There was a very excellent reason why the old Spanish-Mexican settler had chosen that exact spot for the Santa Lucia ranch. It was the little spring which bubbled up in the middle of the courtyard around three sides of which the adobe was constructed. It had been dug out to a depth of several feet and walled in. It had never been known to fail, and it always had enough water left, after supplying the household, to furnish a tiny rill which ran away at one side of the gate in the palisades of the fourth side. This rill was planked over until it got away from the ranch, but it ran out into the sunshine then, and travelled gayly on to the corral. Here it found a number of acres of land, surrounded by a strong wire fence. It also found a long hollow to fill up with water, so that cattle and horses corralled there had plenty to drink. Except in the winter and spring there was little ever heard of that rill beyond the corral, and, if shrubbery had at any time grown upon its margin, it had long since been browsed away, for there was none there now.

Beyond the corral were great reaches of maize, and there had this year been no drought to hurt it. A wide patch of potatoes and some oats seemed to be the only other attempt at anything more than cattle-farming, and things generally had the bare, camplike look common to New Mexican ranches.

Shortly after breakfast, on the morning after the arrival of the tilted wagon, Mrs. Evans and Vic walked out on what appeared to be a tour of inspection. They had not slept well, and there was just a little touch of feverishness in the way they talked about Cal and his father, but they were trying hard to be cheerful.

"No, Vic," said Mrs. Evans, "it won't pay to put in any of the seeds now, but I'm glad they've come, and I don't believe they will spoil. The grape-roots and cuttings won't get here till autumn, but we'll have the vineyard planted over there."

"Is there really to be a barn, mother?" asked Vic, doubtfully, as if such an ornament as that were almost out of the question.

"Yes, my dear. Your father loses stock enough, every year, to pay for more shelter, and for keeping hay, and for all sorts of improvements."

"To think of a vineyard and grapes!"

"And fruit-trees, Vic. The brook is to be fenced in up to the corral and lined with trees. It won't dry up so easily when it's shaded, and the corral is to be a little farther away. It all costs money, though. So does fencing."

They were dreaming dreams of the future and of what could be done to turn Santa Lucia into a sort of New Mexican Eden. The stockade itself was to be clambered over by vines, and so was the veranda, and trees were to be coaxed to grow in all directions. Bushes and plants that could stand the summer heats were to be planted all around the ranch. The old adobe itself was to be fixed up. It was a very pleasant way of spending a morning, but it had its unpleasant thought.

"Vic," said her mother, "there are a great many things that your father can't afford to do, if he is to lose all those horses."

"He has plenty left, and the cattle."

"Yes, but the Indians took away some of his best stock."

"The Indians wouldn't be so likely to come," said Vic, "if everything looked more settled."

It seemed so, and there was truth in it, only the whole truth required more houses near by, and more men to defend them.

As the talk turned towards the Apaches and their deeds, the dream of vines and shrubbery and flowers, of barns and stables, dairy, trees, and all faded away, and they walked back into the house, wondering anxiously what would be the next news from those who had gone in search of the stolen horses and the Apache horse-thieves.

Mrs. Evans and Vic were not one bit more completely in the dark, that morning, than were Colonel Romero and his lancers and his rancheros. They had succeeded, the day before, in following the ancient trail until it brought them to grass and water and a good camping-ground. It had not shown them, however, one track or trace which seemed to have been made in modern times. If Kah-go-mish and his band had come that way, they had managed to conceal the fact remarkably well. Once more it was easy for the brave colonel and his officers to see their duty without any argument. They could not go any farther, if they would, until the arrival of the pack-mules and the lead horses. They could not go in any direction until they knew which way the Apaches had gone. Therefore they must rest in that camp, and send out scouts and trailers, and wait for the loads of supplies and for information. Their puzzle was ended for that day, at least, and there were trees in abundance to lie down under and take it easy.

The men in the bivouac, at Cold Spring, were astir as soon as the daylight began to come the next morning. Colonel Evans was the first man upon his feet.

"I'll find him," he said, "if I have to search the chaparral inch by inch. Poor boy! What a day and night he must have had! No food, no water, no hope! Lost in the chaparral!"

It was a dreadful thing to think of, and the next worst idea was that he might have been killed by the Apaches. Everybody in camp took a deep interest in the proposed search, and all who were to join in it were willing to set out before the heat of the day should come. Captain Moore had a number of cautious things to say about the danger from Indians and ambuscades, but he evidently believed, after all, that Kah-go-mish had gone away.

"He won't run any useless risk of losing horses," said the captain. "I think, on the whole, we can search away."

The Mexicans who had been in charge of the lost pack-train ate their breakfasts in a hurry. The day's journey before them seemed dismal enough, for they were to cross the desert on foot to report the work of Kah-go-mish. They were given a supply of provisions, but there were no horses or arms for them.

"You won't meet any red-skins," said Sam Herrick to a very melancholy ranchero. "They've all gone the other way. You can make better time on foot than you could a-driving a pack-mule. You'll git thar. Give the colonel my compliments and tell him that old Kah-go-mish ort to just love him. I never heard of a train given away for nothing before."

The ranchero nodded a sullen agreement with Sam, but he was not likely to give the message accurately to Colonel Romero.

The poor fellows started at once, with a plain enough trail to follow, and Sam looked kindly after them.

"They're in luck," he said. "They've nothing to do but to walk. Not even a mule to lead or a fence to climb. Colorado! But didn't old Kah-go-mish make a clean sweep."

"Left their skelps on 'em," said Bill.

"That was just cunning," replied Sam. "Some redskins haven't sense enough to let a skelp alone, but he has."

Only a little later the sentries and pickets posted by Captain Moore were all the human beings left in the camp at Cold Spring. They, too, were hidden among the bushes, and the proof that it was a camp at all consisted of three sacks of corn, a saddle, some camp-kettles and coffee-pots, and the smouldering camp-fires.

The bugles began to send their music out over the spider-web wilderness of the chaparral west of the spring, and Captain Moore declared, hopefully, that if Cal were anywhere in all that range he would be sure of hearing music before noon.

The trouble was that he was so many long, tiresome miles beyond the reach of the loudest bugle, and that he had heard music of an altogether different sort before the very earliest riser among them had opened his eyes.