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!