"No, Tah-nu-nu," he said, "you can't get away."
"Ping is the son of a great chief!" she exclaimed, angrily. "Got away! Whoop! Heap good! Tah-nu-nu stay! Die! No pale-face!"
She was intensely excited, her dark, regular features were flushed, and the colonel said to himself that she looked like another girl. All three of the Chiricahuas were with him at that moment. Not one of them took any notice of Tah-nu-nu's utterances, but the colonel straightened in the saddle. "Boys," he shouted to the nearest men behind him, "where's that young 'Pache? Go for him! The girl's been trying to escape!"
Men in blue uniforms and men in red shirts wheeled at once, shouting to others farther in the rear. The whole line wheeled and shouted and searched hither and thither, and not any were more active than were the three Chiricahuas.
It was all in vain. There was not a trace to be found of The-boy-whose-ear-pushed-away-a-piece-of-lead.
Tah-nu-nu was suffering a terrible disappointment, and so was somebody else. Colonel Evans felt badly enough, but his caprice for a chat with Tah-nu-nu had prevented the superstitious Chiricahuas from entirely avoiding the "bad medicine" of Kah-go-mish. Part of it had been put away when the old story-teller, riding by Ping's side, had remarked, "Ugh! Heap bush." He came out of that bit of chaparral all alone, and, for some reason, Ping knew where he ought to expect a meeting with Tah-nu-nu. He did not at once walk his pony as the rest were doing, but galloped hard for quite a distance. He made a wide circuit in advance and at last dismounted upon the summit of a ledgy hill, among crags and forest trees. Here he could look down and see what occurred, and almost hear what was said as the cavalcade went by.
"Heap rock!" he had exclaimed. "Now Tah-nu-nu come."
Then he saw why she did not, could not come, and his disappointment was as bitter as any human disappointment well could be. A light which had grown in his dark young face faded from it. He hung his head almost listlessly as he wheeled his pony southward. He had escaped and he could not return into captivity, but Tah-nu-nu was still a prisoner. What should he say to Kah-go-mish and Wah-wah-o-be? That is, indeed, if he should succeed in finding his own perilous way to the lodges of his band.