“There are soldiers marching this way,” he reported, breathless, and big with his news. “They struck us when we were eating, in the medicine springs valley near the Sierra Bonita. We were bringing meat up from Mexico, but we left it. We have seen signal fires telling us of other soldiers. Geronimo says to go at once to the next place-we-know-of.”
Instantly the camp was all confusion. The old men shouted, the women ran around screeching and gathering their household things, children scampered and screamed, dogs yelped. The frameworks of the huts were set afire, and leaving in the smoke the Chiricahuas hustled out for other quarters.
They made a queer procession. The old men stoutly hobbled by aid of long staffs or “walking-sticks”; the women were laden with huge bundles slung to their backs by means of straps about their foreheads, and with babies tucked into their shawls or bound in wicker cradles; ponies had been packed with baskets; the smaller children rode atop, but the strong boys and girls walked. Jimmie and the boys of his age were not obliged to carry anything.
Through canyon and across valley, into brush and timber, up slope and down, they toiled, led by old Cha-dah, who was the camp tatah or chief. Every so often the tatah and the other old men in advance halted, and stuck their staffs into the ground, and waited. Here everybody rested, for a brief space. By this system many miles were covered before camp was established, at evening, and all might eat and sleep.
Jimmie, lying wrapped in a piece of blanket near Nah-che, under a pine tree, was awakened in the night by a hand firmly pressed upon his forehead. The pressure warned him not to stir, so he only stared up—and in the star-lighted dimness he saw the one bright eye of Red-head beaming down from close above him.
Red-head was squatting, waiting. Now he removed his hand slowly, and beckoned with his finger, and silently backed away.
This was enough for Jimmie. What Red-head was doing here, on a sudden, after a long absence, he did not delay to reason out, but began cautiously to slip from his blanketing.
First he drew away, crouched; then on hands and knees; then, stooping, and carefully setting foot before foot, testing the ground lest a twig snap. From tree to tree he stole, until he was beyond the camp—and on a sudden, again, Red-head arose right in front of him.
That was good! Now he followed behind the Red-head’s soundless course, swiftly, straight away, until Red-head stopped.
“Do you want to escape?” asked Red-head. He carried a bow and quiver, and wore only a cloth about his middle, and moccasins.