and children were placed under guard, the White Mountains and Pimas
were given whatever stuff――mescal, dried meat, skins, bows, arrows,
lances, guns, and so forth――that they could carry; the remaining
supplies (a great quantity) were piled up and set on fire.
Joe and Slim Shorty the cook came hurrying back, with a litter
contrived from two lances and a deer hide slung between.
“Got to get out o’ this place,” explained Joe. “Squaw says some other
squaws went down below, jest before the fight, to the mescal pits;
they’ll carry warnin’ to ’nother rancheria yonder an’ we’ll have the
hull caboodle on our backs if we don’t act fast. Easy, now, while we
put you in.”
Major Brown was in a hurry to climb up into the open and unite with
the pack-train. The long column ascended the winding trail. There were
eighteen captives――women and children, several of them wounded. Below,
in front of the cave the fire burned fiercely, consuming the supplies
and the many bodies heaped upon. Over seventy of the outlaws had been
killed. Some were left where they had fallen, in the cave.
After this no Indian would venture inside that cave. The skeletons of
the Delt-che people bleached, undisturbed for years.
XVI
THE GENERAL PLANS WELL
The campaign against the outlaw Yavapais, Tontos and Apache-Yumas was
by no means over, merely on account of the cave fight. But it was over,
for Jimmie.
Out went the troops and White Mountain scouts, again, this time from
Camp MacDowell. Jack Long came into the hospital there, just before the
start, and bade Jimmie good-by.
“You’ll be a fust-class packer yet, muchacho,” encouraged old Jack.
“Yessir; ’bout one more trip an’ I’ll promote ye. You might ask the
doctor to stretch yore legs a trifle, while he has you in hand. Some
day you’re liable to be a reg’lar patron, but that’ll be after my day.
I’ve a notion I’m due to peter out, what with these hyar up-hill,
down-hill, blow hot, blow cold meanderin’s, chasin’ ’Paches with
pack-mules.”
“Aren’t you feeling well, Jack?”
“Not extra pert, son. Yuh see, I’m kind o’ old. But I’ll stick as long
as I can. So ‘adios,’ an’ be good to yoreself.”
This was the last time that Jimmie saw old Jack. He died on the trail,
away over at the San Carlos River toward the White Mountain country,
and was buried there under some beautiful trees.
The general also paid Jimmie a visit in the MacDowell hospital.
“Well, my boy, how are you getting along?” he greeted, gazing down with
his peculiar grave smile.
“All right, thank you, sir,” asserted Jimmie, whose leg nevertheless
pained like sixty.
“The pack-mules returned in fine shape――fine shape,” abruptly spoke the
general. “Not a sore back, or a sore hoof. That’s the way mules ought
to be handled, always.”
Located here thirty miles east of present Phoenix, Arizona, Camp
MacDowell was not an unpleasing post at all. The Salt River, flowing
west, was a few miles below; and scarce a mile east the Verde or Green
River rippled down to join it. Hazy against the eastern horizon rose
the Four Peaks of the Mazatzal, in whose southern face had occurred the
cave battle.
The post buildings were thick adobe, with shingle or clay roofs; there
were cottonwood trees, for shade; and through the post ran a wide
acequia or irrigating ditch.
During all of January, February and March, in the new year 1873, the
hunt for the outlaws continued. In bitter weather they were chased
from hiding-place to hiding-place amidst the mountains, and given no
rest. Then, on the seventh or eighth of April, Hank Hewitt and a party
of the MacDowell packers appeared at the post. They were thin and
weather-worn: long-haired, long-whiskered, and grimy with smoke and
bacon-grease.
According to Hank great work had been done. Chief Chalipun――or “Charley
Pan,” as they called him――had sent word that he would come into Camp
Verde and treat with the general for peace. Already three hundred
other Yavapais and Hualpais had surrendered at Camp Grant.
Naturally, Jimmie was eager to get up to Verde, meet Joe, and the rest,
and report for active duty. He had thrown aside his crutch; the only
thing that bothered him now was a limp, and an occasional twinge when
he twisted his leg.
So he gladly rode north with Hank and others, by the military road up
the Verde River for Camp Verde, ninety miles.
He was just in time. The general was here; the last of the scouting
parties, under Lieutenant Almy and Lieutenant Bourke, had arrived from
the Tonto Basin; Chief Big Mouth, Alchisé, Nan-ta-je, Bobby Do-klinny,
and Micky Free were here, with the triumphant White Mountains; and
Chief Chalipun himself had brought in three hundred more Yavapais, for
the peace talk.
The happy Crook men all looked as tough as had Hank Hewitt’s squad. The
majority of them wore canvas suits, like the general’s; and the suits,
and the faces, and the hair and whiskers, told a tale of many smoky
campfires and hard marches.
“Hey!” Joe greeted. “That doc. stretched one leg more’n he did the
other! Old Jack said he’d left orders to have ’em both stretched alike.”
Poor old Jack! But Jimmie laughed bravely, and he and Joe shook
hands. Micky Free pattered across in his ragged moccasins, grinning.
His brick-red hair hung upon his shoulders, his red moustache had
increased, his one blue eye danced in his freckled tanned face.
“How, Cheemie!” he hailed. “You’re all right? Good! A three-legged deer
runs faster than a four-legged deer. You did not miss much. We had no
fights like the cave fight.”
There was not much time for hobnobbing. Chalipun was anxious to talk
with the general, and the general was anxious to settle matters with
Chalipun; and everybody wished to hear the confab. On this, the sixth
day of April, 1873, the talk occurred.
The general sat in a chair on the porch of the post headquarters. With
him were Captain and Brevet Colonel J. J. Coppinger, Twenty-third
Infantry, who commanded Camp Verde, a number of aides, and spare,
black-whiskered Antonio Besias, the Apache-speaking Mexican
interpreter; and Nan-ta-je.
The general also had grown whiskers. A sandy full beard it was, rather
thin on the chin but bunching thickly down from the cheeks.
“Tell Chalipun I am ready to hear what he has to say,” directed the
general, to Antonio.
Chief Chalipun, his black snaky hair cut square across the forehead and
confined by a band of red flannel, stood straight and spoke with fierce
energy.
“My people are done fighting the white people,” he said in good
Spanish. “We have come in because we want to be at peace. The Gray Fox
has too many cartridges of copper, and we have very few. We can fight
the Americans alone, but now our brothers are fighting against us, too,
and we do not know what to do. We cannot sleep at night, for fear of
being surrounded. We cannot hunt, because there are always soldiers
within sound of our guns. We cannot cook mescal, because the smoke and
the smell of our fires bring the soldiers to us. We cannot live in the
valleys; the valleys are full of soldiers. And when we hide in the snow
of the mountains, our Apache brothers follow us, with soldiers. We have
no place to go; our men and women and children are dying. We want to be
at peace with the whites, and be told what to do.”
“I have heard what Chalipun has said,” answered General Crook――Antonio
Besias translating, sentence by sentence, into Spanish. “It is good. I
will take him by the hand. If he keeps his promise to live at peace and
stop killing people, I will be the best friend he has ever had. If any
of his people have died, that was their own fault. I sent messages to
them, asking them to come in. When they refused, I had no way to do but
to fight them and kill them.
“The Yavapai have said that the white people began the war. It is no
use now to talk about who began the war. There are bad men among all
peoples. There are bad Americans, and bad Mexicans, and bad Apaches.
The thing to do now is to forget this, and to make a peace that will
last forever. It must be a peace not only between the red men and the
white men, but also between the red men themselves. There must be no
more fighting and stealing.
“The red men in Arizona shall live by the white man’s laws; they
shall be treated exactly as the white men are treated, and shall
not be punished unjustly. If they think that they are being treated
unjustly, they must tell the soldier-captain who has charge of their
reservation, and he will do right by them. They must remain where they
are put, as long as there are any bad Indians out in the mountains to
make trouble. They must not cut off the noses of their wives, as a
punishment. They shall have their own soldiers, to arrest drunkards
and thieves and other bad persons. They shall be allowed to work and
earn a living, like the white men. And the sooner they go to work, the
better, because when a man has nothing to do, he is liable to get into
mischief.”
With that, the general advanced and shook hands with Chalipun. The
assembled Yavapais seemed satisfied.
“It was a good talk,” agreed Jimmie and Micky.
“Where do you live now, Cheemie?” asked Micky, as the council broke up.
“There is no old Camp Grant, and there will be no Apaches to watch, at
the mouth of the Arivaipa.”
That was true. Old Camp Grant had been abandoned, and a new Camp Grant
established by the general, in a better country about fifty miles
southeast, half-way to Camp Bowie. The Arivaipas and Pinals, and the
Yavapais and Hualpais who had surrendered first, were being removed to
the new San Carlos reservation, over toward Camp Apache.
“Joe has his ranch, though,” reminded Jimmie.
“Yes; but he has no post to sell to. You come to the White Mountain
country, and we will talk Apache and hunt and go to war together.”
“The war is almost done, Micky. A big peace is being made.”
“No,” declared Micky, with a shake of his red head and a thoughtful
squint of his blue eye. “Chuntz is still out, and Delt-che is still
out, Naqui-naquis of the Tonto is still out. The Chiricahua have no
police, no soldiers, no anything over them; they do as they please.
This is not fair, the White Mountains think. Did you know that Major
Brown and Lieutenant Bourke have been to see Cochise?”
“No!”
“Yes,” asserted Micky. “They were sent down there by Cluke, before the
last scout. Cluke has had orders to let the Chiricahua alone, but he
wanted to get a talk with Cochise. Cochise is for peace, because he is
living where he chose to live. Maybe, though, his young men will grow
tired of one spot; then who will stop them, says Alchisé?”
“The general will,” assured Jimmie.
“Cluke will try hard,” wisely assented Micky. “He will follow them――his
trail has only one end. But you cannot turn Apaches into white men all
at once. I look to see more fighting.”
In April Delt-che the Red Ant made one last vengeful raid. But the
troops and scouts were hot after him. Major George M. Randall of Camp
Apache did the final work, this time. In the night of April 21 he
and his men climbed on hands and knees up the steep slope of Diamond
Peak in the Tonto Basin. Here, on the top of the Yavapais’ “medicine
mountain” they surprised the Delt-che band at dawn and drove them over
the edges of the precipice.
Delt-che and his surviving people were brought into the reservation at
Camp Verde.
At the various posts there was read, to the troops on parade, a message
from Division Headquarters:
GENERAL ORDERS NO. 7
HEADQUARTERS MILITARY DIVISION OF THE PACIFIC,
San Francisco, Cal., April 28, 1873.
To Brevet Major-General George Crook, commanding the Department
of Arizona, and to his gallant troops, for the extraordinary
service that they have rendered in the late campaign against
the Apache Indians, the Division Commander extends his thanks
and his congratulations upon their brilliant successes. They
have merited the gratitude of the nation. There is now occasion
for hope that the well-deserved chastisement inflicted upon the
Apaches may give peace to the people of Arizona.
By order of Major-General Schofield.
General Crook also issued congratulations, in General Orders No. 14,
Department of Arizona:
The operations of the troops in this Department in the late
campaigns against the Apaches entitle them to a reputation
second to none in the annals of Indian warfare. In the face of
obstacles heretofore considered insurmountable, encountering
rigorous cold in the mountains, followed in quick succession by
the intense heat and arid waste of the desert; not infrequently
at dire extremities for want of water to quench their prolonged
thirst; and when their animals were stricken by pestilence or
the country became too rough to be traversed by them, they left
them, and, carrying on their own backs such meager supplies
as they might, they persistently followed on, and, plunging
unexpectedly into chosen positions in lava-beds, caves and
canyons, they have outwitted and beaten the wildest of foes,
with slight loss comparatively to themselves, and finally
closed an Indian war that has been waged since the days of
Cortez.
Jimmie heard the orders read at Fort Whipple, where he was herding
horses for the quartermaster’s department. A scourge of epizootic had
played havoc with the army animals, and much of the cavalry required
remounting. The new horses were driven to Whipple from Los Angeles and
San Diego of California, in bunches of several hundred at a time, to
be divided among the posts.
This was rather a poky job, but if the war had ended, a fellow needs
must do something.
Joe Felmer had decided to quit scouting and ranching, and try
prospecting. So he had headed for Tucson.
The two thousand Yavapais, Tontos and Apache-Yumas at Camp Verde
were content. Everybody working, with worn-out tools they had dug an
irrigating ditch five miles long, to water fifty-seven acres of land,
and were putting in crops. The general had promised them that they
should be paid money, the same as white people, for whatever they
raised to sell, and they believed him.
From Camp Apache and the San Carlos agency there came encouraging
reports. In the south the Chiricahuas were quiet. Mexico complained
that stock was being stolen and run across the line into the Chiricahua
reservation; but Agent “Staglito” or Red-beard, who was Tom Jeffords,
declared that this was done by the Chief Whoa outlaws in Mexico.
Arizona did indeed seem at peace, for the first time in three hundred
years.
XVII
BAD WORK AFOOT
“Lieutenant Almy is killed! Almy’s been murdered!”
“What! Where?”
“At San Carlos! An Injun shot him. There’s been an uprising.”
The word sped rapidly through Fort Whipple. It was a noon of the first
week in June, and Jimmie had ridden in to dinner just on time to see a
courier dash across the parade-ground for the adjutant’s office.
Chief of Scouts Al Sieber appeared, walking fast. The men made a rush
for him.
“What’s that, Al? Almy killed?”
Al spoke tersely.
“Yes. At San Carlos. Chan-dezi (Long-ear) shot him. Chuntz was in it,
too; he and Cli-bic-li (Tied Horse) and Cochinay. The Chuntz gang have
been hanging ’round the agency, and sneaking in at night for food
and to make mischief. The Tonto and Yavapai had hatched a scheme to
kill the agency whites, this month, and take to the hills. But they
got hold of some whiskey on the reservation, and broke too soon. The
agency police started in to arrest the chiefs. Long-ear tried to lance
Agent Larrabee. Yomas, a friendly, knocked the lance aside. There was
a mob. Almy undertook to do the arresting himself. Went in among them
alone――bravest act I ever heard of. Long-ear shot him dead and made a
getaway, with Chuntz and Cochinay. That was May 27.”
“Does it mean a little scout, Al?” they hopefully queried.
“No, I think not, boys. The hostiles probably won’t leave the Gila
Canyon, there, and the troops and the police can corral them. But the
general’s going over.” Al saw Jimmie, and beckoned him apart. “Are you
fit for a trip to Apache?”
“Yes, Mr. Sieber.”
“That’s good. Joe Felmer asked me to keep an eye on you, whenever I was
around, and I’ve been thinking that it’s a little dull for a boy of
your calibre to be herding horses all the time. Well, the general and
some of the rest of us are starting for Apache in the morning, to look
into this fracas. They need horses, over there. The quartermaster’s
a good friend of mine, and I’ll just drop a hint that now might be a
proper time to send a bunch in, and you with it. That’ll help you to
learn the country. You’ll be forgetting how to speak Apache if you stay
here talking horse.”
“I’d like to go mighty well, Mr. Sieber,” Jimmie admitted.
“All right. Micky Free’ll be glad to see you. He asks about you every
time I run across him.”
Mr. Sieber hastened on. A fine man, was Al Sieber. He spoke Spanish
and considerable Apache; had lived among the White Mountains at Camp
Apache, and was a great favorite with Chief Pedro, there. “Man of
Iron,” the White Mountains called him.
He was of powerful build, and stern-looking; apt to be of few words,
right to the point; but he had a kind heart. He was now acting chief of
scouts, from Whipple and Camp Verde.
Lieutenant Jacob Almy dead――murdered? That was shocking news. Everybody
liked First Lieutenant Jacob Almy, of the Fifth Cavalry. Since he had
been put in charge of the Indians at San Carlos, by his gentle but
firmly just methods he had made many friends among them, also.
General Crook was energetic, as usual. He set out early the next
morning, on “Apache” his mule, with a small escort including Lieutenant
Bourke his chief aide, and Al Sieber. Jimmie and a Mexican herder
accompanied, driving the bunch of remount horses.
The loose horses traveled well. The trip of two hundred and fifty miles
through the roughest country in Arizona was accomplished in ten days.
There had not been much talk on the way over. The general acted
grimly determined, and in a hurry. Camp Apache was found saddened and
expectant.
Having turned his horses over to the post quartermaster, Jimmie
saw Micky waiting for him, beside the corral here back of the
parade-ground. Micky was sitting a spotted pony, and smiling broadly.
He certainly had the knack of always being on hand.
“Hello, Boy-who-sleeps. Have you come over to fight?” greeted Micky.
“Has there been a fight yet, Micky?”
“Only a little one, when those Chuntz men ran away. But we are ready.”
“Where is Chuntz?”
“He and Long-ear and Cochinay are hiding in the canyon of the Gila.
Tied Horse has been arrested. If we go after those others there will be
good fighting. The canyon is deep and long and full of caves. Would you
like another cave fight, Cheemie?”
“I’d like to get Chuntz and Long-ear,” vowed Jimmie.
“So would I. Come on. Pretty soon Sibi the Iron Man will talk with old
Pedro, and you and I will want to hear what they say. Sibi can talk
Apache, but he cannot talk as fast as Pedro, or as you and I. We will
help.”
The general was in confab at the post headquarters with Major Randall
and Al. There were fifteen hundred Pinals, Arivaipas, Yavapais, and
Tontos at San Carlos――many of them now very restless under guard.
Nobody might foretell just what was about to happen.
Soon after Jimmie had begun a sort of a reunion with Alchisé and
Nan-ta-je and Bobby Do-klinny and others, at the Camp Apache agency
building, Mr. Sieber came riding by.
“Jimmie,” he summoned, with crook of finger, “you ride along with me. I
may have use for you. Bring Free, if you want to.”
“I’m going for a talk with Pedro,” he continued, in Spanish, so that
Micky might understand. Micky knew no English. “If he talks too fast
for me, I want one of you to explain. And the same way if I speak with
words that he doesn’t know.”
“We will talk for you, Sibi,” answered Micky.
Old Chief Pedro of the White Mountain Apaches was, as everybody said,
the wisest, most sensible chief among the tame Indians. They found him
at home, sitting upon a blanket in the shade of a tree near his house.
Since he had come back from Washington he had put up a board shanty,
to live in instead of a brush wickyup. He was still wearing a white
shirt――which was white no longer.
In spite of the soiled ragged shirt, a splendid old Indian he looked to
be.
“You are well come, Sibi,” he remarked. “Sit down and we will talk. But
who is this boy with one leg shorter than the other? I do not know him.”
“He is a friend of mine, and of Micky Free,” replied Al. “He was
captured by Geronimo, and lived with Cochise and Geronimo. He was a
soldier at the cave fight when the Yavapai were destroyed. He is a
brave boy. The leg was made short by a wound. We may speak freely
before him.”
“That is good,” answered Pedro. “I know you, and I know this wild
Red-head. Now I know this other. I remember who he is. What have you
come to say, Sibi? Did Cluke send you?”
They all sat down: Al beside Pedro, but Jimmie and Micky a little way
apart from them, as was correct when in the company of chiefs.
“The Gray Fox is talking with Major Randall,” said Al. “That was bad
work at San Carlos, Pedro. You are a wise chief, and you know Apaches.
General Crook wishes to do what is right by all the Apaches. He wishes
peace, so that we may all live together and prosper. No one prospers
long in war. What is the best course to follow with these bad Indians?
Can they be made good?”
“Let us talk in Mexican, Sibi,” spoke Chief Pedro. “And if you or I
use words that are not understood, the Red-head or maybe the short-leg
boy will explain. This talk must be very clear. Now, there is no way
to make those bad Apaches good, except to kill them. The bad Indians
do not know what I know; they have not been to the cities of the Great
White Father and seen how powerful he is. I will give Cluke one hundred
and fifty of my warriors, smart fighters all. Let Cluke send them into
the Gila Canyon. The Gray Fox is brave, and his white soldiers are
brave, but the Chuntz people will go where his soldiers cannot follow;
this is summer, and they know every spot in the canyon, and will hide.
“But my Apaches will find them, and kill some of them. Then my men
will come home, and rest a while, and go out and kill more. By winter
time there will be fewer of the mean Apaches; and if they do not all
die during the winter, in the spring we will kill the rest of them.
But if Cluke waits till winter, before that time the bad Indians will
have made much more trouble at San Carlos, and perhaps among my White
Mountains, and perhaps among the Chiricahua.”
“I will think on what you have said,” responded Al.
“It will be no use to send you or any other person into the canyon, to
spend words on those people,” proceeded Pedro. “They will burn him, and
will send back an old woman to tell Cluke to give them more of his
men, to burn. Now I am done, Man of Iron. I cannot read from paper, but
I can look at the actions of a bad Indian, and can read how he feels
and what he will do.”
“Humph!” mused Al, as with Jimmie and Micky he rode away. “I believe
old Pedro is right.”
The next afternoon the general held a talk at the San Carlos agency
with Es-kim-en-zin, of the Arivaipas, and with those Tonto and Yavapai
chiefs who had not joined Chuntz.
The San Carlos agency was seventy miles southwest from Camp Apache,
where the San Carlos River emptied into the Gila. This San Carlos
reservation was really an addition to the southern boundary of the
White Mountain reservation. It was sixty miles wide and extended clear
to the New Mexico line, one hundred and twenty miles. The eastern half
was rough and mountainous, but the western half, along the Gila River,
was flatter and more open――especially around the agency, where the
Indians were supposed to live.
The majority of the Apaches did not like it. They said that it was low,
hot and unhealthful.
“I am sorry to hear that there are bad hearts at work among you,” spoke
the general. Concepcion Equierre translated. “They have deceived you
into believing that the white people might be killed, and that the
Apaches might be free to rob and murder again. Now the innocent have
suffered. Lieutenant Almy, one of your best friends, has been killed,
and you all are prevented from going about on hunts and visits.
“I want you all to live as free as the white men. I do not expect you
to stop being red men. I want your women to gather mescal and seeds and
roots, and your men to hunt deer and turkeys without fear; for these
things are good to eat. But you cannot do this without fear, when there
is war.