"That's it, is it?" exclaimed Cal's father. "She says that they mustn't let us know that the band is in the chaparral. Now I know better what to do."
The glances bestowed upon the Chiricahua by Ping and Tah-nu-nu were not arrows, or they would have killed him.
"Boys," said the colonel, "treat them first-rate, but they mustn't get away. Now let's go after Cal."
Kah-go-mish saw his children supplied with water, fed well, laughed with, questioned, every way well-treated, and then he saw them mounted upon fresh ponies.
"Ugh!" he muttered. "Pale-face chief heap big man. Got heart. Good. No hurt him. Kill Mexican. No kill cowboy."
He lingered a little longer, for he wondered what those pale-faces were up to. They rode away in squads, by different paths, and at regular intervals he heard them blowing tremendously upon their bugles. They fired shots, too, now and then, and the sounds receded farther and farther into the chaparral. It was altogether a very remarkable proceeding, such as the chief had never before heard of. He said to himself that there must be some kind of "medicine" in it. He had no fear of any bodily harm to his children, but their capture by the cowboys had suddenly put a new element into all the plans he had made. He still had the Santa Lucia horses, but the men from that ranch and its vicinity had Ping and Tah-nu-nu.
Kah-go-mish did not go out to examine a lot of miscellaneous camp-property left lying around loose near the spring. He did not wish to share the fate he had meted out to the imprudent Chiricahua scout. He suspected that a squad of cowboys, guarding the extra horses, was lurking near by, under cover of the bushes, and that their rifles protected the coffee-pots and kettles. He had, also, a pretty clear idea that all the cowboys would soon return, and probably the blue-coats also, but he believed himself rid of Colonel Romero's Mexicans. "Ugh!" he exclaimed, at last. "Kah-go-mish is a great chief. Know what do, if know where Mexicans gone."
Back he crept through the bushes until he deemed it safe for him to stand erect, and then he went farther at a rapid rate, considering the heat of the weather. He was bent upon an important purpose that called for all sorts of activity.
"Where Mexicans gone?" was a question over which there had been several badly puzzled arguments already.
Colonel Romero had led his men away along the trail so carefully prepared for him by the Apaches. He had had no suspicion that the trampled sand, so well marked by dragged lodge-poles, was all a trap. His best scouts had fallen into it completely, and the whole command had been entirely satisfied until they came to the patch of gravel where the trail vanished. Even after that they pushed along until they came out at the southwestern border of the chaparral. This was precisely what Kah-go-mish had hoped they would do, and right before them lay the other part of his cunningly set trap. It was an ancient trail, which was well known by Colonel Romero and by some of his more experienced Indian-fighters. It led deeper into their own country, and it also led to good grass and water, to be reached by riding on until dark.