A short time ago, idling through a collection of early-day photographs,
I came across two that vividly recalled the closing scenes in that
bloody frontier drama in which the Apache was the chief actor. For many
years the relentless foe of the pioneer, wary, tireless, cowardly and
treacherous, he was the very incarnation of fiendishness, if possible,
more pronounced in the squaw than in the man. Never meeting you in
the open, always in ambush, concealed behind the big granite boulder,
the point of a hill or a clump of brush, he and his fellows patiently
awaited your solitary coming, all unconscious of danger, then--the
crack of the rifle and it is all over. Today he might be a “sniper”,
but in the days of his hellish activities the word had not yet been
given its more recently enlarged meaning.
2000 Pioneers Victims of Apaches.
How many breakers of the wilderness, hardy, fearless old-timers, were
sent to their final rest by this early scourge of the desert, who can
say! Some place their number at two thousand, some say more, others
less. This does not include the soldier boy, whose profession it is
to risk his life, and when necessary, his duty, its sacrifice. Of the
number of these there is probably a record somewhere, but of the old
pioneer, only an estimate. In the valley, on the mesa and the hillside,
on the mountain-top and in the deep shadows of the canyon, everywhere
this broad land is dotted with their unknown and unmarked graves.
Captain John G. Bourke, author of “On the Border with Crook,” and “An
Apache Campaign,” who was with Gen. Crook, tells us that the Apache “is
no coward, but that he has no false ideas about courage, that he would
prefer to skulk like a coyote for hours and then kill his enemy, rather
than by injudicious exposure receive a wound.” May we not attribute
to the chivalrous spirit of Capt. Bourke, not to criticize a foe, his
delicate way of putting this?
No, I do not recall that this early plague of the old pioneer ever
“injudiciously exposed” himself unless driven to it. “Skulking like the
coyote,” as Capt. Bourke so well expresses it, is my conception of his
bravery. If forced to the open he would undoubtedly make a brave fight,
but I have never heard of his voluntarily seeking that open, meeting
his enemy on anything approaching equal terms.