"Ugh!" said Crooked Nose. "Who kill Tan-tan-e-o-tan."
"Heap Pony," replied Cal again.
"Ugh! Heap bad medicine. No like him. Pull Stick got manitou."
Something like that, in a higher and better form, was what Cal's mother had been telling him. She also declared that she meant to do all in her power for the squaw who brought Cal his gourd of water when he was all but dying of thirst, and for her bright-eyed daughter. Something very good was, therefore, in store for Tah-nu-nu. Perhaps it was something which Ping could not or would not have taken.
Wah-wah-o-be kept her word, and when she returned she brought quite a drove of horses, mules, and ponies with her, as the property of Kah-go-mish, and Colonel Romero was not there to identify any of them. Cal did not know one from another, whether they were Apache bred or Mexican, and he said so.
There was really but one horse in the world that he cared much about. In fact, not only he and his family, but the cowboys and Wah-wah-o-be and Tah-nu-nu were disposed to attach an almost human idea to the uncommon qualities of head and heart which had been displayed by the red mustang.