Tah-nu-nu, on the other hand, remained primly silent, and did not reply in any manner when one after the other of the pale-face braves around her asked what her name was and where she came from and where she was going.
Ping was first questioned in English, but all of that tongue that he had picked up upon the Reservation seemed to have gone from him. Then Colonel Evans tried him in Spanish, and he looked as if he had never in all his life heard a Mexican speak, for the substance of the inquiry in both languages was, "Where is Kah-go-mish? Where is your band?"
Tah-nu-nu said something to him in Apache at that moment, and a Chiricahua, whom she had not seen, standing behind her, interpreted it to Colonel Evans.
"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."