THE POST-BOY THAT GOT AWAY.
Colonel Romero and most of his command spent the greater part of the day
after Cal's capture in waiting for the pack-mule train. Some went out
after game and did very well, and others went to hunt for signs of the
Apaches of Kah-go-mish and did not do well at all. The rest, officers,
cavalry, and rancheros, did nothing, and they all seemed to know how.
Right away after breakfast, and before the search for Cal began, the
dozen rancheros who no longer had any pack-mules to lead left Cold
Spring behind them. Out they marched, under careful directions, for the
way given them by Sam Herrick and the Chiricahuas. They certainly
marched well, but it was in dejected, disgusted silence. Kah-go-mish,
and, after him and his Apaches, Colonel Romero and his horsemen, had
trampled the old trail into a very new and plain one, easy to follow. It
was well for the peace of mind of the train-guard without any train that
it was so, for to be lost was for them to be starved, since they had not
so much as a bow and arrows to kill a jackass rabbit. Not one of them
now wore a hat, as the braves of Kah-go-mish had imitated their chief,
so far as a dozen Mexican sombreros went. There was no danger, however,
that the rancheros would get themselves tanned any darker. They pushed
on steadily across the desert, and at about the time when the dispirited
Americans who searched for Cal in the bushes gave it up and returned to
Cold Spring there was a great shout in the camp of Colonel Romero. All
the waiting for pack-mules and supplies was over, but the muleteers had
arrived, disarmed, hatless, and on foot.
The colonel and every other soul in the camp said as much as they knew
how to say concerning the cunning, daring, impudence, and wickedness of
all Apaches, and particularly of Kah-go-mish.
The message of the chief to the colonel was pretty fully given, leaving
out some of the animals, birds, and insects he had put into it, and a
council of war was called to consider the matter.
The council was unanimous. Without the supplies that had been lost it
was out of the question to chase Apaches. Without a good guess as to
precisely where Kah-go-mish had gone, they knew that he was away beyond
the desert somewhere, either in Mexico or the United States, and they
might as well give him up. It was therefore decided that all possible
hunting and fishing should be done at once, and that the entire command
must find its way to the nearest Mexican settlements as fast as it could
go.
So far as Colonel Romero's Mexicans were concerned Kah-go-mish already
felt pretty safe, but he was by no means sure what other forces of the
same nation might or might not be out in search of him.
As for the blue-coats and cowboys, the chief knew something about a
boundary line. There was one around the Mescalero Reservation, and he
had broken it, but he was sure that pale-faces never did such "bad
medicine." He was safe from the Americans until he should see fit to
re-enter the United States. That is, however, that he was proud to feel
and say that so great a chief as himself could not long be entirely safe
anywhere. Too many army-men wanted to see him.
In the camp at Cold Spring, Colonel Evans and all his friends felt that
they would give a great deal to know the exact circumstances under which
Cal had written his cactus-leaf letter. It passed from hand to hand, for
every man to take a look at it. The cavalry company was short of
officers, not having brought along even one lieutenant. The orderly
sergeant, therefore, was the man next in rank to the captain, but there
was another sergeant and two corporals, and they each had much more to
say than could rightly have been said by mere private soldiers.
All agreed that it was a remarkable letter; all were glad to hear that
Cal was safe, and all were glad that there was to be no more need of
bushwhacking and bugle-work in the hot chaparral.
The cowboys had opinions of their own, and most of them looked a little
blue.
"Staked out!" exclaimed Sam Herrick. "Colorado! To think of Cal Evans
staked out!"
"Wall, now, they let him up again," said Bill. "Looks as if they didn't
allow to torter him, leastwise not right away. What a lot of
wooden-heads we were, though, to let that there 'Pache that brought the
leaf slip out of reach the way he did."
"The cavalry had him," said Sam. "I took my eyes off him just a second,
and when I looked again he wasn't thar."
The cactus leaf came back to Colonel Evans, and once more he studied
every dent and scratch upon it. The writing looked as if it had been
done with the point of a knife. There could be no doubt but what it was
Cal's work.
"You'll see him again," said Captain Moore, encouragingly.
"It'll be about the time that Kah-go-mish sees his own children, I
reckon," replied the colonel. "They're a sort of security, but something
might happen to him in spite of their being here."
"Indians are uncertain; that's a fact," said the captain, "but you must
keep up your spirits. Do you believe in Providence, colonel? I do."
"Do I?" said Cal's father. "Of course I do. Why?"
"Well, isn't it curious that Cal hasn't been hurt, through all this, up
to the time when he wrote that letter? Wasn't he taken care of?" asked
the captain.
"He got lost in the chaparral, didn't he? Isn't he a prisoner now?"
"They found him, and it may be a good thing that they did. Hold on a
bit. Anyhow we'll keep a tight grip on those two young redskins."
"Ping," said the colonel. "That's a queer name for an Indian boy.
Tah-nu-nu isn't so bad for a young squaw. We'll camp here to-night?"
"Of course," said the captain, "but we'll make an early start in the
morning, and go back close along the boundary line. There's good grass
beyond the desert; wouldn't mind forgetting the line for a few miles if
we came near enough to any Apaches. Sorry I didn't get another talk with
the chief's messenger. It beats me how he slipped away."
The wild-looking-Mescalero postman who brought the cactus-leaf letter
may have had another errand on his hands. When he halted at the head of
the path, in full view of everybody, he did not look as if he meant to
go away without an answer, and he did not. He obtained one from Ping and
Tah-nu-nu, to carry to their father and mother. The Chiricahuas saw it
given, and afterwards reported that the signs exchanged told that all
were well, and that the young folk would soon be at liberty. Some other
messages came and went, through hands and feet and features, and then
the postman sank down into a sitting posture at the edge of the
chaparral. That was where Captain Moore now remembered seeing the last
of him.
The excitement over the cactus leaf absorbed all minds for a minute or
so, then, and the Apache warrior went under a bush as if he had been a
sage-hen. Once beyond it he was hidden, but he went snake-fashion some
distance farther. As soon as he deemed it safe to stand erect he did so.
"Ugh!" he remarked. "Pa-de-to-pah-kah-tse-caugh-to-kah-no-tan heap great
brave. Heap get away."
That was evidently his longest name, and he was a pretty tall Indian,
and had a right to compliment himself just then. The men who hurried out
after him, when they found that he was gone, went back again with a
mental assurance that he was somewhere in the chaparral, but that only
he himself knew precisely where. While they were hunting, he was walking
rapidly through the cross-paths of the spider-web. He came to a place
where one of the horses won by his band near Slater's Branch was tied to
a bush. He was saddled and bridled, and he carried also one of the small
water-barrels found among the equipments of the Mexican pack-mules. The
warrior picked up his weapons from the sand near the horse, drank some
water, complimented himself again, and went off on foot to complete his
day's business. He drew stealthily nearer and nearer to the cavalry and
cowboy camp at Cold Spring, and now, while Captain Moore and Colonel
Evans were expressing so much regret that the postman of Kah-go-mish was
beyond their reach, a pair of eyes under a thorn-bush, within a hundred
yards, watched their every movement and took note of whatever was going
on around the spring.
The lurking Apache could see much, but he could hear little. Least of
all could even his quick ears catch the suppressed whisper of Colonel
Evans when at last he lay down upon his blanket for a few hours of rest.
"Cal," he said, "if I don't take you home with me, what shall I say to
your mother?"