Chapter XXIX.
HOW WOULD YOU LIKE FIRE?
The needs of human beings are very much the same the world over, but they are satisfied in different ways. The tilted wagon from Santa Fé brought to Santa Lucia coffee and sugar of a better quality than the Apaches found in the packs of the Mexican army mules, but it was sugar and coffee after all. The magazines and papers had been full of news and information for Vic and her mother, and the escaped train-guard brought very interesting matter to Colonel Romero. Letters came with the wagon, but not one so interesting as was the epistle which Cal had written upon the cactus-leaf. No story of any sort, in any of the books or pamphlets which Vic turned over so eagerly, was likely to be more absorbingly interesting to her or to any other reader than were to Ping and Tah-nu-nu the tales told by the old Chiricahua under the shadow of the mesquit bushes near the Manitou Water. He told more, that evening. Some of them were about himself and some were about things that he had seen among the blue-coats at the forts where he had been. They were in a good frame of mind for listening, since the sign-language letter brought to them by the messenger of Kah-go-mish. They knew from him that their band was to leave no trail behind it, and that the son of the long chief of the cowboys was as much a prisoner as they were. If they did not give up the idea of trying to make their own escape, they felt more contented, and could joke and laugh about their captivity.
"Ping pale-face by and by," said Tah-nu-nu, almost merrily. "Heap blue-coat chief. Kah-go-mish make Cal big Apache brave."
Her quick ears had caught his name, but Ping more frequently spoke of him as "Heap pony."
Before the arrival of that quiet evening hour, Cal had added somewhat to his rapidly growing list of new experiences. He felt better after writing the cactus-leaf letter, and he ate a fair second breakfast, cooked for him by Wah-wah-o-be. He made her acquaintance very fast, but Kah-go-mish had his hands full of duties belonging to his pack-mule cargo, and he did not come again.
Quite a different sort of fellow did come, for the wrinkled-faced old warrior was ready to burst with curiosity as to how Cal had managed to get out of his forked-stake prison. With Wah-wah-o-be's help he managed to say so, and Cal volunteered to show him. Several other braves went with them to the foot of the giant cypress, and in a minute or so more that Apache was described by all the voices around him as "The-old-man-who-put-a-peg-into-a-gopher-hole." He already had a fine long warrior name of his own, or the new one would have stuck to him for the remainder of his life. As it was, he evidently regarded Cal with more than a little admiration.
"What do now?" he said. "No more get away?"
"More eat, by and by," said Cal. "See red pony, now. Medicine pony."