But at last the end of his career of robbery and bloodshed is
approaching. The opportunity that Clark has been waiting all these
years is nigh at hand. The Apache Kid’s race is about run. Clark had
been away from home, and when returning, on February 4, 1894, passing
by the house of Emmerson, a neighbor, about a mile from his own home,
he noticed the tracks of three Indians about the house, and going
inside, found they had robbed it of its contents. Going on home, he
found his partner, Scanlan, whom the Indians had not disturbed, and
said to him, “Scanlan, your old friend the Kid has been around again.”
Soon after, Clark, taking his gun, went out of the house for the
purpose of “scouting the country around” and seeing whether he might
get sight of the Indians. Going to the top of a peak near by, where he
could overlook the surrounding country without unduly exposing himself,
he awaited events, not realizing what an approaching one should mean
to himself, and to an old enemy on whom he had vowed vengeance for
the death of his old-time partner, and that this event would mark an
era in a life ever filled with its dangers, not one of which had ever
been shirked, but always bravely met. The opportunity for which he
had waited, and in his way--a way probably familiar only to the “old
scout”--had prayed for, was but a few short hours away. The language
of his prayers, except for its fervency, may not have been up to the
orthodox standard, but he knew what he wanted, and in asking for it
used the language with which he was familiar--the language of the
desert and the mountain, the camp-fire and the trail.