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.