"Then how are the white men any better than the Comanches?" Running Deer snapped angrily. "You tell us that the white men are wise and good, and that the Comanches should learn the white men's ways and their laws, and yet you also say that the white men fight, steal, oppress, and kill one another, and if the Comanches take a white man's squaw or children, it is right for the white men to kill us, steal our women and children, and destroy our homes! If that is the right law for them, it is the right law for us. How can they teach us to be better than they are, themselves?"
"Just as you speak, I once heard an officer speak," responded the Big Gray Horse. "But when an order comes to an officer, he must obey. If we horses feel the reins, hear the bugle calling, see the troop guidon fluttering ahead of us, we ask no questions. Like our masters who ride us, we obey, for wherever the flag leads, we must follow and uphold it. There is much I do not understand, but I do know we horses have no quarrel with the Comanche ponies."
"Let us leave those things to men," the Old White Horse said. "We horses are good friends and will not bite or kick one another. Why should we fight when there is grass enough for us all? The world is big!"
"You are right," was Running Deer's comment. "And now if you will come with me I will show you where the grass is sweeter and more tender than any other spot for miles around. Only a few ponies besides myself and Star know the place. We will share it with you."
Side by side the troop horse and the horse of the general followed the Comanche mare and her colt.
Chapter XII
Life in the Quahada village went very happily for Star and Songbird after the return of Quannah and his warriors. The white men had evidently withdrawn from their chase of the Comanches, and Quannah did not intend to cause further trouble unless the buffalo hunters or other white people encroached upon the land which the Quahadas considered their own.
The Old White Horse and the Big Gray Horse seemed to be very well satisfied among the Indian ponies, but Star was a special favourite. More than once his mother chided him for liking the white men's horses better than older friends among the Comanche ponies. Sometimes she even drove him away from the cavalry horses and forced him to stay with the others. At such times Star did his best to escape her watchful eyes and return to his friends, but it was not an easy thing to accomplish. When his efforts failed, he would call loudly to the two horses, and their answers told him that they understood he had not deserted them.
"Why do you want to stay beside them all the time?" Hawk asked him one day when Running Deer had shouldered and nipped Star until he was in the very midst of the herd.