The Red Mustang

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.