The Red Mustang

by William O. Stoddard

Tah-nu-nu very nearly spoiled a name which was beginning to grow upon her brother. It was too long for common use, and it meant: "The-boy-whose-ear-pushed-away-a-piece-of-lead." Wah-wah-o-be, every now and then, strung all the syllables together, and the whole was like one of those mountain-passes, wider here and narrower there, but rugged all the way. Tah-nu-nu cut it short and called him Ping.

Wah-wah-o-be's tongue and the use she made of it helped such a trail as that amazingly. She had endless tales to tell concerning what her husband had done and was yet to do, and of the great deeds of her nation, and of the evil deeds and purposes of all pale-faces.

The questions asked by Ping and Tah-nu-nu were also endless. His proved that he knew some things already and that he had learned a part of them while the band had been upon the Reservation. Those of the little Apache girl proved for her as much and more. She must have thinking and imagining, and her eyes frequently took on a soft and dreamy look which did not come at all in those of her mother or her brother.

There were not many safer places in all the Sierras than was the little valley in which the band of Kah-go-mish encamped, an hour or so before the shadows became darkness among the chasms and gorges.

Ping ate a hearty supper, but he was in trouble. Other boys and girls, and some of the squaws, had taken a notion of turning their heads on one side and saying "Ping" when they met him, just as if they believed that he had winced from the touch of the bullet. He knew that he had not done so, but the taunt stirred up within him a very hot desire to do something heroic, like standing still to be shot at. He felt that it was an awful injustice to ridicule him for the very ear he was so proud of. The sting to his vanity kept him in motion after supper, and he strolled all over the valley. No lodges had been pitched, and the horses were scattered around, feeding, under the watchful care of several braves whose turn it was to serve as "dog-soldiers," or camp police.

The moonlight was brilliant, but Ping had no idea whether or not the mountain scenery it lighted up was grand. He did know that it was just the night for his father to do great deeds in, or for any wild animal to prowl around after its prey. The cries of several had been heard during the afternoon march and since the band halted.

Wah-wah-o-be had told him and Tah-nu-nu that these Mexican mountains fairly swarmed with Manitous and magicians, most of whom were favorable to the Apaches, but that all of them were more or less to be feared. For all that Ping knew, some of these unseen beings might be wandering up and down in that moonshine within arrow-shot of him. He felt safe in the camp, but nothing would have induced him to venture out among them. He knew very well that any Indian who got himself killed in the dark did not go to the Happy Hunting-Grounds, but had an awful time of it somewhere. As for the wild animals, he had a settled determination to kill a grizzly bear, some day, and to have his claws for a collar of honor to wear upon great occasions. He proposed to become a mighty hunter and warrior, but just now he felt sleepy, and he went back and lay down at the foot of a pine-tree, not far from the rest of his family.

Ping's eyes closed, but another pair did not. Tah-nu-nu's remained open in spite of her. She had heard more stories than Ping had, and while each tale had kept its old shape in his mind it had turned into twenty new forms in her own.

That is one difficulty about having an imagination, and Tah-nu-nu's had been getting more and more excited ever since the Mexican bullet tore her beautiful red dress. She kept thinking, too, of her heroic father and of the great things he would have to tell when he should get back from his war-path.

Tah-nu-nu lacked only a few years of being a grown-up squaw, and Wah-wah-o-be often braided her hair for her, like that of a young pale-face lady at the Reservation headquarters. Some day a great brave was to come and pay many ponies for her, and she would then rule his lodge for him and scold eloquently, like her mother. She had, therefore, a long list of matters to dream about as she lay awake among the bushes where Wah-wah-o-be and several other squaws had spread their blankets. It was at some distance from the fires which the "dog-soldiers" kept slowly burning. Not far away, on the left, were the tall pines under one of which Ping had curled down, while outside of all was a bare ledge of rock, littered with bowlders and fragments.