There was no reason why the prisoner, under a sufficient guard, should not be permitted such a privilege, and the wrinkled-faced brave nodded. He dropped his long Apache names, however, both of them, and used one which Cal discovered had been given him at the Mescalero Reservation.
"Crooked Nose go," he said. "Pull Stick see medicine pony."
The now numerous drove of quadrupeds belonging to the prosperous and wealthy band of Kah-go-mish were no longer picketed. Free of lariats, but attended by watchful red drovers, they had been conducted to a strip of natural prairie at some distance from the rear of the camp where Cal had eaten his breakfast.
They were of all sorts, good, bad and middling, horses, ponies, and mules; and Cal was able to pick out, as he went along, quite a number that had come all the way from the bank of Slater's Branch. He was looking around him for one horse that was worth more than all the rest, in his opinion, when a loud neigh sounded from behind some bushes near him.
Very much to the surprise of Crooked Nose, the handsomest mustang he had ever seen came out with a vigorous bound, a cavort, and a throwing up of heels, and dashed straight towards Pull Stick, as he had several times called Cal Evans.
"Ugh!" he exclaimed. "Heap pony!"
"Hurrah, Dick!" shouted Cal, and he threw his arms around the neck of the red mustang.
One of the dog-soldier keepers of the horses came riding towards them at that moment, however, and Crooked Nose touched Cal on the shoulder.
"Pull Stick come. Pony stay."
He added a string of Apache words that Cal could make nothing of, but that described Dick as being now the property of The-boy-whose-ear-pushed-away-a-piece-of-lead. He conversed for a minute or two with the mounted Apache, and the latter pointed sternly towards the camp. There was no such thing as disputing with a Mescalero policeman, and Dick himself received a sharp blow from the loose end of a lariat when he attempted to follow the only master he recognized as having any right to him.