R. De Long, first Mayor of Tucson, was also there. After the meeting had
been called to order De Long rose and said:
"Boys, this thing has got to be stopped. The military won't believe us
when we tell them that their charity to the Indians is our undoing--that
the government's wards are a pack of murderers and cattle thieves. What
shall we do?"
"Let the military go hang, and the government, too!" growled one man,
"Old Bill" Oury, a considerable figure in the life of early Tucson, and
an ex-Confederate soldier.
The meeting applauded.
"We can do what the soldiers won't," I said.
"Right!" said Oury, savagely. "Let's give these devils a taste of their
own medicine. Maybe after a few dozen of 'em are killed they'll learn
some respect for the white man."
Nobody vetoed the suggestion.
The following day six white men--myself, De Long and fierce old Bill
Oury among them, rode out of Tucson bound for Tubac. With us we had
three Papago Indian trailers. Arrived at the Wooster ranch the Papagos
were set to work and followed a trail that led plain as daylight to the
Indian camp at Fort Grant. A cry escaped all of us at this justification
of our suspicions.
"That settles it!" ground out Oury, between his set teeth. "It's them
Injuns or us. And--it won't be us."
We returned to Tucson, rounded up a party consisting of about fifty
Papagos, forty-five Mexicans and ourselves, and set out for Camp Grant.
We reached the fort at break of day, or just before, and before the
startled Apaches could fully awaken to what was happening, or the
near-by soldiers gather their wits together, eighty-seven Aravaipa
Apaches had been slain as they lay. The Papagos accounted for most of
the dead, but we six white men and our Mexican friends did our part. It
was bloody work; but it was justice, and on the frontier then the whites
made their own justice.
All of us were arrested, as a matter of course, and when word reached
General Sherman at Washington from the commander of the military forces
at Fort Grant, an order was issued that all of us were to be tried for
murder. We suffered no qualms, for we knew that according to frontier
standards what we had done was right, and would inevitably have been
done some time or another by somebody. We were tried in Judge Titus'
Territorial Court, but, to the dismay of the military and General
Sherman, who of course knew nothing of the events that had preceded the
massacre, not a man in the jury could be found who would hang us. The
Territory was searched for citizens impartial enough to adjudge the
slaying of a hostile Apache as murder, but none could be found. The
trial turned out a farce and we were all acquitted, to receive the
greatest demonstration outside the courtroom that men on trial for their
lives ever received in Arizona, I think. One thing that made our
acquittal more than certain was the fact, brought out at the trial, that
the dress of Mrs. Wooster and a pair of moccasins belonging to her
husband were found on the bodies of Indians whom we killed. Lieutenant
Whitman, who was in command at Fort Grant, and on whom the
responsibility for the conduct of the Indians wintering there chiefly
rested, was soon after relieved from duty and transferred to another
post. General George Crook arrived to take his place late in 1871. The
massacre had occurred on the last day of April of that year.
Other raids occurred. Al Peck, an old and valued friend of mine, had
several experiences with the Apaches, which culminated in the Peck raid
of April 27, 1886, when Apaches jumped his ranch, killed his wife and a
man named Charles Owens and carried off Peck's niece. Apparently
satisfied with this, they turned Peck loose, after burning the ranch
house. The unfortunate man's step-niece was found some six weeks later
by Mexican cowpunchers in the Cocoapi Mountains in Old Mexico.
The famous massacre of the Samaniego freight teams and the destruction
of his outfit at Cedar Springs, between Fort Thomas and Wilcox, was
witnessed by Charles Beck, another friend of mine. Beck had come in with
a quantity of fruit and was unloading it when he heard a fusilade of
shots around a bend in the road. A moment later a boy came by
helter-skelter on a horse.
"Apaches!" gasped the boy, and rode on.
Beck waited to hear no more. He knew that to attack one of Samaniego's
outfits there must be at least a hundred Indians in the neighborhood.
Unhitching his horse, he jumped on its back and rode for dear life in
the direction of Eureka Springs. Indians sighted him as he swept into
the open and followed, firing as they rode. By luck, however, and the
fact that his horse was fresher than those of his pursuers, Beck got
safely away.
Thirteen men were killed at this Cedar Springs massacre and thousands of
dollars' worth of freight was carried off or destroyed. The raid was
unexpected owing to the fact that the Samaniego brothers had contracts
with the government and the stuff in their outfit was intended for the
very Indians concerned in the ambuscade. One of the Samaniegos was slain
at this massacre.
Then there was the Tumacacori raid, at Barnett's ranch in the Tumacacori
Mountains, when Charlie Murray and Tom Shaw were killed. Old Man
Frenchy, as he was called, suffered the severe loss of his freight and
teams when the Indians burned them up across the Cienega. Many other
raids occurred, particulars of which are not to hand, but those I have
related will serve as samples of the work of the Indians and will show
just how it was the Apaches gained the name they did of being veritable
fiends in human form.
* * * * *
After the expiration of my contract with Paola Ortega I remained in a
state of single blessedness for some time, and then married Gregoria
Sosa, in the summer of 1879. Gregoria rewarded me with one child, a boy,
who is now living in Nogales. On December 23, 1889, Gregoria died and in
October, 1890, I married my present wife, whose maiden name was Donna
Paz Paderes, and who belongs to an old line of Spanish aristocracy in
Mexico. We are now living together in the peace and contentment of old
age, well occupied in bringing up and providing for our family of two
children, Mary, who will be twenty years old on February 25, 1915, and
Charlie, who will be sixteen on the same date. Both our children, by the
grace of God, have been spared us after severe illnesses.
* * * * *
To make hundreds of implacable enemies at one stroke is something any
man would very naturally hesitate to do, but I did just that about a
year after I commenced working for D. A. Sanford, one of the biggest
ranchers between the railroad and the border. The explanation of this
lies in one word--sheep.
If there was one man whom cattlemen hated with a fierce, unreasoning
hatred, it was the man who ran sheep over the open range--a proceeding
perfectly legal, but one which threatened the grazing of the cattle
inasmuch as where sheep had grazed it was impossible for cattle to feed
for some weeks, or until the grass had had time to grow again. Sheep
crop almost to the ground and feed in great herds, close together, and
the range after a herd of sheep has passed over it looks as if somebody
had gone over it with a lawnmower.
In 1881 I closed out the old Sanford ranch stock and was informed by my
employer that he had foreclosed a mortgage on 13,000 head of sheep owned
by Tully, Ochoa and De Long of Tucson. This firm was the biggest at that
time in the Territory and the De Long of the company was one of the six
men who led the Papagos in the Camp Grant Massacre. He died in Tucson
recently and I am now the only white survivor of that occurrence. Tully,
Ochoa and De Long were forced out of business by the coming of the
railroad in 1880, which cheapened things so much that the large stock
held by the company was sold at prices below what it had cost,
necessitating bankruptcy.
I was not surprised to hear that Sanford intended to run sheep, though I
will admit that the information was scarcely welcome. Sheep, however, at
that time were much scarcer than cattle and fetched, consequently, much
higher prices. My employer, D. A. Sanford, who now lives in Washington,
D. C., was one of the shrewdest business men in the Territory, and was,
as well, one of the best-natured of men. His business acumen is
testified to by the fact that he is now sufficiently wealthy to count
his pile in the seven figures.
Mr. Sanford's wishes being my own in the matter, of course, I did as I
was told, closed out the cattle stock and set the sheep grazing on the
range. The cattlemen were angry and sent me an ultimatum to the effect
that if the sheep were not at once taken off the grass there would be
"trouble." I told them that Sanford was my boss, not them; that I would
take his orders and nobody else's, and that until he told me to take the
sheep off the range they'd stay precisely where they were.
My reply angered the cattlemen more and before long I became subject to
many annoyances. Sheep were found dead, stock was driven off, my ranch
hands were shot at, and several times I myself narrowly escaped death at
the hands of the enraged cattlemen. I determined not to give in until I
received orders to that effect from Mr. Sanford, but I will admit that
it was with a feeling of distinct relief that I hailed those orders when
they came three years later. For one thing, before the sheep business
came up, most of the cattlemen who were now my enemies had been my close
friends, and it hurt me to lose their esteem. I am glad to say, however,
that most of these cattlemen and cowboys, who, when I ran sheep, would
cheerfully have been responsible for my funeral, are my very good
friends at the present time; and I trust they will always remain so.
Most of them are good fellows and I have always admitted that their side
had the best argument.
In spite of the opposition of the cattlemen I made the sheep business a
paying one for Mr. Sanford, clearing about $17,000 at the end of three
years. When that period had elapsed I had brought shearers to Sanford
Station to shear the sheep, but was stopped in my intention with the
news that Sanford had sold the lot to Pusch and Zellweger of Tucson. I
paid off the men I had hired, satisfied them, and thus closed my last
deal in the sheep business. One of the men, Jesus Mabot, I hired to go
to the Rodeo with me, while the Chinese gardener hired another named
Fernando.
Then occurred that curious succession of fatalities among the Chinamen
in the neighborhood that puzzled us all for years and ended by its being
impossible to obtain a Chinaman to fill the last man's place.
DEPUTY SHERIFF, CATTLEMAN AND FARMER
_You kin have yore Turner sunsets,--he never painted one
Like th' Santa Rita Mountains at th' settin' o' th' sun!
You kin have yore Eastern cornfields, with th' crops that never change,
Me--I've all Arizona, and, best o' all, the Range!_
--WOON.
About this time Sheriff Bob Paul reigned in Tucson and made me one of
his deputies. I had numerous adventures in that capacity, but remember
only one as being worth recording here.
One of the toughest characters in the West at that time, a man feared
throughout the Territory, was Pat Cannon. He had a score of killings to
his credit, and, finally, when Paul became sheriff a warrant was issued
for his arrest on a charge of murder. After he had the warrant Paul came
to me.
"Cady," he said, "you know Pat Cannon, don't you?"
"I worked with him once," I answered.
"Well," returned Paul, "here's a warrant for his arrest on a murder
charge. Go get him."
I obtained a carryall and an Italian boy as driver, in Tucson, and
started for Camp Grant. Arrived there I was informed that it was
believed Cannon was at Smithy's wood camp, several miles away. We went
on to Smithy's wood camp. Sure enough, Pat was there--very much so. He
was the first man I spotted as I drove into the camp. Cannon was sitting
at the door of his shack, two revolvers belted on him and his rifle
standing up by the door at his side, within easy reach. I knew that Pat
didn't know that I was a deputy, so I drove right up.
"Hello," I called. "How's the chance for a game of poker?"
"Pretty good," he returned, amiably. "Smithy'll be in in a few moments,
John. Stick around--we have a game every night."
"Sure," I responded, and descended. As I did so I drew my six-shooter
and whirled around, aiming the weapon at him point blank.
"Hands up, Pat, you son-of-a-gun," I said, and I guess I grinned.
"You're my prisoner."
I had told the Italian boy what to do, beforehand, and he now gave me
the steel bracelets, which I snapped on Cannon, whose face bore an
expression seemingly a mixture of intense astonishment and disgust.
Finally, when I had him safely in the carryall, he spat out a huge chew
of tobacco and swore.
He said nothing to me for awhile, and then he remarked, in an injured
way:
"Wa-al, Johnny, I sure would never have thought it of you!"
He said nothing more, except to ask me to twist him a cigarette or two,
and when we reached Tucson I turned him over safely to Sheriff Paul.
* * * * *
You who read this in your stuffy city room, or crowded subway seat,
imagine, if you can, the following scene:
Above, the perfect, all-embracing blue of the Arizona sky; set flaming
in the middle of it the sun, a glorious blazing orb whose beauty one may
dare to gaze upon only through smoked glasses; beneath, the Range,
which, far from being a desert, is covered with a growth of grass which
grows thicker and greener as the rivers' banks are reached.
All around, Arizona--the painted hills, looking as though someone had
carefully swept them early in the morning with a broom; the valleys
studded with mesquite trees and greasewood and dotted here and there
with brown specks which even the uninitiated will know are cattle, and
the river, one of Arizona's minor streams, a few yards across and only a
couple of feet deep, but swift-rushing, pebble-strew'd and clear as
crystal.
Last, but not least, a heterogeneous mob of cowboys and vaqueros, with
their horses champing at the bit and eager to be off on their work. In
the foreground a rough, unpainted corral, where are more
ponies--wicked-looking, intelligent little beggars, but quick turning as
though they owned but two legs instead of four, and hence priceless for
the work of the roundup. In the distance, some of them quietly and
impudently grazing quite close at hand, are the cattle, the object of
the day's gathering.
Cowboys from perhaps a dozen or more ranches are gathered here, for this
is the commencement of the Rodeo--the roundup of cattle that takes place
semi-annually. Even ranches whose cattle are not grazed on this
particular range have representatives here, for often there are strays
with brands that show them to have traveled many scores of miles. The
business of the cowboys[3] is to round up and corral the cattle and pick
out their own brands from the herd. They then see that the unbranded
calves belonging to cows of their brand are properly marked with the hot
iron and with the ear-slit, check up the number of yearlings for the
benefit of their employers, and take charge of such of the cattle it is
considered advisable to drive back to the home ranch.
So much sentimental nonsense has been talked of the cruelty of branding
and slitting calves that it is worth while here, perhaps, to state
positively that the branding irons do not penetrate the skin and serve
simply to burn the roots of the hair so that the bald marks will show
to which ranch the calf belongs. There is little pain to the calf
attached to the operation, and one rarely if ever even sees a calf
licking its brand after it has been applied; and, as is well known, the
cow's remedy for an injury, like that of a dog, is always to lick it. As
to the ear-slitting, used by most ranches as a check on their brands, it
may be said that if the human ear is somewhat callous to pain--as it
is--the cow's ear is even more so. One may slice a cow's ear in half in
a certain way and she will feel only slight pain, not sufficient to make
her give voice. The slitting of a cow's ear draws very little blood.
While I am on the subject,--it was amusing to note the unbounded
astonishment of the cattlemen of Arizona a few years ago when some
altruistic society of Boston came forward with a brilliant idea that was
to abolish the cruelty of branding cows entirely. What was the idea? Oh,
they were going to hang a collar around the cow's neck, with a brass tag
on it to tell the name of the owner. Or, if that wasn't feasible, they
thought that a simple ring and tag put through the cow's ear-lobe would
prove eminently satisfactory! The feelings of the cowboys, when told
that they would be required to dismount from their horses, walk up to
each cow in turn and politely examine her tag, perhaps with the aid of
spectacles, may be better imagined than described. It is sufficient to
say that the New England society's idea never got further than
Massachusetts, if it was, indeed, used there, which is doubtful.
The brand is absolutely necessary as long as there is an open range, and
the abolishment of the open range will mean the abandonment of the
cow-ranch. At the time I am speaking of the whole of the Territory of
Arizona was one vast open range, over the grassy portions of which
cattle belonging to hundreds of different ranches roamed at will. Most
of the big ranches employed a few cowboys the year around to keep the
fences in repair and to prevent cows from straying too far from the home
range. The home range was generally anywhere within a twenty-mile radius
of the ranch house.
The ear-slit was first found necessary because of the activities of the
rustlers. There were two kinds of these gentry--the kind that owned
ranches and passed themselves off as honest ranchers, and the open
outlaws, who drove off cattle by first stampeding them in the Indian
manner, rushed them across the international line and then sold them to
none too scrupulous Mexican ranchers. Of the two it is difficult to say
which was the most dangerous or the most reviled by the honest
cattlemen. The ranches within twenty or thirty miles of the border,
perhaps, suffered more from the stampeders than from the small ranchers,
but those on the northern ranges had constantly to cope with the
activities of dishonest cattlemen who owned considerably more calves
than they had cows, as a rule. The difficulty was to prove that these
calves had been stolen.
It was no difficult thing to steal cattle successfully, providing the
rustler exercised ordinary caution. The method most in favor among the
rustlers was as follows: For some weeks the rustler would ride the
range, noting where cows with unbranded calves were grazing. Then, when
he had ascertained that no cowboys from neighboring ranches were riding
that way, he would drive these cows and their calves into one of the
secluded and natural corrals with which the range abounds, rope the
calves, brand them with his own brand, hobble and sometimes kill the
mother cows to prevent them following their offspring, and drive the
latter to his home corral, where in the course of a few weeks they would
forget their mothers and be successfully weaned. They would then be
turned out to graze on the Range. Sometimes when the rustler did not
kill the mother cow the calf proved not to have been successfully
weaned, and went back to its mother--the worst possible advertisement of
the rustler's dirty work. Generally, therefore, the mother cow was
killed, and little trace left of the crime, for the coyotes speedily
cleaned flesh, brand and all from the bones of the slain animal. The
motto of most of these rustlers was: "A dead cow tells no tales!"
[Illustration: CADY AND HIS THIRD FAMILY, 1915]
Another method of the rustlers was to adopt a brand much like that of a
big ranch near by, and to over-brand the cattle. For instance, a big
ranch with thousands of cattle owns the brand Cross-Bar (X--). The
rustler adopts the brand Cross L (XL) and by the addition of a vertical
mark to the bar in the first brand completely changes the brand. It was
always a puzzle for the ranchers to find brands that would not be easily
changed. Rustlers engaged in this work invariably took grave chances,
for a good puncher could tell a changed brand in an instant, and often
knew every cow belonging to his ranch by sight, without looking at the
brand. When one of these expert cowboys found a suspicious brand he lost
no time hunting up proof, and if he found that there had actually been
dirty work, the rustler responsible, if wise, would skip the country
without leaving note of his destination, for in the days of which I
speak the penalty for cow-stealing was almost always death, except when
the sheriff happened to be on the spot. Since the sheriff was invariably
heart and soul a cattleman himself, he generally took care that he
wasn't anywhere in the neighborhood when a cattle thief met his just
deserts. Even now this rule holds effect in the cattle lands. Only two
years ago a prominent rancher in this country--the Sonoita Range--shot
and killed a Mexican who with a partner had been caught red-handed in
the act of stealing cattle.
With the gradual disappearance of the open range, cattle stealing has
practically stopped, although one still hears at times of cases of the
kind, isolated, but bearing traces of the same old methods. Stampeding
is, of course, now done away with.
During the years I worked for D. A. Sanford I had more or less trouble
all the time with cattle thieves, but succeeded fairly well in either
detecting the guilty ones or in getting back the stolen cattle. I meted
out swift and sure justice to rustlers, and before long it became
rumored around that it was wise to let cattle with the D.S. brand alone.
The Sanford brand was changed three times. The D.S. brand I sold to the
Vail interests for Sanford, and the Sanford brand was changed to the
Dipper, which, afterwards, following the closing out of the Sanford
stock, was again altered to the Ninety-Seven (97) brand. Cattle with the
97 brand on them still roam the range about the Sonoita.
* * * * *
It was to a rodeo similar to the one which I have attempted to describe
that Jesus Mabot and I departed following the incident of the selling of
the sheep. We were gone a week. When we returned I put up my horse and
was seeing that he had some feed when a shout from Jesus, whom I had
sent to find the Chinese gardener to tell him we needed something to
eat, came to my ears.
"Oyez, Senor Cady!" Jesus was crying, "El Chino muerte."
I hurried down to the field where Mabot stood and found him gazing at
the Chinaman, who was lying face downward near the fence, quite dead.
By the smell and the general lay-out, I reckoned he had been dead some
three days.
I told Mabot to stay with him and, jumping on my horse, rode to
Crittenden, where I obtained a coroner and a jury that would sit on the
Chinaman's death. The next morning the jury found that he had been
killed by some person or persons unknown, and let it go at that.
Two weeks later I had occasion to go to Tucson, and on tying my horse
outside the Italian Brothers' saloon, noticed a man I thought looked
familiar sitting on the bench outside. As I came up he pulled his hat
over his face so that I could not see it. I went inside, ordered a
drink, and looked in the mirror. It gave a perfect reflection of the man
outside, and I saw that he was the Mexican Fernando, whom the Chinese
gardener had hired when I had engaged Mabot. I had my suspicions right
then as to who had killed the Chinaman, but, having nothing by which to
prove them, I was forced to let the matter drop.
Two or three years after this I hired as vaquero a Mexican named
Neclecto, who after a year quit work and went for a visit to Nogales.
Neclecto bought his provisions from the Chinaman who kept the store I
had built on the ranch, and so, as we were responsible for the debt,
when Bob Bloxton, son-in-law of Sanford, came to pay the Mexican off, he
did so in the Chinaman's store.