his bow, when Tah-nu-nu
+caught him firmly by the arm.
+
+"Ugh!" she whispered. "Kah-go-mish say no kill. No fight blue-coat. No
+take 'calp. Ping no shoot."
+
+The too eager young warrior struggled a little, but Tah-nu-nu was
+determined. Then he seemed to assent, and she let go of his arm while
+they both listened to something more that the white boy said. They could
+not quite understand the words, but they could read the decision he came
+to.
+
+"Dick," he remarked, "here goes. We'll take to the right, if it leads us
+to China."
+
+With the guiding motion of his hand the red mustang sprang forward. Just
+as he did so, a fiercely driven arrow whizzed by the head of his master.
+It only missed its mark by a few inches, and they had been gained for
+Cal by the quick hand of Tah-nu-nu.
+
+"Indians!" was the exclamation that sprang to Cal's lips. "An ambush."
+
+He rode on rapidly a little distance, and then he pulled in his pony,
+adding: "Things are getting pretty bad for us, Dick."
+
+"Ugh!" Ping had said, as Cal disappeared. "Tah-nu-nu make him lose
+arrow. Lose pony. Heap squaw!"
+
+"Kah-go-mish say, good!" she sharply responded. "Heap mad for kill."
+
+She had saved the life of the young pale-face stranger, and she felt
+sure of her father's approval. She had heard him give his warriors rigid
+orders against unnecessary bloodshed. He had specified blue-coats and
+cowboys with thoughtful care for the future of his band, if not for the
+treaty, but he had said nothing at all about Chiricahua scouts.
+
+Ping was compelled to yield the point, but it was plain to both of them
+that if there were more pale-faces to the right, for that one to follow
+after, their own course must be to the left. Down that path they rode,
+accordingly, and they were going right and wrong at the same time.
+
+Cal Evans, on the other hand, was going altogether in the wrong path,
+and was doing it pretty rapidly. It occurred to him that buffaloes
+marching two abreast must have laid out that bush-bordered lane, but
+then other lanes as wide ran into it or crossed it. He at last brought
+Dick down to an easy canter and tried to study the situation carefully.
+He had heard of experienced plainsmen who had lost themselves in
+chaparral. They had wandered around aimlessly, for days and days,
+crossing their own trails again and again. At last they had lost hope
+and had lain down and died of hunger and thirst at only short distances
+from friends who were hunting for them.
+
+Cal's heart beat hard as he recalled those terrible stories. The sun
+seemed to be growing hotter overhead. The wind had almost died out, and
+the air was like that of a furnace. He was painfully thirsty, and he
+knew that Dick had had no water since daylight, and then not a full
+supply, for the expedition had been in the desert since the previous
+afternoon. They had all travelled rapidly, too, in the hope of reaching
+Cold Spring early.
+
+"What will father say," thought Cal, "when he finds out that I'm
+missing? What would mother and Vic say, if they knew? I only rode ahead
+a little way, and I can't guess how I came to lose track of them all."
+
+No man who gets lost can ever tell exactly how he managed to do it.
+
+Very mocking were the curves of that seeming road to nowhere, and many
+were the narrower lanes that entered it as if they also wanted to go
+there. Cal could hardly have guessed how many sultry miles he travelled
+before he came suddenly upon a wider, sandier path, bordered by taller
+bushes, that struck straight across the other.
+
+"It's time for us to try something new, Dick," he said, but he said it
+dolefully, as he turned to the left and pushed down the unknown avenue.
+It had its curves, like the other, and it was wider here and narrower
+there, and it led him on for a full hour. He had long since almost
+forgotten about the whizzing arrow, in his deep anxiety, and he knew
+that there could not be ambushes everywhere.
+
+At the end of the long hour he and Dick stood stock-still. They were on
+a slight elevation from which a considerable sweep of the chaparral
+could be overlooked. It was a dreary, dreary prospect, and it seemed to
+be interminable. Cal stared wistfully in all directions, but north and
+south and east and west appeared to be alike without hope. Into that
+lonely path no other human being was likely to come. Dick and Cal were
+like flies, caught in the vast web. In spite of the glowing sunshine,
+all things seemed to be growing very dark indeed, and they even grew
+darker when his feverish imagination wandered away to Santa Lucia.
+
+"It's a fact, Dick," he said, huskily, "you and I are lost."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+AN INVASION OF TWO REPUBLICS.
+
+
+Kah-go-mish was a great chief, and had employed all the cunning in him
+in his arrangements for eluding his pursuers. It now remained to be seen
+whether or not he had made blunders.
+
+The Chiricahua scout lay on the white quartz only a few yards from the
+water's edge. The sage-hen sat under the bush. The Apache leader lay
+once more in his rabbit-path behind her, having regained it by a long
+circuit through the chaparral.
+
+The two buzzards overhead were floating somewhat lower, and they could
+see all over the tangled maze of scrubby growth and buffalo-paths.
+
+From the southward came a soft, warm wind, carrying with it sounds which
+brought a quick, vindictive gleam into the eyes of Kah-go-mish. First
+came the faint, distant music of a bugle, as if to inform both friends
+and enemies that a cavalry column was picking its way through the
+spider-web. A little later shouts could be heard, and then the rattle of
+sabres and the neighing of horses. Nearer and nearer drew the assurance
+that quite a lot of fellows of some sort were at hand, and all the while
+the buzzards overhead, and they only, were aware that a very
+different-looking set were approaching from another direction.
+
+This second party was also armed and mounted, but it plodded on in
+silence and not rapidly. They seemed disposed to feel their way with
+some care, although not at all in doubt as to the path they were
+following. Part of these silent horsemen were all the way from Fort
+Craig, hunting some Mescaleros who had left their Reservation, and the
+rest of them were from Santa Lucia ranch and its neighborhood, and had
+come for some stolen horses. Just now many of them seemed disposed to
+discuss the military tactics of Mexican commanders.
+
+"All the Indians in the chaparral have had good bugle-warning, Sam,"
+said Colonel Evans to the cowboy nearest.
+
+"Colorado!" said Sam. "Reckon they have. But then no redskins nor
+anybody else 'd stop here long. We know one thing, though."
+
+"What's that, Sam?"
+
+"Well, if our redskins are here away, they've been raced out of Mexico.
+We'll get 'em on American sile."
+
+That appeared to be the opinion of Captain Moore, but the entire party
+had a hot, thirsty, jaded look, as of men and horses who had made a long
+push across a desert and wanted rest and water.
+
+"We'll try and reach the spring first," said the captain, "and claim our
+first choice of a camping-ground."
+
+That was why neither of the two bodies of cavalry got there first, and
+why Kah-go-mish and the sage-hen heard, pretty soon, an American cavalry
+bugle from the east answering the Mexican music from the south.
+
+Then the buzzards overhead saw men in uniform and other men in no
+uniform ride out of the chaparral, from opposite sides, into the great
+rocky open around the spring.
+
+Just before that Kah-go-mish had seen three Chiricahuas steal out from
+the cover. They had scouted all around it, and one of them had passed
+very near the lurking Mescalero. He had been in no danger, for
+Kah-go-mish had heard the bugles and knew that he must lie still. All
+three were now grouped around their lost comrade on the rock.
+
+"Ugh!" they said, as they looked at him. "Kah-go-mish."
+
+Captain Moore had been informed of the name of the chief whose band had
+wandered from the Reservation, and now the Chiricahuas were in no doubt
+as to whose work lay before them. It was part of an old personal feud,
+they said, and had nothing to do with pale-faces or stolen horses.
+
+Straight to the margin of the spring rode Captain Moore and the Mexican
+commander, each followed by several other riders, while behind them
+their men filed out of the chaparral.
+
+The meeting of the two officers was ceremoniously polite, and was
+followed by rapid explanations that left them in little doubt but that
+they were pursuing the same enemy.
+
+"Senor," said Captain Moore, with a smile, at last, as he looked around,
+"your forces have invaded the territory of the United States."
+
+"Senor Capitan," smiled the Mexican, with a low bow, "part of the troops
+under your command have broken the treaty and are now in Mexico."
+
+"I propose, then, Colonel Romero," said the captain, "that we compromise
+the matter. My command is almost thirsty enough to drink up the American
+half of this spring. How are your own?"
+
+"Dry as the sand," would have been a fair interpretation of the polite
+Mexican's reply, and orders were given on both sides which provided for
+the thirsty men and animals without delay.
+
+There were pleasant-voiced introductions among the gentlemen, and the
+blue-coats and cowboys mingled freely with the lancers and rancheros. If
+Kah-go-mish did not know it before, he now learned that these Mexicans,
+of whom there were nearly two hundred, were not the same force that he
+had collected his target-fee from.
+
+A sort of mutual council of war of all the officers and Colonel Evans
+was held over the body of the dead Chiricahua scout.
+
+"It may indicate the presence of only one warrior," said Captain Moore,
+"or it may mean that the whole band is near--"
+
+At that moment a loud whoop sounded from the chaparral, westerly. It was
+followed by the hasty return of one of the Chiricahuas to announce that
+he had found the trail of the Apaches and that it led towards the south,
+into Mexico.
+
+"You can follow them, then, and I cannot," said Captain Moore to Colonel
+Romero. "I should like to consult with Colonel Evans as to my own
+course."
+
+He looked around as if searching for the owner of Santa Lucia, who had
+been at his elbow, but had suddenly seemed to vanish.
+
+[Illustration: "UGH!" THEY SAID, AS THEY LOOKED AT HIM. "KAH-GO-MISH"]
+
+"Si, Senor Capitan," replied Colonel Romero. "We will follow the
+trail at once, and I am glad that all the glory is to be ours. We shall,
+at all events, be in a good camping-ground by sunset."
+
+"Your whole command is with you?" asked the captain.
+
+"Except a pack-train and spare horses," replied Colonel Romero. "We
+pushed ahead a little, and they took it easily. They are only a few
+miles behind and will soon catch up with us."
+
+He said more, and he had a good voice. He accompanied his very distinct
+utterances with gestures, not dreaming that the sage-hen or any other
+improper listener was near enough to learn too much.
+
+Even in his rabbit-patch, however, Kah-go-mish could not entirely
+restrain his thoughts.
+
+"Ugh!" he muttered. "Heap pony. Heap mule."
+
+Horses and men had quenched their thirst and both sides were eating
+luncheon. The two commanders separated, and Captain Moore turned away.
+As he did so a large man stood before him with flushed, excited face.
+
+"Captain Moore, Cal is lost! Lost in the chaparral!"
+
+That was why he had stepped away so suddenly, for Sam Herrick had first
+beckoned to him, and then had led him aside to say that Cal had not come
+in with the rest. He had hunted for him all around, but not one of the
+men had seen him for an hour and a half. The colonel himself had at once
+made rapid inquiries, and now he had brought the news to Captain Moore,
+in such a state of mind that he could not think.
+
+"Cal!" exclaimed the captain. "Lost! Oh, no. Don't be so agitated. You
+can find him."
+
+The colonel tried to speak, but his voice refused to do its duty.
+
+"Herrick, Sam," said the captain, quietly, "those Greasers have more
+bugles than they need. Buy a couple. I'll lend you mine. Stop. I'll
+speak to Colonel Romero about it."
+
+"Bugles?" said Colonel Evans.
+
+"Why, yes," said the captain, "if Cal is tangled in the chaparral he
+must have something to guide him. I must push on, along the boundary
+line, to see what luck I can have with the Mescaleros. Colonel Romero
+and his men will follow their direct trail, and so they won't find them;
+but we both make it safer for you. Patrol back, blowing all sorts of
+noise, and Cal's pretty sure to ride right up to one bugle or another.
+Scatter 'em wide."
+
+"Thank you. Thank you, captain," said the colonel. "Sam, get all the
+bugles you can. Give a horse for a bugle. Give anything!"
+
+The captain at once rode into Mexico for a talk with Colonel Romero.
+There was, indeed, an over-supply of musical instruments in that
+command, and its gallant colonel sympathized impressively with the
+feelings of Cal's father and friends. So did two militiamen who were
+happy enough to own unnecessary bugles. Sam Herrick did not give a horse
+for either, but one battered, crooked tube of sheet brass brought enough
+money to replace it with a new one at least half silver.
+
+Captain Moore hardly needed to explain so simple a plan. He had tried it
+twice, he said, for stray men of his own, and in each case they had
+ridden safely in. Neither he nor Colonel Evans guessed that Cal had
+already ridden away beyond the stretch of chaparral in which they
+proposed to toot for him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+HOW PING AND TAH-NU-NU GOT TO THE SPRING.
+
+
+Colonel Romero and his gay lancers and his picturesque ranchero militia
+rode away along the well-marked trail so carefully left for them by the
+Apaches. It led manifestly into their own republic, and there seemed to
+be no danger whatever of their losing it. They had two bugles less than
+when they entered the chaparral, but they made noise enough to notify
+any red men lurking in the bushes ahead of them that they were coming.
+The one special precaution which they continually took was against
+possible ambuscades. They were determined not to be taken by surprise,
+and their wary scouts routed out a considerable number of jackass
+rabbits and sage-hens. Beyond these they met with no excitement whatever
+until they came to the barren gravel patch, beyond which the Apache
+trail did not go.
+
+Here a halt was called--necessarily. The pride of a Mexican army
+officer, and of a round score of them, was in the way of going back to
+Cold Spring to tell some Americans of a kind of defeat. It was talked
+over, and a decision was wisely reached. The Apaches, it was concluded,
+had not gone down into the earth nor up into the air. They had scattered
+through different paths of the chaparral, to come together again at
+some point farther on--probably at the outer edge of it. Kah-go-mish
+would have fully approved of that piece of sagacity, for it sent the
+Mexican part of the forces pursuing him a number of miles farther into
+Mexico. As for that cunning Apache himself, he seemed a model of human
+patience. The sage-hen had at last deserted him. She had seen the
+Mexicans depart, and that was enough for her. Perhaps she knew of other
+old chaparral ladies like herself to whom she wished to tell the latest
+news.
+
+At all events she scurried suddenly away and left Kah-go-mish trying to
+understand the next military operation going on at the spring.
+
+Of course the slaughtered Chiricahua scout was carried into the bushes
+and buried. Then the blue-coats and their commander rode away upon a
+path which promised to keep them most of the time within the United
+States. After that the cowboy part of the American expedition gathered
+at the spring, and evidently held a sort of council. It was of
+importance to Apache plans to get an idea of what theirs might be, and
+the watcher in the rabbit-path lay very still. He saw man after man take
+a bugle and blow on it, as if trying to see how loud a noise he could
+make. He did not know Joaquin by name, but gave him the prize,
+decidedly, in his own mind.
+
+While all this was going on, it might have been as well for the family
+peace of the chief if he could have been attending to the welfare of his
+two promising children.
+
+Ping and Tah-nu-nu rode on, with something like hope and confidence, for
+a while after their glimpse of the red mustang and his rider. Every now
+and then The-boy-whose-ear-pushed-away-a-piece-of-lead had something to
+say about the wonderful pony he had seen, and it was plain that he did
+not quite agree with Tah-nu-nu as to the wickedness of sending the arrow
+after Cal.
+
+His band had left the Reservation and had escaped from all peril of
+becoming civilized, and some day or other he felt sure of going upon the
+war-path against the pale-faces with the hope of killing them all. In
+the meantime they were coming to take away his father's horses, and he
+believed himself at war with them.
+
+He grew moody and silent, and it was partly because he and his pony were
+uncommonly thirsty. He did not say so, for he was a young warrior who
+had already slain a cougar and had eaten the cougar's heart, well
+roasted, and it did not become him to show any signs of fatigue or
+suffering. The path they followed was a strip of yielding sand, up to a
+point where Ping pulled in his pony with a jerk. Another path, as wide,
+ran into it right there, bringing "bad medicine."
+
+"Ugh!" exclaimed Ping. "Pale-face! Blue-coat!"
+
+"Ugh!" was the only response of Tah-nu-nu, as she leaned over and looked
+down at the plain marks left behind by the hoofs of iron-shod horses.
+
+There were many of them, and they all went in one direction.
+
+"Heap blue-coat!" exclaimed Ping, again and again; and it seemed as if
+the troubles of Tah-nu-nu and himself had been multiplied.
+
+The trail of their enemies led to some place in particular beyond a
+doubt, but that must be the very place to which no Apache boy and girl
+wished to go. They must try another path.
+
+Slowly, watchfully, they followed the cavalry trail for a moderate
+distance until another hopeful outlet presented itself. They were agreed
+this time, and rode on side by side, wondering more and more where could
+be the hiding-place of their own people.
+
+They had not by any means wandered so far out of the right track as had
+Cal Evans, but, after their first mistake had been discovered, had
+seemed to find a curious kind of instinct of their own guiding
+them--just a little like that which might have led a pair of unwise
+young antelopes. They were born children of the plains, and Cal was not.
+Even now their general idea of the direction to be taken led them
+towards the central point which should have been their aim.
+
+Perhaps it would be more correct to say that it should not have been
+their aim under the circumstances, for it was the very point to which
+the other winding pathway, the cavalry trail, also tended after making a
+wide sweep.
+
+There was no one to give them any information, but again and again they
+halted to consider the matter and to rest their thirsty ponies. It was
+slow travelling and every way unpleasant to a pair of young people who
+had set out that morning with a merry assurance that the great chief,
+the father of whom they were so proud, had outwitted the Mexicans and
+was about to outwit the blue-coats and the cowboys.
+
+He, lying in his rabbit-path, was now very nearly ready to declare to
+himself what was the best thing for a great Mescalero Apache to do next,
+when he was called upon to witness an extraordinary performance. The
+bugle-practice had closed many minutes; the last horse had eaten his
+rations and had been watered. The last cowboy had sprung to the saddle;
+squads had been counted off; directions had been given by Colonel Evans,
+and each small party was about to enter the chaparral by a different
+path.
+
+The spring was deserted, and its flashing ripples, with the white rock
+around them, could be seen at a distance by any rider coming along one
+of the straighter avenues. Two who came along saw it, and each uttered a
+glad, thirsty cry. A sort of despair left them so instantly that they
+did not pause for thought or consultation. Boy and girl together, they
+lashed their ponies and dashed recklessly forward. Their shouts had been
+heard.
+
+"There's Cal!" exclaimed one cowboy.
+
+"He's coming," said another.
+
+A third had his hat off and was just on the point of hurrahing when the
+deep voice of Colonel Evans, in a distinct though suppressed tone,
+warned them.
+
+"Silence, all! It isn't his voice. Wait."
+
+They waited, and it was barely a full minute before Kah-go-mish saw Ping
+and Tah-nu-nu halt their ponies at the spring.
+
+"Ping!" screamed Tah-nu-nu.
+
+"Ugh!" said he. "Cowboy!"
+
+On all sides appeared the mysteriously unexpected horsemen, swiftly
+closing around them. It was of no use to run or to resist. The chief's
+daughter and The-boy-whose-ear-pushed-away-a-piece-of-lead were
+prisoners in the hands of the very men who had come to steal from their
+father all the good horses he had gathered upon Slater's Branch.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+HOW DICK PLAYED SENTINEL.
+
+
+That had been a warm and also a very busy day at Santa Lucia Ranch. It
+began, like other days, with an early breakfast for all who awoke under
+the roof of the hacienda, and everybody had conjectures to make, of
+course, as to the whereabouts and doings of Cal and his father and the
+Apache-hunting expedition.
+
+Mrs. Evans and Vic did not care for a horseback ride. In fact, Vic said
+she did not care much for anything. About the middle of the forenoon,
+however, two hammocks that swung under the awning in front of the
+veranda became suddenly empty.
+
+There came a great shouting and whip-cracking out upon the prairie. It
+sounded along the well-marked old wagon-road which came down from the
+north. Whole army trains had travelled that road from time to time, and
+now a great tilted wagon, drawn by six mules and followed by four more,
+came rolling smoothly in the deep old ruts.
+
+There was a cowboy ready to open the gate and let in the wagon. News of
+its coming was already in the house, and every soul hurried out to
+welcome it.
+
+"Sure, and it's glad I am that it's come," said Norah McLory. "There
+wasn't coffee to last the wake, let alone sugar."
+
+The beauty of that wagon was all in its cargo. It belonged to Colonel
+Evans, and it brought supplies all the way down from Santa Fe. The
+unloading and investigation of the things under the ample tilt was an
+affair of fun and excitement and surprises worth a whole week of
+shopping in the city.
+
+Full orders had been sent by that six-mule express, for such a trip was
+costly and could not be afforded too frequently; but even Mrs. Evans had
+not been permitted to examine all the lists of goods before they went,
+and Vic knew almost nothing about them. It was, therefore, something
+like a tremendous Christmas morning coming in June.
+
+The groceries, both as to assortment and quantity, delighted the very
+heart of Norah McLory. There were cloths and clothing for all the needs
+of Santa Lucia. One whole packing-case was marked as belonging
+especially to Mrs. Evans, but it might almost as well have been directed
+to Vic. The next was smaller and had no name upon it, but when it was
+opened it compelled Vic to exclaim, again and again: "How I do wish Cal
+were here! What won't he say when he gets home!"
+
+However that might be, Cal heard Ping's arrow whiz past him just a
+little before Vic laid down his new breech-loading double-barrelled
+shotgun and began to admire his neckties, his pocket-knife, compass, and
+a lot of other treasures.
+
+The miscellaneous cargo of the tilted wagon had cost the price obtained
+for a goodly number of horned cattle. The value of two fine mules had
+been expended upon another kind of supplies.
+
+There was no post-office at or near Santa Lucia, and letters found
+their way there as best they might, at long intervals. Newspapers came
+in like manner, if they came at all, but now the tilt of that wagon had
+covered a very large amount of news. Some of it was beginning to get a
+little old in the rest of the world, for there were several files of
+well-known Eastern weekly journals, three months in length. Illustrated
+journals were there, and magazines, for young and old. The remainder of
+those mules had gone for books. One serious element of the loneliness
+Vic had complained of in her ranch life vanished at once.
+
+"I've loads of good company now," she said, after dinner, as she began
+at last to swing in one of the hammocks.
+
+A stack of printed matter lay on the ground beside her, and the thin,
+wide pamphlet in her hand emphasized her declaration: "I always want to
+see all the pictures first."
+
+Mrs. Evans was in the other hammock. She had finished some letters
+before dinner, and now she was at work with the newspapers, trying to
+find out what great things had happened in the world since it had been
+heard from at Santa Lucia.
+
+The day died slowly away, as it always will in June. The pictures were
+looked at, the news was read, the books were turned over, and if the day
+had not been so very warm more might have been done with the other
+contents of the tilted wagon. Even Norah McLory put away the liberal
+provision made for her department, and sat down to think of it.
+
+"They'll not milt away," she said, "but that's more'n I can prove about
+mesilf. Injins is fond of sugar, and there's two barrels of it here
+now. Oh, the villains."
+
+Vic stood out beyond the awning and watched the sun go down over the
+cloudlike tops of the western mountains.
+
+"What are you thinking of, Vic?" asked her mother, from under the
+awning.
+
+"Why, mother, Cal and father are somewhere away out there. They're
+pretty near the Sierra, maybe. I was wondering in what sort of a camp
+Cal had eaten his supper."
+
+Cal was not in any camp, and he had not eaten any supper. He did not
+ride Dick uselessly the remainder of that hot afternoon. At first he
+took long rests, and then he dismounted altogether and walked. The red
+mustang needed no leading, but seemed to feel better when his human
+company was close beside him, with a hand upon the bridle. He was
+evidently suffering from thirst rather than from fatigue, and so was his
+master. Every now and then any path they happened to be in led out into
+barren reaches of sand and gravel, on any side of which they were at
+liberty to choose among several avenues, and this was one of the
+treacherous puzzles of the chaparral. Cal did not know that the red men
+who had threaded that maze before him had left marks of their own upon
+the trunks of the mesquit scrubs. He could not have read, if he had
+known, for he was worse off than a foreigner in a strange, great city.
+
+Twice he saw a wolf go trotting across the vista ahead of him, and once
+a gang of antelopes dashed away as he came in sight. Somewhere in that
+terrible tangle there must be human beings, red and white, he knew, and
+he would almost have welcomed the sight of an Indian when he saw the sun
+go down.
+
+The moon did not rise, at once, and it was very dark and gloomy, as well
+as oppressively warm, in the chaparral. Heat came up from the sun-baked
+sand, and more heat seemed to creep out from among the bushes.
+
+It was a time for Cal to look away down inside of himself and to call
+out all the courage there was in him.
+
+"I can stand it another day, I know I can," he said to himself, "and
+I've got it to do. I won't wear out Dick. We must rest all night. It
+won't be a long night. Soon as it's light we must be moving. It'll be
+cooler then."
+
+The spot that was somehow selected for his lonely bivouac was near the
+point where two broad paths crossed each other. Cal could not guess
+where they came from nor where they went to, nor which of them it would
+be best for him to travel by in the morning.
+
+He fastened Dick's lariat to a bush, but there was no grass for the
+faithful mustang to pick upon. He stood in the path a very picture of
+patience, except that now and then he expressed a little thirsty
+discontent by a dejected pawing of the hot sand.
+
+Cal had a blanket strapped behind the saddle, and he now spread it and
+lay down. He even went to sleep, and how long he had slumbered he did
+not know, when he was awakened by Dick's face close to his own, and a
+whimpering, low neigh. The red mustang was acting as a sentinel, and
+had heard something.
+
+"What is it, Dick?" asked Cal, as he sprang to his feet, but the answer
+came in an unexpected manner.
+
+There was a tramping sound along the other path, and then Cal heard
+voices. The moon was up, now, and its light fell upon what seemed an
+endless procession of horses and mules. There were mounted men among
+them, and Cal knew who they were.
+
+"That's so," he muttered. "Those are the very Apaches we are after.
+Where can they be going at this time of night?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+BAD NEWS FOR WAH-WAH-O-BE.
+
+
+Kah-go-mish was an Apache, but he was also a father. He lay in his
+rabbit-path, under the bushes, and saw the surrender of his children. Up
+he came upon all fours, glaring ferociously upon their captors. For a
+moment his whole body seemed to swell and quiver with wrath. Then he lay
+down again, and he even smiled with pride over the excellent behavior of
+Ping and Tah-nu-nu.
+
+Sam Herrick held out his hand to
+The-boy-whose-ear-pushed-away-a-piece-of-lead with a very friendly
+"How!"
+
+"Ugh! Cowboy!" said Ping. "How!"
+
+Tah-nu-nu, on the other hand, remained primly silent, and did not reply
+in any manner when one after the other of the pale-face braves around
+her asked what her name was and where she came from and where she was
+going.
+
+Ping was first questioned in English, but all of that tongue that he had
+picked up upon the Reservation seemed to have gone from him. Then
+Colonel Evans tried him in Spanish, and he looked as if he had never in
+all his life heard a Mexican speak, for the substance of the inquiry in
+both languages was, "Where is Kah-go-mish? Where is your band?"
+
+Tah-nu-nu said something to him in Apache at that moment, and a
+Chiricahua, whom she had not seen, standing behind her, interpreted it
+to Colonel Evans.
+
+"That's it, is it?" exclaimed Cal's father. "She says that they mustn't
+let us know that the band is in the chaparral. Now I know better what to
+do."
+
+The glances bestowed upon the Chiricahua by Ping and Tah-nu-nu were not
+arrows, or they would have killed him.
+
+"Boys," said the colonel, "treat them first-rate, but they mustn't get
+away. Now let's go after Cal."
+
+Kah-go-mish saw his children supplied with water, fed well, laughed
+with, questioned, every way well-treated, and then he saw them mounted
+upon fresh ponies.
+
+"Ugh!" he muttered. "Pale-face chief heap big man. Got heart. Good. No
+hurt him. Kill Mexican. No kill cowboy."
+
+He lingered a little longer, for he wondered what those pale-faces were
+up to. They rode away in squads, by different paths, and at regular
+intervals he heard them blowing tremendously upon their bugles. They
+fired shots, too, now and then, and the sounds receded farther and
+farther into the chaparral. It was altogether a very remarkable
+proceeding, such as the chief had never before heard of. He said to
+himself that there must be some kind of "medicine" in it. He had no fear
+of any bodily harm to his children, but their capture by the cowboys had
+suddenly put a new element into all the plans he had made. He still had
+the Santa Lucia horses, but the men from that ranch and its vicinity had
+Ping and Tah-nu-nu.
+
+Kah-go-mish did not go out to examine a lot of miscellaneous
+camp-property left lying around loose near the spring. He did not wish
+to share the fate he had meted out to the imprudent Chiricahua scout. He
+suspected that a squad of cowboys, guarding the extra horses, was
+lurking near by, under cover of the bushes, and that their rifles
+protected the coffee-pots and kettles. He had, also, a pretty clear idea
+that all the cowboys would soon return, and probably the blue-coats
+also, but he believed himself rid of Colonel Romero's Mexicans. "Ugh!"
+he exclaimed, at last. "Kah-go-mish is a great chief. Know what do, if
+know where Mexicans gone."
+
+Back he crept through the bushes until he deemed it safe for him to
+stand erect, and then he went farther at a rapid rate, considering the
+heat of the weather. He was bent upon an important purpose that called
+for all sorts of activity.
+
+"Where Mexicans gone?" was a question over which there had been several
+badly puzzled arguments already.
+
+Colonel Romero had led his men away along the trail so carefully
+prepared for him by the Apaches. He had had no suspicion that the
+trampled sand, so well marked by dragged lodge-poles, was all a trap.
+His best scouts had fallen into it completely, and the whole command had
+been entirely satisfied until they came to the patch of gravel where the
+trail vanished. Even after that they pushed along until they came out at
+the southwestern border of the chaparral. This was precisely what
+Kah-go-mish had hoped they would do, and right before them lay the other
+part of his cunningly set trap. It was an ancient trail, which was well
+known by Colonel Romero and by some of his more experienced
+Indian-fighters. It led deeper into their own country, and it also led
+to good grass and water, to be reached by riding on until dark.
+
+A brief council was held, but the arguments seemed to be nearly all upon
+one side. It was set forth that the Apaches must have taken that road
+because they could not remain in the chaparral to die of thirst and
+hunger or to be struck by the American cavalry and the cowboys. The
+Mexican horses and men must have water, and so they must go forward, and
+that was their only road. As to their train of pack-mules and spare
+horses, it was safe, they said. It would reach Cold Spring, and would
+find the Americans there. It would get directions from them, and could
+not lose its way.
+
+All the remaining Mexican bugles sounded the advance, and the command
+moved away along the trail. A solitary Apache boy, a head taller than
+Ping, lurking near among some very thick bushes, saw them go. As soon as
+they were well away he was on the back of his pony, at full gallop, and
+evidently was in no doubt whatever as to the right path for him to take.
+He reached the camp of his people just in time to report to the
+returning Kah-go-mish that the trap set for the Mexicans had been a
+complete success.
+
+The chief had sent away that part of his many perils, but he had rapid
+orders to give now. He had also a very difficult report to make to
+Wah-wah-o-be, and she listened to most of it with her blanket over her
+head.
+
+Kah-go-mish told her how well Ping and Tah-nu-nu had been treated, but
+she was inconsolable at first.
+
+The-boy-whose-ear-pushed-away-a-piece-of-lead, the young chief who had
+killed a cougar, and who was yet to surpass the fame of his great
+father, was a prisoner in the hands of the wicked pale-faces. So was the
+beautiful Tah-nu-nu, the most promising young squaw of the entire Apache
+nation. Wah-wah-o-be fully appreciated her children. She knew all their
+good qualities, and she mentioned most of them then and there. What if
+both Ping and his sister were to be carried away to some distant place
+among the great lodges and the terrible magicians of the pale-faces, and
+compelled to become themselves pale-faces? To be turned into something
+different from their noble father and mother? Such things had been done,
+and she had heard of them.
+
+The light of her life seemed to have departed, and Wah-wah-o-be cared
+very little what further disasters might now come to her. She even
+valued all the horses of the band at only a fraction of what they had
+seemed to be worth that morning.
+
+The blanket came down at last, for Kah-go-mish had given all his
+directions to his warriors, and there was work proposed which seemed to
+stir them to a high pitch of enthusiasm. Wah-wah-o-be had her duties
+also to attend to, and she knew that they must all get out of the
+chaparral. She saw her heroic husband ride away, followed by nearly all
+the best braves of the band. Then she and all who were left had some
+rapid packing to do, that every mule and pony might be ready for a
+sudden start whenever the war-party should return. It was understood
+that Kah-go-mish had outwitted the Mexicans, the blue-coats, and the
+cowboys, and that he was about to do something very remarkable. What,
+thought Wah-wah-o-be, if he should also succeed in winning back Ping and
+Tah-nu-nu?
+
+He did not seem to go after them at once. He led his warriors, as nearly
+directly as the crooked paths permitted, to the very trail by which they
+had entered the chaparral. It was an especially wide and well-marked
+north-and-south path to Cold Spring for anybody coming from Mexico. Half
+a mile or more from the spring, among the bushes along the trail,
+Kah-go-mish carefully hid his dismounted warriors. All their horses were
+well away behind them, and they themselves seemed to be an exceedingly
+cheerful, hopeful, and self-satisfied lot of red men. If there was one
+thing more than another that was exactly suited to them, it was an
+ambush with a dead certainty of surprising somebody.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+HOW CAL STARTED FOR MEXICO.
+
+
+Wah-wah-o-be and Kah-go-mish had an advantage over Colonel Evans, for
+they knew what had become of Ping and Tah-nu-nu while his uncertainty
+about Cal grew darker and darker. He and the cowboys faithfully and
+warily threaded the part of the chaparral through which they had marched
+in the earlier hours of that eventful day. The buglers blew regularly,
+taking care not to get out of hearing of each other, but the firing
+ceased after it was discovered that a clear bugle-note could be heard
+farther than could the report of a gun.
+
+As Ping and Tah-nu-nu rode slowly along, they began to comprehend the
+remarkable proceedings which had so completely puzzled their father,
+lying under the bushes. Each had one arm connected by a lariat with the
+arm of a cowboy, but they were not far from one another. They asked no
+questions and had refused to answer any, but they now and then exchanged
+a few words in their own tongue when the Chiricahuas were out of
+hearing.
+
+On went the fruitless search, and at last the two young Apaches were led
+to a place where two paths ran into one. They knew the spot, for Ping
+had lost an arrow there. He remembered, too, how he had lost it, and so
+he said nothing, but Tah-nu-nu had nothing upon her conscience, and she
+turned to her brother to say, "Ugh! Heap pony!"
+
+"Ah ha! You saw him, did you?" said the sharp-eyed cowboy she was tied
+to, and he at once shouted to Colonel Evans, who was riding a little
+ahead of them.
+
+"What is it, Bill?"
+
+"Why, colonel, these two young redskins saw him pass, right here. The
+gal let it out and the boy doesn't deny it."
+
+The secret was out. Ping himself gave up and was willing to use any
+English or Spanish words he knew in telling that he had seen "Heap red
+pony" gallop away by the path which led to the right.
+
+"That's the red mustang," said the colonel, sadly. "Cal's away beyond
+the spring, long ago. No use to hunt hereaway any more. Call in the
+boys. We must try the western chaparral. Maybe he will fall in with the
+cavalry."
+
+He did not say why he shuddered, but the thought he did not utter put
+the Apaches in place of the cavalry. Hot, weary, and disappointed, he
+rode back to the spring and there were Captain Moore and his tired-out
+veterans. They had ridden far enough to satisfy themselves that the
+Apaches had not at once returned to the United States, and they had
+neither a right nor a wish to follow any trail into Mexico.
+
+"Captain," said Colonel Evans, "I wish we were on good terms with the
+Mescaleros. They'd be worth all the white men to hunt for Cal."
+
+"Tell you what I believe, though," said Sam Herrick, "them 'Paches
+didn't go out of this 'ere chaparral. We're bound to hear from 'em
+again. I've heard of Kah-go-mish before."
+
+At the mention of the chief's name Tah-nu-nu looked at her brother, for
+he was straightening up proudly.
+
+"Kah-go-mish great chief! Ugh!" he said, with great emphasis, and then his
+vanity got the better of him, for he patted himself upon the breast, adding
+all the Apache syllables of "The-boy-whose-ear-pushed-away-a-piece-of-lead"
+and ended with "Son of Kah-go-mish."
+
+He did not feel called upon to say that Tah-nu-nu was a daughter, but
+her face told enough.
+
+"That's it," exclaimed Sam Herrick. "We've caught exactly the right
+ones. I wish their dad knew we had 'em. Just as I said, though, we're
+bound to hear more from Kah-go-mish."
+
+So they did, but in a somewhat unexpected manner. Away out near the
+southern border of the chaparral a string of pack-mules and led horses
+came plodding lazily along, late that afternoon, guided by a dozen
+rancheros. They were in no danger, for their own cavalry had swept the
+way before them. They were in no hurry, for they were mentally sure of
+encamping at Cold Spring and of meeting Colonel Romero there. The trail
+before them was abundantly plain. No quadruped would or could wander
+from the train, and two of the rancheros rode ahead, more were scattered
+in the middle, and a pair who seemed almost asleep brought up the rear.
+
+A more helpless military procession never marched anywhere.
+
+The two rancheros in front and the pair in the rear suddenly waked up to
+find themselves accompanied by a dozen or more of Indian warriors, all
+apparently in a friendly and agreeable frame of mind. Not a whoop was
+uttered, not a shot was fired, and it almost looked as if no harm were
+intended. The forward rancheros were greeted by a tall chief in a cocked
+hat, with red stocking-legs upon his arms. It was a striking uniform for
+even an Apache commanding officer.
+
+"How!" he said, as he held out his hand. "Kah-go-mish is a great chief.
+Mexican good fellow. Bring heap pony, heap mule, heap plunder. Give all
+to poor Indian. Ugh!"
+
+The warriors at the rear smiled and said, "How," but then they took away
+the lances and other weapons of the train-guards, as fast as they could
+get at them. Resistance was out of the question, of course, and
+Kah-go-mish had good reasons for not wishing any bloodshed. It might
+have interfered with his wonderful plan.
+
+The entire train was quickly under the care of the Mescaleros, and every
+animal in it was turned around, with his head in a southerly direction.
+The unlucky rancheros were collected, on foot, in the very path they had
+expected to follow on horseback. They were then addressed, in tolerably
+good Mexican Spanish, by the chief himself. He told them how great a man
+he was, and gave them a vivid picture, a series of animal and insect
+illustrations, of his opinion of all pale-faces, all Mexicans, and all
+Chiricahuas. He told them they would find some blue-coats at the spring,
+and some Gringo cowboys. The chief of the Gringos was a great man. He
+had given some horses to the great chief Kah-go-mish. All of those
+horses were to be given back to him, but the chief could not bring them
+now. There were too many bad blue-coats in the chaparral. The great
+chief had given his two children in exchange for the horses, and wanted
+to trade back again. He would do so, but not now. He was on his way to
+Mexico, to carry back the pack-mules and horses he had just received
+from the rancheros. The Mexicans might want them. He hoped the rancheros
+would succeed in catching up with the cavalry. They all looked like good
+runners.
+
+It was a great speech, and much of it was cheerfully satirical. Part of
+it meant that Kah-go-mish knew very well that Captain Moore and Colonel
+Evans would deem it their duty to rescue the pack-train if an
+opportunity were given them, and that he must get as far away as he
+could before the news of his exploit reached them.
+
+It was only an hour before sunset when the plundered rancheros were set
+free to find their way to Cold Spring, for they had not so very far to
+go, and Kah-go-mish was cautious. As soon as they were out of sight he
+and his warriors and their prize were in motion. It was very needful
+that they should reach grass and water before morning.
+
+So far the deep plan of the Indian leader had worked remarkably well,
+even the changes called for by the capture of Ping and Tah-nu-nu being
+as yet in the future. This first success had been indicated by Colonel
+Romero himself, when he told Captain Moore about the pack-train. The old
+sage-hen had been listening at the same time, but she had not profited
+to any known extent. She lacked the ears and the genius of Kah-go-mish,
+and perhaps she was not at war with Mexico.
+
+In due season, among the webby paths of the chaparral, the two sections
+of the Apache band came together. Cold Spring, the blue-coats, and the
+cowboys were far away; the Mexican cavalry were farther; it was entirely
+safe for everybody to whoop, and whoop they did. Once more had the chief
+they were all proud of proved himself one of the greatest men of the
+Apache nation.
+
+Wah-wah-o-be had even a more hopeful feeling concerning Ping and
+Tah-nu-nu when she saw the Mexican pack-mules and the long string of
+horses, but she and all the rest were quickly in motion, for they knew
+that ten miles of desert lay between them and the nearest grass and
+water to the southward. More than one path led from the camping-place to
+the edge of the chaparral, and the Apaches used several in order to get
+out quickly. Suddenly, as they pressed forward, a loud whoop of
+exultation that arose upon one of those lanes was heard by the red
+wayfarers in all the others. It sounded about two minutes after the red
+mustang sentinel awoke his master.
+
+Cal Evans, weary, thirsty, astonished, and wondering what might be best
+for him to do, stood in the shadows, watching the wonderful moonlight
+procession. There was not anything left for him to do. Another part of
+the procession came trampling along behind him, and a loud neigh from
+Dick told him that it was coming. His heart beat very hard for a
+moment, and then the whoop of triumph which went to the ears of
+Kah-go-mish and the rest of the band announced that Cal and the red
+mustang were prisoners of the Mescalero Apaches.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+THE MANITOU OF COLD SPRING.
+
+
+"Sorry about Cal," said Captain Moore, after he and Colonel Evans had
+exchanged reports. "We must all get out early in the morning and scour
+the western chaparral. We shall find him."
+
+It was getting too late for any more searching that day. The shadows
+were lengthening in the chaparral. Besides, both men and animals were in
+need of rest.
+
+Every cowboy and cavalryman felt and spoke strongly about Cal, but the
+best that could be obtained from a Chiricahua was, "Ugh! 'Pache get
+boy."
+
+That was an idea in other minds, for even Ping told Tah-nu-nu: "Heap
+pony find Kah-go-mish."
+
+"Kah-go-mish no kill," she said.
+
+Ping was all but dreaming of the red mustang. Never before had he looked
+upon an animal which so fully came up to his idea of what a horse should
+be. That is, a horse for a young Apache of about his size, and the son
+of a great chief.
+
+Tah-nu-nu was not thinking of horses. She and her brother had been
+kindly treated. It was plain that they were not to be cruelly killed; at
+least not right away, for they had been fed abundantly. They were now
+provided with blankets, and the white chief of the cowboys even went
+further. He was an old Indian trader, and he had not gone out upon such
+an expedition unprepared to negotiate as well as to fight. The first
+essential of any talk with red men is presents, and there were curious
+things in a pack carried by one of the mules. From this collection Cal's
+father now selected two little round mirrors, set in white metal, as
+pretty as silver, and two startling red-white-and-blue yard-wide
+handkerchiefs. The mirrors he hung around the necks of his captives, and
+they puzzled themselves for half an hour over what they should do with
+the brilliant pieces of cotton cloth. Tah-nu-nu found out, for she tied
+hers around her head, and Ping followed her example.
+
+They had been allowed to sit down by the spring, closely watched and
+guarded by one of the Chiricahuas. They proudly refused to speak a word
+to him, although Ping's pride was gratified now with any talk offered
+him by the mighty blue-coats or the cowboy warriors of the pale-faces.
+
+The Chiricahua, however, was quite an old man, and he managed to break
+through the barrier of Ping's reserve.
+
+"Ugh!" he said, pointing to the surveyor's chisel-marks upon the face of
+the rock before them, which told of the boundary line between the two
+republics. "Bad medicine. Drive away Apache manitou."
+
+Wah-wah-o-be herself could not have more cunningly stirred a chord of
+Indian curiosity. Tah-nu-nu was a young squaw, and remained silent, as
+became her, but she stared at the tokens of pale-face magic. Ping did
+the same for a moment.
+
+"Ugh!" he said. "Bad medicine for Mescalero. Good for Chiricahua."
+
+"No, no good," said the old man, with strong emphasis, pointing to some
+dark-red stains upon the rock. "Chiricahua die there. Heap fool. Not
+watch for bad manitou."
+
+"Ugh!" replied Ping, and then for the first time he learned of the deed
+his father had done there that very morning.
+
+"Kah-go-mish is a great chief!" he said, swelling with pride, but the
+old Chiricahua shook his head.
+
+"Chief heap fool," he said. "Kill Indian. Get kill himself some day."
+
+He had more to say about the spring. It had once been good medicine for
+all Indians, especially for all the branches of the great Apache nation.
+The Mexicans, whom he described in terms as picturesque as those
+employed by Kah-go-mish, had come first. They had drunk of the spring,
+but their medicine had been weak and had failed. The manitou of the
+Apaches had not been driven away. Long afterwards had come the Northern
+pale-faces, among whom were men with red beards, like that of Captain
+Moore, and whose warriors wore blue coats. They had great guns, and
+their medicine was powerful. They had forced the Mexicans to divide the
+spring with them, and had cut a mark in the rock, so that the manitou of
+the Apaches could not stay there.
+
+"Ever since that time," said the old Chiricahua, "the Apache bands could
+visit the spring and drink, but it was not well for them to camp there.
+They were safer anywhere out in the chaparral."
+
+He had evidently taken a deep interest in his own narration, and had
+been listened to attentively by Ping and Tah-nu-nu. They had believed
+every word, and wanted to hear more, although the darkness was beginning
+to settle over the camp, and all the sentries and pickets had been
+posted, but just at this moment a shout was heard, and then another,
+among the southerly bushes.
+
+There were sharp questions and answers in Spanish and English, while all
+the men in camp sprang to their feet. So did the old Chiricahua and Ping
+and Tah-nu-nu, and in a moment more they saw a dozen unarmed men, on
+foot, file dejectedly out into the light of the camp-fires.
+
+They were the rancheros who had been in charge of the Mexican spare
+horses and pack-mules.
+
+Captain Moore, his officers, Colonel Evans, and several cowboys listened
+to the remarkable story, helped out as it was by many questions.
+
+"Good thing we caught those youngsters," said Captain Moore. "You did
+well not to fight, and you are lucky to have been allowed to keep your
+scalps. We'll take care of you till morning."
+
+He gave orders about that, and then he turned to Colonel Evans.
+
+"No need for you to hunt for your horses any farther," he said. "They
+are somewhere in Mexico. You may get back most of them, I think, for
+Kah-go-mish has about as many as he knows what to do with."
+
+"Horses!" exclaimed Colonel Evans. "I'm not thinking about horses."
+
+"Cal is not in their hands," said the captain. "We must hunt for him. I
+think, too, that we shall find him. It is not my duty to cross the
+boundary line after Colonel Romero's lost mules."
+
+"Of course not. Nor for mine either. Kah-go-mish is evidently not the
+kind of red-skin to be easily caught by anybody."
+
+"Perfect old fox!" said the captain, with strong emphasis. "But then he
+has the boundary line to help him."
+
+It was a curious fact, but the three Chiricahua scouts considered
+themselves entirely at liberty to feel elated at the victory obtained by
+Apaches of another band over the traditional Mexican enemies of their
+race.
+
+"Ugh!" said the old brave to Ping and Tah-nu-nu.
+"The-boy-whose-ear-pushed-away-a-piece-of-lead is the son of a great
+chief."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+ACROSS THE DESERT BY NIGHT.
+
+
+The evening which passed under such remarkable circumstances in the
+neighborhood of Cold Spring was uncommonly long and busy at the Santa
+Lucia ranch.
+
+Tallow was abundant where so many cattle were raised and slaughtered
+every season, and Mrs. Evans prided herself upon her skill in the
+manufacture of candles. Whatever other comforts of life in the
+settlements were lacking in the old hacienda, there was always plenty of
+illumination after nightfall. There was usually but a short time for
+candle-light in June, for people who arose so soon after daylight were
+accustomed to go to bed early. On this particular evening, however, the
+parlor wore a very brilliant appearance for two hours longer than
+ordinary.
+
+The first look at the precious things brought by the tilted wagon had
+been only a look, and every article had to undergo another inspection.
+
+All were dropped at last, or, rather, there they lay, except such things
+as were under Norah McLory's care, all scattered around the room.
+
+"I can't help it," said Mrs. Evans; "I feel uneasy about Cal."
+
+"So do I, mother," said Vic, leaning back, upon the sofa; "but you never
+said as much before."
+
+"Somehow I didn't feel so, Vic; but it seems to me--Well, I do wish he
+could be here, looking over his new books, instead of away out there."
+
+"We sha'n't hear from him for ever so long," said Vic. "All sorts of
+things might happen and we not know it."
+
+Somehow or other, as the talk drifted on, the varied assortment with
+which the floor and chairs were littered lost its charm. Mrs. Evans even
+got to telling stories of other times when her husband had been away
+from her. She had more than once been compelled to wait long for news of
+him, and had heard tidings of danger before anything better came. He had
+fought his way out of perilous circumstances, and her eyes kindled, now
+and then, as she related how. Wah-wah-o-be herself was not prouder of
+the deeds of Kah-go-mish.
+
+Vic listened, but her imagination was a little out of joint, for she
+found herself unconsciously putting Cal in his father's place. She knew
+very well that he could not pick up one Indian and knock over another
+with him, as Colonel Abe Evans had done upon an occasion described by
+her mother. She had altogether more confidence in the heels of the red
+mustang, and she said so.
+
+"I hope he will bring Dick back safe and sound," she said. "He's almost
+one of the family."
+
+"Cal would be dreadfully sorry to lose him," said Mrs. Evans. "Come,
+Vic, I don't want to talk any more."
+
+Neither of them was in good condition for going to sleep, nevertheless,
+and it may be that their eyes were hardly closed when those of Cal were
+opened at the summons of Dick to watch the moonlight procession in the
+chaparral.
+
+The warrior who first laid a hand upon the rein of the red mustang did
+so with a loud whoop. Cal summoned all his presence of mind and held out
+his right hand.
+
+"How," he said, "good friend."
+
+"Ugh!" responded the savage. "Heap boy."
+
+No violence was offered, for none seemed to be called for, and it is a
+mistake to suppose that all the instincts and customs of the red men are
+in favor of slaughter. Just now, moreover, the clansmen of Kah-go-mish
+were under orders of mercy, and Cal was led on at once to the presence
+of the chief. Dick was led with him, and the two friends stood side by
+side in front of the distinguished Mescalero. He had kept on his cocked
+hat, and Cal thought he had never before seen so remarkable a figure,
+especially by moonlight.
+
+One of Cal's accomplishments, a matter of course to a boy with Mexican
+servants in his own house, was a good acquaintance with Spanish, and it
+helped out the chief's English in the questions and answers which
+followed.
+
+Great was the delight of Kah-go-mish. He and the cowboy commander were
+now even. Each had a son of the other as a sort of security, and all the
+horses gathered upon Slater's Branch seemed more likely to remain Apache
+property.
+
+The bugling and random firing among the bushes that day was all
+explained now, and the great plan of Kah-go-mish looked very well
+indeed. It was needful, however, to put a goodly distance between him
+and the blue-coats, for whose conduct he had no security whatever.
+
+Cal's weapons were taken from him, and he was ordered to mount and ride.
+He at once explained that neither he nor Dick had tasted water since
+morning, that the red mustang was worth several common horses, and that
+he must now be too tired to carry a rider. As for himself, he had slept,
+was rested, and was ready to travel.
+
+Water was scarce in the band of Kah-go-mish at that time, but several
+gourds half full were obtained by the chief. He proposed to treat his
+prisoner pretty well, and was willing to save so very good a pony.
+
+Cal could hardly swallow when the water was brought to him. Not only his
+mouth was parched and his throat husky, but his very heart was sick.
+
+He had heard of the terrific things done by Apaches to their prisoners,
+and he had no confidence at all in the present appearance of good-will.
+He had not been told of Ping and Tah-nu-nu in his own camp, or he might
+have felt better. As it was, he drank a little, and then turned his
+attention to the red mustang. Only a small part of what Dick was ready
+for could be given him, and he was glad enough when his downcast master
+divided water-rations with him. He felt better, and whinnied eagerly for
+more. He pawed the ground and looked around to see if anything like
+grass or corn was also forthcoming. Nothing of the kind came, but a
+Mexican pony was led up, Cal's saddle and bridle were transferred to
+him, and Dick was hitched to a long lariat by which several other
+quadrupeds were being led. The last he saw of Cal that night was when
+the latter rode forward, side by side with a very lean-looking brave who
+carried a long lance, and who had warned Cal that it would be used at
+once upon any attempt to escape. Before long the entire cavalcade was
+out of the chaparral, and Cal noted that the north star was directly
+behind him.
+
+"Down into Mexico," he said to himself. "It will be long enough before I
+see Santa Lucia again."
+
+It was cooler travelling by night than by day, but the hard-baked soil
+sent up an uncomfortable amount of heat, and it was only now and then
+that even a cactus or a sage-bush was seen along the dreary way. One of
+the captured Mexican horses gave out and was left for the buzzards. An
+hour later an old pony which had travelled all the way from the
+Mescalero Reservation was unable to go any farther, and he too lay down.
+
+Cal thought of Dick, and Dick may have been, thinking of him, but the
+red mustang was really in need of nothing but grass and water. He had no
+idea whatever of giving up, and there were no mules tied to his lariat
+to worry him.
+
+Another hour went by, and the alkaline sand and gravel of the desert
+became strewn with rocks, among which the long cavalcade slowly wound
+its way. There was no straggling, for even the animals seemed anxious to
+get out of that gloomy region. The moon was low towards the horizon,
+when it suddenly occurred to Cal that during ten or fifteen minutes he
+had seen a greater number of scrubby bushes.
+
+"More chaparral coming?" he thought. "Hope there's a spring in it,
+somewhere. Never was so awfully thirsty in all my life."
+
+He could hardly have said as much aloud, for his voice seemed to have
+dried up. He was hungry, too, for he had not been able to eat much of
+the bit of cold, half-cooked beef brought to him by Wah-wah-o-be before
+the train left the Cold Spring chaparral.
+
+Trees! Yes, right and left of them, and they were a pleasant sight to
+see. How could the red men have found any place in particular, by night,
+across that trackless plain?
+
+They could not, and they had not, for it had been no part of the plan of
+Kah-go-mish to leave a trail behind him, or to travel by any old road.
+
+Grass? There was almost a thrill at Cal's heart. A temporary halt was
+making, and he saw a pony nibble something at the wayside. It must be
+that the southern edge of the desert had been reached at last.
+
+The halt had been made for purposes of exploration. Trees and grass in
+that region were unmistakable signs of water, under the ground or above
+it. Cal sat still upon the pony and the warrior at his side was as
+motionless as a statue. All around them was deep and sombre shadow, but
+the air was cooler, and a breeze began to come out of the darkness
+before them.
+
+Minutes passed, and then a clear, twice-repeated whoop came to their
+ears.
+
+"Ugh!" said the lean Apache, with evident satisfaction. "Heap water.
+Boy drink plenty now. Sun come, tie up boy and make fire on him. How boy
+like fire? Ugh!"
+
+Cal could make no reply whatever, except by a shudder, and they once
+more rode forward.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+AT THE RANCH AND IN THE CHAPARRAL.
+
+
+There was a very excellent reason why the old Spanish-Mexican settler
+had chosen that exact spot for the Santa Lucia ranch. It was the little
+spring which bubbled up in the middle of the courtyard around three
+sides of which the adobe was constructed. It had been dug out to a depth
+of several feet and walled in. It had never been known to fail, and it
+always had enough water left, after supplying the household, to furnish
+a tiny rill which ran away at one side of the gate in the palisades of
+the fourth side. This rill was planked over until it got away from the
+ranch, but it ran out into the sunshine then, and travelled gayly on to
+the corral. Here it found a number of acres of land, surrounded by a
+strong wire fence. It also found a long hollow to fill up with water, so
+that cattle and horses corralled there had plenty to drink. Except in
+the winter and spring there was little ever heard of that rill beyond
+the corral, and, if shrubbery had at any time grown upon its margin, it
+had long since been browsed away, for there was none there now.
+
+Beyond the corral were great reaches of maize, and there had this year
+been no drought to hurt it. A wide patch of potatoes and some oats
+seemed to be the only other attempt at anything more than
+cattle-farming, and things generally had the bare, camplike look common
+to New Mexican ranches.
+
+Shortly after breakfast, on the morning after the arrival of the tilted
+wagon, Mrs. Evans and Vic walked out on what appeared to be a tour of
+inspection. They had not slept well, and there was just a little touch
+of feverishness in the way they talked about Cal and his father, but
+they were trying hard to be cheerful.
+
+"No, Vic," said Mrs. Evans, "it won't pay to put in any of the seeds
+now, but I'm glad they've come, and I don't believe they will spoil. The
+grape-roots and cuttings won't get here till autumn, but we'll have the
+vineyard planted over there."
+
+"Is there really to be a barn, mother?" asked Vic, doubtfully, as if
+such an ornament as that were almost out of the question.
+
+"Yes, my dear. Your father loses stock enough, every year, to pay for
+more shelter, and for keeping hay, and for all sorts of improvements."
+
+"To think of a vineyard and grapes!"
+
+"And fruit-trees, Vic. The brook is to be fenced in up to the corral and
+lined with trees. It won't dry up so easily when it's shaded, and the
+corral is to be a little farther away. It all costs money, though. So
+does fencing."
+
+They were dreaming dreams of the future and of what could be done to
+turn Santa Lucia into a sort of New Mexican Eden. The stockade itself
+was to be clambered over by vines, and so was the veranda, and trees
+were to be coaxed to grow in all directions. Bushes and plants that
+could stand the summer heats were to be planted all around the ranch.
+The old adobe itself was to be fixed up. It was a very pleasant way of
+spending a morning, but it had its unpleasant thought.
+
+"Vic," said her mother, "there are a great many things that your father
+can't afford to do, if he is to lose all those horses."
+
+"He has plenty left, and the cattle."
+
+"Yes, but the Indians took away some of his best stock."
+
+"The Indians wouldn't be so likely to come," said Vic, "if everything
+looked more settled."
+
+It seemed so, and there was truth in it, only the whole truth required
+more houses near by, and more men to defend them.
+
+As the talk turned towards the Apaches and their deeds, the dream of
+vines and shrubbery and flowers, of barns and stables, dairy, trees, and
+all faded away, and they walked back into the house, wondering anxiously
+what would be the next news from those who had gone in search of the
+stolen horses and the Apache horse-thieves.
+
+Mrs. Evans and Vic were not one bit more completely in the dark, that
+morning, than were Colonel Romero and his lancers and his rancheros.
+They had succeeded, the day before, in following the ancient trail until
+it brought them to grass and water and a good camping-ground. It had not
+shown them, however, one track or trace which seemed to have been made
+in modern times. If Kah-go-mish and his band had come that way, they had
+managed to conceal the fact remarkably well. Once more it was easy for
+the brave colonel and his officers to see their duty without any
+argument. They could not go any farther, if they would, until the
+arrival of the pack-mules and the lead horses. They could not go in any
+direction until they knew which way the Apaches had gone. Therefore they
+must rest in that camp, and send out scouts and trailers, and wait for
+the loads of supplies and for information. Their puzzle was ended for
+that day, at least, and there were trees in abundance to lie down under
+and take it easy.
+
+The men in the bivouac, at Cold Spring, were astir as soon as the
+daylight began to come the next morning. Colonel Evans was the first man
+upon his feet.
+
+"I'll find him," he said, "if I have to search the chaparral inch by
+inch. Poor boy! What a day and night he must have had! No food, no
+water, no hope! Lost in the chaparral!"
+
+It was a dreadful thing to think of, and the next worst idea was that he
+might have been killed by the Apaches. Everybody in camp took a deep
+interest in the proposed search, and all who were to join in it were
+willing to set out before the heat of the day should come. Captain Moore
+had a number of cautious things to say about the danger from Indians and
+ambuscades, but he evidently believed, after all, that Kah-go-mish had
+gone away.
+
+"He won't run any useless risk of losing horses," said the captain. "I
+think, on the whole, we can search away."
+
+The Mexicans who had been in charge of the lost pack-train ate their
+breakfasts in a hurry. The day's journey before them seemed dismal
+enough, for they were to cross the desert on foot to report the work of
+Kah-go-mish. They were given a supply of provisions, but there were no
+horses or arms for them.
+
+"You won't meet any red-skins," said Sam Herrick to a very melancholy
+ranchero. "They've all gone the other way. You can make better time on
+foot than you could a-driving a pack-mule. You'll git thar. Give the
+colonel my compliments and tell him that old Kah-go-mish ort to just
+love him. I never heard of a train given away for nothing before."
+
+The ranchero nodded a sullen agreement with Sam, but he was not likely
+to give the message accurately to Colonel Romero.
+
+The poor fellows started at once, with a plain enough trail to follow,
+and Sam looked kindly after them.
+
+"They're in luck," he said. "They've nothing to do but to walk. Not even
+a mule to lead or a fence to climb. Colorado! But didn't old Kah-go-mish
+make a clean sweep."
+
+"Left their skelps on 'em," said Bill.
+
+"That was just cunning," replied Sam. "Some redskins haven't sense
+enough to let a skelp alone, but he has."
+
+Only a little later the sentries and pickets posted by Captain Moore
+were all the human beings left in the camp at Cold Spring. They, too,
+were hidden among the bushes, and the proof that it was a camp at all
+consisted of three sacks of corn, a saddle, some camp-kettles and
+coffee-pots, and the smouldering camp-fires.
+
+The bugles began to send their music out over the spider-web wilderness
+of the chaparral west of the spring, and Captain Moore declared,
+hopefully, that if Cal were anywhere in all that range he would be sure
+of hearing music before noon.
+
+The trouble was that he was so many long, tiresome miles beyond the
+reach of the loudest bugle, and that he had heard music of an altogether
+different sort before the very earliest riser among them had opened his
+eyes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+CAL'S NIGHT UNDER A TREE.
+
+
+The northern edge of Mexico was marked deeply by the surveyor's chisel
+upon the quartz rock at Cold Spring. All the country north and south of
+it had once been Apache land. Away back, nobody knows how long, before
+any Apaches had ever drank of that water, the entire region had belonged
+to another race of people, who disappeared, but left traces behind them,
+here and there. They did not leave any written history.
+
+There are men who hold an opinion that the deserts of the southwest,
+such as Cal Evans made his gloomy march through that night, were not
+always desert. To Cal himself, as he rode along, the waste around him
+had seemed utterly hopeless, as if nothing good ever had been there or
+ever could be.
+
+After the desert was passed, and after the whoop which announced the
+finding of water, he and his grim guard rode on until the forest around
+them became so dark that they and all others were compelled to halt. It
+was only for a few minutes, and then from the head of the cavalcade came
+back braves and squaws and boys carrying blazing torches of resinous
+wood. The huge tree-trunks that Cal now rode among seemed positively
+gigantic. No axe had been at work in that place for an age, and there
+was only a moderate amount of underbrush. What bushes could be seen were
+mostly gathered around and over the decaying trunks of fallen trees, and
+it was easy for the train to pick its winding way.
+
+Before long Cal saw ahead of him great gleams of light, for the Apaches
+were kindling camp-fires, and there was an abundance of dry branches to
+make swift blazes.
+
+The next thing of particular interest to him was a portly-looking squaw,
+who wore a somewhat battered straw bonnet, very much mixed up with gay
+ribbons. She seemed to be looking for somebody, and she carried in one
+hand a large water-gourd and in the other a flaming torch.
+
+"Ugh!" she said, as she came to the side of Cal's pony. "Boy heap dry.
+Want water?"
+
+"Thank you! Thank you!" exclaimed Cal, as he reached out for the gourd,
+and his voice sounded as if he had a bad cold in his head.
+
+It was not a cold by any means, but a sort of fever, as if a sandy
+desert were beginning to form inside of him. He drank and drank again,
+and then passed the gourd to the lean Apache beside him.
+
+"Ugh!" was all the immediate response to his politeness, but something
+said to Wah-wah-o-be in Apache brought back a rapidly spoken and
+seemingly resentful response. The chief's wife was plainly not at all
+afraid of that warrior.
+
+"Boy eat, by and by," she said to Cal, as he handed her back the gourd,
+and he was encouraged to ask her a question.
+
+"Do you know what they have done with my pony?" he said. "I want him to
+have some but not too much, right away."
+
+"Ugh!" she said. "Heap pony!" for she had taken more than one look at a
+horse which she declared to be the right kind of a mount for
+The-boy-whose-ear-pushed-away-a-piece-of-lead. Cal repeated his question
+in Spanish before he was understood, and Wah-wah-o-be promised care for
+Dick. She did not add, however, that the care was to be given on account
+of the absent Ping.
+
+The red mustang had a right to consider that he had been a patient pony,
+under trying circumstances, but his relief came at last. A fat squaw
+came to him, followed by a boy a little older than Cal and not
+resembling him in any way, and they unhitched Dick from his place in the
+train. They led him on among the trees until they came to the edge of a
+small, slowly running stream of water, and here they let him drink about
+a quarter as much as Dick thought would be good for him.
+
+"No kill him," said Wah-wah-o-be. "Pony eat a heap. Drink more then."
+
+Dick was led on after that until he came to a grassy open, where the
+moonlight showed him a large number of quadrupeds of various ranks in
+life. All were picketed at lariat-ends, but some of them had lain down
+at once, while others, in better spirits, had begun to nibble the grass.
+Dick was also picketed, and he tried the grass for a while. Then he
+concluded that he had done enough for one day and night, and he, too,
+lay down, but he would have been all the more comfortable for a few
+words from his master and a good rubbing down.
+
+Cal's uncertainty as to what was to become of him was not at all
+relieved by his next experiences. To be sure he was guided onward to a
+place under the trees, not far from one of the camp-fires, and was
+ordered to dismount. More water was brought to him and a liberal piece
+of broiled venison. He ate well, now, but all the soreness at his heart
+seemed to have worked out into his muscles. He was dreadfully weary. He
+felt too badly to care a copper when he saw his saddle and bridle taken
+from the pony he had ridden. They were carried away by the fat squaw who
+had brought him the water. He had caught her name of Wah-wah-o-be from
+her own remarks, but he did not catch the other name she uttered, with a
+motherly chuckle, when she took possession of the saddle and bridle. It
+was a very long name, and was accompanied by expressions of strong
+admiration for the boy it belonged to. The one thing which Cal clearly
+comprehended was, that if he was ever to ride again he would probably
+mount some other steed than Dick and hold some other bridle.
+
+His head was too weary and too busy to take much note of things around
+him then, but he afterwards remembered how wonderful it all looked. The
+scattered camp-fires were surrounded by wild, strange-looking figures,
+and by groups that were the wilder and the stranger the more figures
+there were in them. The firelight danced among the giant trees and
+through the long vines which clung to them or hung from their branches.
+The great shadows seemed to make motions to each other, now and then,
+and it was altogether a very remarkable picture.
+
+Cal was beginning to feel sleepy, when out from among the shadows
+marched the chief in the cocked hat and red stocking-leg uniform,
+followed by four other dignified warriors.
+
+"Ugh!" he said. "How boy now? Eat heap?"
+
+"Yes, thank you," said Cal. "How?"
+
+"Ugh! Good!" said the Apache leader, as Cal slowly arose and stood in
+front of him, but he did not shake the hand Cal offered him.
+
+He turned to the other great men, and they exchanged a few sentences in
+their own tongue. They were hearing further explanations of the plan he
+had formed for the general good, and they nodded a cheerful assent when
+he ended with, "Kah-go-mish is a great chief."
+
+They turned and stalked away, and with them went the lean, grim Apache
+who had hitherto been Cal's guard, and who had latterly seemed to be
+getting almost like a friendly acquaintance. His place was filled by a
+pair of short, bow-legged, swarthy old braves, whom Cal set down as the
+unpleasantest-looking Indians he had ever seen.
+
+Very quickly the prisoner had good reasons for an every way more severe
+opinion of his new guards. They were under strict orders to prevent his
+escape, and no other especial directions had been given them. Of course
+they proposed to perform their sentry duty with as little trouble and as
+complete security as might be. Cal was lying upon the ground, while they
+were busy with their knives among the nearest bushes. He hardly looked
+after them, for his thoughts were wandering to the camp at Cold Spring
+and to the faces of those who had talked so much about him, all that
+evening, in the parlor at Santa Lucia. He had not the remotest dream of
+the precise experience which was coming to him. The two ill-looking
+braves returned, and one of them had a handful of forked branches,
+trimmed and pointed. They turned Cal over upon his back and stretched
+out his arms. A sharp thrill went through him as he began to comprehend
+what they were doing. Thrill followed thrill as they drove one forked
+stick into the ground over each wrist, and another over each ankle.
+
+"Ugh!" exclaimed one of them. "No get away!"
+
+"I am staked out!" said Cal to himself, huskily. "Staked out!"
+
+Well might the cold shivers come with that terrible thought, for he had
+read of that method of securing prisoners and of what sometimes followed
+it. Staked out in the depths of a Mexican forest!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+A STRANGE LETTER FROM MEXICO.
+
+
+Ping and Tah-nu-nu had not been staked out that first night after their
+capture. Precisely how to keep them safely, yet humanely, had at first
+been a puzzle.
+
+"If they once got away into the brush," said Sam Herrick, "you might as
+well hunt for a pair of sage-hens, and they'd about die before they'd be
+caught again. The boy's a game little critter, and the gal's got an eye
+like a hawk."
+
+It was decided that they must be tied up, but it was so done as to
+inflict very little hardship. A thong of hide, knotted hard, so that
+nothing but a knife could undo the knot, connected an arm of each
+captive with a stout arm of a mesquit bush, close to the sharp-eyed
+sentinel at the head of the widest path.
+
+There was no danger of any escape, and both Ping and his sister were
+wiser and tamer than Sam gave them credit for. They understood the
+kindness of Colonel Evans better and better every time they looked at
+the little mirrors or the stunning handkerchiefs. They were also aware
+that the Apache band had left the chaparral, for the message brought
+from Kah-go-mish by the Mexicans had been translated to them carefully.
+Their night was, therefore, not at all uncomfortable.
+
+When the cavalry and cowboys set out to hunt for Cal in the morning, the
+old Chiricahua volunteered to act as guard while they were gone. It was
+almost as if he had taken a fancy to Ping and Tah-nu-nu, or it may have
+been that Sam was correct in saying, "The old wolf'd rather loaf under a
+bush and spin yarns than hunt through the chaparral under this kind of
+sunshine."
+
+Loaf he did, in seemingly contented patience; and he had yarns to spin,
+as if he had been Wah-wah-o-be. Not a few of them related to old-time
+fights which had been fought around that very spring, in and out of the
+chaparral. Some of his stories were of a dreadfully blood-curdling kind,
+but they hardly seemed sensational to Ping and Tah-nu-nu. Perhaps the
+story which interested Ping most was a long one of a strong party of an
+unknown, nameless tribe from beyond the Eastern Sierras. They were tall
+braves, almost black, and they came all this distance to strike the
+Apaches.
+
+The strangers camped one night at Cold Spring, and in the morning they
+found themselves penned in by overwhelming numbers of Apaches, who
+poured forth from the chaparral by every path except one. That was a
+path which the Apache chiefs did not know or had overlooked. They and
+their warriors swarmed in upon the strangers, expecting to destroy them
+all, and there was a terrible battle for a little time. Then, to the
+astonishment of all the Apaches, the Eastern war-party grew smaller and
+smaller, retreating across the rock. It left the spring behind, and
+dwindled away, fighting hard all the while. It was dripping out, so to
+speak, through the path in the chaparral that nobody knew anything
+about. The Apache warriors fought wonderfully to prevent that escape,
+and hundreds hurried around through the chaparral to attack the
+strangers in the rear and to cut off their retreat. It was of no use at
+all, said the old Chiricahua.
+
+As soon as the last of the strangers fired his last arrow from the mouth
+of that old buffalo-path it seemed to close up, and the Apaches could
+not find it. They never could, nor did they ever succeed in finding
+where it led to, for the strange warriors escaped entirely, just as if
+they had crawled into the spring. It was "very great medicine," he said,
+and nothing at all like it had been heard of since then. He himself knew
+all the paths now to be found around Cold Spring, and all of them led
+out into the desert.
+
+Thanks to the Chiricahua, Ping and Tah-nu-nu had a fairly comfortable
+morning of it. They even grew curious, instead of frightened, concerning
+what was next to come to them.
+
+The old Chiricahua did not spend all his time stretched out upon the
+sand. He arose and walked around as if the hot sunshine agreed with him,
+and exchanged remarks with the white camp-guard in their sultry covert.
+
+Ping and Tah-nu-nu stared around the open with a deepening interest in a
+spot which had so wonderful a history. Across it, on the opposite side,
+was one dense mass of chaparral, many yards in length, through which no
+opening appeared. In the middle of it arose a giant cactus, with a trunk
+like that of a tree, and with two enormously thick, long arms reaching
+out near the top. One leaf pointed south and the other north, as if the
+cactus were a directing-post. Right there, they agreed, after some
+discussion, must have been the mysterious path that opened to let out
+the strange warriors, and then shut again.
+
+Noon came, and the Chiricahua brought them some army bread, some fried
+bacon, and some coffee. They had tasted such things before, when their
+band was at the Reservation, and they had some for breakfast, but it was
+very wonderful to taste them again.
+
+"Pale-face chief make Ping a blue-coat," said Tah-nu-nu. "Eat a heap."
+
+"Tah-nu-nu squaw for blue-coat chief," said Ping. "Have big lodge. Cook
+his meat. Hoe his corn. Feed pony. Beat her with big stick. Ugh!"
+
+They could rally one another about the prospect before them, but Ping
+stoutly declared that he would run away at the first opportunity. He
+would be a chief of his own people and not of any other. Tah-nu-nu as
+positively asserted her horror of ever becoming the wife of the greatest
+pale-face living. Not if he gave ever so many ponies for her, like a
+warrior of the Apaches.
+
+Two hours later the cavalry squads and the cowboys began to straggle
+back to the spring. Their horses needed water and food and rest, and so
+did they. Hot, weary, disappointed, was the appearance of every man who
+came in, but none of them wore such a face as did Colonel Evans. He
+drank some water, but he did not eat nor did he speak to anybody.
+
+"Ugh!" said Ping. "No find boy. Heap pony lose too. Bad medicine."
+
+It was only a little later when something remarkable happened to a
+picket in a path of the southern chaparral. He stood by his horse ready
+to mount, as was his duty, but he was very sure that no Indians were
+around, and he only now and then gave a listless glance along the path.
+Suddenly, within twenty yards of him, an Indian stepped out of the
+bushes.
+
+"Halt!" sprang to the lips of the startled soldier, but the Indian held
+up both hands, empty, above his head, to show that he carried no
+weapons.
+
+The challenge was heard by the men around the spring, and they sprang to
+their feet, while others came out of the bushes. A dozen rifles were
+ready behind the picket as the solitary Indian came forward. He wore
+nothing but a waist-cloth, and from the belt of this he drew something
+which he held out and offered.
+
+"Take it, Brady," said the voice of Captain Moore. "Bring him in. He's a
+messenger of some kind."
+
+The cavalryman took it, but it was nothing more than a leathery cactus
+leaf, as wide as a stretched-out hand.
+
+"How," said the Indian. "Kah-go-mish."
+
+"That's it," exclaimed Sam Herrick. "I reckoned we'd hear from him.
+Colorado!"
+
+The leaf was passed to Captain Moore, and the Apache brave followed him,
+but only as far as the end of that pathway. There he stood, and seemed
+almost like a wooden Indian. He saw both Ping and Tah-nu-nu, and they
+saw him, but if they knew him they did not say so.
+
+"They thought nobody saw 'em, but they were making signs," said Sam; and
+the old Chiricahua muttered, "Ugh! Good!" as if he had understood
+something.
+
+Just at that moment Captain Moore met Colonel Evans.
+
+"Read that," he said, as he held out the cactus leaf.
+
+There were letters deeply scratched into the smooth, fleshy surface.
+
+      Father I'm a Prisoner to Kah-Go-Mish Staked out last night
+      Safe now Don't know where he means to go next He says you
+      will hear some day
+
+      CAL
+
+      Send mother my love.
+
+It was a wonderful cactus leaf, for it made the strong hand of Colonel
+Abe Evans shake so that he could hardly hold it. Every pair of eyes
+around Cold Spring stared at it and at him, and when they once more
+turned to look at the Apache brave who had brought it he was not to be
+seen. He had vanished as if he had been a dream.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+CAL'S VISITORS AND HIS BREAKFAST.
+
+
+Even when he was lost in the chaparral, and saw the sun go down without
+any hope of escaping from the spider-web of buffalo-paths, Cal had not
+felt quite so badly as he did when he found himself staked out. There he
+lay upon his back under the vast canopy of an ancient cypress-tree. Near
+him the two uncouth-looking Apaches had thrown themselves upon the
+grass. They seemed to be asleep pretty soon, for there was no more need
+of their watching the prisoner.
+
+Get away?
+
+He could move his hands and feet just enough to keep the blood in
+circulation, and that was all. He could turn his head and look at the
+glow of the camp-fires and at the forms of men that now and then went
+stalking to and fro. They were only dog-soldier Indian police in charge
+of the camp, for the remainder of the band was taking all the sleep it
+could get. Even the dogs were entirely quiet. If he looked up, there was
+nothing but a dense mass of foliage, but it began at a height of fifty
+feet or more from the ground. Great branches reached out, and from these
+hung long ropes of vines of some sort, here and there, to the very
+ground. There was no opening through which a star could be seen, and it
+seemed to Cal as if his last hope had departed.
+
+The position of a staked-out man is peculiarly uncomfortable, but it is
+the traditional method of the red men for securing captives. The Hurons
+and Shawnees and Iroquois, and other eastern tribes, made a forest-jail
+in precisely the same way before any white men ever came among them. Cal
+found that it was a great affliction not to be able to turn over in bed,
+but that was nothing to the torment of having a mosquito on his chin,
+another on his nose, and ten more humming around his head on all sides,
+with no hand loose to slap among them. He almost ceased thinking of
+Indian cruelties while suffering the merciless torments of those
+insects. Tired as he was, he felt no longer any inclination to sleep.
+His eyes grew accustomed to the dimness about him and over him. As he
+looked up into the branches of the tree, after a while, he heard a
+strange, mournful cry, very much like something that he had listened to
+before, and then something whitish and wide-winged came sweeping down
+from the darkness, and his eyes followed it as it swiftly shot across
+the camp.
+
+"Owl, I guess," groaned Cal. "Never saw one so large before. White owl.
+What a hoot he had! Oh, my nose! These are the biggest kind of
+mosquitoes."
+
+So they were, and they kept their victim in continual misery. It was not
+long before he saw something else, not so large as the owl, fly very
+silently past him. It went and came several times, with a peculiarly
+rapid flight, and he had pretty fair glimpses of it.
+
+"What an enormous bat!" exclaimed Cal. "They have almost everything down
+here. What I'm most afraid of are scorpions and centipedes and
+tarantulas. Such woods as these must have lots of 'em, and I couldn't
+get away."
+
+They were dreadful things to think of, but Cal had not remembered all of
+the customary inhabitants of a Mexican forest. He was put in mind of yet
+one more after a while. He heard a rustling sound among the grass and
+leaves near him, and it made him lift his head as high as he could. Just
+then something else lifted its head, and Cal saw a pair of small,
+glittering, greenish eyes that travelled right along at a few inches
+above the ground. The cold sweat broke out all over him, but he held
+perfectly still.
+
+"They don't bite if you don't stir or provoke them," was the thought in
+his mind; but that snake was not of the biting, venomous kind. It was
+only a constrictor, not more than seven or eight feet long, and only
+three inches thick at his thickest point. He was in no hurry, and it
+seemed to Cal as if it took him about half an hour, or half a century,
+he could not tell which, to crawl across the pair of legs which the
+Apaches had pinned down. It was really about a quarter of a minute.
+
+Cal had no idea how hard he had been straining at his fetters, spurred
+by the mosquitoes. He made an unintentional jerk with his right arm as
+the snake disappeared, and was startled by a discovery.
+
+"Loose?" he said to himself. "Then I can loosen it more. I won't disturb
+either of those fellows, but I must scratch these mosquito-bites."
+
+A pull, another pull, and that forked stick began to come up, for one of
+its legs had been put down in a gopher's hole, and had no holding. Out
+it came, slowly, softly, and Cal's right hand was free to reach over and
+help his left. That stake was hard pulling, but it came up at last, and
+then the ankles could be set free.
+
+"I'll drive them all down again hard," said Cal to himself, and he did
+so.
+
+"Let them wonder how I got out," he added; "but there isn't any use in
+my trying to run away. They'd only catch me and kill me at once."
+
+He rose to his feet, and it occurred to him that his safest place might
+be by one of the smouldering camp-fires. The short June night was nearly
+over, and the dawn was in the tree-tops when Cal walked away from the
+shadow of the great cypress. He had a sort of desperate feeling, and it
+made him singularly cool and steady. He did not meet anybody on his way.
+His first discovery, as he drew near the fire, was that the Apaches had
+found plentiful supplies in the packs of the Mexican mules. They knew
+how to make coffee, too, for there was a big tin coffee-pot nearly full.
+Cal put it upon some coals to heat, and then he saw a tin cup lying on
+the ground, a box of sugar, a piece of bacon, and a fragment of coarse
+corn-cake.
+
+"That'll do," he said to himself. "I may as well eat."
+
+The coffee boiled quickly, and Cal sat with a cup of it in one hand,
+while with the other he held a stick with a slice of bacon at the fire
+end of it. He did not know what was happening under the cypress.
+
+One wrinkle-faced brave opened his beady black eyes and looked at the
+place where the staked-out captive had been. The mocking smile he had
+begun flitted away from his lips.
+
+"Ugh!" he exclaimed as he sprang up and kicked his comrade, and in an
+instant more two dreadfully puzzled Apaches were examining the forked
+stakes which ought to have had a white boy's wrists and ankles in them.
+Hard driven into the ground were all four, but the white boy? Where was
+he?
+
+"Heap bad medicine!" exclaimed one brave, almost despairingly.
+
+"Boy heap gone," said the other.
+
+They looked in all directions, but the last refuge they dreamed of was
+the camp-fire where Cal was sitting.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+THE POST-BOY THAT GOT AWAY.
+
+
+Colonel Romero and most of his command spent the greater part of the day
+after Cal's capture in waiting for the pack-mule train. Some went out
+after game and did very well, and others went to hunt for signs of the
+Apaches of Kah-go-mish and did not do well at all. The rest, officers,
+cavalry, and rancheros, did nothing, and they all seemed to know how.
+
+Right away after breakfast, and before the search for Cal began, the
+dozen rancheros who no longer had any pack-mules to lead left Cold
+Spring behind them. Out they marched, under careful directions, for the
+way given them by Sam Herrick and the Chiricahuas. They certainly
+marched well, but it was in dejected, disgusted silence. Kah-go-mish,
+and, after him and his Apaches, Colonel Romero and his horsemen, had
+trampled the old trail into a very new and plain one, easy to follow. It
+was well for the peace of mind of the train-guard without any train that
+it was so, for to be lost was for them to be starved, since they had not
+so much as a bow and arrows to kill a jackass rabbit. Not one of them
+now wore a hat, as the braves of Kah-go-mish had imitated their chief,
+so far as a dozen Mexican sombreros went. There was no danger, however,
+that the rancheros would get themselves tanned any darker. They pushed
+on steadily across the desert, and at about the time when the dispirited
+Americans who searched for Cal in the bushes gave it up and returned to
+Cold Spring there was a great shout in the camp of Colonel Romero. All
+the waiting for pack-mules and supplies was over, but the muleteers had
+arrived, disarmed, hatless, and on foot.
+
+The colonel and every other soul in the camp said as much as they knew
+how to say concerning the cunning, daring, impudence, and wickedness of
+all Apaches, and particularly of Kah-go-mish.
+
+The message of the chief to the colonel was pretty fully given, leaving
+out some of the animals, birds, and insects he had put into it, and a
+council of war was called to consider the matter.
+
+The council was unanimous. Without the supplies that had been lost it
+was out of the question to chase Apaches. Without a good guess as to
+precisely where Kah-go-mish had gone, they knew that he was away beyond
+the desert somewhere, either in Mexico or the United States, and they
+might as well give him up. It was therefore decided that all possible
+hunting and fishing should be done at once, and that the entire command
+must find its way to the nearest Mexican settlements as fast as it could
+go.
+
+So far as Colonel Romero's Mexicans were concerned Kah-go-mish already
+felt pretty safe, but he was by no means sure what other forces of the
+same nation might or might not be out in search of him.
+
+As for the blue-coats and cowboys, the chief knew something about a
+boundary line. There was one around the Mescalero Reservation, and he
+had broken it, but he was sure that pale-faces never did such "bad
+medicine." He was safe from the Americans until he should see fit to
+re-enter the United States. That is, however, that he was proud to feel
+and say that so great a chief as himself could not long be entirely safe
+anywhere. Too many army-men wanted to see him.
+
+In the camp at Cold Spring, Colonel Evans and all his friends felt that
+they would give a great deal to know the exact circumstances under which
+Cal had written his cactus-leaf letter. It passed from hand to hand, for
+every man to take a look at it. The cavalry company was short of
+officers, not having brought along even one lieutenant. The orderly
+sergeant, therefore, was the man next in rank to the captain, but there
+was another sergeant and two corporals, and they each had much more to
+say than could rightly have been said by mere private soldiers.
+
+All agreed that it was a remarkable letter; all were glad to hear that
+Cal was safe, and all were glad that there was to be no more need of
+bushwhacking and bugle-work in the hot chaparral.
+
+The cowboys had opinions of their own, and most of them looked a little
+blue.
+
+"Staked out!" exclaimed Sam Herrick. "Colorado! To think of Cal Evans
+staked out!"
+
+"Wall, now, they let him up again," said Bill. "Looks as if they didn't
+allow to torter him, leastwise not right away. What a lot of
+wooden-heads we were, though, to let that there 'Pache that brought the
+leaf slip out of reach the way he did."
+
+"The cavalry had him," said Sam. "I took my eyes off him just a second,
+and when I looked again he wasn't thar."
+
+The cactus leaf came back to Colonel Evans, and once more he studied
+every dent and scratch upon it. The writing looked as if it had been
+done with the point of a knife. There could be no doubt but what it was
+Cal's work.
+
+"You'll see him again," said Captain Moore, encouragingly.
+
+"It'll be about the time that Kah-go-mish sees his own children, I
+reckon," replied the colonel. "They're a sort of security, but something
+might happen to him in spite of their being here."
+
+"Indians are uncertain; that's a fact," said the captain, "but you must
+keep up your spirits. Do you believe in Providence, colonel? I do."
+
+"Do I?" said Cal's father. "Of course I do. Why?"
+
+"Well, isn't it curious that Cal hasn't been hurt, through all this, up
+to the time when he wrote that letter? Wasn't he taken care of?" asked
+the captain.
+
+"He got lost in the chaparral, didn't he? Isn't he a prisoner now?"
+
+"They found him, and it may be a good thing that they did. Hold on a
+bit. Anyhow we'll keep a tight grip on those two young redskins."
+
+"Ping," said the colonel. "That's a queer name for an Indian boy.
+Tah-nu-nu isn't so bad for a young squaw. We'll camp here to-night?"
+
+"Of course," said the captain, "but we'll make an early start in the
+morning, and go back close along the boundary line. There's good grass
+beyond the desert; wouldn't mind forgetting the line for a few miles if
+we came near enough to any Apaches. Sorry I didn't get another talk with
+the chief's messenger. It beats me how he slipped away."
+
+The wild-looking-Mescalero postman who brought the cactus-leaf letter
+may have had another errand on his hands. When he halted at the head of
+the path, in full view of everybody, he did not look as if he meant to
+go away without an answer, and he did not. He obtained one from Ping and
+Tah-nu-nu, to carry to their father and mother. The Chiricahuas saw it
+given, and afterwards reported that the signs exchanged told that all
+were well, and that the young folk would soon be at liberty. Some other
+messages came and went, through hands and feet and features, and then
+the postman sank down into a sitting posture at the edge of the
+chaparral. That was where Captain Moore now remembered seeing the last
+of him.
+
+The excitement over the cactus leaf absorbed all minds for a minute or
+so, then, and the Apache warrior went under a bush as if he had been a
+sage-hen. Once beyond it he was hidden, but he went snake-fashion some
+distance farther. As soon as he deemed it safe to stand erect he did so.
+
+"Ugh!" he remarked. "Pa-de-to-pah-kah-tse-caugh-to-kah-no-tan heap great
+brave. Heap get away."
+
+That was evidently his longest name, and he was a pretty tall Indian,
+and had a right to compliment himself just then. The men who hurried out
+after him, when they found that he was gone, went back again with a
+mental assurance that he was somewhere in the chaparral, but that only
+he himself knew precisely where. While they were hunting, he was walking
+rapidly through the cross-paths of the spider-web. He came to a place
+where one of the horses won by his band near Slater's Branch was tied to
+a bush. He was saddled and bridled, and he carried also one of the small
+water-barrels found among the equipments of the Mexican pack-mules. The
+warrior picked up his weapons from the sand near the horse, drank some
+water, complimented himself again, and went off on foot to complete his
+day's business. He drew stealthily nearer and nearer to the cavalry and
+cowboy camp at Cold Spring, and now, while Captain Moore and Colonel
+Evans were expressing so much regret that the postman of Kah-go-mish was
+beyond their reach, a pair of eyes under a thorn-bush, within a hundred
+yards, watched their every movement and took note of whatever was going
+on around the spring.
+
+The lurking Apache could see much, but he could hear little. Least of
+all could even his quick ears catch the suppressed whisper of Colonel
+Evans when at last he lay down upon his blanket for a few hours of rest.
+
+"Cal," he said, "if I don't take you home with me, what shall I say to
+your mother?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+THE MYSTERY OF THE STICKS.
+
+
+Cal Evans, sitting by the fire and toasting his bacon in the camp of the
+Apaches, knew nothing of what was to happen that day in all those other
+places. He was ignorant of what had already occurred, except to himself.
+His strongest feeling, at that moment, was grief for what he knew must
+be the anxiety of his father, and for what he feared that his mother
+would suffer when his father should get home without him. He had passed
+a wonderful night, and it seemed to have made an older boy of him.
+
+The dawn was brightening fast when he took his first cup of coffee. He
+was very hungry, and he picked up a piece of corn bread to eat with it.
+The fact that it was stale, and that it had been upon the ground, did
+not make any difference to a fellow who had been staked out, and who was
+very likely to be upon his back again very soon, or tied to a
+torture-post.
+
+As for his two guards, he did not know nor care that they had aroused
+several other braves, and that all of them were rummaging the forest,
+near the cypress, in search of any trail he might have left behind him.
+Each brave in turn had re-examined the forked stakes and had expressed
+his wonder. According to them, Cal was "Heap snake" and "Heap bad
+medicine." They were at work upon their mystery, and he upon a piece of
+toasted bacon, when he heard an almost musical "Ugh," behind him,
+followed by other grunts, in which there was no music whatever.
+
+The first sound came from a woman's voice, and, when he turned around,
+there stood Wah-wah-o-be. She had risen early in order that the chief's
+breakfast might be ready for him upon his return from his morning look
+at the corral. The other exclamations were uttered by three
+dog-soldiers, whose patrol duty had brought them to that camp-fire.
+
+"How," said Cal, holding out his hand. "Good squaw. Give boy water."
+
+Then he remembered that she had answered him very well in Spanish, and
+he said something in that tongue about the coffee and bacon, and told
+the three dog-soldiers that they were very fine-looking fellows.
+
+It was not impudence, and it was not cunning, for it was nothing more
+nor less than desperation, but he could not have acted more wisely.
+While he was exchanging morning greetings with the dusky policemen, yet
+another brave came hurriedly up, and, the moment he saw Cal, he uttered
+an astonished whoop. He was one of the pair set to watch him, and he had
+come in great trepidation to announce the escape of the prisoner. Under
+other circumstances he might have even used violence, but a captive was
+safe in the hands of the dog-soldiers, and he did but stare in Cal's
+face as if in doubt as to his being there.
+
+Cal's mocking coolness was not at all exhausted, for he felt too badly
+to be afraid. He held out his hand.
+
+"How," he said. "Good-looking Indian. Drive heap stick."
+
+"Ugh!" said the puzzled savage. "How boy get away?"
+
+"Leave stick there," said Cal. "Pull off arm. Put hand on again. Cut off
+foot. Put on again. Want coffee."
+
+He explained more fully, by signs, that he had taken himself to pieces
+to get out of his wooden fetters, and had put himself together again to
+come and eat his breakfast.
+
+Almost all Indians have a vein of satirical fun in them, and Cal's
+explanation was thoroughly appreciated by his hearers, excepting the
+wrinkled-faced warrior who was made to look like a cheated watchman.
+Wah-wah-o-be laughed aloud, and a deep, sonorous voice behind them
+joined her in what was half-way between a chuckle and a cough.
+
+"Ugh!" it added. "Heap boy. Son of long paleface chief. How boy like
+stake out? Kah-go-mish!"
+
+"Kah-go-mish is a great chief," said Cal. "Steal heap pony. Hear a great
+deal about him. Bad Indian."
+
+He had touched, half bitterly, the right chord--the Apache leader's
+intense vanity about his fame. Wah-wah-o-be was also pleased to hear
+that the pale-faces talked about Kah-go-mish.
+
+Before the chief could unbend for any more conversation, however, his
+duty required that he should investigate the affair of the forked
+stakes. They were a mystery even to him for a moment. He reprimanded
+the two guards severely for using them at all. They were needless. They
+had been carelessly put down. The braves who had done it were mere
+squaws, and did not know how to drive a stake. He was stooping over one
+of the fetters when he said that, and the truth flashed upon him. Cal
+had driven it down hard, and it was plain that no human ankle had ever
+been under that fork. The chief's derision of the unlucky guards broke
+out afresh, but he expressed great admiration for the skill and conduct
+of the young pale-face brave, the worthy son of the long,
+broad-shouldered chief of the Santa Lucia cowboys.
+
+Wah-wah-o-be had no need to explain to the dog-soldiers that Cal was to
+be permitted to finish his breakfast in peace. They were decidedly
+inclined to favor a youngster who had performed a feat so remarkable,
+and whose courage was evidently equal to his cunning.
+
+Other Indians and other squaws came and went, and boys and girls,
+although the larger part of the band was inclined to sleep a little late
+that morning.
+
+Kah-go-mish came back from his inspection of the stakes, and he came
+with another part of his plan ready for action. He now felt pretty sure
+of getting back Ping and Tah-nu-nu without giving up too many horses,
+and he had decided upon a safe method for opening negotiations with the
+pale-faces. Nothing whatever could be done successfully as long as the
+blue-coats were in the way. He had dealt with army officers before, and
+their methods had been unpleasant. They had always persisted in speaking
+of captured horses as stolen property, and they were in a sort of
+league with the Mexicans as to such matters. His first business was to
+get beyond their reach, after letting them know that he held a hostage
+for their present good behavior. He ate his breakfast while he was
+thinking over the matter, and then he summoned one of his most cunning
+warriors and told him to bring his swiftest horse and a cactus-leaf.
+
+Cal's heart jumped for joy when he found that he was to write to his
+father, even with such materials. He took the leaf and he used his knife
+for a pen. He saw the Apache messenger spring upon his horse and ride
+away, and it seemed to him that one of the heaviest parts of his burden
+had been taken off.
+
+Kah-go-mish took pains to explain to his prisoner that if he should run
+away to the northward he would die of thirst in the desert, and if to
+the southward, he would only lose himself among forests and mountains.
+
+"Stake him out again?" said Cal. "Pull up stakes and come for coffee."
+
+Once more the grim Apache smiled not unkindly, and there was less danger
+of any sort of handcuffs or shackles.
+
+As soon as the entire band had eaten its morning meal, Cal had something
+worth looking at. The packs taken from the Mexican army mules had not
+been searched, up to that hour, except for present supplies. It was now
+needful to ascertain exactly what they contained, and they were all
+brought out and laid upon the ground in order. It was speedily evident
+that a company of Mexican cavalry, with a reinforcement of mounted
+militia, required few luxuries, but meant to have enough of such as it
+wanted.
+
+[Illustration: CAL TOOK THE LEAF, AND USED HIS KNIFE FOR A PEN.]
+
+Corn-meal for tortillas, or Mexican cakes, was plentiful, and the Apache
+squaws knew what to do with it. So was bacon. There was an abundance of
+coffee and a fair supply of sugar. There were several small bales of
+tobacco in the leaf, for cigaritas, and some in manufactured shape.
+There were whole mule-loads of blankets, for possible use in mountain
+camps. There was ammunition, as if Colonel Romero had expected much
+fighting. Miscellaneous plunder filled out the list, and the band of the
+great Kah-go-mish considered itself very rich indeed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+HOW WOULD YOU LIKE FIRE?
+
+
+The needs of human beings are very much the same the world over, but
+they are satisfied in different ways. The tilted wagon from Santa Fe
+brought to Santa Lucia coffee and sugar of a better quality than the
+Apaches found in the packs of the Mexican army mules, but it was sugar
+and coffee after all. The magazines and papers had been full of news and
+information for Vic and her mother, and the escaped train-guard brought
+very interesting matter to Colonel Romero. Letters came with the wagon,
+but not one so interesting as was the epistle which Cal had written upon
+the cactus-leaf. No story of any sort, in any of the books or pamphlets
+which Vic turned over so eagerly, was likely to be more absorbingly
+interesting to her or to any other reader than were to Ping and
+Tah-nu-nu the tales told by the old Chiricahua under the shadow of the
+mesquit bushes near the Manitou Water. He told more, that evening. Some
+of them were about himself and some were about things that he had seen
+among the blue-coats at the forts where he had been. They were in a good
+frame of mind for listening, since the sign-language letter brought to
+them by the messenger of Kah-go-mish. They knew from him that their band
+was to leave no trail behind it, and that the son of the long chief of
+the cowboys was as much a prisoner as they were. If they did not give up
+the idea of trying to make their own escape, they felt more contented,
+and could joke and laugh about their captivity.
+
+"Ping pale-face by and by," said Tah-nu-nu, almost merrily. "Heap
+blue-coat chief. Kah-go-mish make Cal big Apache brave."
+
+Her quick ears had caught his name, but Ping more frequently spoke of
+him as "Heap pony."
+
+Before the arrival of that quiet evening hour, Cal had added somewhat to
+his rapidly growing list of new experiences. He felt better after
+writing the cactus-leaf letter, and he ate a fair second breakfast,
+cooked for him by Wah-wah-o-be. He made her acquaintance very fast, but
+Kah-go-mish had his hands full of duties belonging to his pack-mule
+cargo, and he did not come again.
+
+Quite a different sort of fellow did come, for the wrinkled-faced old
+warrior was ready to burst with curiosity as to how Cal had managed to
+get out of his forked-stake prison. With Wah-wah-o-be's help he managed
+to say so, and Cal volunteered to show him. Several other braves went
+with them to the foot of the giant cypress, and in a minute or so more
+that Apache was described by all the voices around him as
+"The-old-man-who-put-a-peg-into-a-gopher-hole." He already had a fine
+long warrior name of his own, or the new one would have stuck to him for
+the remainder of his life. As it was, he evidently regarded Cal with
+more than a little admiration.
+
+"What do now?" he said. "No more get away?"
+
+"More eat, by and by," said Cal. "See red pony, now. Medicine pony."
+
+There was no reason why the prisoner, under a sufficient guard, should
+not be permitted such a privilege, and the wrinkled-faced brave nodded.
+He dropped his long Apache names, however, both of them, and used one
+which Cal discovered had been given him at the Mescalero Reservation.
+
+"Crooked Nose go," he said. "Pull Stick see medicine pony."
+
+The now numerous drove of quadrupeds belonging to the prosperous and
+wealthy band of Kah-go-mish were no longer picketed. Free of lariats,
+but attended by watchful red drovers, they had been conducted to a strip
+of natural prairie at some distance from the rear of the camp where Cal
+had eaten his breakfast.
+
+They were of all sorts, good, bad and middling, horses, ponies, and
+mules; and Cal was able to pick out, as he went along, quite a number
+that had come all the way from the bank of Slater's Branch. He was
+looking around him for one horse that was worth more than all the rest,
+in his opinion, when a loud neigh sounded from behind some bushes near
+him.
+
+Very much to the surprise of Crooked Nose, the handsomest mustang he had
+ever seen came out with a vigorous bound, a cavort, and a throwing up of
+heels, and dashed straight towards Pull Stick, as he had several times
+called Cal Evans.
+
+"Ugh!" he exclaimed. "Heap pony!"
+
+"Hurrah, Dick!" shouted Cal, and he threw his arms around the neck of
+the red mustang.
+
+One of the dog-soldier keepers of the horses came riding towards them at
+that moment, however, and Crooked Nose touched Cal on the shoulder.
+
+"Pull Stick come. Pony stay."
+
+He added a string of Apache words that Cal could make nothing of, but
+that described Dick as being now the property of
+The-boy-whose-ear-pushed-away-a-piece-of-lead. He conversed for a minute
+or two with the mounted Apache, and the latter pointed sternly towards
+the camp. There was no such thing as disputing with a Mescalero
+policeman, and Dick himself received a sharp blow from the loose end of
+a lariat when he attempted to follow the only master he recognized as
+having any right to him.
+
+Cal was glad to find that his four-footed friend was in good condition,
+after his pretty severe share in the adventures which began in the
+chaparral. Still, it was an uncomfortable thing to think of, that the
+red mustang was likely to end his days as an Apache pony instead of as
+the pet of all the household at Santa Lucia.
+
+The camp was regained, and Cal at once took note of changes. The fires
+had been kindled the previous evening, in a straggling line along the
+bank or a small stream of water. Tangled bushes marked the course of the
+stream, and great trees leaned over it, dropping the swinging ropes of
+vines from their branches to its very surface. The more distant fires
+had been entirely hidden, except for the glare they made.
+
+The band had bivouacked that first night, but now there were lodges
+going up, and Cal knew what that meant.
+
+"They mean to stay here," he said to himself. "I might as well be in
+jail."
+
+It was nearly so. The neighboring wilderness had been found to be full
+of game, and the plan of Kah-go-mish called for liberal supplies of
+fresh meat, in addition to what he had found upon Colonel Romero's
+pack-mules. He felt sure that any Mexican force hunting after him would
+look almost anywhere else, and none was likely to come for a long time.
+He and his band were happy; they were safe; they could have a good time
+until continued happiness and safety might require another move.
+
+Cal and Crooked Nose were met by a summons to come before the chief, and
+went to find him waiting their arrival.
+
+"Pull Stick here! Ugh!" said Crooked Nose.
+
+"Kah-go-mish is a great chief!" remarked the Apache commander
+dignifiedly, but he had more to say. He repeated to Cal his previous
+counsel against an attempt to escape, but after that he raked out some
+hot coals from the smouldering camp-fire near him.
+
+"Boy see?" he said, as he pointed at the red warning. "How boy like?
+Ugh!"
+
+Cal shuddered and nodded, but he could not find a word to say in reply.
+
+"Look!" said the chief again, pointing to the ground a few paces away,
+and Cal looked.
+
+There lay the forked sticks which he had escaped from that very morning,
+and the meaning of Kah-go-mish was very plain indeed.
+
+"Boy, son of pale-face chief," he said. "No heap fool. Go. Ugh."
+
+"Pull Stick come," said Crooked Nose, in a not unfriendly manner, and
+Cal walked away with him, to be more minutely informed that he could do
+about as he pleased, until further orders, unless he chose to do
+something like trying to escape, which would make it proper for his
+excellent Apache friends to stake him out again, and "make heap fire all
+over Pull Stick."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+
+THE MANITOU WATER.
+
+
+That second afternoon, after the arrival of the tilted wagon at Santa
+Lucia, was dull enough, in spite of the ample supply of news and
+literature. All the news from all the world seemed worthless without
+news from Cal and his father. All the stories ever told were
+uninteresting until they should come home and tell the story of their
+expedition after Kah-go-mish and his Apaches. It had been so all day.
+The projected improvements, in and around the old hacienda, had somehow
+lost their attraction, and were discussed no more. In fact every time
+one of them had been referred to it had compelled somebody to mention
+the absent man or boy who was likely to have an opinion to be consulted
+concerning it. Vic and her mother went out on horseback in the morning,
+and they made an uncommonly long ride of it, for they went to Slater's
+Branch and back, galloping almost all the way home, and putting each
+other in mind of Cal's dash upon the back of the red mustang to warn
+them that the Indians were coming.
+
+Duller and duller, yet more unquiet had the day grown after dinner, and
+now the shadows were growing longer, and they seemed to bring more
+anxiety with them.
+
+"Mother," said Vic at last, "I've been trying my best not to think of
+Cal or of father, and I can't."
+
+"It's the best thing we could do," almost sighed Mrs. Evans.
+
+"They may be fighting!" said Vic.
+
+"Most likely they're going into camp somewhere, all tired out," said her
+mother.
+
+"Oh, I do hope," said Vic, "they are on their way home. I can't read,
+and I won't."
+
+So all the printed things were put aside, and it may be that some of
+Vic's thinking made pictures for her a little like the reality that was
+enacting at Cold Spring and in the Mexican forest. No imagination of
+hers could have drawn anything quite equal to either of them.
+
+Something almost as well worth making a picture of was taking place a
+number of long miles farther westward. Away up among the crags and
+forests of the Sierra, but below the snow-range at that season, there
+lay all day in the sunshine a very tranquil little lake. All around the
+lake were the steep sides of mountains, and at no point was there any
+visible outlet. Streams of various sizes ran into it, and one of them
+came plunging over the edge of a perpendicular rock, in a foamy,
+feathery waterfall. There was plenty of room in the valley for the lake
+to grow larger in, but the trees at its margin seemed to say that this
+was its customary size. On the northern side the sloping steep went up,
+up, up, until all its rocks became hidden under a covering of snow.
+
+Just above the snow-line the June sun had been working hard, day after
+day, melting snow for the lake, until it had undermined a vast icy mass
+several acres in extent. Nobody could guess how many winters had been
+required to make that heap of frost so deep and hard, or how many
+summers had made everything ready for that hot day to finish the work.
+
+Just before sunset a moaning sound came down the mountain and filled the
+valley. Then something like thunder, or the report or a cannon, echoed
+among the crags.
+
+The avalanche had broken its bonds! Down it came, slowly at first, then
+more swiftly, and the tall pines were snapped off and swept away, and
+great bowlders were caught up and carried with it. Down, down, down it
+came, and at last, with a great surging plunge, it went head foremost
+into the lake. Crash! splash! dash! the flying sheets of water reached
+the tree-tops on the margin. The avalanche found deep water, for it
+almost disappeared, but it made the lake several feet deeper, and then
+its own fragments came up from their dive to be floated around and to be
+dashed against the shore by the waves.
+
+It did not take a great while for the surface of the lake to become calm
+again, with the snow-cakes and the ice-cakes almost motionless in the
+fading light. Not any human eye had seen the avalanche fall, or had
+noted its grandeur or any of its consequences.
+
+All things were peaceful at Cold Spring. Everybody had eaten supper long
+before sunset, and was glad of feeling sure that only the coming night
+was to be spent in a spot where nothing more civilized than a jackass
+rabbit seemed to have any permanent business.
+
+Colonel Evans had said all he had to say about Cal, and he stood near
+the spring, making vague speculations as to how and when he should get
+into better communication with Kah-go-mish. Near him, sitting upon a
+ledge, were Ping and Tah-nu-nu, and the old Chiricahua, who seemed to be
+telling his young friends something more about the bubbling water, when
+Captain Moore strolled up to within a few paces.
+
+"Do you see that, colonel?" he said. "I know sign language well enough
+if I can't understand the words. There's no wonder they're superstitious
+about Fonda des Arenas."
+
+"Cold Spring?" replied the colonel. "What do they say about it?"
+
+"Ask the scout. He says it's Manitou Water in the old tongue. I can't
+work the Apache syllables."
+
+Neither could Colonel Evans, when the Chiricahua repeated them. He was
+even eager to tell more, and what he did tell was curious, if true. Just
+before the great and noble Chiricahuas and Apaches came to own that
+country, he said, there had been a hill there, a sort of mountain with
+forests, and there was no desert there, and no chaparral. The
+Chiricahuas would have preferred a hill and trees and grass, but the old
+manitou who had lived there had to go away, and everything sunk down to
+a level. The trees died and rotted away, and all was dry and desolate,
+until one terribly hot day when a band of Apaches reached the rocky
+level, almost dying of thirst. Their ponies were unable to go any
+farther, and they had given up all hope. They sat around upon the rock,
+and their ponies lay down. All night long they sat there, and then, just
+as the sun was rising, they saw something white spring into the air in
+the middle of the wide rock. A new manitou had arrived, friendly to the
+Apaches. He brought the Manitou Water, and it had run continually to the
+present time. Generally it was quiet, but if the manitou heard good
+news, the water would sometimes jump away up, as it did when it first
+came.
+
+"Very pretty story," began Captain Moore, but at that moment the air
+suddenly was filled with excited exclamations.
+
+The old Chiricahua uttered a loud whoop as he sprang to his feet.
+
+"Ugh!" he said. "Heap manitou!"
+
+He added a few rapid sentences in his own tongue, while Ping and
+Tah-nu-nu darted away to the edge of the chaparral and stood there,
+clinging to each other as if in terror.
+
+"Colorado!" shouted Sam Herrick. "What on earth's got into Cold Spring?"
+
+The colonel and the captain also retreated rapidly, shivering from the
+shock of a sudden cold bath, for they both were wet to the skin.
+
+Twenty feet high sprang the water, with a sharp hiss and a report like a
+pistol-shot. The first leap subsided, but was instantly followed by
+another and another, each less lofty than the one before it. Then the
+stream became fairly steady, but with about three times its customary
+supply, so that quite a rill of water ran away across the quartz, to be
+absorbed by the thirsty sand and gravel among the bushes.
+
+Neither Ping nor Tah-nu-nu nor the Chiricahuas could be induced to come
+near the fountain again, but all the white men gathered around it and
+made guesses as to what had made it jump.
+
+"Something volcanic," said the captain.
+
+"Been an earthquake somewhere, it may be," said the colonel.
+
+All that evening there was more or less discussion of the remarkable
+performance of Cold Spring, and everybody missed the right guess. It was
+only a splash caused by the avalanche when it plunged into the mountain
+reservoir which supplied the chaparral and the sage-hens and the jackass
+rabbits and the other wild animals there with water. Nothing could well
+be more simple, and there was no soundness whatever in the grave remark
+made to Ping and Tah-nu-nu by the old Chiricahua.
+
+"Ugh!" he said. "Manitou Water heap good medicine. Good Apache manitou.
+Kah-go-mish get away now. Keep all pony."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+PULL STICK AND THE HURRICANE.
+
+
+Ping and Tah-nu-nu had had no good reason for complaining of their
+captivity. They had been well fed, they had each a magnificent
+handkerchief and a looking-glass medal, they had heard any number of new
+stories from the old Chiricahua, and they had seen how high the old
+manitou could make the spring jump when he heard good news. They were
+almost conscience-smitten to find how friendly were their feelings
+towards all those wicked cowboys and blue-coats, but they were sure that
+they could get over it all and be good Apaches again as soon as they
+should get out of that camp.
+
+One thought came, every now and then, to trouble Tah-nu-nu. Colonel
+Evans had said that he meant to take Ping home with him and make a
+farmer of him, and Tah-nu-nu's mind drew a humiliating picture of
+The-boy-whose-ear-pushed-away-a-piece-of-lead come down to work in a
+cornfield with a hoe.
+
+She spoke about it to Ping, and he replied with some awful reminders of
+stories he had heard of the cruel manner in which little Indian girls
+were sometimes treated by hardhearted pale-face squaws. She might have
+felt worse but for a memory she had of a beautiful ribbon given her by a
+white lady at the Reservation headquarters.
+
+Both of them knew that the cowboys and the blue-coats intended to march
+away early the next morning, and it added more than a little to their
+respect for the Apache manitou who managed the Cold Spring water-works.
+They believed that the great jump of the fountain had produced such an
+effect upon the pale-faces that their chiefs had determined to give up
+the pursuit of Kah-go-mish. The old Chiricahua was still detailed to
+watch the movements of the chief's children, but they were not tied up
+that night.
+
+Neither had Cal been all day in the camp where he had been staked out
+the night before. He had seemed to listen so attentively to the stern
+warnings given him against any attempt at running away, and he had shown
+such good sense that very morning, that he was allowed to walk around as
+he pleased. He did so, and he succeeded in putting on an air of easy
+unconcern, although he knew that his movements were all closely noted by
+the keenest kind of human eyes. He could hardly for a moment be beyond
+the range of those of the dog-soldier police, but their watch was
+blindness itself compared to that of the squaws and the young people.
+
+The boys, of all sizes, avoided coming too near him, but it was not long
+before he made up his mind that every large tuft of weeds around that
+camp contained a Mescalero in his teens or under them. Little
+six-year-olders stepped away from behind trees, or sauntered out of
+bushes, or seemed to have errands which led them right past him. All of
+his own faculties were in a state of strained wakefulness, and he did
+not allow such things to escape him.
+
+"I'll see the whole camp, anyhow," he said to himself, somewhat late in
+the day, after he had become accustomed to the queer sort of freedom
+given him. "I won't give them any excuse for piling fire upon me, but I
+want to know all about this place."
+
+The stream along which the camp lay was hardly more than two yards wide
+in many places, but it ran slowly and seemed to be deep. There were
+places clear of bushes, here and there, where it could be seen, and it
+had a black look, from the density of the shadows which lay upon it. It
+was good water, pretty cool, and the Apaches had taken some fine fish
+out of it, but there was something remarkable in the fact that it ran in
+a straight line.
+
+Cal walked slowly on, glancing at lodge after lodge. Most of them were
+pretty well peopled, and one that was not so had a guard before it, for
+it contained the treasures of the Mexican pack-mule train. There was not
+an Apache in the band wicked enough to have stolen anything out of that
+storehouse lodge, and the solitary dog-soldier who lounged in front of
+it was not there as a protection against human thieves. He was to keep
+out dogs, snakes, and any other kind of "bad medicine" that might
+attempt an investigation of the good things the loss of which Colonel
+Romero's cavalry were at that time growling about. He probably had other
+duties, but none of them related to Pull Stick, and Cal sauntered on,
+barely catching a glimpse of a pair of Apache boys who were doing the
+same among the trees on the other side of the brook.
+
+He had never seen finer trees, nor had he ever before noticed precisely
+such a run of water, for just a little distance beyond the last of the
+widely separated lodges he came to a point where the stream turned off
+at right angles.
+
+"It never did that of its own accord," suddenly flashed into the mind of
+Cal, and he added, aloud: "Some time or other it was dug out!"
+
+"Ugh!" exclaimed a voice behind him. "What Pull Stick see?"
+
+Cal pointed to the water and tried to explain himself, startled as he
+was a little by finding Crooked Nose so near him.
+
+The deeply wrinkled, forbidding face of the Apache brave put on a look
+of very dark solemnity as he lifted a hand and pointed at something
+about a hundred yards beyond the turn in the stream.
+
+"Ugh!" he said. "Pull Stick good eye."
+
+The first thing that caught Cal's attention was an enormous dead tree,
+whose gaunt, leafless arms reached grimly out above a great mound that
+it leaned over. He looked again, following the line of the water, and
+saw something else that was remarkable. The small rill which fed that
+long, deep, shadowed channel fell into it out of a massive stone tank.
+The masonry was overgrown with vegetation everywhere except at the place
+where the rill poured out.
+
+At some unknown day, away back in the past, when not one of those old
+trees had been more than a sapling, some people had been civilized
+enough and prosperous enough to construct that granite reservoir.
+
+Cal stared intently, for the shadows were beginning to deepen, and he
+knew that he would be interfered with if he went too far in his first
+ramble. The stone tank did not contain all the masonry over which the
+dead tree was leaning. The mound itself arose four-square.
+
+"It's one of those Mexican pyramids," exclaimed Cal. "I've read about
+them. Didn't know that any of them were ever found away up here."
+
+He may or may not have been correct about that, but in a moment more he
+turned to Crooked Stick.
+
+"Sun go down?" he asked.
+
+"Ugh! No. Pull Stick get heap water."
+
+The deepening of the shadows had not been altogether because that
+notable day of Cal's life had nearly gone. It was rather because black
+masses of thunderclouds had suddenly arrived, and had hidden all the sky
+above that part of the ancient Aztec forest.
+
+Swiftly enough came a darkness that walked in among the tree-trunks and
+covered them so that they could not be seen at twenty feet away.
+
+A vivid gleam of quivering lightning made everything stand out clearly
+for a second. Then came a deafening roll of thunder, and that was
+followed by another burst of sound that Cal did not recognize. He did
+not even know the Apache word for cougar, which sprang to the lips of
+Crooked Nose. The beast which had uttered the terrified roar, however,
+came leaping past with tremendous bounds, as if the thunderbolt had
+fallen near him and he hoped to get away from it. Cal stood still,
+mainly because no time was given him for doing anything else, but the
+cougar almost brushed his shoulder as it sprang by him.
+
+"Ugh!" said Crooked Nose. "Pull Stick great brave by and by. Good!"
+
+Flash after flash, almost incessantly, followed the tremulous glare of
+lightning, and peal on peal followed the thunder, during a full minute,
+before any rain fell. Then it seemed to Cal as if one awful flash went
+through everything around him, bringing its rattling volume of deafening
+thunder with it. He was half-blinded, half-stunned, for a moment.
+
+"That flash must have struck close by," he exclaimed.
+
+So it had, for the next gleam showed him the gigantic trunk of the
+withered tree splintered through near the earth, its whitened stem, with
+its drapery of vines, toppling over to come down with a great crash upon
+the mound above which it so long had stood sentinel.
+
+The next instant all was densely dark, for the rain came down in sheets,
+and all other sounds except that of the thunder were drowned in the roar
+of a great wind. Cal Evans had come into that forest to witness a
+hurricane.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII.
+
+UNDER A FALLEN TREE.
+
+
+Cal had been all day in a chaparral without water, and he knew by
+experience how very dry an alkali desert could be, whether under a hot
+sun or a brilliant moon. He had seen sudden storms before, for he was a
+ranch-boy, and there are wonders of electricity and rain at times upon
+the plains. Up to the moment when the hurricane struck the tree-tops,
+however, he had never fully understood what could be done by wind and
+water and thunder and lightning, at their very best working strength,
+working together. No wonder a poor cougar should be in a hurry to get
+under safe cover if he had any clear idea that all this was coming.
+
+As for the trees, the healthy ones stood up to it admirably. They had
+all been through hurricanes time and again, and were, moreover,
+something of a protection to each other. Any tree whose strength had at
+all been sapped by internal decay, however, or which had failed to send
+out roots in due proportion to its height, was in more or less danger.
+Every now and then the crash of some old forest prince made Cal look up
+at the trees near him to see how they were doing. Crooked Nose crouched
+upon the ground in silence, not looking at anything. The trunk behind
+which they were partly sheltered was apparently worthy of especial
+confidence, it was so very thick and seemed so completely beyond the
+power of any wind to break.
+
+"If any tree can stand it, this will," said Cal to Crooked Nose.
+
+"Ugh!" grunted the Indian. "Heap wind. Heap bad manitou."
+
+The trunk of that tree fully justified Cal's confidence. It did not
+snap. At that very moment, however, there was a strong hand of the
+hurricane upon its broad top, and the general uproar was increased by a
+groaning, tearing sound.
+
+"It's coming! it's coming!" shouted Cal, as he made a great spring into
+the gloom at its left, but Crooked Nose only lay flat upon the ground.
+
+Ripping, tearing, splitting the earth on the windward side of the tree,
+and breaking off, with reports like pistol-shots, the roots of the giant
+growth gave way. Down, down, down came the grand old oak, crashing
+through branches and smaller trees in the way. It left a great hollow
+where its roots had been, but Cal need not have stirred one inch. If he
+had been twenty feet high he could have walked under that fallen trunk
+without touching it.
+
+"Safest place there is," he said to Crooked Nose. "Hear that?"
+
+"Ugh!" replied he. "Bad medicine!"
+
+Bad for something, perhaps, for it was the squall of an enormous cat in
+fright and trouble. It seemed as if the hurricane must have come for
+that particular tree, since it began at once to die away after the
+crash. The thunder ceased and the flashes grew fainter, while the small
+remains of daylight came back and made the dripping forest visible. The
+spirits of Crooked Nose did not at once return. He glanced at the mound,
+where the lightning-splintered wreck of the dead tree had fallen. He
+looked up at the oak-trunk over him, and he shivered as if from cold.
+
+Once more the cry of the cat in trouble sounded just across the brook.
+The carbine carried by Crooked Nose lay upon the ground, and Cal picked
+it up. It was loaded, and its owner did not make the least objection
+when Cal took the weapon, sprang across the narrow channel, and began to
+search for that angry cry.
+
+Yet again it sounded, and now it plainly came from among the branches of
+the fallen tree.
+
+"That's so," said Cal. "Must be the same fellow. Hid in these bushes and
+got pinned down."
+
+The frightened cougar had not thought of a trap, when he cowered in a
+little hollow behind a rotten log. It had not been set for him by either
+the oak or the hurricane, but it caught him, for a fork of one of the
+heavier limbs came down over that very hollow.
+
+Cal thought he had never seen any real scratching done until that
+moment. The earth and leaves and sticks and bits of bark flew fast, as
+the powerful claws tore a passage out of that captivity.
+
+"He's fighting to get away," said Cal.
+
+"So'd I, if I saw any use in it. I could escape, too, in such a storm as
+this. If another should come, I'll try and be ready. His head and
+shoulders are free--there he comes!"
+
+Crack! and the report of the rifle was answered by a loud whoop from
+Crooked Nose.
+
+Out from his trap came the entire body of the cougar, in a convulsive
+struggle, and he lay dead upon the wet leaves, an ounce ball through his
+head requiring no second shot.
+
+Whoop after whoop answered that of Crooked Nose, but Cal stood still,
+wet, very wet indeed, and almost wondering how he came to kill that
+tremendous wild beast.
+
+The wrinkled, ugly face of the old Apache peered over his shoulder.
+
+"Ugh! Heap bad manitou gone!"
+
+Boys and braves came hurrying to the spot, and half a dozen angry
+dog-soldiers were eager to know who had fired a shot within the limits
+of the camp, contrary to rule.
+
+"Crooked Nose kill cougar," was the first bit of broken English heard by
+Cal.
+
+"Ugh!" was the reply. "Pull Stick."
+
+There was a kind of fraud at work. The Apaches believed that Pull Stick
+had faced the very dangerous animal before him without any help. They
+had heard the wrathful squall, but knew nothing of the trap. Even when
+Cal explained it, the glory accorded to him was hardly diminished, for
+there lay the cougar, claws and all. He had performed a feat precisely
+equal to that of Ping.
+
+Among the last to come was Kah-go-mish himself, and yet he did not look
+like himself. The red stocking-legs on his arms were soaking wet, and he
+wore no hat, while his entire visage had a look of intense dejection. It
+remained there until he caught a glimpse of the cougar's body, and he
+nearly repeated the exclamation of Crooked Nose: "Bad medicine gone!
+Ugh! Heap good!"
+
+Slowly Cal began to understand the meaning of several things which
+Crooked Nose had told him when he pointed at the tank and the mound.
+That was a place which, as all Apaches knew, was "bad medicine" for
+them. They ought not to have camped there or put up lodges, and when the
+hurricane came it aroused all their superstitious fears. They had been
+dreadfully frightened; as much so as the poor cougar himself, and they
+would have cowered in any hole just as he did.
+
+Cal's unexpected feat, therefore, had broken a sort of evil charm of
+that dangerous locality. He had used a gun, however, to which, as a
+prisoner, he had no right, and there were serious questions to be
+considered. He had not undertaken to escape, but he had trespassed upon
+the "bad-medicine" ground. A storm had come and the bad manitou had
+thrown trees at him to kill him. Then he had sent a cougar to tear him
+to pieces. The bad manitou had not been strong enough, and Pull Stick
+had thus far escaped, but it was all very wonderful.
+
+Kah-go-mish beckoned Cal to follow him, and they all recrossed the
+little stream and walked on to the lodge of the chief. Several other
+lodges stood near it, for none of them had been blown down, but all
+things wore a soaked, miserable appearance in the dull gloom now
+settling down over the "bad-medicine camp." The squaws were trying to
+rekindle the deluged fires, but without any success. Wah-wah-o-be, at
+her own heap of wet ashes in front of the lodge, was ready to give up in
+despair.
+
+Kah-go-mish was exchanging guttural sentences with a group of
+gloomy-looking, elderly warriors, when Cal took out his pocket-knife,
+picked up a piece of pine wood and began to make splinters and shavings
+of it. He then took from an inner pocket a case of wax-matches, and in
+half a minute more he handed Wah-wah-o-be a blazing bunch of what to her
+was comfort.
+
+"Ugh!" said Kah-go-mish to his counsellors. "Pull Stick good medicine.
+Heap bring fire. Friend."
+
+That was the turning-point, and Cal had but barely escaped a much worse
+fate than that of Jonah. At that very moment, however, a mounted brave
+galloped in from the forest and drew rein before the chief with a sharp,
+warning exclamation that was echoed by every tongue. Even Cal exclaimed
+aloud: "Mexicans? Cavalry? Rancheros? What next?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII.
+
+LEAVING THE BAD-MEDICINE CAMP.
+
+
+The camp in the chaparral at Cold Spring was astir before daylight that
+next morning. Every soul seemed to want a look at the Manitou Water, as
+well as a drink of it, immediately upon waking. Tongue after tongue
+declared, in English, Spanish, or Apache: "Just as it was before, only
+it runs a little stronger." That is, the avalanche had raised the level
+of the water in the mountain reservoir and the pressure was greater.
+Every season must have witnessed very much the same changes in the
+conduct of Cold Spring, but, as a rule, without any human eyes to take
+note of them. The sage-hens, the jackass rabbits and the antelopes had
+kept no record.
+
+Cal's father was a sad-hearted man when he mounted his big black horse.
+He was turning his face homeward without Cal, and he almost forgot that
+he had come in search of stolen horses.
+
+Ping and Tah-nu-nu were given their own ponies, and were as ready for a
+start as was anybody else. As they reached the path-opening by which
+they were to go away, they turned and took a long look at the Manitou
+Water. It flowed on steadily, without a jump of any sort.
+
+"Ugh!" said Ping. "Manitou sleep."
+
+Colonel Evans and his cowboys, Captain Moore and his cavalry, all did
+the same thing, but not one of them made the same remark. The three
+remaining Chiricahua scouts also looked, and the old brave who had told
+stories to Ping and Tah-nu-nu shook his head, saying something about
+Kah-go-mish and bad medicine. He was thinking of the fourth Chiricahua
+who had been the first man of that expedition to drink of the bubbling
+snow-water.
+
+"Have you any idea when or where we shall get our next news of Cal?"
+asked Captain Moore, as he rode along at the head of his column.
+
+"No," said Colonel Evans, "but you can count upon one thing, they will
+try to steal away Ping and Tah-nu-nu. Every movement must be watched.
+Kah-go-mish and his band are far enough away by this time."
+
+The keenest calculations are sometimes at fault. A sharp gallop of three
+or four hours across the desert might have brought a rider from the
+chaparral very near the camp of the Apaches. If the palefaces, moreover,
+knew nothing of the movements or plans of the chief, he did not propose
+to be equally ignorant of their own. Hardly were they well away from the
+spring before something began to stir under the bushes behind the great
+cactus on the western side of the open. Then a human head became
+visible, and in a minute more a tall Apache warrior was stalking around
+the spring as if he were trying to find anything which the pale-faces
+might have left behind them. He was in no manner disposed to talk to
+himself, and his inspection was soon completed. After that, a half-mile
+of walking through the chaparral brought him to a bush where one of the
+stolen Evans horses was tied. He mounted and rode away, and when he
+left the chaparral he did not take the trail which the band had before
+followed, but struck off across the desert in a southeasterly direction.
+
+If he had any intention of going back to the "bad-medicine camp-ground,"
+he was making a mistake, because the lodges of Kah-go-mish were no
+longer there. The Apache scout who came hurrying in, after the hurricane
+was over and just before sunset the previous evening, had been very near
+to not getting in at all. He had been all but intercepted by a strong
+column of Mexican horsemen. The storm had helped him to escape from
+them, but beyond all doubt he would be followed.
+
+"Kah-go-mish is a great chief!" loudly exclaimed the Mescalero
+statesman, and he added his own explanation of this new peril. These
+were not the Mexicans who had lost the pack-mules; not the command of
+Colonel Romero. They were probably the very force which had made a
+target of him as he stood so heroically upon the bowlder, and into whose
+camp he had afterwards so daringly ventured after horses and plunder.
+
+He knew that they were numerous, and he had no thought of fighting them.
+It was too late and too dark, he said, to begin any march that evening,
+but every lodge must come down, every pack must be made ready, and the
+band must move before daylight.
+
+Cal had no idea how narrow had been his own escape from the cruel
+results of Indian superstition, but he had overheard enough to
+understand the present flurry and the packing. He sat down, not far from
+one of the rekindled camp-fires, and watched the proceedings. It made
+him feel bluer than ever to know that civilized soldiers were so very
+near. He saw his cougar brought in and skinned, and he ate a piece of
+the broiled meat cooked for him by Wah-wah-o-be. The moon arose and
+looked down through the tree-tops, but Cal did not feel like sleeping,
+although his wet clothing had ceased to steam, and he felt almost dry.
+
+The lodges were all down at last, and everything seemed quiet, when
+there came to Cal's ears precisely the same boding hoot that had sounded
+among the cypress branches above him when he was staked out.
+
+"Must be the biggest kind of an owl," he muttered, but instantly he
+heard just such a sound again very near him.
+
+He turned to look for the second owl, and there he stood, with one hand
+at his mouth, for this owl was Kah-go-mish, and he was distributing news
+and orders among his band.
+
+There were rapid movements in all directions after that hooting.
+Pack-mules were led in. Squaws toiled hard and warriors worked like so
+many squaws. The horses of Kah-go-mish were led to the spot where his
+lodge had been, and one of them, bridled but without any saddle, was
+assigned to Cal with orders to mount at once. He had hardly done so
+before he heard near him a whinny that he knew.
+
+"Dick," he said, "old fellow! Don't I wish I were on your back!"
+
+His own saddle was there, and his own rifle and some other weapons were
+strapped to it. Other property was securely fastened upon them, and for
+that journey, at least, the red mustang had been turned into a
+pack-pony. He seemed to almost feel humiliated and downcast, but was
+otherwise in his usual condition, so far as his master could see.
+
+Hoot! Hoot! Hoot! came the owl cries from the forest westward, and the
+braves in charge of the shadowy train began to urge it forward.
+
+"Pull Stick, look!"
+
+It was the voice of Crooked Nose, and he was tapping his carbine
+meaningly.
+
+Cal nodded, but did not speak, for he understood the warning. His life
+was hanging by a thread, and he was in need of all the caution he
+possessed.
+
+Every camp-fire was heaped high with fuel before it was left behind, and
+the forest was all the darker by contrast. The Apaches managed to pick
+their way, with the aid of torches. It did not seem to Cal that they had
+ridden far before the trees grew thinner, and there was more moonlight.
+Then there were no trees; a little farther on and there were no bushes;
+all was plain enough then, for the bare desert was reached, and Cal knew
+by the stars that the band was heading in an easterly direction well out
+from the line of timber.
+
+Hardly had he said to himself, "Kah-go-mish got away in time, anyhow,"
+before he heard a muffled tumult in the forest behind him. Every animal
+in the train was pushed more rapidly.
+
+"Mexicans!" exclaimed Wah-wah-o-be. "Find fire. No find Kah-go-mish.
+Ugh!"
+
+A sharp rattle of distant musketry offered her a sort of angry reply,
+but it only drew a laugh from Wah-wah-o-be.
+
+The great chief she admired had been compelled to hurry up his plans,
+but he had not been caught in the surprise skilfully prepared for him by
+the Mexican commander. That officer had acted with energy and good
+judgment. He had determined to attack the Apaches in their camp at
+night, and he had not wasted an hour. He had deserved success, but he
+had not won it. The Apache owls had defeated him.
+
+As the silent Mexican columns worked their slow way through the forest,
+they had remarked upon the uncommon number and wakefulness of those
+night-birds. They were in three divisions, dismounted for better work in
+the woods, and each division met its own owls, or seemed to. They saw
+the glare of the camp-fires and moved more slowly, with greater caution,
+in excellent order, until they had all but surrounded the bad-medicine
+camp-ground. A bugle-note gave them a signal for a simultaneous shout,
+and they shouted. Another bade them fire a volley towards the
+camp-fires, and they fired it. A third bugle sounded the charge, and the
+Mexicans dashed in magnificently. If there had been any Apaches there,
+not an Indian could have escaped, or at least not a pony or a lodge.
+
+"Kah-go-mish has gone!" roared the disappointed officer, and his entire
+command agreed with him, but not a soul of them all could guess in what
+direction, by any light that the chief had left behind him.
+
+As for Cal Evans, he had received an important lesson concerning the
+ways and wiles of Indian warfare, and his own escape seemed more
+impossible than before.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV.
+
+TAH-NU-NU'S DISAPPOINTMENT.
+
+
+Santa Lucia seemed to be under a cloud, in spite of the bright June
+weather. Vic grew more and more uneasy, and did not try to conceal it.
+She was not able to understand how her mother maintained such an
+external appearance of self-possession.
+
+"I wish we had two letters a day from them," she exclaimed for the third
+or fourth time.
+
+"One would satisfy me. Oh dear! Why can't we know something about them!"
+responded Mrs. Evans, and the broken serenity helped Vic.
+
+Perhaps it was as well that no letter came, since any written from Cold
+Spring would have carried the dark tidings which Colonel Evans was
+bringing home with him.
+
+Captain Moore made a push that morning straight across the desert, that
+he might reach water and pasturage before noon if possible. The sun was
+hot, and frequent halts were needful for the horses, but the forced
+march was made with perfect success.
+
+"Well, boys," exclaimed the captain, at last, "I'm glad to see grass
+again."
+
+"Seven hours," the sergeant responded, "is a sharp pull, captain; how
+far do you think we've come?"
+
+"Twenty-five miles of gravel," said the captain. "There! Glad of that!"
+
+A whoop from a Chiricahua scout, in advance, announced at that moment
+that water had been found. It was a tree-shaded pool, evidently fed by
+springs. Around it was a bit of forest, and outside of that were
+scattered patches of chaparral.
+
+"Well on my way home!" groaned Colonel Evans, "and Cal is not with me."
+
+Through all that weary ride Ping and Tah-nu-nu had plodded along
+cheerfully. They had talked with anybody who wished to have a chat, and
+had given no token of discontent. They did not look at all like a pair
+of plotters, but they had conferred much in their own tongue when no
+Chiricahua was within hearing. They had plenty of opportunities, for
+those three red-men had undergone a change. Even the story-teller had
+been moody and silent ever since the great spirit of the Manitou Water.
+
+Although of another band, which had become nominally friendly to the
+pale-faces, the Chiricahuas were as much Apaches as were the Mescaleros,
+and had been every way as bitterly opposed to life on any Reservation.
+Their present friendship was with American blue-coats only, and not with
+Mexicans, and Kah-go-mish had smitten their old enemies in a way to
+merit their approbation. All that, and their traditions and
+superstitions, laid a capital foundation for the Manitou Water to work
+upon. To their minds they had been notified that it was "bad medicine"
+for them to do anything against Kah-go-mish upon his present war-path.
+If they were ever to kill him, it must be at some future time when
+things were going against him and his medicine was defective.
+
+Stronger and stronger grew the pressure of the vague ideas that took
+possession of the minds of the three scouts. They even looked hard at
+the pool of water they now led their horses to, as if this also might
+present some supernatural tokens. They had been there before, and they
+now found nothing new, but they felt as if they did, and each in turn
+remarked, "Bad medicine." Something rippled the water away out in the
+middle. Perhaps it was a fish, perhaps it was a frog or a snake or a
+water-rat, or it may be that an old ripple had been tied up at the
+bottom and had just broke loose and come up for air. Whatever it may
+have been, the old story-teller winced when he saw it.
+
+"Ugh!" he said. "More manitou. Chiricahua no fight Kah-go-mish. Bad
+medicine."
+
+None of the white men overheard that remark, and none of them dreamed of
+watching Chiricahuas after what had occurred at the spring. The feud
+between the two bands was supposed to be more bitter than ever.
+
+It was decided by Captain Moore that several miles must be added to the
+day's journey as soon as the horses had fed and were rested, in order
+that something might be done towards catching up with the possible
+movements of Kah-go-mish.
+
+Ping and Tah-nu-nu mounted their ponies, but just before they did so the
+old Chiricahua came and seemed to be spinning to them some of his yarns.
+It must have had reference to the pool, for he pointed at it, and both
+of them nodded as if it were an interesting story.
+
+No story of the past had been told, but one of the immediate future had
+been suggested. In fact, it was all carefully planned out, and all that
+remained was to act it out, for there was no one there to write it.
+
+The intention of the cavalry and cowboys was to take things easy that
+afternoon, and they rode on in a long, straggling cavalcade, among
+groves of trees, reaches of grass, clumps of bushes, and occasional bits
+of rocky ground, while away to the south were evidently mountains such
+as Kah-go-mish led his band through after his great feat in the
+character of a log with a knot on it.
+
+Up to this time Ping and Tah-nu-nu had hardly been separated for a
+moment, but now he seemed willing to lag towards the rear, talking with
+the old Chiricahua, while she rode forward with the others, as if she
+too had become a scout. If any white man had suspected them of a purpose
+of getting away, the suspicion disappeared when this was seen.
+
+Colonel Evans had no suspicion concerning Tah-nu-nu or the two
+Chiricahuas, but he almost wanted to put away his thoughts of Cal, and
+he pushed his big black horse on alongside of her pony. There were
+flashes in her dark eyes and there were tightenings of her lips, and now
+and then she glanced right and left half excitedly. She drew her breath
+very hard and glanced at the Chiricahuas as she and the colonel rode
+past a rugged patch of craggy forest. His face was as if made of wood,
+but he said "Ugh!"
+
+The whip in Tah-nu-nu's hand fell sharply upon her pony's flank. It was
+a blow given in utter vexation, rather than purposely, but the pony
+sprang forward all the same. So did the big black, and the strong hand
+of Colonel Evans reined in the pony.
+
+"No, Tah-nu-nu," he said, "you can't get away."
+
+"Ping is the son of a great chief!" she exclaimed, angrily. "Got away!
+Whoop! Heap good! Tah-nu-nu stay! Die! No pale-face!"
+
+She was intensely excited, her dark, regular features were flushed, and
+the colonel said to himself that she looked like another girl. All three
+of the Chiricahuas were with him at that moment. Not one of them took
+any notice of Tah-nu-nu's utterances, but the colonel straightened in
+the saddle. "Boys," he shouted to the nearest men behind him, "where's
+that young 'Pache? Go for him! The girl's been trying to escape!"
+
+Men in blue uniforms and men in red shirts wheeled at once, shouting to
+others farther in the rear. The whole line wheeled and shouted and
+searched hither and thither, and not any were more active than were the
+three Chiricahuas.
+
+It was all in vain. There was not a trace to be found of
+The-boy-whose-ear-pushed-away-a-piece-of-lead.
+
+Tah-nu-nu was suffering a terrible disappointment, and so was somebody
+else. Colonel Evans felt badly enough, but his caprice for a chat with
+Tah-nu-nu had prevented the superstitious Chiricahuas from entirely
+avoiding the "bad medicine" of Kah-go-mish. Part of it had been put away
+when the old story-teller, riding by Ping's side, had remarked, "Ugh!
+Heap bush." He came out of that bit of chaparral all alone, and, for
+some reason, Ping knew where he ought to expect a meeting with
+Tah-nu-nu. He did not at once walk his pony as the rest were doing, but
+galloped hard for quite a distance. He made a wide circuit in advance
+and at last dismounted upon the summit of a ledgy hill, among crags and
+forest trees. Here he could look down and see what occurred, and almost
+hear what was said as the cavalcade went by.
+
+"Heap rock!" he had exclaimed. "Now Tah-nu-nu come."
+
+Then he saw why she did not, could not come, and his disappointment was
+as bitter as any human disappointment well could be. A light which had
+grown in his dark young face faded from it. He hung his head almost
+listlessly as he wheeled his pony southward. He had escaped and he could
+not return into captivity, but Tah-nu-nu was still a prisoner. What
+should he say to Kah-go-mish and Wah-wah-o-be? That is, indeed, if he
+should succeed in finding his own perilous way to the lodges of his
+band.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV.
+
+HAND TO HAND BY FIRELIGHT.
+
+
+Colonel Evans and Captain Moore were vexed more deeply than they could
+have told by the escape of Ping. How it had been accomplished was a
+mystery. It was of no use whatever to lay the blame upon the
+Chiricahuas, or to ask them any questions. Each had been able to render
+a seemingly good account of himself, and each had taken the occasion to
+declare his undying enmity to Kah-go-mish and all his band. They did not
+tell how much better they felt, now that Ping's part of the "bad
+medicine" which threatened them had galloped away.
+
+As for Tah-nu-nu, she had never before known what it was to feel
+lonesome. So long as Ping had been in the camp she had been able to keep
+up her spirits, but now even her pride almost broke down, and if she had
+not been the daughter of a great chief she could have cried about it
+all.
+
+One of the two securities for Cal's safe return having disappeared,
+there was sure to be greater care taken of the other. Sam Herrick had
+probably never said "Colorado!" more emphatically than he did when he
+added: "Well, now, I'd like to see that gal git away. She won't!"
+
+Cal should have had still greater security held for him by his friends
+instead of less, for the events of the previous night had by no means
+ended when the squaw and pack-mule part of the Apache encampment
+succeeded in getting out into the open desert.
+
+The Mexican commander had made all his plans with caution as well as
+with skill, and their nature had been but imperfectly reported to
+Kah-go-mish. That chief knew that his assailants were drawing near the
+camp, through the woods, on foot, in three detachments. He knew that
+each body of soldiers was too strong for him to face, and that all had
+been cavalry before they dismounted. He was sure, therefore, that away
+in the rear of all must be a drove of several hundreds of horses. What
+he did not calculate upon was the strength and vigilance of the
+detachment left in charge of those horses.
+
+When, therefore, the Apache camp was abandoned, and all its treasures of
+quadrupeds and stores had been hurried out of harm's way, Kah-go-mish
+did not go with his family and household goods. He and a score of his
+best warriors rode away upon an errand worthy of so great a commander.
+They made a wide circuit, along the edge of the plain, entered the deep
+forest once more, dismounted, tied their horses, and pushed rapidly
+forward on foot. They were in the rear of the attacking columns, and
+were very near to the rear-guard and its drove when the Mexicans dashed
+in upon the camp.
+
+Creeping from tree to tree, nearer and nearer, the chief and his chosen
+braves reached the right spot and were entirely ready for the dash which
+they also had prepared at the moment when they heard the rattling
+volleys, the shouts, and the bugle-calls.
+
+Small fires had been kindled by the Mexican rear-guard, and there were
+torches here and there, but these were not enough. The darkness was
+still sufficient to conceal from the creeping Apaches the fact that the
+Mexican commander had left a hundred men to guard his precious
+quadrupeds. He had stationed them well, also, and they were on the alert
+for Indians.
+
+Loud rang the war-whoops of Kah-go-mish and his daring followers, and
+their rifles cracked rapidly for a half-minute before they sprang out of
+their cover. Not many bullets could be expected to reach a human mark by
+firelight and torchlight. Very few soldiers were touched, but quite a
+number of horses received wounds which made them give tenfold effect to
+the panic and fright produced by the yells and rifle-reports. Neighing,
+kicking, screaming, the entire drove broke loose as the Apaches dashed
+in among them, and the shadowy woods around were full of trampling
+hoofs.
+
+As a military manoeuvre, the plan of Kah-go-mish had thus far been a
+complete success, for he wanted only a stampede, and had no idea of
+capturing any of those horses. There, however, his success ended. The
+drove was scattered, so that there could be no immediate pursuit of him
+and his, but the Mexican militia had not been stampeded. They stood
+their ground like brave fellows, and closed in at once upon the whooping
+red-men.
+
+Bitter was the wrath of Kah-go-mish, for he found himself outnumbered
+several times. Half of his own warriors had instantly disappeared among
+the trees, as was their duty. The other half went down around him, man
+by man, whooping, firing swift and deadly shots, but well aware that for
+once their trusted leader had led them into a death-trap.
+
+There came a lurid moment when he stood alone, in front of one of the
+blazing heaps of light-wood, surrounded on all sides by men who had
+drawn their sabres because they could not use firearms for fear of
+hitting one another.
+
+Calm and ringing was the whoop of defiance with which he stood at bay, a
+revolver in one hand and a bowie-knife in the other.
+
+"Kah-go-mish is a great chief!" he shouted.
+
+Another whoop sprang to his lips, but it was not completed. There were
+flashes of steel blades in the shadows around him, and he fell heavily
+upon the grass.
+
+The Mexican commander was as much astonished by the sounds of battle
+behind him as he had been by the deserted condition of the camp he had
+intended to surprise. He ordered his three detachments to wheel at once,
+but they were impeded by the part of the stampeded drove which rushed in
+their direction. There were shouts and exclamations all along the line
+as the frightened animals broke through, but the officers held their men
+well in hand and pushed steadily forward. It was all a riddle until they
+marched out at the line of corral camp-fires. There were the rear-guard,
+drawn up in perfect order, except a few who were out in the woods
+gathering horses, and a few who were wounded, and a few more who would
+never mount again.
+
+Explanations were promptly made, and the officer commanding the
+rear-guard was warmly commended.
+
+"The Apache chief fell," he said. "Kah-go-mish."
+
+"What?" exclaimed the commander. "Kah-go-mish? That is enough. It was
+worth what it cost."
+
+An hour or so later all that was left, a dozen out of the score who had
+ridden with the chief, caught up with their band. They came in silence
+until they were very near. The entire train halted, and a sort of
+shudder seemed to run through it. Not so should a war-party have
+returned, under the leadership of Kah-go-mish. There should have been a
+well-known voice, sounding its accustomed whoop of triumph. Instead of
+it another voice arose, long drawn and mournfully. It was the
+death-whoop of the Apaches, and it was answered by a woman's involuntary
+wail, for Wah-wah-o-be knew that the signal had been given for
+Kah-go-mish.
+
+Crooked Nose had not been with the chief's party, but had ridden by Cal
+as a special keeper. The instant he heard the death-whoop he turned to
+his charge and said, in a not unfriendly manner: "Pull stick got bad
+manitou. Ugh! All Apache heap mad. Heap kill. Great chief gone dead. All
+paleface die. Heap bad medicine."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI.
+
+HOW CAL WAS LEFT ALL ALONE.
+
+
+All that Crooked Nose had said about the grief and wrath of the Apaches
+over the loss of Kah-go-mish was true, but Cal seemed for a few hours to
+be almost forgotten.
+
+"Tan-tan-e-o-tan is a great chief," said the warrior upon whom the
+direction of affairs appeared as a matter of course to fall.
+
+He was the short, intoed, bow-legged brave who had been accustomed to
+command in the now dead leader's absence, and he had never yet told
+anybody how much he envied and hated Kah-go-mish. His first duty was to
+get away from the Mexicans without losing any more braves or horses, and
+there was no time for mourning. He then saw before him an immediate path
+to safety if not to glory, and he determined to follow it. He did not
+know that he had determined to carry out the great plan of Kah-go-mish.
+
+Very faint and difficult to find or follow was the trail left upon the
+sun-baked, wind-swept gravel of the plains by the dejected Mescalero
+cavalcade. It was several hours before Tan-tan-e-o-tan and his warriors
+deemed it safe to turn again towards the line of forest and find a new
+camp-ground.
+
+They knew that they were in no immediate danger, for the Mexican
+cavalry could undertake no pursuit that night. Even when morning came a
+large part of the horses Kah-go-mish had stampeded were yet roving
+through the woods. Scouting parties were sent out in all directions,
+however, and a courier was hurried away with the news of the destruction
+of the dangerous chief and of the eight warriors who had fallen with
+him. Unlucky Colonel Romero, two days' journey westward, was at the same
+hour penning a sad despatch announcing the loss of his mules and
+supplies.
+
+Tah-nu-nu once more awoke as a prisoner in the hands of the pale-faces,
+and the first thought which came to her was that Ping was gone and that
+she was alone. A remarkably good breakfast was provided for her, and
+while she was eating it she heard Captain Moore say, with emphasis: "You
+are right, Colonel Evans. Your best plan is to strike for home by the
+shortest road. You won't hear one word more about Cal before you get
+there. What Kah-go-mish means is plain. He wants to keep as many of your
+horses as he can and trade your boy for his girl. He can't stay in
+Mexico. You'll hear from him at Santa Lucia. My trip is ended and I'm
+willing to push as fast as ever you wish."
+
+Tah-nu-nu asked the Chiricahuas about it soon afterwards, and then she
+knew that she was to be taken to the lodge of the long cowboy chief, and
+kept there until Kah-go-mish should come and pay ponies for her. It was
+an awful thing for an Indian girl to think of, but there was no help for
+it, and she mounted her pony, sure of being well guarded. It was Sam
+Herrick's turn or Bill's, to ride by her side whenever the colonel was
+not there. The Chiricahuas were not needed any more, considering what
+had become of The-boy-whose-ear-pushed-away-a-piece-of-lead.
+
+They did not, indeed, know what had become of him. Perhaps the old
+Chiricahua guessed that he had been hidden among the "heap rock"
+bowlders and crags at one time, and knew why Tah-nu-nu did not join him.
+Even for the dusky scouts all was guess-work beyond that.
+
+Somewhat so had it been to Ping himself, but he had not listened to all
+the wise words of his father and the elders of his band for nothing.
+Even the stories told him by Wah-wah-o-be had been full of instruction.
+From one of these, concerning the feats performed by a great brave of
+the Apaches, he had derived lessons which had just now been of value to
+him. So had the uncommon size of the Reservation-collection trousers
+which had fallen to his share. Even after they were cut off at the knee
+there was room in them for another boy of his size. The pockets were so
+many canvas caves, and they were pretty well filled. Any boy knows that
+a pocket will hold a large part of his property if he keeps on putting
+things in, and Ping had put in everything he or Tah-nu-nu could lay
+their hands on. The pale-faces had his bow and arrows, but he had
+collected their full value. One trouser leg concealed a bowie-knife and
+the other a revolver. There were hooks and lines in one pocket and some
+cartridges, with some hard-tack. A large chunk of boiled beef was in
+another, and it was plain that the Chiricahuas had done something to
+prevent a famine to Ping from bringing upon them more of the "bad
+medicine" of Kah-go-mish. Unless he should meet with enemies or with too
+wide a desert, Ping was fairly well provided for a hunting and fishing
+excursion. He had never in all his life felt so proud and warrior-like
+as when he rode out from among the crags and wheeled his pony southward
+to find the trail of his people. He did not reach it that day, but when
+he made his lonely camp-fire at night, ate for supper some fish he had
+caught and the last of his chunk of beef, he would have been all over
+comfortable and satisfied if only Tah-nu-nu had been with him instead of
+being a long day's march nearer Santa Lucia.
+
+That same night was by no means so comfortable for Cal. Tan-tan-e-o-tan
+had not so much as spoken to him all day long, but neither had he spoken
+to Wah-wah-o-be. He had seemed to grow haughtier and more gloomy from
+hour to hour, and had given orders as if he had been Kah-go-mish and a
+trifle more. The march had been through as much desert and chaparral and
+rocky ground as was convenient, and an early camp was made in order that
+the four-footed wealth of the band might have a long rest and a good
+feed. Tan-tan-e-o-tan declared that they would need it, since the next
+day's trail would be through mountain-passes.
+
+"Good!" said Wah-wah-o-be. "Do what Kah-go-mish say. Heap bad Indian.
+Ugh!"
+
+The band had lost its chief and some warriors, but it was rich in
+horses, ponies, and mules. Part of these were doubtful property so long
+as the band remained in Mexico, but might not be so much so if carried
+north of the boundary line. The Santa Lucia quadrupeds, on the other
+hand, had no Mexican claimant, but would be poor property in the United
+States. These facts presented serious questions, and Tan-tan-e-o-tan
+reflected that Pull Stick was the only person in his camp who not only
+knew the whole story, but would be willing to tell it if he had a chance
+given him. There was much talk among the leading braves that night, as
+well as much mourning for Kah-go-mish and the fallen warriors. No
+decision was reached, and Crooked Nose told Cal that every friend of
+Wah-wah-o-be and her children had been opposed to "Make heap fire all
+over Pull Stick."
+
+Wah-wah-o-be herself was too full of grief to say anything, and Cal was
+left with a pretty clear idea that his case was getting darker. It was
+not easy to keep up much courage, but he was very weary in mind and
+body, and he slept as well as any fellow could, lying on the bare ground
+with his hands tied behind. He was untied when morning came in order to
+eat his breakfast, and he was busily at work upon it when a great shout
+at the other side of the camp was answered by a positive yell of delight
+from Wah-wah-o-be.
+
+"Ping! Ping!" she screamed, and added all the syllables of his best
+name.
+
+There was a grand time after that, and
+The-boy-whose-ear-pushed-away-a-piece-of-lead was a hero and the most
+important person in the entire camp. Even Tan-tan-e-o-tan considered him
+so until his report was made as to what the blue-coats and cowboys were
+doing, and Wah-wah-o-be did not give it up then. She was comforted
+concerning Tah-nu-nu, while Ping listened with all the trained
+steadiness of an Indian brave to the dark, tidings of the death of
+Kah-go-mish.
+
+He listened in silence, looking at Cal, and it may be that he had in his
+mind a picture of the first glimpse which he and Tah-nu-nu had had of
+the young pale-face horseman, for his next inquiry was concerning the
+"heap pony."
+
+Wah-wah-o-be sprang from the ground, where she had seated herself for
+her recital. She darted away; and in a few minutes more Cal saw her
+return.
+
+Well might Ping's delight break through his grief, for with one bound he
+was upon the back of the red mustang. Cal's belt, with its pistol and
+cartridge case, his repeating rifle, his elegant knife, even his Panama
+hat, were duly delivered to The-boy-whose-ear-pushed-away-a-piece-of-lead.
+Saddle and bridle and all, Ping had taken the place of Pull Stick as the
+master of the swiftest, toughest, best mustang in all southern New
+Mexico--just now in old Mexico.
+
+Part of Ping's news had been that he had seen and been seen by a party
+of Mexican cavalry. There were not many of them, apparently, but he was
+now summoned to pilot some braves who were to ride out and take a
+distant look at them. Proud was he, and a proud squaw was Wah-wah-o-be
+when he rode away upon the red mustang.
+
+It was a dark hour for Cal. The preparations for breaking camp went
+swiftly on. They had been nearly completed when Ping appeared, and now
+every pony and mule and horse was soon in motion. No pony was brought
+for Cal. Instead thereof came Tan-tan-e-o-tan, with a grim scowl upon
+his face. He was accompanied by a pair of Apaches as merciless as
+himself, and they had plainly determined to put away the one witness
+whose memory and tongue were dangerous to them. They did not see fit to
+use lead or steel or fire, but Cal was more securely staked out this
+time. No twig was driven into a gopher hole, and he was told, "Pull
+Stick get away now. Ugh! Medicine gone."
+
+Their task accomplished, they remounted and rode away, leaving their
+victim alone and helpless in the shadowy forest.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII.
+
+RESCUED BY THE RED MUSTANG.
+
+
+The scouting party of Mexican cavalry reported by Ping were few in
+number, and were a long distance from any support. They had been willing
+enough to follow the movements of a solitary Indian boy, but were not
+disposed for a skirmish with the braves who now rode out of the forest
+behind Tan-tan-e-o-tan. There would have been no brush at all if it had
+not been for the revengeful tumult in the heart of Ping, and for the
+fact that he was so splendidly armed and mounted.
+
+The men in uniform yonder belonged to the troops who had slain
+Kah-go-mish, and Ping shouted, in Apache, "I am the son of a great
+chief!"
+
+He disobeyed a warning whoop of Tan-tan-e-o-tan, for he was bent upon
+riding within range, and Dick bore him swiftly onward. All the warlike
+thoughts and hopes which make up the thoughts of an Indian boy were
+dancing wildly around in his fevered brain. He was a warrior, facing the
+ancient enemies of his race, the men who had killed his father.
+
+Alas for Ping! Range for him was also range for the now retreating
+cavalry, and his one fruitless shot was replied to by a volley.
+
+"Zst-ping!" he exclaimed, involuntarily shouting his own nickname, as
+the bullets whizzed past him, and then he felt suddenly sick and dizzy.
+One ball had not gone by.
+
+Dick obeyed the rein and wheeled towards the forest, but after that he
+was left to his own guidance. Ping was not unconscious, and he clung
+proudly, courageously to his rifle--Cal's repeater. He held on to the
+pommel of the saddle with one hand, but he hardly knew more than that he
+was riding the "heap pony"--riding, riding, riding--somewhere.
+
+Tan-tan-e-o-tan alone followed, at a considerable distance, the wounded
+son of Kah-go-mish, the other braves dashing away at once to join the
+band upon its eagerly pushed retreat into the mountains.
+
+Under the shade of the forest trees, near the waning camp-fire at which
+Wah-wah-o-be had cooked his breakfast, lay poor Cal. For him,
+apparently, all hope had departed, for he had vainly struggled to loosen
+the forked stakes which held down his hands and his feet.
+
+"I've no chance to pry," he groaned, "or I could do it;" but then that
+is the very reason why the red-men fasten their prisoners in that
+manner. Any man can pull up such a stick, if he can get a pry at it or
+even a direct pull.
+
+"I shall die of hunger and thirst and mosquito bites," he said. "It's
+worse than killing one right off. It's as bad as fire could be!"
+
+Just then he heard the sound of a horse's feet, and he drew his breath
+hard as he listened. Was it one of the Apaches come to torture him?
+Could it be a Mexican? It was a moment of awful expectation, and then
+he exclaimed, "Dick!"
+
+Dick had come, and he had found his way to the camp he had left, and he
+had brought home his young rider, but that was all, for Ping reeled in
+the saddle and then fell heavily to the earth. He was never to become a
+war-chief of the Mescaleros. His first skirmish had been his last.
+
+"Dick!" again shouted Cal, and the faithful fellow at once walked over
+to where his master lay. He seemed to understand that something was
+wrong with Cal, for he pawed the ground and neighed and whinnied as if
+asking, "What does this mean?" Dick's eyes had an excited look, and his
+ears were moving backward and forward, nervously, when again there was a
+sound of coming hoofs. Cal raised his head and saw Tan-tan-e-o-tan
+spring from his horse, stoop and examine poor Ping.
+
+"Ugh!" he exclaimed. "Heap dead!" A whoop followed instantly--a fierce
+and angry whoop.
+
+One of Dick's pawing forefeet had been unintentionally put down close by
+Cal's left hand. It was a quick thought, a lightning flash of hope,
+which led Cal to grasp the hoof with all the strength he had.
+
+Dick lifted his foot, and oh, how Cal's wrist hurt him, in the sudden,
+hard wrench that followed! It was his last chance for life and he held
+on, and the whoop of Tan-tan-e-o-tan was given as he saw the forked
+stake jerked clean out of the ground.
+
+Forward, with another yell, sprang the angry savage, drawing his knife
+as he came, but that screech was too much for the nerves of the red
+mustang. Out went his iron-shod heels, and there was a sharp thud as
+one of them struck between the eyes of Tan-tan-e-o-tan.
+
+"Hurrah for Dick!" shouted Cal, as his enemy rolled over and over upon
+the ferns and leaves. "That fellow won't get up again."
+
+Cal could now toil away with his lame hand to set the other at liberty.
+After that he was glad to find his knife in his pocket, for one of his
+ankle stakes refused to come up, and had to be whittled through. He
+worked with feverish, frantic energy, and he barely finished his task in
+time. He had only to whistle for Dick. His whole body seemed to tremble
+as he hurried forward to regain the belt and rifle which Wah-wah-o-be had
+so proudly given to Ping. The-boy-whose-ear-pushed-away-a-piece-of-lead
+would never need them or the "heap pony" any more.
+
+Cal did not mount, but led Dick away into the cover of the forest.
+
+"We should be seen if I rode away now," he said to Dick.
+
+Hardly was he well concealed behind dense bushes before, as he peered
+out, he saw Wah-wah-o-be, followed closely by Crooked Nose, gallop into
+the deserted camp. She had already heard that Ping was wounded, but not
+how badly, and she threw herself upon the ground beside him with a great
+cry. Crooked Nose bent for one moment over Tan-tan-e-o-tan, and the
+Apache death-whoop rang twice, long and mournfully, through the forest.
+It was followed by fierce and angry utterances, among which Cal caught
+something about Mexicans, and then Crooked Nose looked sharply around
+him.
+
+"Ugh!" he exclaimed. "Heap Pony gone. Pull Stick gone! Big medicine. Bad
+manitou."
+
+Cal's second escape was plainly a greater mystery than the first had
+been. It was as Crooked Nose declared, and he was a boy whose medicine
+enabled him to get out of tight places.
+
+Cal decided that it was time for him to get away, lest others should
+come, for he did not know how fast the band was retreating. He had a
+thought, too, of meeting the Mexicans who had wounded Ping. He picked
+his way carefully, stealthily, among the trees, followed faithfully by
+Dick, and at the outer border of the forest he mounted. No Mexicans were
+in sight, nor any Indians, and he knew that beyond the broken ground
+before him lay the desert. What he did not know was that his father and
+all who were with him were already two days' march on their homeward
+journey.
+
+"I can find my way by the sun and by the stars," he said to himself.
+"I've had my breakfast. Dick can have some grass by and by. I may kill
+game on the way. Never mind if I don't. Santa Lucia is off there to the
+northeast. Now, Dick, this is your business. How many miles can you put
+behind you between this and sunset?"
+
+Dick pawed the ground, but he said nothing. Cal examined his cartridges;
+filled two or three empty chambers in his rifle and revolver; tightened
+the girth of his saddle a little; fixed his belt right--
+
+"Dick!" he shouted. "Now for Santa Lucia!"
+
+Away went the red mustang, and if any Indians had followed him, they
+would have lost the race.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII.
+
+HOW THEY ALL REACHED SANTA LUCIA.
+
+
+A band of Indians who are in a great hurry travel rapidly, even if now
+and then they leave a worn-out pony behind them. They are also pretty
+sure to take short cuts and to save distances, and that was more than
+Cal Evans was able to do.
+
+The Chiricahua scouts with Captain Moore knew every inch of the country,
+and did not permit the cavalry and cowboys to do any needless
+travelling.
+
+Late in the forenoon of the third day after Ping's first and last ride
+upon the "heap pony," all was serenely quiet at Santa Lucia. It was too
+quiet, altogether, because its inmates were in such blue anxiety that
+they did not feel like doing anything. Reading was impossible, and any
+effort at conversation did but repeat the regret that there was no news
+from Cal or his father. The failure of everything else accounted for the
+fact that at this hour Vic and her mother were upon the roof, sweeping
+the horizon with the field-glass.
+
+Suddenly Mrs. Evans held out the glass, exclaiming: "Look! Vic!
+Cavalry!"
+
+"Oh!" shouted Vic, and in a moment more they were hurrying down and out
+of the hacienda.
+
+A roll of the prairie had hidden the approach of a column of mounted men
+until they were pretty near, and now all who wore uniform and a number
+of others halted at a hundred yards from the stockade gate at which Mrs.
+Evans and Vic were standing. One man dismounted and walked forward,
+leading by the hand a strangely dressed but comely-looking Indian girl.
+His face was flushed and troubled, and the eyes of the girl glanced
+timidly in all directions, as if seeking a means of escape from meeting
+those two pale-face squaws.
+
+"Husband!" exclaimed Mrs. Evans, turning very pale, "where is Cal?"
+
+"Cal!" echoed Vic, with painful eagerness.
+
+"He is a prisoner," faltered the colonel.
+
+"Father!" almost screamed Vic. "The Apaches have got him?"
+
+"The same band that took the horses, and that this girl belongs to. Vic,
+this is Tah-nu-nu. We shall hear from Cal."
+
+It was dreadful news, and it was not possible to hear it calmly, but
+Captain Moore now rode up and so did Sam Herrick. They had wished that
+first meeting over, and the report of Cal's captivity made without their
+being too near. Mrs. Evans managed to maintain her dignity fairly well
+to receive them, but they found Vic in an uncontrollable fit of crying.
+
+"Vic," said her father, "don't cry. Cal will surely come back soon, safe
+and sound. Take Tah-nu-nu into the house."
+
+At that moment they were all startled by a burst of cheering from the
+mounted men. Cheer followed cheer, and as the group at the gate turned
+to look, they saw a rider who dashed past the cavalry at full gallop.
+He was swinging his hat tremendously, but seemed unable to hurrah.
+
+"Colorado!" shouted Sam Herrick. "Cal and the red mustang!"
+
+After that nobody could have told what was said by anybody during a full
+three minutes. Then there came a sort of breathing-spell that was almost
+silence. They had begun to walk towards the house, and Vic was leading
+Tah-nu-nu a little in advance of the rest.
+
+"How did you say you managed to get away from Kah-go-mish?" asked
+Captain Moore.
+
+"It's a pretty long story," said Cal, "but there isn't any Kah-go-mish.
+He was killed in a fight with the Mexicans."
+
+"Did Ping get in before you left them?" asked Colonel Evans.
+
+"Yes, he did, father. I felt real bad about that. Such a young fellow.
+Not any older than I am."
+
+"Killed, was he? Colorado! I'm sorry," exclaimed Sam Herrick.
+
+The leading features of Cal's capture and escape had already been told,
+but they were now gone over more minutely, and it was determined not at
+once to tell Tah-nu-nu.
+
+"I must think the matter over," said Mrs. Evans.
+
+"Poor little thing!"
+
+That was what Vic said, but she took Tah-nu-nu to her own room, and the
+shy, frightened look of the lonely Indian girl began to turn into one of
+relief, but also of intense curiosity. She saw nothing but friendliness
+in the face of Vic, and at last she remarked: "Tah-nu-nu glad Heap Pony
+get away."
+
+Vic could laugh heartily at that, and she was joined by Tah-nu-nu when
+the chief's daughter discovered what was next expected of her. She
+rebelled stoutly at first, but Vic was determined to have her own way,
+and when they came out again Tah-nu-nu was too proud and shy to utter a
+word. She wanted to run away and hide, and yet she wished to be seen in
+her new outfit, for Vic had put upon her a dress which she herself had
+refused to wear because it was too brightly gay for her sense of
+dignity. Tah-nu-nu had very pretty moccasins of her own, and now, with
+white metal ornaments at her throat and upon her wrists, and with a
+bright ribbon in her coal-black hair, she was the best-dressed girl of
+the Mescalero Apaches.
+
+It seemed too bad to tell her any saddening news then, and during all
+the rest of that day Tah-nu-nu was treated as an Indian gentleman's
+daughter on a visit to Santa Lucia.
+
+It was a great day for Tah-nu-nu, and Norah McLory and the Mexican
+servants were explaining to her the wonders of the kitchen during the
+long time spent by Cal in telling the minute particulars of his
+adventures in the Cold Spring chaparral and in Mexico. His mother and
+Vic seemed disposed to keep their hands upon him, from the beginning to
+the end of his story, as if for fear that he might again be lost or
+captured.
+
+Captain Moore and his cavalry camped near Santa Lucia that night, and
+marched away early in the morning.
+
+Tah-nu-nu awoke in a pale-face bed, in a great lodge, such as she had
+seen before but never entered, and she hardly felt like a prisoner.
+
+"Kah-go-mish is a great chief," she said, for her first thought was of
+his coming for her release.
+
+An hour or two later she and Vic and Cal took a long horseback ride, and
+once more Tah-nu-nu admired the "heap pony." She was beginning to feel
+very much at ease, especially with Cal, for he had been acquainted with
+her family.
+
+They had been back at the ranch but a short time when Sam Herrick came
+in and beckoned to Colonel Evans.
+
+"What is it, Sam?"
+
+"Colorado!" exclaimed Sam. "There's an Indian and a squaw come. The red
+mustang was out there, and the Indian whooped when he sot eyes onto him.
+They want to see Pull Stick."
+
+"That's my name!" shouted Cal, and he sprang up and hurried out.
+
+He was followed by everybody but Tah-nu-nu, and in a moment he was
+shaking hands with Crooked Nose and Wah-wah-o-be.
+
+Their errand was briefly given. The whole band, what was left of it, had
+decided to return to the Reservation. They knew that in order to do so
+safely they must give up the Santa Lucia horses, and they had sent
+Wah-wah-o-be to say that they were ready to do it. What they did not add
+was that they were rich enough with the other quadrupeds won by
+Kah-go-mish in his successful war with Mexico. They wished to have word
+sent to the blue-coats. Nobody need follow them, and the horses
+belonging to Colonel Evans would be delivered next day, with two good
+Mexican mules to pay for his cattle. It was a capital bargain for him,
+and reduced his loss to a low figure. He agreed to it at once, and then
+Wah-wah-o-be asked for Tah-nu-nu.
+
+"We are going to keep her," said Mrs. Evans. "We will keep you, too, if
+you will come. You need not go to the Reservation."
+
+Wah-wah-o-be's blanket came up over her head, and her loud, wailing cry
+was heard in the adobe. In a moment more Tah-nu-nu's arms were around
+her mother, and she knew that she should never again see Kah-go-mish or
+The-boy-whose-ear-pushed-away-a-piece-of-lead.
+
+Down upon the ground they sat, the great chief's wife and daughter, and
+it was hours before they could be persuaded to speak or to come into the
+house. When they at last did so, the mind of Wah-wah-o-be was made up.
+Kah-go-mish had declared that he would never return to the Reservation.
+Whatever others might do, therefore, she would not. Her proud position
+in her band was also gone, with her wise, brave husband and her
+promising son. She was ready to consent that Tah-nu-nu should remain at
+Santa Lucia. She would herself come back and bring her property with
+her.
+
+Tah-nu-nu would hardly have consented if it had not been for the
+positive commands of her mother, and if these had not been helped by her
+wonderful new dress and by the urgency of Vic. She roundly declared,
+however, that she would never hoe corn.
+
+Crooked Nose had very little to say after his first errand was
+completed, but just before he rode away he led Cal a little to one side.
+They were out in front of the adobe, and Dick was standing near them,
+unsaddled, unbridled, very much as if he were a house-dog, with a right
+to step around anywhere.
+
+"Ugh!" said Crooked Nose. "Pull Stick get away again. How?"
+
+"Heap Pony," said Cal, pointing to the red mustang.
+
+"Ugh!" said Crooked Nose. "Who kill Tan-tan-e-o-tan."
+
+"Heap Pony," replied Cal again.
+
+"Ugh! Heap bad medicine. No like him. Pull Stick got manitou."
+
+Something like that, in a higher and better form, was what Cal's mother
+had been telling him. She also declared that she meant to do all in her
+power for the squaw who brought Cal his gourd of water when he was all
+but dying of thirst, and for her bright-eyed daughter. Something very
+good was, therefore, in store for Tah-nu-nu. Perhaps it was something
+which Ping could not or would not have taken.
+
+Wah-wah-o-be kept her word, and when she returned she brought quite a
+drove of horses, mules, and ponies with her, as the property of
+Kah-go-mish, and Colonel Romero was not there to identify any of them.
+Cal did not know one from another, whether they were Apache bred or
+Mexican, and he said so.
+
+There was really but one horse in the world that he cared much about. In
+fact, not only he and his family, but the cowboys and Wah-wah-o-be and
+Tah-nu-nu were disposed to attach an almost human idea to the uncommon
+qualities of head and heart which had been displayed by the red mustang.
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+    +----------------------------------------------------+
+    |             Transcriber's Note:                    |
+    |                                                    |
+    | Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the       |
+    | original document have been preserved.             |
+    |                                                    |
+    | Typographical errors corrected in the text:        |
+    |                                                    |
+    | Page  60  fale changed to face                     |
+    | Page  61  Chiracahua changed to Chiricahua         |
+    | Page  64  Sante changed to Santa                   |
+    | Page  69  Gringoes changed to Gringos              |
+    | Page  72  woop changed to whoop                    |
+    | Page  81  Chiracahua changed to Chiricahua         |
+    | Page  85  Tar-nu-nu changed to Tah-nu-nu           |
+    | Page 103  discontentetly changed to discontentedly |
+    | Page 154  led changed to lead                      |
+    | Page 217  spirt changed to spirit                  |
+    | Page 223  ranche changed to ranch                  |
+    +----------------------------------------------------+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Red Mustang, by William O. Stoddard
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