There is only one woman in a post who can, generally; but no dinners
were spoiled at Adobe by night-cat affairs.
Instead, during the afternoon we were to see Captain Garrard, the
hostile, try to save two troops which were pressed into the bend of a
river by throwing over a bridge, while holding the enemy in check. This
was as complicated as putting a baby to sleep while reading law; so
clearly my point of view was with the hostiles. With them I entered the
neck. The horses were grouped in the brush, leaving some men who were
going underground like gophers out near the entrance. The
brown-canvas-covered soldiers grabbed their axes, rolled their eyes
towards the open plain, and listened expectantly.
[Illustration: 26 THE ATTACK ON THE COSSACK]
The clear notes of a bugle rang; whackety, bang--clack--clack, went the
axes. Trees fell all around. The forest seemed to drop on me. I got my
horse and fled across the creek.
“That isn't fair; this stream is supposed to be impassable,” sang out a
lieutenant, who was doing a Blondin act on the first tree over, while
beneath him yawned the chasm of four or five feet.
In less than a minute the whole forest got up again and moved towards
the bridge. There were men behind it, but the leaves concealed them.
Logs dropped over, brush piled on top. The rifles rang in scattered
volleys, and the enemy's fire rolled out beyond the brush. No bullets
whistled--that was a redeeming feature.
Aside from that it seemed as though every man was doing his ultimate
act. They flew about; the shovels dug with despair; the sand covered the
logs in a shower. While I am telling this the bridge was made.
The first horse came forward, led by his rider. He raised his eyes like
St. Anthony; he did not approve of the bridge. He put his ears forward,
felt with his toes, squatted behind, and made nervous side steps. The
men moved on him in a solid crowd from behind. Stepping high and short
he then bounded over, and after him in a stream came the willing
brothers. Out along the bluffs strung the troopers to cover the heroes
who had held the neck, while they destroyed the bridge.
Then they rode home with the enemy, chaffing each other.
It is only a workaday matter, all this; but workaday stuff does the
business nowadays.
MASSAI'S CROOKED TRAIL
IT is a bold person who will dare to say that a wilder savage ever lived
than an Apache Indian, and in this respect no Apache can rival Massai.
He was a _bronco_ Chiricahua whose _tequa_ tracks were so long and
devious that all of them can never be accounted for. Three regiments of
cavalry, all the scouts--both white and black--and Mexicans galore had
their hack, but the ghostly presence appeared and disappeared from the
Colorado to the Yaqui. No one can tell how Massai's face looks, or
looked, though hundreds know the shape of his footprint.
The Seventh made some little killings, but they fear that Massai was not
among the game. There surely is or was such a person as Massai. He
developed himself slowly, as I will show by the Sherlock Holmes methods
of the chief of scouts, though even he only got so far, after all.
Massai manifested himself like the dust-storm or the morning mist--a
shiver in the air, and gone.
The chief walked his horse slowly back on the lost trail in disgust,
while the scouts bobbed along behind perplexed. It was always so. Time
has passed, and Massai, indeed, seems gone, since he appears no more.
The hope in the breasts of countless men is nearly blighted; they no
longer expect to see Massai's head brought into camp done up in an old
shirt and dropped triumphantly on the ground in front of the chief of
scouts' tent, so it is time to preserve what trail we can.
Three troops of the Tenth had gone into camp for the night, and the
ghostly Montana landscape hummed with the murmur of many men. Supper was
over, and I got the old Apache chief of scouts behind his own ducking,
and demanded what he knew of an Apache Indian down in Arizona named
Massai. He knew all or nearly all that any white man will ever know.
“All right,” said the chief, as he lit a cigar and tipped his sombrero
over his left eye, “but let me get it straight. Massai's trail was so
crooked, I had to study nights to keep it arranged in my head. He didn't
leave much more trail than a buzzard, anyhow, and it took years to
unravel it. But I am anticipating.
“I was chief of scouts at Apache in the fall of '90, when word was
brought in that an Indian girl named Natastale had disappeared, and that
her mother was found under a walnut-tree with a bullet through her body.
I immediately sent Indian scouts to take the trail. They found the
tracks of a mare and colt going by the spot, and thinking it would bring
them to the girl, they followed it. Shortly they found a moccasin track
where a man had dismounted from the mare, and without paying more
attention to the horse track, they followed it. They ran down one of my
own scouts in a _tiswin_ [An intoxicating beverage made of corn] camp,
where he was carousing with other drinkers. They sprang on him, got him
by the hair, disarmed and bound him. Then they asked him what he had
done with the girl, and why he had killed the mother, to which he
replied that 'he did not know.' When he was brought to me, about dark,
there was intense excitement among the Indians, who crowded around
demanding Indian justice on the head of the murderer and ravisher of the
women. In order to save his life I took him from the Indians and lodged
him in the post guard-house. On the following morning, in order to
satisfy myself positively that this man had committed the murder, I sent
my first sergeant, the famous Mickey Free, with a picked party of
trailers, back to the walnut-tree, with orders to go carefully over the
trail and run down the mare and colt, or find the girl, dead or alive,
wherever they might.
[Illustration: 27 NATASTALE]
“In two hours word was sent to me that the trail was running to the
north. They had found the body of the colt with its throat cut, and were
following the mare. The trail showed that a man afoot was driving the
mare, and the scouts thought the girl was on the mare. This proved that
we had the wrong man in custody. I therefore turned him loose, telling
him he was all right. In return he told me that he owned the mare and
colt, and that when he passed the tree the girl was up in its branches,
shaking down nuts which her old mother was gathering. He had ridden
along, and about an hour afterwards had heard a shot. He turned his mare
loose, and proceeded on foot to the _tiswin_ camp, where he heard later
that the old woman had been shot and the girl 'lifted.' When arrested,
he knew that the other scouts had trailed him from the walnut-tree; he
saw the circumstances against him, and was afraid.
“On the night of the second day Mickey Free's party returned, having run
the trail to within a few hundred yards of the camp of Alcashay in the
Forestdale country, between whose band and the band to which the girl
belonged there was a blood-feud. They concluded that the murderer
belonged to Alcashay's camp, and were afraid to engage him.
[Illustration: 28 THE ARREST OF THE SCOUT]
“I sent for Alcashay to come in immediately, which he did, and I
demanded that he trail the man and deliver him up to me, or I would take
my scout corps, go to his camp, and arrest all suspicious characters. He
stoutly denied that the man was in his camp, promised to do as I
directed, and, to further allay any suspicions, he asked for my picked
trailers to help run the trail. With this body of men he proceeded on
the track, and they found that it ran right around his camp, then turned
sharply to the east, ran within two hundred yards of a stage-ranch,
thence into some rough mountain country, where it twisted and turned for
forty miles. At this point they found the first camp the man had made.
He had tied the girl to a tree by the feet, which permitted her to sleep
on her back; the mare had been killed, some steaks taken out, and some
meat 'jerked.' From thence on they could find no trail which they could
follow. At long intervals they found his moccasin mark between rocks,
but after circling for miles they gave it up. In this camp they found
and brought to me a fire-stick--the first and only one I had ever
seen--and they told me that the fire-stick had not been used by Apaches
for many years. There were only a few old men in my camp who were
familiar with its use, though one managed to light his cigarette with
it. They reasoned from this that the man was a bronco Indian who had
been so long 'out' that he could not procure matches, and also that he
was a much wilder one than any of the Indians then known to be outlawed.
“In about a week there was another Indian girl stolen from one of my
hay-camps, and many scouts thought it was the same Indian, who they
decided was one of the well-known outlaws; but older and better men did
not agree with them; so there the matter rested for some months.
“In the spring the first missing girl rode into Fort Apache on a fine
horse, which was loaded down with buckskins and other Indian finery. Two
cowboys followed her shortly and claimed the pony, which bore a C C C
brand, and I gave it up to them. I took the girl into my office, for she
was so tired that she could hardly stand up, while she was haggard and
worn to the last degree. When she had sufficiently recovered she told me
her story. She said she was up in the walnut-tree when an Indian shot
her mother, and coming up, forced her to go with him. He trailed and
picked up the mare, bound her on its back, and drove it along. The colt
whinnied, whereupon he cut its throat. He made straight for Alcashay's
camp, which he circled, and then turned sharply to the east, where he
made the big twisting through the mountains which my scouts found. After
going all night and the next day, he made the first camp. After killing
and cooking the mare, he gave her something to eat, tied her up by the
feet, and standing over her, told her that he was getting to be an old
man, was tired of making his own fires, and wanted a woman. If she was a
good girl he would not kill her, but would treat her well and always
have venison hanging up. He continued that he was going away for a few
hours, and would come back and kill her if she tried to undo the cords;
but she fell asleep while he was talking. After daylight he returned,
untied her, made her climb on his back, and thus carried her for a long
distance. Occasionally he made her alight where the ground was hard,
telling her if she made any 'sign' he would kill her, which made her
careful of her steps.
“After some miles of this blinding of the trail they came upon a white
horse that was tied to a tree. They mounted double, and rode all day as
fast as he could lash the pony, until, near nightfall, it fell from
exhaustion, whereupon he killed it and cooked some of the carcass. The
bronco Indian took himself off for a couple of hours, and when he
returned, brought another horse, which they mounted, and sped onward
through the moonlight all night long. On that morning they were in the
high mountains, the poor pony suffering the same fate as the others.
“They stayed here two days, he tying her up whenever he went hunting,
she being so exhausted after the long flight that she lay comatose in
her bonds. From thence they journeyed south slowly, keeping to the high
mountains, and only once did he speak, when he told her that a certain
mountain pass was the home of the Chiricahuas. From the girl's account
she must have gone far south into the Sierra Madre of Old Mexico, though
of course she was long since lost.
“He killed game easily, she tanned the hides, and they lived as man and
wife. Day by day they threaded their way through the deep canons and
over the Blue Mountain ranges. By this time he had become fond of the
White Mountain girl, and told her that he was Massai, a Chiricahua
warrior; that he had been arrested after the Geronimo war and sent East
on the railroad over two years since, but had escaped one night from the
train, and had made his way alone back to his native deserts. Since then
it is known that an Indian did turn up missing, but it was a big band of
prisoners, and some births had occurred, which made the checking off
come straight. He was not missed at the time. From what the girl said,
he must have got off east of Kansas City and travelled south and then
west, till at last he came to the lands of the Mescalero Apaches, where
he stayed for some time. He was over a year making this journey, and
told the girl that no human eye ever saw him once in that time. This is
all he ever told the girl Natastale, and she was afraid to ask him more.
Beyond these mere facts, it is still a midnight prowl of a human coyote
through a settled country for twelve hundred miles, the hardihood of the
undertaking being equalled only by the instinct which took him home.
[Illustration: 29 SCOUTS]
“Once only while the girl was with him did they see sign of other
Indians, and straightway Massai turned away--his wild nature shunning
even the society of his kind.
“At times 'his heart was bad,' and once he sat brooding for a whole day,
finally telling her that he was going into a bad country to kill
Mexicans, that women were a burden on a warrior, and that he had made up
his mind to kill her. All through her narrative he seemed at times to be
overcome with this blood-thirst, which took the form of a homicidal
melancholia. She begged so hard for her life that he relented; so he
left her in the wild tangle of mountains while he raided on the Mexican
settlements. He came back with horses and powder and lead. This last was
in Winchester bullets, which he melted up and recast into .50-calibre
balls made in moulds of cactus sticks. He did not tell how many murders
he had committed during these raids, but doubtless many.
“They lived that winter through in the Sierras, and in the spring
started north, crossing the railroad twice, which meant the Guaymas and
the Southern Pacific. They sat all one day on a high mountain and
watched the trains of cars go by; but 'his heart got bad' at the sight
of them, and again he concluded to kill the girl. Again she begged off,
and they continued up the range of the Mogollons. He was unhappy in his
mind during all this journey, saying men were scarce up here, that he
must go back to Mexico and kill some one.
“He was tired of the woman, and did not want her to go back with him,
so, after sitting all day on a rock while she besought him, the old wolf
told her to go home in peace. But the girl was lost, and told him that
either the Mexicans or Americans would kill her if she departed from
him; so his mood softened, and telling her to come on, he began the
homeward journey. They passed through a small American town in the
middle of the night--he having previously taken off the Indian rawhide
shoes from the ponies. They crossed the Gila near the Nau Taw Mountains.
Here he stole two fresh horses, and loading one with all the buckskins,
he put her on and headed her down the Eagle Trail to Black River. She
now knew where she was, but was nearly dying from the exhaustion of his
fly-by-night expeditions. He halted her, told her to 'tell the white
officer that she was a pretty good girl, better than the San Carlos
woman, and that he would come again and get another.' He struck her
horse and was gone.
[Illustration: 30 THE CHIEF OF SCOUTS]
“Massai then became a problem to successive chiefs of scouts, a bugbear
to the reservation Indians, and a terror to Arizona. If a man was killed
or a woman missed, the Indians came galloping and the scouts lay on his
trail. If he met a woman in the defiles, he stretched her dead if she
did not please his errant fancy. He took pot-shots at the men ploughing
in their little fields, and knocked the Mexican bull-drivers on the head
as they plodded through the blinding dust of the Globe Road. He even sat
like a vulture on the rim-rock and signalled the Indians to come out and
talk. When two Indians thus accosted did go out, they found themselves
looking down Mas-sai's.50-calibre, and were tempted to do his bidding.
He sent one in for sugar and coffee, holding the brother, for such he
happened to be, as a hostage till the sugar and coffee came. Then he
told them that he was going behind a rock to lie down, cautioning them
not to move for an hour. That was an unnecessary bluff, for they did not
wink an eye till sundown. Later than this he stole a girl in broad
daylight in the face of a San Carlos camp and dragged her up the rocks.
Here he was attacked by fifteen or twenty bucks, whom he stood off until
darkness. When they reached his lair in the morning, there lay the dead
girl, but Massai was gone.
“I never saw Massai but once, and then it was only a piece of his G
string flickering in the brush. We had followed his trail half the
night, and just at daylight, as we ascended a steep part of the
mountains, I caught sight of a pony's head looking over a bush. We
advanced rapidly, only to find the horse grunting from a stab wound in
the belly, and the little camp scattered around about him. The shirt
tail flickering in the brush was all of Massai. We followed on, but he
had gone down a steep bluff. We went down too, thus exposing ourselves
to draw his fire so that we could locate him, but he was not tempted.
“The late Lieutenant Clark had much the same view of this mountain
outlaw, and since those days two young men of the Seventh Cavalry, Rice
and Averill, have on separate occasions crawled on his camp at the break
of day, only to see Massai go out of sight in the brush like a blue
quail.
“Lieutenant Averill, after a forced march of eighty-six miles, reached a
hostile camp near morning, after climbing his detachment, since
midnight, up the almost inaccessible rocks, in hopes of surprising the
camp. He divided his force into three parts, and tried, as well as
possible, to close every avenue of escape; but as the camp was on a high
rocky hill at the junction of four deep canons, this was found
impracticable. At daylight the savages came out together, running like
deer, and making for the canons. The soldiers fired, killing a buck and
accidentally wounding a squaw, but Massai simply disappeared.
“That's the story of Massai. It is not as long as his trail,” said the
chief of scouts.
JOSHUA GOODENOUGH'S OLD LETTER
THE following letter has come into my possession, which I publish
because it is history, and descends to the list of those humble beings
who builded so well for us the institutions which we now enjoy in this
country. It is yellow with age, and much frayed out at the foldings,
being in those spots no longer discernible. It runs:
ALBANY _June_ 1798.
TO MY DEAR SON JOSEPH.--It is true that there are points in the history
of the country in which your father had a concern in his early life, and
as you ask me to put it down I will do so briefly. Not, however, my dear
Joseph, as I was used to tell it to you when you were a lad, but with
more exact truth, for I am getting on in my years and this will soon be
all that my posterity will have of their ancestor. I conceive that now
the descendents of the noble band of heroes who fought off the indians,
the Frenche and the British will prevail in this country, and my
children's children may want to add what is found here in written to
their own achievements.
To begin with, my father was the master of a fishing-schooner, of
Marblehead. In the year 1745 he was taken at sea by a French man-of-war
off Louisbourg, after making a desperate resistence. His ship was in a
sinking condition and the blood was mid-leg deep on her deck. Your
grandfather was an upstanding man and did not prostrate easily, but the
Frencher was too big, so he was captured and later found his way as a
prisoner to Quebec. He was exchanged by a mistake in his identity for
Huron indians captivated in York, and he subsequently settled near
Albany, afterwards bringing my mother, two sisters, and myself from
Marblehead.
He engaged in the indian trade, and as I was a rugged lad of my years I
did often accompany him on his expeditions westward into the Mohawk
townes, thus living in bark camps among Indians and got thereby a
knowledge of their ways. I made shift also to learn their language, and
what with living in the bush for so many years I was a hand at a pack or
paddle and no mean hunter besides. I was put to school for two seasons
in Albany which was not to my liking, so I straightway ran off to a
hunters camp up the Hudson, and only came back when my father would say
that I should not be again put with the pedegogue. For this adventure I
had a good strapping from my father, and was set to work in his trade
again. My mother was a pious woman and did not like me to grow up in
the wilderness--for it was the silly fashion of those times to ape the
manners and dress of the Indians.
My father was a shifty trader and very ventur-some. He often had trouble
with the people in these parts, who were Dutch and were jealous of him.
He had a violent temper and was not easily bent from his purpose by
opporsition. His men had a deal of fear of him and good cause enough in
the bargain, for I once saw him discipline a half-negro man who was one
of his boat-men for stealing his private jug of liquor from his private
pack. He clinched with the negro and soon had him on the ground, where
the man struggled manfully but to no purpose, for your grandfather soon
had him at his mercy. “Now,” said he, “give me the jug or take the
consequences.” The other boat paddlers wanted to rescue him, but I
menaced them with my fusil and the matter ended by the return of the
jug.
In 1753 he met his end at the hands of western Indians in the French
interest, who shot him as he was helping to carry a battoe, and he was
burried in the wilderness. My mother then returned to her home in
Massassachusetts, journeying with a party of traders but I staid with
the Dutch on these frontiers because I had learned the indian trade and
liked the country. Not having any chances, I had little book learning in
my youth, having to this day a regret concerning it. I read a few books,
but fear I had a narrow knowledge of things outside the Dutch
settlements. On the frontiers, for that matter, few people had much
skill with the pen, nor was much needed. The axe and rifle, the paddle
and pack being more to our hands in those rough days. To prosper though,
men weare shrewd-headed enough. I have never seen that books helped
people to trade sharper. Shortly afterwards our trade fell away, for the
French had embroiled the Indians against us. Crown Point was the Place
from which the Indians in their interest had been fitted out to go
against our settlements, so a design was formed by His Majesty the
British King to dispossess them of that place. Troops were levid in the
Province and the war began. The Frenchers had the best of the fighting.