in the United States. It is located on the western side of the great
"Tonto Basin" in central Arizona, and consists of ragged mountain
ranges, and isolated peaks, while the whole area is cut and seamed with
deep box cañons impassable for miles.
About fifty miles from the city of Phoenix, as the crow flies, and
near the great Roosevelt irrigation reservoir and dam, four granite
peaks pierce the sky.
Here Nature is found in one of her most inhospitable moods, and in the
fastnesses of these "Four Peaks" several bands of the hunted, harassed
Apaches took refuge.
In its mighty cañons the Indians knew of caves and cliffs where they had
lived in safety from their old enemies for many years; there they
believed no white man could possibly reach them.
Crook and his soldiers matched wits with the Indians and beat them at
their own game. Wherever the Indians went there the troops followed
them. They chased them on foot when their horses played out, lived on
the scantiest possible allowance of food, slept in the deep snows with
but a single blanket and without fires lest the telltale smoke give the
Indians warning of their presence.
It was to surprise the occupants of one of these caves that Major Brown
and his men were making this night march.
There the Apaches had fled, carrying into the cave great quantities of
food and other necessary supplies, leaving their ponies behind to shift
for themselves.
The cave itself is not a cave in the strict sense of the word, but
rather a great weather-worn shelf, similar to those used by the ancient
cliff dwellers for their habitations all over the Southwest.
At the outside edge the opening is about fifteen feet high from floor to
roof, and sixty feet wide. The roof slopes back into the cliff for some
thirty feet to a point where the rear wall is not over three feet high.
At the front, the floor of the cave projects some little distance beyond
the overhanging cliff forming a sort of platform. Entirely around this
platform the Apaches had raised a stone-wall several feet high, inside
of which they rested in fancied security.
On top of the mountain Major Brown's command, which numbered but fifty
men and officers, with two civilian guides, waited while the two scouts
wormed their way into the blackness of the cañon's depths in an attempt
to make sure that the Indians did not have any pickets outside the cave
to guard against surprise.
The cool night breeze made the soldiers' teeth chatter. Some dropped off
to sleep, while others huddled together under the lee of the great rocks
whose surface still gave off some slight warmth stored up during the
day. Meantime they cursed, with a soldier's vehemence, the slowness of
the scouts in returning.
Finally they came, dropping into the midst of the men as if from above,
so quietly did they move.
Five minutes of whispering followed between the guide, the Major and the
Indians, and then Lieutenant W. J. Ross and a dozen men crawled away
into the darkness with one of the Indians to guide them.
Again, those soldiers had begged to be taken as one of the party. No use
to call for volunteers, they were all volunteers and envied the
fortunate ones whom the tall First Sergeant named for the trip.
Ross was to endeavor to locate the entrance to the cave in order that
the rest of the command might be posted in the most advantageous
positions. His party dropped into the cañon and was quickly swallowed up
in its sombre shadows. Down they crept, stumbling over rocks, treading
on the "Cholla" cactus balls that covered the ground everywhere, and
whose sharp needles will often pierce the heaviest buckskin gloves,
moccasins or even leather boots. A misstep meant death far below in the
cañon, while every minute they looked for the crash of the Indians'
rifles.
As they felt their way carefully along, they saw the faint gleam of a
campfire. Ross worked his men up as closely as he could, placing them in
safe positions behind rocks scattered about. By the light of the fire,
they made out some fifteen Indians standing about it while a lot of
squaws were preparing food for them. The fire was but a few feet from
the cave which could be seen dimly in the background, and it was quite
evident the hostiles felt very secure in their retreat.
Scarcely daring to breathe, each picked out a brave for a target and at
a whispered signal, fired. Those of the Indians who were not killed fled
into the cave, while the report of the carbines quickly brought the rest
of the command down into the cañon.
Major Brown placed his men about the cave so as to prevent the escape of
any of the Indians, waiting for daylight before attempting further
operations.
One Apache managed to work his way out of the cave and through the
cordon by some means. He was seen after he had passed clear through the
lines, standing for an instant on a great rock, his figure boldly
outlined against the sky. His recklessness in his fancied security was
his undoing, for one of the crack shots in the regiment, Private John
Cahill, took a hasty shot at the form, and it came tumbling down the
steep side of the cañon.
After Major Brown had formed his lines about the cave he called on the
Indians to surrender. This they answered with cries of defiance,
followed by a few scattering shots which did no harm. Later on Brown
again called on them to surrender, or if not that, to send out their
women and children, promising no harm should come to them. Again the
Indians refused to accept the offer. They heaped epithets, dear to the
Apache heart, upon the soldiers, taunting them with cowardice, and
assuring them that they would soon be food for the buzzards and ravens.
"May the coyotes howl over your grave," is a favorite Apache expression
of contempt, which they hurled at their opponents many times during the
fight.
Daylight came slowly, and then the siege was on in earnest. Brown again
renewed his offer of protection to the women and children, but to no
purpose. Of arrows and lances, as well as fixed ammunition for their
rifles, the Indians seemed to have an unlimited supply. They showered
arrows upon the soldiers by hundreds, sending them high into the air, so
they would fall upon the men lying behind the rocks scattered about.
Lances were also thrown in the same manner, but they were unable to
inflict any damage upon the besiegers by such tactics. The Indians also
played all the tricks belonging to their style of warfare. War bonnets
and hats were raised upon lances above the wall with the intention of
drawing the fire of some soldier and getting him exposed to a return
shot. But Brown warned his men against all such schemes, and no harm was
done by them.
Twice did small parties of the Indians make bold dashes out of the cave,
evidently with the intention or hope of gaining the rear of the troopers
to harass them from the heights above, or else to secure assistance from
other bands of hostiles known to be in the vicinity. But these sorties
were repulsed by the soldiers with a loss of several Indians.
Whether the trick of the Indians in shooting arrows at such an angle as
to drop on the men behind the rocks suggested retaliation in kind, no
one can say today; but finding direct firing without any great effect,
Brown conceived the idea of having his men aim their carbines so that
the bullets would strike against the roof of the cave; by so doing, he
believed the bullets would be so deflected as to strike amongst the
Indians huddled in the small space below.
For some time the soldiers poured their fire against the rocky roof with
no apparent results, although the shriek of a wounded squaw or the
pitiful cry of some child, struck by the spattering lead, convinced them
that some of the bullets were finding a mark.
The Indians fought with the desperation of trapped animals, but finally
there came a lull in their fire. From the cave came a weird wild chant.
It was the death chant of the Apaches, which the scouts warned the
officers meant a charge.
Soon they came; about twenty picked warriors clambering over the rocky
wall, with the most desperate courage and recklessness. All were armed
with both bow and rifle. Each carried on his back a quiver full of the
slender reed arrows peculiar to the Apaches and, with a volley from
their rifles, charged the soldiers behind their rocky breastworks.
Pandemonium reigned. The death chant was taken up by the squaws in the
cave; the crack of guns in the deep cañon, the shrieks of wounded and
dying squaws and children, the yells of the soldiers as they met this
fierce attack of the desperate savages, the flashing of rifle shots in
the darkness, all made what an officer who was present (the late Captain
John G. Bourke of the 3rd U. S. Cavalry) once told the writer was the
most thrilling as well as the most appalling moment he ever knew during
a lifetime full of exciting incidents.
But the efforts of the despairing Indians were fruitless, and they were
driven back with heavy losses. Thus the fight went on for hours. The sun
rose high in the heavens and beat down on the scene until the soldiers
lying in the hot rocks suffered fearfully for water. Major Brown's
scheme was working, however, with frightful success. The death chant was
ceaseless and the cries of defiance, rage, and despair rang out
constantly from the penned-up savages.
One little Apache boy, possibly not over four years of age, toddled out
of the side of the cave where the wall of rock was open, and stood
gazing with wide-eyed wonder at the sight before him. One of Major
Brown's Indian scouts sprang from his hiding place behind a rock a few
yards away, and running to the child, seized him by the arms, dragging
him into the soldiers' lines before a single shot could be fired at him.
The small detachment, left behind as a rearguard and anxious to take
part in the fighting, worked its way up to the cliff above the caves.
Below them they could hear the roar of carbines and the shrieks of the
Indians. By means of straps, two adventurous soldiers were lowered far
enough over the edge of the cliff to get a clear view of the scene
below. The wall erected by the Apaches was several feet outside of the
line of the cliff or cave, and from their dizzy height they could see
the Indians lying behind their ramparts.
The top of the cliff was covered with boulders of all sizes, and the men
at once conceived the idea of dropping boulders down on to the Indians
beneath. This forced them to take refuge from the flying rocks, by
retiring farther into the cave. When they did this the ricochette fire
from the soldiers became more deadly and the end was not far off.
By noon the firing of the Indians had ceased. No sounds but the cries
of the squaws or groans of wounded came from the interior of the cave.
Brown now prepared for a charge believing that the cave could be stormed
without much if any loss. Corporal Hanlon of G-Troop, 5th Cavalry, was
the first man over the stone-wall, the rest following him as rapidly as
they could.
Inside the cave was a scene that made the roughest soldier among them
shudder. Men, women, and children, either dead or in the agonies of
death, were lying in piles three and four deep. At first it appeared as
if danger was to be expected from some wounded Indian, and while part of
the soldiers worked among the debris on the floor, others watched with
guns in hand for signs of hostile intent. But nothing of the kind
occurred.
Only one man was alive and he died soon after the soldiers entered the
cave. Some seventy-eight dead bodies were lying in the cave, and of the
living there were but eighteen, all squaws. Many of the wounded squaws
could have been saved had the troops been accompanied by a surgeon or
even provided with the necessary medical supplies.
The few that had lived through that awful hail of lead and rocks, were
saved by screening themselves from the missiles under great slabs of
slate which the squaws had packed into the caves for cooking purposes,
or by hiding under or behind the dead bodies of their comrades.
The fight was over; the dead babies lay in their dead mothers' arms.
Rough men as they were, the sights made the soldiers sick at heart; such
warfare was not to their liking.
As it was impossible to bury the dead, they were left in the cave where
they fell and where they lie today, in great heaps of skulls and bones,
together with clothing and other camp impedimenta which have survived
the years in the dry atmosphere of the region.
After satisfying themselves that no more living were among the bodies
the soldiers tramped wearily back to Fort McDowell with their prisoners
and wounded, and the brief official report of the affair closed the
incident.
It was more than a thousand miles over desert and mountain to the
nearest railroad station and civilization. No war correspondent trailed
along in their wake, armed with kodak and typewriter, to tell a waiting
world of their prowess; no flaming headlines in the morrow's paper would
cry out their victory. They were "just regulars," and this was but the
day's work.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE STAMPEDE ON THE TURKEY TRACK RANGE
By permission _The Cosmopolitan Magazine_
Dark. Well, it was dark, and no mistake. We had been holding a big herd
of steers for a week. It was on the Turkey Track ranch, and they were
mostly Turkey Track steers, that is, they were branded with the Santa
Maria Cattle Company's brand, which is a design ([symbol: Arrow]) on
each side, called Turkey Track by the cowboys, who never think of using
any other means of identifying a cow than by giving the name of the
brand she carries.
And en passant when a cowboy says "cow," he uses the word as a generic
term for everything from a sucking calf up to a ten-year-old bull.
We were in camp in a noble valley some fifteen miles long by ten wide,
dotted here and there by cedar groves, and at that season covered with
splendid grass, where we were holding a bunch of steers that the company
was getting ready to ship; it was a lazy enough life except the
night-work. There was plenty of grass to graze them on in the daytime,
and a big "dry lake" full of water, where three thousand head could
drink at once, and never one bog or give any trouble. Two men on "day
herd" at a time could handle them easily enough, and as there were
nine of us, or enough for three guards of three men each, we didn't have
anything much to complain of.
[Illustration: "_The men on day herd could hold them easily_"]
"Old Dad," the cook, built pies and puddings that were never excelled
anywhere, and occasionally he'd have a plum duff for supper that simply
exhausted the culinary art.
The steers were, as the boys say, "a rolicky lot of oxen." Most every
night they would take a little run, and it usually took all hands an
hour or so to get them back to the bed ground and quieted down, which
didn't tend to make us any better natured when the cook yelled, "Roll
out, roll out," about 4:30 every morning.
The weather had been lovely ever since we started in, but this evening
it had clouded up, and in the west, toward sunset, great "thunder-heads"
had piled up and little detached patches had gone scudding across the
sky, although below on the prairie not a breath of air was stirring. The
muttering roll of heaven's artillery was sounding, and occasionally up
toward the mountains a flame of lightning would shoot through the
rapidly darkening sky.
By eight o'clock, when the first guard rode out to take the herd for
their three hours' watch, it was almost black dark. The foreman or
"wagon boss" of the outfit came out with them, asked how the cattle
acted, and told the boys to be very careful, and if the herd drifted
before the rain, if possible, to try and keep them pointed from the
cedars, for fear of losing them.
[Music: THE COWBOY'S "SWEET BYE AND BYE"]
THE COWBOY'S "SWEET BYE AND BYE"
1
Last night as I lay on the prairie
And looked at the stars in the sky,
I wondered if ever a cowboy
Would drift to that sweet bye and bye?
CHORUS
Roll on, roll on,
Roll on little dogies roll on, roll on;
Roll on, roll on,
Roll on little dogies roll on.
2
The road to that bright mystic region
Is narrow and dim, so they say,
But the trail that leads down to perdition
Is staked and is blazed all the way.
3
They say that there'll be a big round-up
Where the cowboys like dogies will stand,
To be cut by those riders from Heaven
Who are posted and know every brand.
4
I wonder was there ever a cowboy
Prepared for that great judgment day
Who could say to the boss of the riders,
"I'm all ready to be driven away."
5
For they're all like the cows from the "Jimpsons"
That get scart at the sight of a hand,
And have to be dragged to the round-up,
Or get put in some crooked man's brand.
6
For they tell of another big owner
Who is ne'er overstocked, so they say,
But who always makes room for the sinner
Who strays from that bright, narrow way.
7
And they say He will never forget you,
That He notes every action and look.
So for safety, you'd better get branded,
And have your name in His big tally book.
As we rode back to camp we both agreed that the very first clap of
thunder near at hand would send the whole herd flying, and if it rained
it would be very hard to hold them. He told all hands not to picket
their night horses, but to tie them up to the wagon (much to the cook's
disgust), all ready for instant use.
Perhaps I should explain a little about this business, so that my
readers may understand what a "bed ground" is, and how the cowboy stands
guard.
At sunset the day herders work the herd up toward camp slowly, and as
the leaders feed along to about three or four hundred yards from camp,
one of the boys rides out in front and stops them until the whole herd
gradually draws together into a compact body. If they have been well
grazed and watered that day they will soon begin to lie down, and in an
hour probably nine-tenths of them will be lying quietly and chewing
their cuds. All this time the boys are slowly riding around them, each
man riding alone, and in opposite directions; so they meet twice in each
circuit. If any adventurous steer should attempt to graze off, he is
sure to be seen, headed quickly, and sent back into the herd.
The place where the cattle are held at night is called the "bed ground,"
and it is the duty of the day herders, who have cared for them all day,
to have them onto the bed ground and bedded down before dark, when the
first guard comes out and takes them off their hands.
Well, as I said at the beginning, it was dark, and although it was not
raining when they left camp, the boys had put on their slickers, or
oilskin coats, well knowing that they'd have no time to do it when the
rain began to fall.
The three men on first guard were typical Texas boys, almost raised in
the saddle, insensible to hardship and exposure, and the hardest and
most reckless riders in the outfit. One of them, named Tom Flowers, was
a great singer, and usually sang the whole time he was on guard. It's
always a good thing, especially on a dark night, for somehow it seems to
reassure and quiet cattle to hear the human voice at night, and it's
well too that they are not critical, for some of the musical efforts are
extremely crude. Many of the boys confine themselves to hymns, picked up
probably when they were children.
A great favorite with the Texas boys is a song beginning "Sam Bass was
born in Indianer," which consists of about forty verses, devoted to the
deeds of daring of a noted desperado named Sam Bass, who, at the head of
a gang of cut-throats, terrorized the Panhandle and Staked Plains
country, in Western Texas, some years ago.
We used to have a boy in our outfit, a great rough fellow from Montana,
who knew only one song, and that was the hymn "I'm a Pilgrim, and I'm a
Stranger." I have awakened many a night and heard him bawling it at the
top of his voice, as he rode slowly around the herd. He knew three
verses of it and would sing them over and over again. It didn't take the
boys long to name him "The Pilgrim," and by that name he went for
several years. He was killed in a row in town one night, and I'm not
sure then that any one knew his right name, for he was carried on the
books of the cow-outfit he was working for as "The Pilgrim."
I lost no time in rolling out my bed and turning in, only removing my
boots, heavy leather chaps (chaparejos), and hat, and two minutes later
was sound asleep. How long I slept I can't say, but I was awakened by a
row among the night-horses tied to the wagon.
The storm had for the present cleared away just overhead, the full moon
was shining down as it seems to do only in these high altitudes in
Arizona; not a breath of air was stirring, and I could hear the measured
"chug, chug, chug," of the ponies' feet as the men on guard slowly
jogged around the cattle. I was lazily wondering what guard it was, and
how long I had slept, when suddenly the clear, full voice of Tom Flowers
broke the quiet with one of his cowboy songs. It was set to the air of
"My Bonnie Lies over the Ocean," and as I lay there half awake and half
asleep it seemed to me, with all its surroundings, that it was as
charming and musical as the greatest effort of any operatic tenor.
"Last night as I lay on the prairie,
And looked at the stars in the sky,
I wondered if ever a cowboy
Would drift to that sweet by and by."
The voice would swell and grow louder as he rode round to the campside
of the cattle, and as he reached the far side the words "sweet by and
by," came to me faintly and softly, as if the very night was listening
to his song.
"The road to that bright, mystic region,
Is narrow and dim, so they say,
But the trail that leads down to perdition,
Is staked and is blazed all the way."
I had never heard Tom sing this song before, nor had I ever heard him
sing so well, and I raised on my elbow to catch every word:
"They say that there'll be a big round-up,
Where the cowboys like dogies[A] will stand,
To be cut by those riders from Heaven,
Who are posted and know every brand."
[A] A dogie is a name applied to yearlings, that have lost their
mothers when very young and just managed to live through the
winter.
Here an enterprising steer made a sudden break for liberty, and the song
was stopped, as Tom raced away over the prairie to bring him back, which
being done in a couple of minutes, the song was again taken up:
"I wonder was there ever a cowboy
Prepared for that great judgment day,
Who could say to the boss of the riders,
I'm all ready to be driven away."
Another interruption which I judged from the sounds was caused by his
pony having stumbled into a prairie-dog hole, and I think Tom was
"waking him up," as the boys say, with his heavy quirt.[B]
[B] Quirt, a short, heavy Mexican riding-whip used by cowboys.
That done, he picked up the thread of his song again
"And they say, He will never forget you,
That He notes every action and look,
So for safety you'd better get branded,
And have your name in His big 'tally-book.'
"For they tell of another big owner,
Who is ne'er overstocked, so they say,
But who always makes room for the sinner,
Who strays from that bright, narrow way."
As the closing words floated out on the cool night air, I turned
sleepily in my bed and saw that a huge black cloud had come up rapidly
from the West and bid fair to soon shut out the moon. I snuggled down in
my blankets, wondering if we would have to turn out to help hold the
steers if it rained, when the silence of the night was broken by a peal
of thunder that seemed to fairly split the skies. It brought every man
in camp to his feet, for high above the reverberation of the thunder was
the roar and rattle of a stampede.
It is hard to find words to describe a stampede of a thousand head of
long-horned range steers.
It is a scene never to be forgotten. They crowd together in their mad
fright, hoofs crack and rattle, horns clash against one another, and a
low moan goes through the herd as if they were suffering with pain.
Nothing stands in their way: small trees and bushes are torn down as if
by a tornado, and no fence was ever built that would turn them. Woe
betide the luckless rider who racing recklessly in front of them, waving
his slicker or big hat, or shooting in front of them, trying to turn
them, has his pony stumble or step into a dog-hole and fall, for he is
sure to be trampled to death by their cruel hoofs. And yet they will
suddenly stop, throw up their heads, look at one another as if to say,
"What on earth were you running for?" and in fifteen minutes every one
of them will be lying as quietly as any old, pet milk cow in a country
farm-yard.