_The White Men_
Hidden by brush, Geronimo lay motionless on a hilltop and riveted his
eyes on the scene below.
He was watching a man, one of the strange white men whom Geronimo had
first seen when surveyors came to mark the boundary between the United
States and Mexico. The man was leading four burros, each with a pack on
its back. He was approaching a bluff.
Hiding behind the bluff, Geronimo saw two other white men on horses.
When the man with the burros was near enough, the two leaped their
horses in front of him. Leveling pistols, they said something Geronimo
could not hear but was obviously menacing.
The man dropped his burros' lead ropes and raised both hands. The
horsemen dismounted. While one continued to point his pistol at the man
with the burros, the other rummaged through the packs. Presently he
turned to his companion and exclaimed:
"Gold!"
"So you made a strike, Pop?" the other man asked. "Where is it?"
"'Twas just a pocket," the man with the burro quavered.
"Better not lie to us, Pop."
He who had searched the packs encircled the prospector's throat with one
arm and held tight while the other man tied him. Then they built a fire
and in it thrust a knife.
Grimacing, Geronimo stole down to where he had left his hunting horse.
Apaches tortured prisoners, but only when they seemed to have important
military information that they would not reveal. Even then, Geronimo had
seen battle-hardened warriors turn away because they could not look upon
the prisoner's suffering.
Mounting his horse, Geronimo heard the prospector shriek as his captors
used the red-hot knife to make him tell where the gold mine was. He put
his horse to a run because he cared to hear no more screams, and slowed
only when he was out of hearing.
Not once did he even imagine that the prospector's body would be found
by other white men and the killing would be considered as another
terrible crime of Apaches.
After a while Geronimo stopped beneath another hill. He tethered his
trained hunting horse. Bow in hand and arrow-filled quiver on his
shoulder, he crawled up the hill so carefully that even a stalking cat
would have been more noticeable.
Reaching the top, he looked down upon fifteen antelope. Very slowly, for
antelope have wonderful eyes that notice the least move, he took two
arrows from his quiver. One he nocked loosely in his bow, then laid the
bow where he could grasp it instantly. To the feathered end of the other
arrow he tied a strip of cloth. He raised this second arrow so that the
cloth appeared above the grass, and waved it slowly back and forth.
[Illustration]
Every antelope swung at once to gaze at this wonder. They turned their
heads this way and that, stamped their hoofs, and blew through their
nostrils. Then they let curiosity overcome caution and walked forward
for a closer look.
When they were well within range, Geronimo dropped the arrow. In the
same instant he seized and drew his bow and rose to one knee. The
antelope whirled to run, but the hunting arrow Geronimo loosed caught a
fat buck in mid-leap and brought him to earth dead. Geronimo dressed his
game, tied it behind the hunting horse's saddle, and rode on to meet
Naiche. He found his friend, who also had a fat antelope, waiting near
the rocky spire where they had agreed to meet.
"I saw a great herd of antelope," Naiche announced. "I might have killed
several, but I need only one."
Geronimo said, "I found only a small herd of antelope, but I saw three
white men. I could not attack because they have guns and I carry only a
bow and arrows. Two of the white men tied the third and burned him with
a hot knife blade."
"All white men are crazy," Naiche growled. "And there are far too many
of them in land that belongs to Apaches."
"There are not as many as there were," Geronimo pointed out. "It has
come to my ears that they could not find enough Indians to kill, so they
started a great fight among themselves. I have heard they call it the
Civil War, and all the soldiers who were in Apache country have gone to
kill each other."
Naiche said, "Let us wish them great success in such a worthy
undertaking. Now is the time for Apaches to kill the white men who
remain and again be masters in our own land."
"We are fast becoming masters," Geronimo said. "The three men I saw
today must be either great fools or of great courage. Most white men
dare not leave their cities of Tucson and Tubac unless they are in
numbers and well armed. Their stages no longer run, and their mail
carriers no longer ride. The ashes of their wagons are blowing
throughout Apache land. Their houses and stage stations are abandoned to
the sun and wind. Their graves are more than one man may count."
"True," Naiche agreed. "But I worry."
"For what reason?"
Naiche spoke thoughtfully. "First came the men who measured land and
drove stakes in the ground. They left and we Apaches rested easier.
Then came rock scratchers, gold seekers, to Pinos Altos, and again we
had cause for anxiety.
[Illustration]
"Thinking to be rid of the rock scratchers, Mangus Coloradus himself
went among them and offered to lead them south to rich gold mines in the
Sierra Madre. Truly the gold was there. And truly Mangus Coloradus would
have led them to it, for at that time we had not yet learned the worth
of gold. But the miners thought your Mimbreno chief was lying. They
overpowered and bound him. Then they flogged him more mercilessly than
we ever flogged the most rebellious Mexican prisoner.
"I worry because Mangus Coloradus is growing old," Naiche went on. "He
cannot forget that white men fought us with weapons better than our own.
When we won or stole such weapons for ourselves, they came with still
better ones. Mangus Coloradus thinks that, when the white men are weary
of killing each other, they will return with weapons even more terrible.
He thinks the only hope for Apaches is to seek peace. Yet he fights on."