A brief council was held, but the arguments seemed to be nearly all upon one side. It was set forth that the Apaches must have taken that road because they could not remain in the chaparral to die of thirst and hunger or to be struck by the American cavalry and the cowboys. The Mexican horses and men must have water, and so they must go forward, and that was their only road. As to their train of pack-mules and spare horses, it was safe, they said. It would reach Cold Spring, and would find the Americans there. It would get directions from them, and could not lose its way.
All the remaining Mexican bugles sounded the advance, and the command moved away along the trail. A solitary Apache boy, a head taller than Ping, lurking near among some very thick bushes, saw them go. As soon as they were well away he was on the back of his pony, at full gallop, and evidently was in no doubt whatever as to the right path for him to take. He reached the camp of his people just in time to report to the returning Kah-go-mish that the trap set for the Mexicans had been a complete success.
The chief had sent away that part of his many perils, but he had rapid orders to give now. He had also a very difficult report to make to Wah-wah-o-be, and she listened to most of it with her blanket over her head.
Kah-go-mish told her how well Ping and Tah-nu-nu had been treated, but she was inconsolable at first.
The-boy-whose-ear-pushed-away-a-piece-of-lead, the young chief who had killed a cougar, and who was yet to surpass the fame of his great father, was a prisoner in the hands of the wicked pale-faces. So was the beautiful Tah-nu-nu, the most promising young squaw of the entire Apache nation. Wah-wah-o-be fully appreciated her children. She knew all their good qualities, and she mentioned most of them then and there. What if both Ping and his sister were to be carried away to some distant place among the great lodges and the terrible magicians of the pale-faces, and compelled to become themselves pale-faces? To be turned into something different from their noble father and mother? Such things had been done, and she had heard of them.
The light of her life seemed to have departed, and Wah-wah-o-be cared very little what further disasters might now come to her. She even valued all the horses of the band at only a fraction of what they had seemed to be worth that morning.
The blanket came down at last, for Kah-go-mish had given all his directions to his warriors, and there was work proposed which seemed to stir them to a high pitch of enthusiasm. Wah-wah-o-be had her duties also to attend to, and she knew that they must all get out of the chaparral. She saw her heroic husband ride away, followed by nearly all the best braves of the band. Then she and all who were left had some rapid packing to do, that every mule and pony might be ready for a sudden start whenever the war-party should return. It was understood that Kah-go-mish had outwitted the Mexicans, the blue-coats, and the cowboys, and that he was about to do something very remarkable. What, thought Wah-wah-o-be, if he should also succeed in winning back Ping and Tah-nu-nu?
He did not seem to go after them at once. He led his warriors, as nearly directly as the crooked paths permitted, to the very trail by which they had entered the chaparral. It was an especially wide and well-marked north-and-south path to Cold Spring for anybody coming from Mexico. Half a mile or more from the spring, among the bushes along the trail, Kah-go-mish carefully hid his dismounted warriors. All their horses were well away behind them, and they themselves seemed to be an exceedingly cheerful, hopeful, and self-satisfied lot of red men. If there was one thing more than another that was exactly suited to them, it was an ambush with a dead certainty of surprising somebody.