“Hello, Cheemie,” he greeted, as he and others of the scouts squatted near the camp-fires, to eat again. “We had good fun. It was Chato’s and Bonito’s rancherias. Alchisé and Sibi are mad because we shot too soon, and the Chiricahua ran off. We killed nine and captured those five. We didn’t catch any more. The country was very rough, and they hid. But we set the rancherias on fire. There were thirty houses. And to-morrow we get more Chiricahua.”
“Wasn’t the little white boy there, Micky?”
“Yes, he was there, the squaw says. His name Carlos (Charles); six years old. He was with some old squaws and they ran off with him. But she says she can find them in two days. Loco and Chihuahua want to come back to the reservation; maybe Geronimo and Chato and Nah-che; Whoa still thinks bad.”
“Where is Geronimo?” asked Frank Monach, in Spanish.
“Nearly all the Chiricahua men are down in the south, hunting Mexicans. They will be surprised when they know the Cluke men have found where they live, and that Pa-na-yo-tish-n had led us so straight. We now are inside and they are outside. Inju!”
Everybody was much disappointed that little Charley McComas had disappeared. If some of the younger scouts had not shot first without orders the rancherias might have been surrounded and Charley rescued.
However, the captured squaw seemed to be certain that she could find the older squaws who had him. Early in the morning she was sent away, with one of the boy prisoners and two days’ rations. She promised she would tell the Chiricahuas it was no use to fight.
This was a cold, rainy day, which made the waiting disagreeable. At night ice formed. In the morning a smoke signal was seen. The general ordered that it be answered. “Peaches” guided to a better camping-place, where there were grass and running water.
Another smoke signal was sent up, but only a few squaws and children came in. The squaws said that some other squaws had Charley McComas. One of the women was the sister of Chief Chihuahua (or Bonito). She stated that all the Chihuahua band would surrender as soon as her brother could get them together.
“The idee of the gen’ral is, not to do any more fightin’, if he can help it, till that white kid is fetched along,” explained Martin, the cook for the Monach pack-train and officers’ mess. “That’s what Cap’n Bourke says. You see, the leetle fellow’s with the Chihuahua band.”