That second afternoon, after the arrival of the tilted wagon at Santa Lucia, was dull enough, in spite of the ample supply of news and literature. All the news from all the world seemed worthless without news from Cal and his father. All the stories ever told were uninteresting until they should come home and tell the story of their expedition after Kah-go-mish and his Apaches. It had been so all day. The projected improvements, in and around the old hacienda, had somehow lost their attraction, and were discussed no more. In fact every time one of them had been referred to it had compelled somebody to mention the absent man or boy who was likely to have an opinion to be consulted concerning it. Vic and her mother went out on horseback in the morning, and they made an uncommonly long ride of it, for they went to Slater's Branch and back, galloping almost all the way home, and putting each other in mind of Cal's dash upon the back of the red mustang to warn them that the Indians were coming.

Duller and duller, yet more unquiet had the day grown after dinner, and now the shadows were growing longer, and they seemed to bring more anxiety with them."Mother," said Vic at last, "I've been trying my best not to think of Cal or of father, and I can't."

"It's the best thing we could do," almost sighed Mrs. Evans.

"They may be fighting!" said Vic.

"Most likely they're going into camp somewhere, all tired out," said her mother.

"Oh, I do hope," said Vic, "they are on their way home. I can't read, and I won't."

So all the printed things were put aside, and it may be that some of Vic's thinking made pictures for her a little like the reality that was enacting at Cold Spring and in the Mexican forest. No imagination of hers could have drawn anything quite equal to either of them.

Something almost as well worth making a picture of was taking place a number of long miles farther westward. Away up among the crags and forests of the Sierra, but below the snow-range at that season, there lay all day in the sunshine a very tranquil little lake. All around the lake were the steep sides of mountains, and at no point was there any visible outlet. Streams of various sizes ran into it, and one of them came plunging over the edge of a perpendicular rock, in a foamy, feathery waterfall. There was plenty of room in the valley for the lake to grow larger in, but the trees at its margin seemed to say that this was its customary size. On the northern side the sloping steep went up, up, up, until all its rocks became hidden under a covering of snow.

Just above the snow-line the June sun had been working hard, day after day, melting snow for the lake, until it had undermined a vast icy mass several acres in extent. Nobody could guess how many winters had been required to make that heap of frost so deep and hard, or how many summers had made everything ready for that hot day to finish the work.

Just before sunset a moaning sound came down the mountain and filled the valley. Then something like thunder, or the report or a cannon, echoed among the crags.

The avalanche had broken its bonds! Down it came, slowly at first, then more swiftly, and the tall pines were snapped off and swept away, and great bowlders were caught up and carried with it. Down, down, down it came, and at last, with a great surging plunge, it went head foremost into the lake. Crash! splash! dash! the flying sheets of water reached the tree-tops on the margin. The avalanche found deep water, for it almost disappeared, but it made the lake several feet deeper, and then its own fragments came up from their dive to be floated around and to be dashed against the shore by the waves.

It did not take a great while for the surface of the lake to become calm again, with the snow-cakes and the ice-cakes almost motionless in the fading light. Not any human eye had seen the avalanche fall, or had noted its grandeur or any of its consequences.

All things were peaceful at Cold Spring. Everybody had eaten supper long before sunset, and was glad of feeling sure that only the coming night was to be spent in a spot where nothing more civilized than a jackass rabbit seemed to have any permanent business.

Colonel Evans had said all he had to say about Cal, and he stood near the spring, making vague speculations as to how and when he should get into better communication with Kah-go-mish. Near him, sitting upon a ledge, were Ping and Tah-nu-nu, and the old Chiricahua, who seemed to be telling his young friends something more about the bubbling water, when Captain Moore strolled up to within a few paces.

"Do you see that, colonel?" he said. "I know sign language well enough if I can't understand the words. There's no wonder they're superstitious about Fonda des Arenas."

"Cold Spring?" replied the colonel. "What do they say about it?"

"Ask the scout. He says it's Manitou Water in the old tongue. I can't work the Apache syllables."

Neither could Colonel Evans, when the Chiricahua repeated them. He was even eager to tell more, and what he did tell was curious, if true. Just before the great and noble Chiricahuas and Apaches came to own that country, he said, there had been a hill there, a sort of mountain with forests, and there was no desert there, and no chaparral. The Chiricahuas would have preferred a hill and trees and grass, but the old manitou who had lived there had to go away, and everything sunk down to a level. The trees died and rotted away, and all was dry and desolate, until one terribly hot day when a band of Apaches reached the rocky level, almost dying of thirst. Their ponies were unable to go any farther, and they had given up all hope. They sat around upon the rock, and their ponies lay down. All night long they sat there, and then, just as the sun was rising, they saw something white spring into the air in the middle of the wide rock. A new manitou had arrived, friendly to the Apaches. He brought the Manitou Water, and it had run continually to the present time. Generally it was quiet, but if the manitou heard good news, the water would sometimes jump away up, as it did when it first came.

"Very pretty story," began Captain Moore, but at that moment the air suddenly was filled with excited exclamations.

The old Chiricahua uttered a loud whoop as he sprang to his feet.

"Ugh!" he said. "Heap manitou!"

He added a few rapid sentences in his own tongue, while Ping and Tah-nu-nu darted away to the edge of the chaparral and stood there, clinging to each other as if in terror.

"Colorado!" shouted Sam Herrick. "What on earth's got into Cold Spring?"

The colonel and the captain also retreated rapidly, shivering from the shock of a sudden cold bath, for they both were wet to the skin.

Twenty feet high sprang the water, with a sharp hiss and a report like a pistol-shot. The first leap subsided, but was instantly followed by another and another, each less lofty than the one before it. Then the stream became fairly steady, but with about three times its customary supply, so that quite a rill of water ran away across the quartz, to be absorbed by the thirsty sand and gravel among the bushes.

Neither Ping nor Tah-nu-nu nor the Chiricahuas could be induced to come near the fountain again, but all the white men gathered around it and made guesses as to what had made it jump.

"Something volcanic," said the captain.

"Been an earthquake somewhere, it may be," said the colonel.

All that evening there was more or less discussion of the remarkable performance of Cold Spring, and everybody missed the right guess. It was only a splash caused by the avalanche when it plunged into the mountain reservoir which supplied the chaparral and the sage-hens and the jackass rabbits and the other wild animals there with water. Nothing could well be more simple, and there was no soundness whatever in the grave remark made to Ping and Tah-nu-nu by the old Chiricahua.

"Ugh!" he said. "Manitou Water heap good medicine. Good Apache manitou. Kah-go-mish get away now. Keep all pony."