"They will run to water," Geronimo agreed.
Naiche asked wonderingly, "You would give good horses to white
soldiers?"
"These horses are too spent to serve us any longer," Geronimo said. "Let
them go."
Tie ropes were slipped. Following the smell of water, the horses were
off at a gallop.
Geronimo led his warriors forward. He stopped them just beneath the rim
of the canyon in which the water hole lay. Again he thrust bits of brush
into his headband and crawled forward to look.
The thirsty horses had come in and were crowding each other at the water
hole. A young lieutenant was ordering his men to mount. A scout whom
Geronimo had seen, but whose name he had never heard, was arguing with
the lieutenant.
"Don't do it!" the scout said. "Don't do it, Lieutenant!"
"You say these horses were loosed by Geronimo's men?" the lieutenant
asked.
The scout said, "Couldn't of been nobody else, an' every horse wears the
Pratt brand. Geronimo must of stole them there. I figure we'll find the
Pratt ranch burned an' maybe the Pratt brothers dead. But don't dash off
in all directions thisaway."
"If Geronimo's lost his horses, he and his men are afoot!" the young
lieutenant exclaimed.
"The only horses Geronimo ever _lost_ was them our scouts or soldiers
took away from him," the scout said. "He's turned these loose for some
deviltry of his own. An' did you ever try to hunt Apaches when they was
afoot?"
"No," the lieutenant admitted. "But they should be easy to catch."
[Illustration]
"'Bout as easy as so many quail with six extry wings," the scout said.
"You can't catch 'em."