insisted that there could be no good excuse for attacking Indians who
had surrendered themselves, the Tucson papers and people declared that
these very Pinals and Arivaipas had recently been murdering Americans
and Mexicans, and stealing stock, and deserved Indian punishment
instead of white protection. It would teach the Apaches a lesson.
Of course, when one’s father and mother and brothers and sisters have
been tortured and killed only because they were white, it is hard to
feel at all kindly toward the race that did it. Jimmie knew how that
was. White persons’ clothing――the clothing of the very ones who had
been murdered――was found in the Pinal and Arivaipa camp. Still, for the
white people to act like Indians, set a bad example, if the Indians
were to be shown that the white way of living was the better way.
The Camp Grant massacre aroused a great cry in the East. The East sided
with the Apaches. But when he had arrived, Commissioner Colyer seemed
to be going about with very odd notions. He was reported as thinking
that the Apaches were only a poor ignorant race, who had been robbed of
their lands and forced into war by the whites, and that they ought to
be met with kindness alone. Then they would be peaceable. The Tucson
_Citizen_ asserted that he advised the Arizona people to avoid trouble
by getting out of the Indians’ way. And the _Citizen_ and the Prescott
_Miner_ published hot, sarcastic articles about him and the Peace
Policy. The Apaches were being referred to as “Colyer’s babes” and
“Colyer’s pets.”
“What’s that?” growled Joe. “Thinks the Chiricahuas an’ Tontos don’t
know any better’n to hang folks up by their heels over a slow fire,
does he? An’ that we ought to call off the troops an’ get off our
ranches, so we won’t be irritatin’ the Injuns? Then they’d come in
of themselves, to be civilized! Jest why the ’Paches who can live by
fightin’ an’ stealin’ as they please will want to live by ploughin’,
I’d like to hear. This is part o’ the United States, an’ the white
people are jest as much entitled to protection as the ’Paches are.”
Camp Grant was a four- or five-company post located here in a desert
basin where the valley of the Arivaipa Creek, from the east, and of the
San Pedro River, from the south, joined. The San Pedro was supposed
to flow on north, for a few miles, to the Gila River; but it and the
Arivaipa were only dry sand-beds during the greater part of the year.
Camp Grant was not a pretty place; it was only a hollow square of clay
or log huts and ragged tents, shaded in front by brush porches or
_ramadas_.
Against it beat the sand-storms in the spring and the blazing sun
throughout nine months of the year――temperature, one hundred and twenty
in the shade! The giant cactuses, instead of trees, were many and extra
large――and so were the rattle-snakes, scorpions and centipedes. And the
Apache had always been extra bold.
One never might foresee what was about to occur, at Camp Grant. On some
days it would be perfectly quiet, with only the sentries walking their
hot beats, and the tame Indians squatting out of the sun; and again
there would be a sudden running to and fro, and away would trot the
cavalry, to rescue (if possible) a wagon train, and pursue the hostiles.
In a few days, at best, but likely enough not until after a week or
more, back the troopers would come, maybe with wounded, maybe with
prisoners, but in any case all fagged out, both men and horses.
Joe Felmer’s little ranch lay three miles south, up the San Pedro. As
Joe was post blacksmith, and also sold ranch stuff to the quartermaster,
Jimmie felt as though he belonged to the post, himself. He knew all
the officers, and old Sergeants Warfield and John Mott, and others of
the men; and “Six-toed,” and Antonio Besias the former Mexican captive
of the Apaches, and Concepcion Equierre the half-Apache interpreter,
and old Santos the short-legged Arivaipa ex-chief who was Chief
Es-kim-en-zin’s father-in-law; and many more.
When he had left, last year, Grant had been occupied by some of the
First and the Third Cavalry; but they had been transferred, Lieutenant
Cushing’s and Lieutenant Bourke’s Troop K of the Third had been sent
down to Camp Lowell near Tucson, and now the Fifth Cavalry was here.
It was in October when Commissioner Colyer, on his rounds, appeared at
Camp Grant. Jimmie was lucky enough to drive down there, with Joe and
a wagon-load of pumpkins, just in time to be present at some of the
“doings.”
Mr. Colyer had arrived in a six-mule army ambulance (a black, covered
spring wagon with high driver’s seat, and two bench-like seats inside,
facing each other), escorted by a squad of cavalry from Fort Whipple,
under Lieutenant Ross.
He was a square-set, benevolent-looking gentleman, in dusty black
broadcloth, and white shirt and broad black hat. Attended by Colonel F.
W. Crittenden, the post commander, and by other officers, he had been
talking, through Concepcion the interpreter, to the tame Apaches at the
post, and he was about to go out to Chief Es-kim-en-zin’s rancheria,
where the surrendered Pinals and Arivaipas were farming.
“They are the same people who were so barbarously attacked last spring,
I understand,” he remarked.
“Yes, sir,” replied Lieutenant Royal Whitman.
“You were in charge of the post then, were you not?”
“I was. But before I could reach their camp the deed had been done. I
think you will see by my report upon the matter, to the Department,
how I feel about it. It was a thorough outrage, and the members of the
attacking party ought to be arrested, tried and punished.”
“Quite true,” uttered Mr. Colyer. “A shocking state of affairs exists
through the whole Territory. All the Indians with whom I have talked
declare that they would gladly gather upon reservations, accept the
Government’s aid, and live at peace with mankind, if the soldiery and
white citizens would only cease hunting them down. Some of the bands
are so frightened and timid that they won’t confer even with me, their
friend. I’ve tried in vain to meet Chief Cochise, of the Chiricahuas.
You can see, my brothers,” he continued, addressing the group of
soldiers and scouts and tame Apaches, “what an injustice has been done
these simple savages. Our duty is not to punish them for defending
their homes, but to gain their good-will by patience and kindness,
until they are won to the benefits of civilization. That is why the
President and the Society of Friends have delegated me to visit among
you, and bring this bad feeling between the white men and the red men
to an end.”
“‘Simple savages,’ are they?” afterwards commented Joe. “If thar’s
anybody smarter’n an Apache in sizin’ things up, I’ve yet to find him.
At present this hyar Quaker strikes me as bein’ ’bout the simplest
pusson in Arizony. The ’Paches can understand straight talk, like that
Gen’ral Crook gave ’em, an’ they can understand war; but they don’t
understand coaxin’. When you coax a ’Pache he laughs in his insides an’
reckons he’ll do as he pleases as long as he can. Once you coax him,
then he thinks you’re ’fraid of him, ’cause that’s Injun way.”
Mr. Colyer was driven out to the Chief Es-kim-en-zin camp, where he
talked with old Santos and the chief, and others of the Pinals and
Arivaipas. He informed them that the Great White Father at Washington
would see to it that they were no longer ill-treated by the white men.
All the Apaches might come in and live on the lands that the Government
was giving them. They should have plenty to eat, and the white men who
interfered should be punished.
When he returned to the post he acted much satisfied. He arranged to
have a regular reservation set off, and said that an agent and teacher
would be appointed, by the Society of Friends. Soon he left, with his
escort, to continue his tour.
While nobody might doubt that Mr. Colyer was a very good and honest
man, nobody put much faith in his methods. After having fought and
raided all summer, many of the wild Apaches would be only too willing
to be fed and protected upon the reservations, all winter.
Now the Indians of Arizona seemed to be provided for――except that
Commissioner Colyer had not been able to find any Chiricahuas. He had
sent word to them, but they had hidden from him. And when in western
New Mexico he had stopped at the Cañada Alamosa, or Cottonwood Canyon,
where Chief Victorio’s friendly Mimbres and Warm Spring Apaches were
living, the most of them had run from his soldier escort. They liked
their Cottonwood Canyon, and feared that they were to be removed.
VII
JIMMIE TAKES A LESSON
“Micky Free!”
Jimmie almost shouted it, he was so astonished. He was again at the
post, on an errand for Joe Felmer, after Commissioner Colyer had been
gone about a week; and who should come trotting across the hot gravelly
parade ground but Micky Free himself, in single file with two strange
Indians!
Micky’s one quick eye sighted Jimmie, standing agape, and he fell out
of line and pattered over, grinning.
“How do you do, Boy-who-sleeps?” he said, in Apache.
“How do you do, Red-head?” answered Jimmie. “I am glad to see you.”
Micky wore a loose, whitish cotton shirt with its tails outside ragged
cotton trousers, and on his feet Apache moccasins. A white cloth band
was around his red head, his one blue eye beamed alertly, and his
freckled face was streaked with perspiration and dust. All that he
carried was an Apache fiddle made from a bent rib of a yucca, strung
with deer sinews.
The two Indians with him were stripped to breech-clout aprons, and
moccasins, and red flannel head-bands; one of them had rawhide shield
and long lance, the other, bow and quiver. They had continued on and
now had been stopped before the adjutant’s office by the orderly.
“Let us sit down and talk, Cheemie,” laughed Micky.
So he and Jimmie squatted.
“What are you doing, Micky?”
“I have come over from Camp Apache with two White Mountain runners.
They bring messages from that fort to this one. We came through in one
day and two nights. It is more than one hundred miles. Have you heard
the news, Cheemie?”
“What news, Micky?”
“Cochise says he wants peace. He has gone on the Ojo Caliente (Warm
Spring) place, in the Cañada Alamosa, where Chief Victorio is.”
“How do you know?” exclaimed Jimmie. This was great news.
“I got it from Maria Jilda, the Mexican who was captured when you were
captured. He came up to Camp Apache from the Apache Pass where Camp
Bowie is. He escaped from the Chiricahua, and now he is an interpreter
at Camp Bowie. Yes, Cheemie; Cochise and Geronimo and all that band
have gone to live with their brothers the Warm Springs and the
Mimbreños at the Cañada Alamosa on the Rio Grande River in New Mexico.
But,” added Micky, wisely, “they will not stay.”
“Don’t they want peace?” queried Jimmie. “Did they listen to the words
of the white peace man?”
“That white peace man in the black clothes?” demanded Micky scornfully.
“No. The Apaches laugh at that white peace man. It is easy to lie to
him. The wild Apache think he promises so much because the Americans
are afraid of them. The Cochise people are hungry and winter is near
and the soldiers have been fighting them hard. They hear that Victorio
is being fed and has plenty of clothes and guns. They can rest there
until they are ready to take the trail again. What are you doing,
Cheemie? Do you like the new American general? I saw him shoot that
Tonto. He is a good shot. Afterwards I found the Tonto. He was dead.
Then I went to the White Mountains, at Camp Apache.”
“I am living with Joe Felmer, on his ranch. He is a scout, and he works
at the post, too,” informed Jimmie. “The general sent me home, but
he told me to learn all the soldier ways I could, and not to forget
Apache talk. If I’m not old enough to be a scout, I can help with the
pack-trains.”
“I shall be a scout,” nodded Micky. “That is why I have come out with
the runners: to learn the country. He is a great general, that man
Crook. Chief Pedro and old Miguel liked his talk. It is true that if
some of the Apaches stay bad, the good Apaches will suffer by it. They
will be watched closely and cannot do things they would do if all the
Apaches were trusted. So Chief Pedro and the White Mountains will
help the new general who talks straight. It is this way, Cheemie――I
have heard Pedro and old Miguel and Pi-to-ne and all, say so: As long
as there are any wild Chiricahua and Tonto, there will be trouble
between the red men and the white men, in Arizona. We must kill the
bad Apaches. Then the good Apaches can live at peace and get rich. In
the spring the new general must begin to fight, because by then the
Chiricahua will be rested up.”
The two Apache runners or dispatch-bearers came back from the
adjutant’s office. Their names, as told by Micky, were Alchisé
(Alchisay) and Nah-kay-do-klunni. They both were Sierra Blanca――White
Mountain Apaches. They and Micky were taken by Antonio Besias the
interpreter to be given coffee and bread; and as there was nothing more
to be said, Jimmie went about his own business. He knew that he would
see Micky Free again, somewhere. Micky was that kind.
Although Chief Cochise and War-Captain Geronimo had moved with their
band of Chiricahuas upon the Cottonwood Canyon reservation near Fort
Craig in southwestern New Mexico, and Commissioner Colyer had been so
confident that all _his_ Indians were about to gather upon _their_
reservations, the white people of Arizona had no faith in this peace
policy.
Almost every copy of the Tucson _Citizen_ and the Prescott _Miner_
received by Joe Felmer or at Camp Grant contained accounts of Apache
attacks upon settlers and miners and soldiers, by the Tontos and the
Apache-Mohaves, and the Chiricahuas raiding up from Mexico.
The _Miner_ published a list of three hundred Americans and Mexicans
who had been killed by the Apaches from 1864 to the present time,
October 14, 1871.
Toward the end of November the worst news yet, arrived. A band of
“Colyer’s babes,” thought to be Apache-Mohaves, had attacked the stage
near Wickenburg, south of Prescott, and murdered the driver and five
passengers. Three of these passengers were members of the Government
surveying expedition which, under Lieutenant George Wheeler, of the
U. S. Engineers, had been exploring through Nevada and Arizona,
getting facts upon the mines and the country. The name of one was
Fred Loring――a well-educated, especially fine young surveyor, from
Washington.
This attack, said the papers, ought to convince the Government that the
Apaches of Arizona were far from “civilized.” These very Indians had
been living “peaceably” upon one of Commissioner Colyer’s tracts, where
they were protected.
Lieutenant Wheeler and his main party commanded by Lieutenant David
A. Lyle of the Second Artillery, with an escort of the Third Cavalry
(Company I), supplied by the Department of California, rode into Camp
Grant only a few days after the word of the Wickenburg Massacre had
been received.
They were on their way from Camp Apache to Tucson; had been exploring
since the middle of May, and were pretty well worn out. They had found
many of the Indians met to be rude and insolent, but――――
“No, they never attacked us,” said Lieutenant Lyle. “And now, to think
that they’ve killed poor Loring, when he was all through and was going
home! He had his hair cut very short, on his road out, and laughed when
he claimed that the Apaches would never be able to take _his_ scalp.”
“One drop of that fine young man’s blood was worth more to the United
States than the whole Apache race is,” declared Lieutenant Wheeler. “In
my opinion, the peace policy of forbidding a military campaign that
shall drive the Apaches in upon the reservations is encouraging them
to commit such outrages. The Indian question in Arizona will never be
settled until the campaigns of an energetic officer shall thoroughly
whip and subdue them.”
“And Crook’s that man,” asserted Chief Packer Tom Moore, who was over
from Fort Whipple, on a trip around to inspect pack-train outfits.
“We’ve had other gen’rals in Arizony. Some of ’em did too much――took
ev’ry scalp they could ketch. Some of ’em did too little――reg’lar
coffee-coolers. But this Gen’ral Crook, gentlemen, he’s goin’ to know
for himself whether a ’Pache’s good or bad. The good ones he’ll treat
square, and the bad ones he’ll trail down till he has their tongues
hangin’ out. Now he’s just lyin’ low, till the Government’s got plumb
sick o’ these ‘Colyer’s babes,’ and he has orders. If I don’t miss
my guess, next spring the Arizony hills’ll be full o’ soldiers and
pack-trains, and tame ’Paches fightin’ wild ’Paches, and Crook bossin’
us all from the saddle.”
Tom Moore and others from Fort Whipple brought word that General
Crook kept very active. He seemed to have no idea of resting. He was
constantly traveling, by mule and buck-board wagon, over the roads and
trails of northern Arizona, learning them as he had learned the trails
of southern Arizona. Usually he traveled with only Lieutenant Bourke,
who was his aide-de-camp, and a cook and a packer, for he did not wish
to use officers and men who should be ready for scouting expeditions.
He issued orders that the pack-train outfits should be prepared at
top notch. It was plain to be seen that he expected to go upon a hard
campaign as soon as the Peace Policy had been tried and had failed.
Jimmie decided that his best chance of taking the trail with this
active General Crook lay with the pack-trains; even a boy might be
useful in the pack-trains; he could catch mules and pull on ropes and
help the cook――and if he spoke Apache, like Jimmie did, and knew lots
of Apache tricks, he might be valuable as an interpreter, sometimes.
Besides, Joe Felmer was a scout and a horse-shoer both, and he surely
would be ordered out. Jimmie intended not to be left at home.
Luckily, he had plenty of opportunity this fall and winter to learn
pack-train wrinkles. For the practice that it gave the men, as well as
because it was the better method, the general distributed the supplies
to all the posts by means of pack-mules.
Before he had assumed command, the supplies out of Tucson and Prescott
had been hauled largely by wagons in charge of “bull whackers” and
“mule skinners,” and operated by civilian contractors, who made
freighting their business. Of course, pack-mules had been necessary,
too, with scouting columns and between out-of-the-way posts; and the
miners, and the Mexican merchants and traders from Sonora of Mexico,
employed pack-mules.
But in his campaigns against the Indians, in Idaho and Oregon and
Northern California, the general had depended entirely upon pack-mule
trains, which kept right up with the marches, no matter how rough the
country, and were always on hand. According to the say of old Jack
Long, “he had got pack-mule wise.” He had persuaded the War Department
to buy three full pack-trains from their civilian owners who had hired
them out to the Government; and these he had brought to Arizona with
him.
“He’s the daddy o’ the army mule, I reckon,” again declared Jack. “Yes,
siree! Those thar mules ain’t nary sore-backed Sonora rats, an’ they
ain’t bags o’ bones so high up you have to use a ladder to put a pack
on with. They’re picked stock; an’ every other mule’s got to measure up
to same standard. Gosh durn it, I b’lieve the gin’ral thinks as much of
his mules as he does of his men! He looks as close arter glanders as he
does arter measles!”
However, the general looked after the men pretty close, too. The
packers themselves had to measure up to standard. Those who were
drunken, or lazy, or cruel to the mules, were discharged, and better
men enlisted. Henceforward the pack-train service was to be known as
“Pack Transportation, Q. M. D. (Quartermaster’s Department), U. S.
Army,” and to belong to it would be an honor.
Yes, a responsibility, also; for as old Jack explained: “When you get
up in the mountings ’mongst the ’Paches, an’ you’re out o’ ammunition
an’ the pack-train’s got busted somewhars in the next county, then
what’s your scalp wuth? Nothin’!”
Jimmie might think himself lucky in having old Jack Long at Camp Grant,
to give him pointers. Joe Felmer was a scout and rancher; he did not
claim to be an expert mule packer. But old Jack had been a Forty-niner
in California, and had mined and packed all through California and
Oregon and Idaho and Nevada and Arizona. So he knew a great deal.
Jack had had two wives, one a Modoc squaw and one a white woman; and
once he had “struck it rich,” in California, and had been almost a
millionaire until he had spent his money. Lately he had been living in
Tucson, freighting and prospecting. There he had “j’ined Gin’ral Crook
ag’in the ’Paches.”
Now Chief Packer Tom Moore had appointed him to be a pack-master. The
chief packer had charge of all the pack-trains, and each pack-train was
in charge of its pack-master.
“Want to j’ine the pack trains, do ye?” queried old Jack, of Jimmie.
“Wall, if you’re goin’ to l’arn, you oughter l’arn right, an’ some day
mebbe you’ll be in the Fust-class Packer ratin’. Mebbe you’ll get to
be as big a man as I am. ’Tain’t all in throwin’ the diamond; anybody
can l’arn to throw the diamond hitch. But you got to know the why an’
wharfore o’ things. Come along to the corral an’ I’ll show ye.”
So Jimmie gladly followed Jack to the post mule-corral.
“Hey, thar, _amigo_ (friend)!” summoned old Jack, to Chileno John, who
was at work among the mules. “_Ven’ aqui_ (Come here). Fetch out one o’
yore bell sharps. Hyar’s a _muchacho_ (boy) who wants to l’arn to be an
_arriero_ (muleteer).”
Smiling broadly, swarthy Chileno John (who was supposed to have
worked in the mines of Chile) led aside a sedate, round-bellied,
mouse-colored mule, and lugged the pack material for her into position.
“That thar,” said Jack, “is a bell sharp. If you don’t know what a
bell sharp is, I’ll tell ye. A bell sharp is a pack-mule that’s been
eddicated into mule sense, so she keeps her place in line, an’ doesn’t
stray on herd, an’ comes in to her own feed canvas at feedin’ time.
When she ain’t a ‘bell sharp’ she’s a pesky ‘shave-tail.’ As long as a
mule hasn’t got sense an’ is alluz rampagin’ an’ makin’ trouble we jest
natter’ly roach her mane an’ keep her tail trimmed to about six ha’rs
on the end so’s to pick her out of a bunch at fust sight. Same way,”
grumbled old Jack, “’mongst these hyar army officers. That thar sprig
young Left’nant Stewart, fresh out o’ West Point, who doesn’t know
any better yet’n to climb a cactus tree, he’s a ‘shave tail’; but old
Cap Tommy Byrne, up ’mongst the Hualpais near the Canyon, he’s a sure
’nough ‘bell sharp’ who knows when to come in to his feed.”
Jimmie had not seen Captain Thomas Byrne, a grizzled Civil War veteran
who, reports stated, was regarded as a “father” by the Hualpai Indians
on the Beale Springs reservation near the Grand Canyon. But he felt
pretty well acquainted with Second Lieutenant Reid T. Stewart, the
slim-waisted, boyish, eager young officer who had graduated from the
Military Academy only last June and had been assigned to the Fifth
Cavalry in Arizona. He was stationed down at Camp Lowell, Tucson, and
Jimmie had got acquainted with him there and here at Grant, also. He
might be a “shave tail,” yet, according to Jack, but he was much more
pleasant than some of those crusty old “bell sharps.”
“What’s General Crook, then?” queried Jimmie, to get Jack’s opinion.
“The gin’ral. See hyar, me son,” reproved Jack severely: “no levity.
The gin’ral’s the old bell hoss o’ the hull outfit. Wall,” continued
Jack, “fust, one of us blinds the critter with a bandage o’ sackin’ or
with one o’ those leather contraptions the gin’ral’s interduced, so
she’ll stand. Then havin’ got all the riggin’ to hand, we lay on this
sweat-cloth, for which proper name is _suadera_, an’ a saddle-blanket
or two for more paddin’, ’less we have a reg’lar _corona_, the same
bein’ the blankets an’ the _suadera_ stitched together. Then atop that
we fold the bed blanket that we got to sleep under at camp. Then we
h’ist on the _aparejo_――this-a-way, easy――an’ settle it, an’ pass the
_grupera_ back.”
The _aparejo_ (ah-pah-ray-ho) was the pack-saddle――a long, broad
mattress of canvas stuffed with hay, and stiffened with ribs of willow
stems running up and down, in either half. It was broken in the middle,
so that it would fit over the mule’s back.