Mountains, but I don’t like the Chiricahua. It is no use for them to
fight the Americans. Besides, they killed my father and mother. Are you
going to be a Chiricahua, Boy-who-sleeps?”
Jimmie shook his head.
“No. I am American. I don’t want to be anything but American. I’m a
white boy.”
“That is good,” approved Red-head. He was a snappy, energetic boy,
built low to the ground, and with his red hair and freckled face and
one bright blue eye looked very nervy. “I like the Americans. Some day
I’ll be a scout with the American soldiers. The White Mountain Apaches
are good Apaches. Chief Pedro is wise. He knows that it is no use to
fight the Americans. It is better to live at peace with them, and raise
corn, and hunt, and be given food and clothes. That is easier than
fighting and starving and losing warriors. The Americans are too many,
and are well armed. The Chiricahua have bad hearts and will all be
killed. You ought to leave them.”
“I can’t,” replied Jimmie. “I don’t know where to go.”
“Well,” said Red-head, winking with his one shrewd blue eye, “wait and
maybe I’ll help you. But don’t tell anybody about my talk with you.”
III
THE RED-HEAD TURNS UP
Jimmie had been with the Cochise Chiricahuas about a year, as he
reckoned, because winter (and not a cold winter) had passed, and the
yuccas, or Spanish-bayonet cactuses, and the mescal, or century plant
cactuses, were again in bloom with their tall, stately plumes of white,
which indicated May.
All this time nobody had come looking for him, and he did not know what
was going on outside――at Pete Kitchen’s or at Tucson or at Camp Grant
or at Joe Felmer’s, or anywhere.
All the news was Apache news; gossip about hunting and raids, and
cowardly Mexicans and stupid Americans.
Camps had been changed frequently, for the Chiricahuas did not remain
long in any one spot. He had not seen Red-head in several months.
According to Nah-che the soldiers were getting more numerous, and
were fighting all the Apaches――the Chiricahuas and the Tontos and the
Yavapais or Apache-Mohaves and the Mogollons: all who would not settle
down at peace like the White Mountains and the Warm Springs.
Part of the winter had been spent in Mexico, but just now the camp
had been located again amidst the Chiricahua Mountains. Most of the
warriors were out on a big raid, under Cochise and Geronimo. They had
not taken any of the older boys. By this it looked as though they were
going into American country, where they might meet the soldiers.
Nah-che admitted as much. He said that report had come of a killing
of friendly Apaches at Camp Grant, so it was useless to trust the
White-eyes (as the Americans were called); they were the enemies of the
Apaches, and Cochise had gone to kill all the Mexicans and Americans
that he could find, down there.
Jimmie felt anxious. He well knew how cunning and bold the Cochise
Chiricahuas were. They had plenty of arms, including guns that they
had captured. They were particularly eager to kill a young American
war-captain who had been leading soldiers upon their trail.
“Was he a new young war-captain?”
“No, he was an old young war-captain――a horse chief. He had killed
Apaches out of Tucson and Camp Grant both.”
As Nah-che would not talk any more about him, Jimmie might only guess.
But all the young officers in the First and the Third Cavalry at Camp
Grant had been brave.
The Cochise and Geronimo party were gone more than half a moon before
word arrived from them. Then, one morning, two runners or messengers,
Porico (“White Horse”), who was Geronimo’s brother, and Hal-zay, who
was a half-brother to Nah-che, appeared. They had traveled hard and
were tired, but they brought exciting news.
The Chiricahuas had ambushed twenty American soldiers and scouts at the
Bear Springs in the Mestinez (Mustang) Mountains only a day’s march
east from Tucson; had killed six of them, maybe more, and had driven
the rest back clear into Camp Crittenden, southeast of Tucson; would
have surrounded and killed them, too, had they not fought so skillfully.
A few Chiricahuas had been killed, but among the first to fall, of the
Americans, was the young horse chief who had given the Chiricahuas so
much trouble. They had taken his clothes and other trophies, and had
easily escaped to the Sierra Madre Mountains of Mexico.
Cochise was going to stay there for a time, until the soldiers quit
trying to trail him. Then he would come north.
The old squaws in the rancheria immediately lay flat upon their
stomachs and screeched and wailed, mourning the warriors who had
fallen. This was Apache custom. But the camp on the whole was happy and
Jimmie was the only truly sad member. He was not an Apache; he was an
American, even though he did not look much like a white boy, now, save
for his eyes and hair.
The camp was moved, to guard against a surprise from the soldiers of
the American forts. After another half a moon the war party came in and
were given a great welcome. They had eaten most of the captured cavalry
horses, but they brought some of the other plunder. Taza was wearing
the flannel shirt of the young officer.
He was very proud of it. It was a blue shirt, with the straps of a
first lieutenant sewed upon the shoulders. Jimmie recognized these,
because he knew army uniforms. The shirt was passed about. Inside the
neck had been stitched a little tag, bearing the letters “H. B. C.”
printed on it.
Oh! This was Lieutenant Cushing’s shirt, then! His initials were H.
B. C., for Howard B. Cushing; and he was a first lieutenant, and he
had commanded lots of detachments out of Camp Grant, against the
Apaches. He was a terrific fighter, too, and one of the very best
officers on a trail. Jimmie remembered him well. All southern Arizona
knew of Lieutenant Howard B. Cushing of the Third Cavalry. He had
served through the Civil War; one of his brothers had been killed at
Gettysburg and another, as a lieutenant in the navy, had blown up the
Confederate iron-clad Albemarle by poking it with a bomb attached to a
long pole.
This Lieutenant Cushing of the Third Cavalry was just as brave. The
Apaches had had good reason to fear him. No wonder they rejoiced, now
that they had ambushed him and wiped him out.
Nah-che saw Jimmie gulp in his throat. Nah-che had keen eyes.
“You know him?” asked Nah-che.
“Friend,” answered Jimmie, turning away.
“He was a brave captain,” volunteered Nah-che. “He fought hard. But in
war brave men die.”
Jimmie longed for the Red-head to take him away; or for soldiers or
scouts to attack the camp and rescue him.
The killing of Lieutenant Cushing encouraged the Chiricahuas. Cochise
had talks with Chiefs Loco and Chihuahua, and with Chief Nana who was
with a Warm Spring band and helping the Chiricahuas. Parties were
being sent out constantly; some of the captains took their families,
Maria was traded to Chief Nana, and soon the main Chiricahua camp was
much smaller.
One day Nah-che, who had been away with Geronimo, came hurrying in with
orders for the camp to be moved again.
“There are soldiers marching this way,” he reported, breathless, and
big with his news. “They struck us when we were eating, in the medicine
springs valley near the Sierra Bonita. We were bringing meat up from
Mexico, but we left it. We have seen signal fires telling us of other
soldiers. Geronimo says to go at once to the next place-we-know-of.”
Instantly the camp was all confusion. The old men shouted, the women
ran around screeching and gathering their household things, children
scampered and screamed, dogs yelped. The frameworks of the huts were
set afire, and leaving in the smoke the Chiricahuas hustled out for
other quarters.
They made a queer procession. The old men stoutly hobbled by aid of
long staffs or “walking-sticks”; the women were laden with huge bundles
slung to their backs by means of straps about their foreheads, and with
babies tucked into their shawls or bound in wicker cradles; ponies
had been packed with baskets; the smaller children rode atop, but the
strong boys and girls walked. Jimmie and the boys of his age were not
obliged to carry anything.
Through canyon and across valley, into brush and timber, up slope
and down, they toiled, led by old Cha-dah, who was the camp tatah
or chief. Every so often the tatah and the other old men in advance
halted, and stuck their staffs into the ground, and waited. Here
everybody rested, for a brief space. By this system many miles were
covered before camp was established, at evening, and all might eat and
sleep.
Jimmie, lying wrapped in a piece of blanket near Nah-che, under a
pine tree, was awakened in the night by a hand firmly pressed upon
his forehead. The pressure warned him not to stir, so he only stared
up――and in the star-lighted dimness he saw the one bright eye of
Red-head beaming down from close above him.
Red-head was squatting, waiting. Now he removed his hand slowly, and
beckoned with his finger, and silently backed away.
This was enough for Jimmie. What Red-head was doing here, on a sudden,
after a long absence, he did not delay to reason out, but began
cautiously to slip from his blanketing.
First he drew away, crouched; then on hands and knees; then, stooping,
and carefully setting foot before foot, testing the ground lest a twig
snap. From tree to tree he stole, until he was beyond the camp――and on
a sudden, again, Red-head arose right in front of him.
That was good! Now he followed behind the Red-head’s soundless course,
swiftly, straight away, until Red-head stopped.
“Do you want to escape?” asked Red-head. He carried a bow and quiver,
and wore only a cloth about his middle, and moccasins.
“Yes.”
“If you’ll travel fast, I’ll take you,” said Red-head. “Soldiers are
coming. If we don’t find them you can go to Chief Pedro of the White
Mountains. The Chiricahua never visit there, because of the fort.”
“Bueno (Good),” approved Jimmie.
Red-head set out at a trot and rapid walk, but Jimmie kept right in his
wake. Jimmie’s legs were as strong as those of Red-head; his training
in the Apache games stood by him. On and on and on they hastened,
without a word, through the night, amidst timber, and across open
flats, and down cactus hills and up again.
Red-head seemed to know what he was about, but Jimmie of course was
completely lost. Not until the dusk had thinned and the eastern sky was
pink did Red-head halt, at a spring which had made the ground mushy in
a little hollow among rocks and cedars.
“Drink, eat, rest,” he said. He grinned with his freckled face, his
long red hair was damp with sweat. “You did well, Boy-who-sleeps. One
more travel and they cannot catch us. Wait.”
He fitted an arrow to his bow-string and stepped aside, hunting. Jimmie
flung himself down, drank, and lay flat, resting. The sky was pink as
far as over-head, he might glimpse Red-head moving silently among the
cedars; saw him shoot an arrow; and presently Red-head returned with
two rabbits.
They started a fire by twirling a pointed stick set upon a flat piece
of wood until the dust smoked; then they blew upon the dust and some
bark tinder until there was a glow. Then they cooked the rabbits over
dry cedar that made no smoke.
First by the stars and later by the pink east Jimmie knew that they
had been traveling toward the north. Now Red-head explained. Some of
his talk was Apache and some was Spanish-Mexican. He used whichever
language came the easier.
“We will not go straight to Camp Apache in the country where the White
Mountains are,” he said. “It is better that we go round-about. If
the Chiricahua see that we are going to Camp Apache that might make
trouble. They would say that the White Mountains stole you, and some
time they might capture _me_. Now if they try to follow us, we will
fool them.
“I will tell you about the soldiers. There is a new American
comandante. He has come to Tucson, to fight the bad Indians. He
is leading out a great lot of horse soldiers and white scouts and
tame-Indian scouts――Navahos and Papagos and Yaquis and Apaches,
too――and wagons and pack-mules. He has been at Camp Bowie, and he is
marching north to Camp Apache, but he may not stay. The White Mountains
have heard this from runners. The runners say that he is a wonderful
comandante, who knows everything but asks many questions. Shall we try
to find him, Boy-who-sleeps? I think that now is a good chance, while
the Chiricahua are hiding.”
“I don’t want to live with the Chiricahuas,” asserted Jimmie. “I hate
them. They kill my friends. I’m not an Indian. I’m white.”
“I don’t know whether I’m American or Mexican or Indian,” grinned
Red-head. “I can be anything. What is your American name, Boy-who-sleeps?
I will call you by it. We will quit being Apache.”
“James MacGregor Dunn, but everybody called me Jimmie.”
“Inju (good),” grunted Red-head, in Apache. “I am called Micky Free by
the soldiers at Camp Apache. You shall call me Micky, and I shall call
you Cheemie.”
“How did you lose your eye, Micky?”
“By a deer. Three or four years ago I shot a deer with an arrow, and
knocked him down. I thought I had killed him, but when I ran and
grabbed his head he fought me and struck me with his horn in the eye.
Old Miguel has only one eye, too. He lost that in battle.”
“Who is old Miguel?”
“He is a White Mountain chief. There are Miguel and Pedro and old
Es-ki-tis-tsla and Pi-to-ne. They are for peace.”
“Inju,” grunted Jimmie.
While they rested and ate and drank, Micky kept a sharp look-out. Every
now and again he mounted upon a rocky ledge and lay there, peering.
“I see smokes,” he said, coming down the last time. “I do not think
they are meant for us. The Chiricahua are signaling to each other. But
we had better go on, Cheemie, to a cave I know of. We will sleep.”
Yes, there were smokes, far back on their trail: smokes that signaled
“enemies.” This was well, because with enemies around, the Chiricahuas
would not risk following the trail of a boy. So that noon Jimmie and
Micky slept in Micky’s cave, which was concealed high up in the side
of a canyon. They entered it from above. From the mouth they might see
a long distance.
“In two days we shall cross the Tonto country,” remarked Micky. “That
is where we turn east for Camp Apache and the White Mountains. We will
have to be very careful again. The Tonto are bad people. They are
outlaws. When an Apache gets bad, he joins the Tonto.”
IV
THE CANVAS SUIT MAN
The country was steadily growing wilder, with much large timber. For
two days Micky had been leading on and on. The Chiricahuas did not
seem to be pursuing, and Jimmie was certain that he had escaped from
them. He wished that he might have said good-by to good Nah-da-ste, who
had taken care of him; and to his friends Nah-che and Chato, and some
others; but of course that had not been possible. They might have known
that he could not stay being an Apache.
Now on this the third day from the cave Micky suddenly stopped short
and examined an object beside him. They had been following just below a
gravelly ridge, so as to be out of sight. Yuccas and bunchy grass grew
here, and a few cedars, and the sun was warm.
“Tonto sign,” spoke Micky, pointing.
It was a band of dried grass knotted around a yucca leaf. Only eyes
like those of Micky would have seen it; but Micky saw everything.
“How do you know, Micky?”
“Because I know,” answered Micky. “That is the way the Tonto tie their
grass. A White Mountain would have tied different, and so would a
Chiricahua or a Pinal. And the same with piling stones or writing signs
on rocks or bark. It means a Tonto war party has passed here, and tells
other Tonto to follow. See――there is the trail.”
“Shall we hide, Micky?”
“No. The trail was made early this morning. It is an old trail. See,
Cheemie? You have lived with the Chiricahua and you ought to know.
There is a broken twig, where it was stepped on, and the leaves are
wilted. The sap is done flowing. I think we’d better follow and see
where those Tonto are going, so we won’t run into them.”
The trail proceeded up the gravelly ridge, where moccasin prints were
plain, and over, and through among cedars of a flat mesa; and suddenly
Jimmie fairly gasped for breath. They had come out upon the edge of a
great, broad, deep valley lying like a green basin; it was so deep that
the trees in it looked like shrubs, and the farther edge was veiled in
purple mist.
“Tonto home,” said Micky. “Down in there the Tonto live, where they
can hide. Up here is Mogollon country. It is all a flat mountain top,
on the Sierra Mogollon. We shall see many big pine trees soon. When we
find where this Tonto trail goes we had better turn back.”
The trail skirted the dizzy edge; then it veered inland, and was joined
by another trail, and presently the joined trails made straight into
a tremendous forest. The trees were all pines; they stood up tall and
stately, and under them the ground was clean, except for the needles
and the low grass and flowers. Throughout the long aisles flecked by
the sun not a thing moved. It was a silent forest.
Micky and Jimmie trotted fast, their eyes upon the trail, or searching
ahead. Now it was past noon. Once in a while the view opened into
the great Tonto Basin; and again there was only the timber, with the
serried trunks extending on every side. In such a forest, and when
gazing into such a basin, a boy felt small.
About an hour or an hour and a half after noon Micky, who was just
before, stopped short once more――stopped so quickly that he stood with
one foot uplifted. He signed “Come,” and Jimmie came on.
“Horse tracks now, Cheemie. American horses. Mules, too. American
soldiers.”
This was a larger trail; the pine needles were imprinted with many
hoof marks. The horses had been ridden four abreast――yes, five and six
abreast, so that the trail lay broadly. They were shod horses, which
meant cavalry horses, because the Apache horses were not shod, save
with buckskin boots in cactus country. No Apaches rode four or five
abreast, anyway. The mule prints were smaller and rounder; and the
prints cut deeper, showing that the mules had been laden: pack-mules.
Hah! Micky studied the new trail. The Tontos, too, had paused and
studied it.
“These are some of the soldiers I spoke of, I think,” finally declared
Micky. “They have been at Camp Apache, maybe. Anyhow, they are going
away from it. Maybe the Tonto will attack them. What do you say to do,
Cheemie? My heart tells me we have gone far enough. Shall we turn back,
for Camp Apache?”
“I’d rather try to find the soldiers, Micky.”
“I will take you to Camp Apache. There are soldiers at Camp Apache; and
the White Mountains will be good to you if the soldiers don’t want you.
We will all be chi-kis-n to you.”
“Are you afraid of these soldiers, Micky?”
“No; but I am afraid of the Tonto. Besides, I live with Chief Pedro’s
people on the reservation near Camp Apache. I have no business off in
this other direction.”
“I have, though,” answered Jimmie. “I live at Camp Grant. Maybe these
soldiers are marching back to Camp Grant, or Tucson, and they’ll take
me there.”
“Well,” replied Micky, “I will follow with you, Cheemie.” His one blue
eye danced. “If there is a fight, I would like to see it. I would
like to see those Tonto whipped. But don’t expect me to stay with the
soldiers, Cheemie. That might make me trouble. Come on, but we must be
very careful, or the Tonto will kill us, too.”
After having surveyed the soldiers’ trail the Tontos had continued on
beside it, and between it and the edge of the basin. But Micky crossed
the soldiers’ trail and hurried away from it. He seemed much excited by
the prospect of a fight, for he set such a pace that Jimmie half ran.
Evidently he was going to circuit out and back again, to cut the trail
farther ahead.
Jimmie kept his ears sharp pricked for soldier sounds――voices, or the
creak of saddle-leathers, or the tinkle of pack-mule bells; and also
for the shooting of guns: but all was silence. Twice Micky and he
struck the trail again. It wended right along, among the trees, and it
was getting fresher. Indeed, the soldiers could not be far ahead, now.
No Tonto trail had been cut; therefore the Tontos were still on the
other side of the soldiers’ trail.
The sun had sunk toward some high purplish ridges away yonder, bounding
the basin in the west, and evening was near. The third time that Micky
led in, to cut the trail, he and Jimmie got clear to the edge of the
great basin without coming to any trail at all. For the last hundred
yards they had crawled, with bunches of weeds tied to their heads, lest
the Tontos should be in waiting, but nothing had happened.
The big pines extended to the edge of the basin, and along the edge
were large boulders, scattered among the trees here. Some of them were
the size of a hut. They lay in twos and threes, as if dropped by a
blast.
Micky, with Jimmie close behind, wormed from the trees for two boulders
that touched. They touched at an angle, so that they left a space,
within which two boys might crouch, on the ground, and see out by
peeping through the cracks, or by standing up.
“We have come far enough, Cheemie,” whispered Micky. “It is a good
place to stay, till the Tonto and the soldiers pass. And if they do
not fight I am going back to my White Mountains. But I want to see the
fight. Are you thirsty, Cheemie? You’ll have to drink a stone.”
He picked up a round pebble and put it into his mouth. Jimmie did the
same. A pebble in the mouth made the mouth wet.
“Listen!” bade Jimmie. “I hear tinkle!”
“Yes; pack-mules. The soldiers are coming. You can go with them,
Cheemie, but you must not say one word about me. Promise.”
“All right, Micky.”
The bells of the pack-mules were yet a long way off. Micky, with the
weeds still bound on his head, cautiously rose, to peer over the two
boulders――and down he dropped.
“S-s-s! Tonto!” he whispered.
He began to poke out his head, gradually, around a corner of the rock
on his side. Jimmie gently wriggled, crawling flat, until he was under
an over-hang on his side, and might see straight before, with his head
just raised from the ground. Right up over the edge of the mighty basin
figures were popping, and scuttling for the timber: a file of them,
Apaches!
They crossed not more than thirty yards away. They were naked of body
and limbs, their hair was black and long and straggly, they were daubed
with deer blood and mescal juice, they carried strung bows and quivers,
they were the fiercest, most hideous Apaches that Jimmie had ever seen.
The low sun shone full against them, showing them plainly. They
scarcely glanced aside as they hurried; and if they did chance to note
Micky’s head or Jimmie’s head, they thought them to be two motionless
tufts of weed, like other tufts growing here and there.
Tontos! Jimmie counted seventeen, all springing out of the depths of
the earth as suddenly as jacks-in-the-box, darting across, and in among
the pines. Then there were two more, who dropped among the rocks under
the trees.
After the last had passed and vanished, Micky kicked Jimmie’s leg,
and Jimmie drew back to face him behind the boulders. Micky’s blue
eye fairly sparkled; even his freckles glowed, he was so excited. He
certainly loved danger. He was not American enough to say “Hurrah!” but
he looked it!
“The Tonto are ready,” he whispered. “We’ll see the fight. Good! Quick!
The soldiers are coming.”
He crawled around the boulders, craned and peered, crept swiftly, with
Jimmie in his tracks, to a better place, and wormed his way until they
both might lie in a warm niche half filled with washed-in soil and
screened with brush. From here they could see much better into the
timber beyond the cross trail of the Tontos.
Jimmie felt a wild desire to warn the soldiers of the ambush by the
Tontos; but the Tontos were cutting him off and he had no time for
making a circuit. No, none at all. The soldiers were in sight――the
head of their column had appeared, riding on, up an aisle through the
towering pines, a short way back from the edge of the basin.
The first, by themselves, were five, riding leisurely almost knee to
knee, and apparently enjoying the scenery. Their voices might be heard,
as they chatted. One, a small, sun-dried man, wore an old slouch hat
and grayish flannel shirt and dark trousers and cowhide boots. He
was Tom Moore, a government packer. Jimmie knew him――had seen him at
Camp Grant and in Tucson. Hah! And three were officers, in cavalry
fatigue――there was Lieutenant John Bourke, of Camp Grant! Yes, sir! And
Lieutenant William Ross! And another. But the man in the middle, on a
mule, Jimmie did not know at all.