Cal was beginning to feel sleepy, when out from among the shadows marched the chief in the cocked hat and red stocking-leg uniform, followed by four other dignified warriors.
"Ugh!" he said. "How boy now? Eat heap?"
"Yes, thank you," said Cal. "How?"
"Ugh! Good!" said the Apache leader, as Cal slowly arose and stood in front of him, but he did not shake the hand Cal offered him.
He turned to the other great men, and they exchanged a few sentences in their own tongue. They were hearing further explanations of the plan he had formed for the general good, and they nodded a cheerful assent when he ended with, "Kah-go-mish is a great chief."
They turned and stalked away, and with them went the lean, grim Apache who had hitherto been Cal's guard, and who had latterly seemed to be getting almost like a friendly acquaintance. His place was filled by a pair of short, bow-legged, swarthy old braves, whom Cal set down as the unpleasantest-looking Indians he had ever seen.
Very quickly the prisoner had good reasons for an every way more severe opinion of his new guards. They were under strict orders to prevent his escape, and no other especial directions had been given them. Of course they proposed to perform their sentry duty with as little trouble and as complete security as might be. Cal was lying upon the ground, while they were busy with their knives among the nearest bushes. He hardly looked after them, for his thoughts were wandering to the camp at Cold Spring and to the faces of those who had talked so much about him, all that evening, in the parlor at Santa Lucia. He had not the remotest dream of the precise experience which was coming to him. The two ill-looking braves returned, and one of them had a handful of forked branches, trimmed and pointed. They turned Cal over upon his back and stretched out his arms. A sharp thrill went through him as he began to comprehend what they were doing. Thrill followed thrill as they drove one forked stick into the ground over each wrist, and another over each ankle.
"Ugh!" exclaimed one of them. "No get away!"
"I am staked out!" said Cal to himself, huskily. "Staked out!"
Well might the cold shivers come with that terrible thought, for he had read of that method of securing prisoners and of what sometimes followed it. Staked out in the depths of a Mexican forest!