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.