The Red Mustang

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.

"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.