GENERAL CROOK AND THE
FIGHTING APACHES

FIFTH IMPRESSION

The American Trail Blazers

“THE STORY GRIPS AND THE HISTORY STICKS”

These books present in the form of vivid and fascinating fiction, the early and adventurous phases of American history. Each volume deals with the life and adventures of one of the great men who made that history, or with some one great event in which, perhaps, several heroic characters were involved. The stories, though based upon accurate historical fact, are rich in color, full of dramatic action, and appeal to the imagination of the red-blooded man or boy.

Each volume illustrated in color and black and white.

• INTO MEXICO WITH GENERAL SCOTT
• LOST WITH LIEUTENANT PIKE
• GENERAL CROOK AND THE FIGHTING APACHES
• OPENING THE WEST WITH LEWIS AND CLARK
• WITH CARSON AND FRÉMONT
• DANIEL BOONE: BACKWOODSMAN
• BUFFALO BILL AND THE OVERLAND TRAIL
• CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH
• DAVID CROCKETT: SCOUT
• ON THE PLAINS WITH CUSTER
• GOLD SEEKERS OF ’49
• WITH SAM HOUSTON IN TEXAS
• WITH GEORGE WASHINGTON INTO THE WILDERNESS
• IN THE RANKS OF OLD HICKORY

[“GET DOWN, GET DOWN!” THEY ORDERED, FURIOUSLY, IN APACHE]

GENERAL CROOK
AND THE
FIGHTING APACHES

TREATING ALSO OF THE PART BORNE BY JIMMIE DUNN IN THE DAYS, 1871–1886, WHEN WITH SOLDIERS AND PACK-TRAINS AND INDIAN SCOUTS, BUT EMPLOYING THE STRONGER WEAPONS OF KINDNESS, FIRMNESS AND HONESTY, THE GRAY FOX WORKED HARD TO THE END THAT THE WHITE MEN AND THE RED MEN IN THE SOUTHWEST AS IN THE NORTHWEST MIGHT BETTER UNDERSTAND ONE ANOTHER

BY
EDWIN L. SABIN

AUTHOR OF “OPENING THE WEST WITH LEWIS AND CLARK,”
“BUFFALO BILL AND THE OVERLAND TRAIL,” ETC.

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY CHARLES H. STEPHENS
PORTRAIT AND A MAP

PHILADELPHIA & LONDON

J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY

COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY

PRINTED IN UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

TO THE

TYPICAL AMERICAN SOLDIER

WHOSE MOTTO, LIKE GENERAL CROOK’S, IS BRAVERY,
EFFICIENCY, AND “JUSTICE TO ALL”

“Then General Crook came; he, at least, had never lied to us. His words gave the people hope. He died. Their hope died again. Despair came again.”

Chief Red Cloud of the Sioux

FOREWORD

“It should not be expected that an Indian who has lived as a barbarian all his life will become an angel the moment he comes on a reservation and promises to behave himself, or that he has that strict sense of honor which a person should have who has had the advantage of civilization all his life, and the benefit of a moral training and character which has been transmitted to him through a long line of ancestors. It requires constant watching and knowledge of their character to keep them from going wrong. They are children in ignorance, not in innocence. I do not wish to be understood as in the least palliating their crimes, but I wish to say a word to stem the torrent of invective and abuse which has almost universally been indulged in against the whole Apache race.... Greed and avarice on the part of the whites—in other words, the almighty dollar—is at the bottom of nine-tenths of all our Indian trouble.”

General George Crook

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

[GENERAL GEORGE CROOK]
From “On the Border with Crook.” By Captain John G. Bourke.
By Courtesy of Charles Scribner’s Sons.

[MAJOR-GENERAL GEORGE CROOK]

Called by the Indians the “Gray Fox,” because of his weather worn canvas suit and his skillful methods. Admired by them also as “a common man who makes war like a big chief.” He first organized the army pack-mule trains, and employed Indians to fight Indians. He was noted for his dislike of “show,” his strict honesty, his incessant hard work, his great endurance, and his knowledge of Western animals and Indian ways.

Born near Dayton, Ohio, September 8, 1828.

Graduates from West Point Military Academy, 1852, No. 38 in his class. Assigned as second lieutenant, Fourth Infantry, and stationed in Idaho.

First lieutenant, March, 1856.

Captain, May, 1861. Meanwhile has been wounded by an arrow during campaigns against the Indians in Oregon and Washington.

Appointed Colonel of the Thirty-sixth Ohio Volunteer Infantry, September, 1861, and drills it so thoroughly that it is styled the “Thirty-sixth Regulars.”

Brevetted major in the regular service, May, 1862, for gallantry at the battle of Lewisburg, West Virginia, where he was wounded.

Brigadier general of Volunteers, September, 1862.

Brevetted lieutenant-colonel in the regular service, September, 1862, for gallantry at the battle of Antietam, Maryland.

Brevetted colonel, October, 1863, for gallantry at the battle of Farmington, Tennessee.

Commands the Army of West Virginia, August and September, 1864.

Major-general of Volunteers, October, 1864.

Double brevet of brigadier-general and major-general in the regular service, March, 1865, for gallantry in the Shenandoah Valley campaign.

Commands the cavalry of the Army of the Potomac, spring of 1865.

Commands Department of West Virginia, 1865.

Assigned as major of the Third U. S. Infantry, July, 1866, and stationed in Northern California.

Lieutenant-colonel, Twenty-third U. S. Infantry, July, 1866, to command in the Boise district, Idaho, where he makes a reputation as an Indian campaigner against the Warm Springs Shoshones or Snakes of Oregon.

Appointed to command the Military Department of the Columbia (the State of Oregon and the Territories of Idaho and Washington), July, 1868.

Transferred to California, 1870.

Appointed to command of the new Department of Arizona, June, 1871.

By reason of his success with the Apaches of Arizona, is promoted from lieutenant-colonel to brigadier-general, October, 1873.

Transferred to command the Department of the Platte, with headquarters at Omaha, March, 1875.

Campaigns, with pack-trains and Indian scouts, against the Sioux and Cheyennes of the plains, 1875–1878; subdues them and thereafter devotes his available time to hunting and exploration.

In 1882 is reassigned to the Department of Arizona, where the Apaches are unruly again.

Fails to succeed in holding Geronimo, the Apache war leader; is relieved at his own request, April, 1886, and reassigned to the command of the Department of the Platte.

Appointed major-general, April, 1888, and assigned to the command of the Military Division of the Missouri, with headquarters in Chicago.

Dies March 21, 1890, in his sixty-second year, at Chicago. Interred with high honors at Oakland, Maryland, pending the transfer of the remains, soon thereafter, to the National Cemetery at Arlington, Virginia.

MAJOR-GEN. OLIVER OTIS HOWARD

A man distinguished for his deep religious spirit and his benevolence, as well for his bravery upon the field of battle and his friendship with the Indians.

Born at Leeds, Maine, November 8, 1830.

Graduates at Bowdoin College, Maine, 1850.

Graduates at West Point Military Academy, 1854, No. 4 in his class. Assigned as second lieutenant of ordnance at Watervliet Arsenal.

Assigned to command of the Kennebec Arsenal, 1855.

In 1856 transferred to Watervliet again.

December, 1856, ordered to the Seminole Indian campaign in Florida.

First lieutenant and chief of ordnance, Department of Florida, 1857.

Assistant professor of mathematics at West Point, 1857–1861.

Expected to resign from the army to enter the ministry, but in June, 1861, accepts the colonelcy of the Third Maine Volunteer Infantry.

Commands a brigade at the battle of Bull Run.

Brigadier-general of Volunteers, September, 1861.

Loses his right arm, from two wounds, at the battle of Fair Oaks, Virginia, June, 1862.

Major-general of Volunteers, November, 1862.

Commands an army division at the battles of Antietam and Fredericksburg.

Commands an army corps at the battles of Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Lookout Mountain, Missionary Ridge, Chattanooga, and elsewhere, and has the right wing in Sherman’s march to the sea.

Thanked by Congress, January, 1864, for services at Gettysburg.

Brigadier-general in the regular army, December, 1864.

Brevetted major-general in the regular army, March, 1865, for gallantry.

Chief of the Freedman’s Bureau, at Washington, for the education and care of the negroes and refugees, 1865–1874.

Sent by President Grant to New Mexico and Arizona, as special peace commissioner to treat with the Indians, 1872, and wins the trust and love of the various tribes.

Assigned to the command of the Department of the Columbia, August, 1874.

Campaigns against the Nez Percés of Chief Joseph, 1877.

Campaigns against the Bannocks and Pai-Utes, 1878.

Superintendent of West Point Military Academy, 1880–1882.

Commands the Department of the Platte, 1882–1886.

Major-general, March, 1886, and appointed to the command of the Division of the Pacific.

Awarded medal of honor, by Congress, March, 1893, for distinguished bravery in the battle of Fair Oaks, where he lost his arm.

As commander of the Department of the East is retired, November, 1894.

Devotes his energies to religious and philanthropic work, and dies at Burlington, Vermont, October 26, 1909, aged seventy-nine.

THE APACHE INDIANS

A large collection of Indian tribes inhabiting the Southwest. They first are mentioned in 1598 by the early Spanish explorers in New Mexico.

The name “Apache” is derived from the Zuni word “Apachu,” meaning “enemy.” Their own name was “Tinde (Tinneh)” and “Dine (Dinde),” meaning “men” or “the people.”

They always were bitter enemies to the Spanish and Mexicans, who offered high rewards in money for Apache scalps, and enslaved captives. They were not openly hostile to the Americans until, in 1857, a Mexican teamster employed by the United States party surveying the Mexican boundary line shot an Apache warrior without just cause. The survey commissioner offered thirty dollars in payment, which was refused, and the Apaches declared war.

In 1861 Cochise, chief of the Chiricahuas, who had been friendly, was confined, on a false charge, by Lieutenant Bascom of the army, at the army camp at Apache Pass, Arizona. He cut his way to freedom. His brother and five others were hanged by the Americans. Cochise hanged a white man, in return, declared war, and almost captured the stage station where the troops were fortified.

Beginning with the Civil War, the Apaches ravaged all southern Arizona and the stage line in New Mexico also. Terrible tortures were committed upon settlers and travelers.

In 1863 Mangas Coloradas (Red Sleeves), an old Mimbreño chief related by marriage to Cochise, was treacherously imprisoned and killed by soldiers, at Fort McLane, New Mexico.

Thenceforth the Apaches and whites in Arizona had little common ground except that of “no quarter.” There was constant fighting.

In March, 1871, a number of Arivaipa Apaches gathered peacefully under the protection of Camp Grant are killed, captured or put to flight by a vengeful party of Americans, Mexicans and Papago Indians from Tucson.

In the fall of 1871 the Government peace commission tries to adjust the differences between the white people and the red. The Apaches are offered reservations and guaranteed kind treatment. They have little faith in the words.

The Apaches, with the exception of the White Mountain in Arizona and the Warm Spring in New Mexico, and some smaller bands, decline to gather upon reservations. In 1872 General O. O. Howard arrives as special peace commissioner, and by his talks and actions wins the trust of the Indians. The reservation idea seems a success. Cochise and his Chiricahuas agree to remain in their own country of the Dragoon Mountains, southern Arizona.

In the winter of 1872–73 General George Crook proceeds against the outlaw Apaches of Arizona, especially the Tontos and the Apache-Mohaves or Yavapais. His cavalry, infantry, pack-trains and enlisted Indian scouts trail them down and subdue them.

General Crook’s plans to make the Indians self-supporting on their reservations appear to have brought peace to Arizona.

In 1874 the control of the reservations passes from the War Department to the Indian Bureau. Reservations given to the Indians “forever,” by the President, are reduced or abolished, and various tribes are removed against their protests. Agents prove dishonest, the Indians are not encouraged to work, and are robbed of their rations.

The Chiricahuas are generally peaceful, although Mexico complains that stock is being stolen and run across the border into the reservation. Chief Cochise, who has kept his word with General Howard, dies in 1874. Taza his son succeeds him, as leader of the Chiricahua peace party, until his death in 1876.

In April, 1876, whiskey is sold to some Chiricahuas, at a stage station on the reservation. A fight ensues, and killings occur. The great majority of the Chiricahuas refuse to join in any outbreak.

In June, 1876, it is recommended by the governor of Arizona that all the Chiricahuas be removed to the San Carlos reservation. They do not wish to go, but the majority follow Taza there. Chiefs Juh, Geronimo, and others escape.

The policy of the Indian Bureau contemplates putting all the Apaches together upon the San Carlos reservation. The White Mountain Apaches, who have voluntarily lived upon the White Mountain reservation, their home land, adjacent, and have supplied the government with scouts, decline to go to the low country. When forced, they drift back again, and finally are allowed to stay.

In 1877 the Warm Spring Apaches and the Geronimo Chiricahuas who had taken refuge there are ordered from the Warm Spring reservation in New Mexico to San Carlos. Some escape; the remainder escape a little later. Thereafter, Chief Victorio and his Warm Springs are constantly on the war-path, out of Mexico.

In January, 1880, Chiefs Juh and Geronimo of the Chiricahuas agree to stay upon the San Carlos reservation. In August Victorio is killed by Mexican troops.

In September, 1881, Juh and Nah-che (a son of Cochise and a lieutenant of Geronimo), break from the reservation, for Mexico.

In April, 1882, Geronimo and Loco of the Chiricahuas follow.

General Crook is now recalled to the command in Arizona. He talks with the Apaches on the reservations, finds a marked state of mistrust and misunderstanding, and places his troops to guard the border against the outlaws.

In March, 1883, Chato, or Flat-nose, a young captain of Geronimo’s band, with twenty-six men breaks through, raids up into New Mexico and Arizona, and murders settlers. With forty cavalry, about two hundred Apache scouts, and pack-trains, Crook overhauls the Chiricahuas in the wild Sierra Madre Mountains of Mexico two hundred miles south of the boundary, and persuades the whole band to return peaceably to the reservation.

The Chiricahuas are placed under the control of General Crook, and he locates them upon good land on the White Mountain reservation. Both reservations are policed by the army. The Apaches seem to be content, under the Crook plan that they shall work for an independent living. In 1884 they raise over four thousand tons of produce. There have been no outbreaks.

In February, 1885, disagreements arise between the War Department and the Interior Department, of which the Indian Bureau is a function. General Crook’s powers are interfered with by civil interests at Washington and in Arizona, liquor is being permitted upon the reservations and the Indians grow uneasy.

In May, 1885, after a controversy with the agent over the right to dig an irrigating ditch, and having obtained a supply of liquor, one hundred and twenty-four men, women and children under Geronimo and Nah-che, his lieutenant, escape again into Mexico. During their raids they kill seventy-three whites and a number of Apache scouts.

General Crook secures an international agreement that United States troops may operate in Mexico, and Mexican troops in the United States, and sends a column on the trail of Geronimo.

In March, 1886, Geronimo signifies that he desires to talk. The general meets him, Chihuahua and other chiefs, and they accept the terms of two years’ imprisonment, with the privilege of the company of their families.

On the march north a vicious white man by the name of Tribollet supplies whiskey to the Chiricahuas, at ten dollars (silver) a gallon, alarms them with lies by himself and his unscrupulous associates. Geronimo and Nah-che, with twenty men, thirteen women and two children, disappear. Chihuahua and eighty others remain.

The general’s action in making terms with the Chiricahuas, and in not so guarding them that they would be forced to remain, is indirectly censured by General Sheridan, commanding the army. Crook explains that no other methods on his part would have met with any success, under the circumstances, and asks to be relieved from the command of the department.

In April, 1886, General Nelson A. Miles takes the command in Arizona. He increases the number of heliostat signal stations, discharges the reservation-Apache scouts (whom he suspects of treachery), employs a few trailers from other tribes, and by a very energetic campaign which permits Geronimo no rest, in September induces his surrender upon only the conditions that his life shall be spared and that he shall be removed from Arizona.

Without delay the Geronimo and Nah-che remnant of hostiles, and all the Chiricahua and Warm Spring Apaches, four hundred in number, at the Fort Apache (White Mountain) reservation, are removed, whether friendly or not, to Florida. This is deemed the only practicable measure of freeing the Southwest from the menace of Apache outbreaks. The expenses of the Department of Arizona are lessened by $1,000,000 a year.

The climate of Florida is unfavorable to the Apaches. Geronimo complains that he and Nah-che had understood that their families were to accompany them. Many of the Apaches die from disease and homesickness.

In May, 1888, the Apaches are removed from Florida to Mt. Vernon barracks, Alabama; and in October, 1894, as prisoners of war to Fort Sill Military Reservation, Indian Territory (now Oklahoma).

The principal reservations of the Arizona Apaches are the Fort Apache and the San Carlos, each containing between two and three thousand Indians. There are still over two hundred of the Chiricahuas and Warm Springs at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. Geronimo died February 17, 1909, at Fort Sill. Nah-che succeeded him as chief.

APACHE ARIZONA
and the principal places in General Crook’s time

GENERAL CROOK AND
THE FIGHTING APACHES

I
JIMMIE DUNN IS BADLY FOOLED

“Tinkle, tinkle,” placidly sounded the bell of the old bell-wether, to prove that he and the other sheep were grazing near at hand in the stiff brush.

“All right,” thought Jimmie Dunn, whose business it was to keep tab on the whereabouts of that bell.

For this was a simmering hot summer afternoon of the year 1870, far, far down in southern Arizona Territory; and here on a hill-slope of the Pete Kitchen big ranch about half-way between Tucson town and the Mexican line Jimmie was lying upon his back under a spreading crooked-branched mesquite tree, lazily herding the ranch sheep.

The Kitchen ranch really was not Jimmie’s home. He lived with his uncle Joe Felmer (not really his uncle, either), who was the blacksmith for Camp Grant, the United States army post ninety miles northward, or fifty-five miles the other side of Tucson.

But the region close around Camp Grant was a sandy pocket famous for fever and ague as well as for other disagreeable features, such as scorpions, tarantulas, ugly Gila monsters (thick, black, poisonous lizards), heat and sand-storms; so that Joe had sent Jimmie down to their friend Pete Kitchen, on a vacation.

Everybody, American, Mexican and Indian, in southern Arizona, knew the Pete Kitchen ranch. It was noted for its battles with the Apaches who, passing back and forth on their raids out of the mountains of Arizona and Mexico both, were likely to plunder and kill, at any time. Sturdy Pete had not been driven away yet, and did not propose to be driven away.

Jimmie himself was pretty well used to Apaches. They prowled about Camp Grant, and attacked people on the road from Tucson, and frequently the soldiers rode out after them. Joe Felmer had married an Apache woman, who was now dead; he spoke Apache and Jimmie had picked up a number of the words; but there were plenty of unfriendly Apaches who every little while ran off with Joe’s mules or filled his hogs with arrows.

On his back under the mesquite tree Jimmie was not thinking of Apaches. He was idly surveying the country—at the same time having an ear open to the musical tinkle of the bell-wether, who told him where the sheep were straying. And a delightful, dreamy outlook this was, over all those quiet miles of mountain and desert Arizona which only the Southern stage-line traversed, and which, so thinly settled by white people, the roving Apache Indians claimed as their own.

In his loose cotton shirt and ragged cotton trousers Jimmie felt very comfortable. Presently his eyes closed, his head drooped, and he nodded off, for forty or so winks.

He dozed, he was certain, not more than five minutes; or perhaps ten. Then he awakened with a sudden start. Something had told him to awaken. He sat up and looked to see that the sheep were all right. He could not see one animal, but he heard the tinkle, tinkle. He twisted about to find the old bell-wether—and he gazed full into the grinning face of an Apache boy!

The Apache boy, who appeared to be fourteen or fifteen years old, was not more than five yards from him—standing there beside a giant cactus, naked except for a red cloth band about his forehead, and a whitish cotton girdle about his middle, with the broad ends hanging down before and behind, and regular Apache moccasins reaching like leggins half way up his thighs for protection against the brush: standing there, grinning, in his left hand a bow, in his right the wether’s bell!

He had been tinkling that bell! And a smart trick this was, too: to sneak up on the wether, get the bell, and ring it to fool the herder while other Apaches drove away the sheep!

For an instant Jimmie stared perfectly paralyzed with astonishment. He could not believe his eyes. Instead of a staid old tame sheep, here was a mischievous young wild Apache! Then, trying to utter a shout, up he sprang, to run. On the moment he heard a sharp swish, the noose of an Apache’s rawhide rope whipped about his shoulders, and right in mid-step he was jerked backward so violently, head over heels, that he had no time or breath for yelling a word.

Barely had he landed topsy turvy in the brush when a heavy body rushed for him, a supple dark hand was clapped firmly over his mouth, and hauled upright he was half dragged, half carried, through the mesquites and the cactuses and around the slope of the hill.

Now he was flung, limp and dazed, aboard a pony, his captor mounted into the saddle behind him, and away they tore, while the brush beneath reeled by under Jimmie’s swimming eyes.

This was a fast ride until the sheep were overtaken. There they were, almost the whole flock, being forced hotly onward by Apaches afoot and ahorse, with other Apaches guarding the flanks. It looked like a war party returning with plunder from Mexico. The bands about the foreheads, the round rawhide helmets that some wore, the thigh moccasins, the guns, bows, lances and clubs, proved that they were a war party; and they had a lot of loose horses and mules besides the Pete Kitchen sheep.

Jimmie sighted another captive—a Mexican boy, older than he, fastened upon a yellow mule led by an Apache horseman.

A broad-shouldered, finely built Indian wearing an Apache helmet with feathers sticking up from it, and riding a white horse, evidently was the chief in command.

The grip of the Apache who held Jimmie had slackened. Jimmie managed to squirm ’round enough to look up into the Apache’s face. In return he got a grin, and two or three Apache words that said: “Good boy. No fear.” These were common words with the “tame” Apaches who sometimes came into Camp Grant or to Joe Felmer’s little ranch near by, so Jimmie understood.

The country grew rougher and wilder and higher. By the sun Jimmie knew that the course was generally eastward, and he guessed that these were Chiricahua Apaches.

The Apache Indians, as almost anybody in Arizona could say off-hand, were divided into the Chiricahuas and the Pinals and the Arivaipas and the Coyotes and the White Mountains and the Apache-Mohaves and the Apache-Yumas and the Tontos and the Mogollons, and the Warm Spring Apaches and the Mimbres (of New Mexico), and the Jicarillas (Heek-ah-ree-yahs) or Basket Apaches, who never came into Arizona; and so forth.

The Tontos and Pinals, who were outlaws, and the Chiricahuas (Chee-ree-cah-wahs), who were hard, thorough fighters, seemed to give the most trouble. The Chiricahuas lived in the mountains of southern Arizona and of northern Mexico.

The pines and cedars of the higher country were reached before dusk. Not a tenth of the sheep had come this far. The most of them had been left to die from heat and exhaustion. Now having passed through another of their favorite narrow canyons, the Apaches halted, at dark, to camp beside a trickle of water in a rocky little basin surrounded by crags and timber.

This night Jimmie was forced to lie between two Apache warriors, the one who had captured him, and a comrade; and he fitted so closely that if he moved he would waken them. It was an uncomfortable bed, there under a thin dirty strip of blanket, limited by those greasy, warm bodies, and he was afraid to stir. But he was so tired that he slept, anyway.

Very early in the morning the camp roused again. Apaches when on a raid or when pursued were supposed to travel on only one meal a day and with only three hours’ rest out of the twenty-four. So now on and on and on, through all kinds of rough country they hastened, at steady gait and speaking rarely—Jimmie riding a bareback horse.

In late afternoon they halted on the rim of a valley so deep and wide that it was veiled in bluish-purple haze. On a rocky point three of the Apaches started a fire of dried grass, and sent up a smoke signal by heaping pitchy pine cones upon the blaze.

Chewing twigs and sucking pebbles to keep their mouths wet, the Apaches, talking together and watching, waited, until a long distance across the valley, whose brushy sides were thickly grown with the mescal, or century plant cactuses, blooming in round stalks twenty feet tall, a smoke column answered.

The Apaches tending to their own fire fed more pine cones to it, and two of them rapidly clapped a saddle-blanket on and off the smoke, and broke it into puffs. The smoke column across the valley puffed in reply.

The Apache boy who had played bell-wether pressed to Jimmie’s horse.

“Chi-cowah,” he said, pointing. That was Apache for “My home.”

Now the party appeared satisfied. They scattered their fire, and struck down into a narrow trail that crossed the bottom of the valley. A peculiar sweetish smell hung in the misted air. This, Jimmie guessed, was from the steaming pits wherein the hearts of the mescal, or century plants, were being roasted.

They glimpsed several squaws and children gathering foodstuff in the brush. As they filed through a little draw or rocky pass they were hailed loudly by an Apache sentinel posted above. He could not be seen, but the chief replied. The pass opened into a grassy flat concealed by the usual high crags and timbered ridges. Here was the Apache camp or rancheria (ran-cher-ee-ah), located along a willow-bordered creek.

Fifty or sixty of the Apache brush huts or jacals were sprinkled all up and down the flat, and as soon as the party entered, a tremendous chorus of welcome sounded. Women shrieked, children screamed, dogs barked and mules brayed. Right into the center of the camp marched the party, and stopped.

A circle of staring women and children, and a few men, surrounded. Other squaws bustled to take the horses and mules from the dismounting warriors. Jimmie was told to get off. Feeling lonesome and miserable, he saw close in front of him a boy who did not seem to be Indian at all, for he had fiery red hair and brick-red freckles and only one eye, which was blue!

Yes—a red-headed, one-eyed, blue-eyed boy, rather runty, in only a whitish cotton girdle, and moccasins. Evidently he dressed that way—or undressed that way—all the time, for his body and limbs were burned darker than his face.

Jimmie was not granted much space for staring back into that one blue eye. He was slapped upon the shoulder, “Aqui (Here)!” grunted the chief, in Spanish, and strode on through the circle. So Jimmie followed, hobbling at best speed.

The chief went straight to a scrub-oak tree, with a hut beneath it, and an Apache sitting in the shade of it, on a deer hide before the hut. By the manner with which Jimmie’s Apache spoke to the sitting Apache, who did not rise, it was plain to be seen that the sitting Apache was the principal chief, and that Jimmie’s Apache was maybe only a captain.

They talked for a moment in Apache, too fast for Jimmie to understand. Then the sitting chief, who had been eying Jimmie sharply, addressed him in simple Mexican-Spanish easy to catch.

He was not at all a bad-looking Apache. In fact, he was about the finest Apache that Jimmie had ever met: a broad-chested six-footer, like the captain chief, but large eyed and kindly faced and dignified.

“What is your name?”

“James Dunn.”

“No Mexicano?”

“Americano,” corrected Jimmie proudly.

“Your father Pete Keetchen?”

“No.”

“Where you live?”

“Camp Grant.”

“With soldiers?”

Jimmie reflected an instant. If he said “With Joe Felmer,” then the chief would surely hold him as a great prize, for Joe Felmer, Government scout as well as post blacksmith, was an important enemy. So——

“Sometimes,” asserted Jimmie, which was true.

“Why on Keetchen rancho?”

“Tend to sheep.” And Jimmie blushed when he recalled that he had been a great sheep-herder!

“Pete Keetchen your father?”

“No!” repeated Jimmie. “No father, no mother.”

The head chief and the captain chief gazed at him as though they would read his very thoughts. The captain chief had such piercing dark eyes that they bored clear through. But he was a sure-enough Apache, with straight black hair and dark chocolate skin, darker even than ordinary.

’Twas to be imagined that neither of the chiefs believed Jimmie’s statements. They still suspected that he belonged to Pete Kitchen.

The head chief spoke abruptly.

“You ’Pache now. Ugashé (U-gah-shay)—go!”

Jimmie knew that he was dismissed, and he turned away. He was faint in the stomach and weak in the knees, and he had no place in particular to go, until he saw the Mexican boy captive sitting in the sun, with his feet under him and his shanks high. Jimmie seized upon the opportunity to talk with him, at last.

“What is your name?” he asked, squatting beside him. All Americans in southern Arizona could speak some Spanish; Mexican-Spanish was as common as English.

“Maria Jilda Grijalba (Maree-ah Heel-dah Gree-hal-bah).”

“Where did you live?”

“In Sonora” (which was in Mexico). “Where did you live?”

“Camp Grant—American fort, Arizona.”

“How far?”

Jimmie shrugged his shoulders.

“Do not know.”

“You do not live on the rancho?”

“For little while.”

“You have father, mother?”

“No. Apaches kill them.”

“My father, mother, brothers, sisters, all killed,” lamented Maria, weeping. “Alas! All killed, by Apaches.”

“We run off, pretty soon?” proposed Jimmie.

“No!” opposed Maria, in much alarm. “Must stay. Be Apaches. They not let us run off. Big country. Get lost and die. Get caught and be killed.”

But Jimmie had made up his mind that he was not going to be an Apache; he would escape if he could. Or maybe he would be rescued.

However, here came the captain chief, and the bell-wether Apache boy, and the strange red-headed boy with the one blue eye.

“Ugashé!” roughly ordered the captain chief, of Maria. Poor Maria obediently arose and shuffled away.

The captain spoke to Jimmie, and smiled. He, also was a fine-looking Apache: almost six feet tall and straight and sinewy, with square face and thin, determined lips, and those extraordinary sharp eyes.

Jimmie stood up.

“Chi-kis-n,” said the captain, and nodded aside at the bell-wether boy.

“Chi-kis-n” was Apache for “my brother.” The Apache boy grinned and held out his hand.

“Chi-kis-n,” he greeted.

The red-headed, one-eyed boy explained in Spanish.

“Your name Boy-who-falls-asleep, his name Nah-che. But you must call him chi-kis-n—my brother.”

“Muchos gratias (Many thanks),” answered Jimmie, shaking hands with Nah-che. Nah-che was a stocky, round-faced boy, and Jimmie liked him in spite of that trick with the sheep bell.

“The chief’s name is Go-yath-lay,” continued the red-headed boy. “He is war-captain of the Chiricahua. Nah-che is son of Cochise, head chief.”

The war captain, who had been listening intently, trying to understand the words, nodded, and spoke again in Apache.

“Your chi-kis-n will show you,” translated the red-headed boy, who knew Spanish and Apache both.

“Aqui (Here),” bade Nah-che: and Jimmie followed him to one of those regulation Apache jacals—a low round-topped hut made from willow branches stuck in a circle and bent over to fasten together, with pieces of deer hide and cow hide laid to cover the framework of the sides, and flat bundles of brush to thatch the roof. The jacals resembled dirty white bowls bottom-up. Each had a little opening, as a door to be entered only by stooping half double.

Before the hut an Apache woman in a loose cotton waist worn outside a draggled calico skirt was busy cooking. She stirred the contents of an iron kettle, set upon a bed of coals in a small shallow pit. She threw back her long, coarse black hair and scanned Jimmie curiously while Nah-che spoke a few words to her.

Then repeating the title “chi-kis-n” Nah-che strolled away. The woman smiled broadly at Jimmie, took him by the arm, and talking to him led him inside the hut. The earth had been dug out, there, so that they might stand, in the middle, and not strike their heads on the ceiling.

The woman made Jimmie remove his trousers and shoes; and leaving him his ragged shirt tossed to him a pair of old moccasins.

Again out-doors, she gave him a mess of the stew, in a gourd bowl. The stew was corn and beans cooked together, and was very good indeed, to a hungry boy.

“Go,” she signed. “Come back at night.”

Here in the open, Jimmie felt rather odd, with nothing on but his shirt and moccasins. Still, most of the boys and girls of his age, in the village, had even less on. They were brown, though, and he was white, which seemed to make a difference.

Some of the boys were playing at what appeared to be hide-and-seek amidst the brush and trees and rocks; others were shooting with bows and arrows. The little girls had dolls, of rags, and stuffed, painted buckskin. They all viewed him out of their sparkling black eyes, and the girls giggled the same as white girls.

Jimmie’s squaw shoved him from behind.

“U-ga-shé!” she ordered. “Go!”

After all, thought Jimmie, if he had to live here for a while, he might better pretend to enjoy himself, until he got a good chance to escape. So he boldly joined in the game of hide-and-seek. At first everybody there let him alone. But he chased around, with the others, his shirt flapping, and soon he was one of the “gang” and was being shouted at in Apache.

The one-eyed boy and Nah-che and several others of that age stayed by themselves, playing a game with raw-hide cards, and talking. They were too old for foolishness.

This night Jimmie slept in the squaw’s hut. There was a feast and dance, judging by the noise that he heard when awake. Nah-che came in late. In the morning the red-headed boy went away on foot with three Apaches who evidently had been visitors at the village; and as he did not return during the day, he probably belonged somewhere else, himself.

II
JIMMIE LEARNS TO BE APACHE

These were the principal band of the Cho-kon-en Apaches who were called Chiricahua (“Great Mountain”) Apaches because of the Chiricahua Mountains amidst which they lived. But Cho-kon-en was their own name.

The pleasant-faced Cochise was the head chief. He was about fifty-five years old. The captain Go-yath-lay or “One-who-yawns” was the war chief. He was forty years old. The Mexicans whom he had fought had given him the name Geronimo (Her-on-i-mo), which is Spanish for Jerome.

There were other bands of Chiricahuas, under other chiefs—Na-na and Chihuahua (Chi-wah-wah) and Loco, and so forth. Na-na was the oldest of all; he was nearly eighty, and had been wounded many times in battle—yes, as many as fifteen times. Chihuahua was stout and good-natured. Loco was thin and quite bow-legged.

In the Sierra Madre Mountains of Mexico, which were the south end of the Chiricahua Range, were the Nedni Apaches, under old Chief Juh, or “Whoa.” Chief Cochise and Chief Juh frequently went to war together against the Mexicans.

Northeastward, or in western New Mexico lived the Chi-hen-ne—the Ojo Caliente (Oho Cal-i-en-te) or Warm Spring Apaches, under Chief Victorio. With Chief Victorio’s people the Cochise people had long been as brothers.

The woman who had charge of Jimmie was Nah-da-ste. She was a sister of Geronimo. Her husband had been killed in battle with the Mexicans. The warrior who had captured Jimmie was Geronimo’s younger brother Porico, or “White Horse.”

Nah-che, Jimmie’s chi-kis-n, was the youngest son of Chief Cochise. Geronimo the war chief liked him very much. His name meant “meddlesome,” for he had been a mischievous baby. In about three years, or when he was seventeen, if he had proved himself worthy in the hunt and on the long trail, he would be admitted into the councils as a warrior.

The same with another boy, Chato. He was called Chato, or “Flat-nose,” because he had been kicked in the face by a mule.

Taza, Nah-che’s elder brother, already was a warrior and would be head chief, probably, after Cochise his father died. But that was not certain; head chiefs were elected and not born.

As for the red-headed, one-eyed blue-eyed boy——

“His name is Red-head,” said Nah-che. “He is not one of us. He is part Mexican and part American. He was captured a long time ago by some of our men, but he lives with the White Mountains now, in the north. The White Mountains are at peace, on their land where the new American fort is being built.”

Jimmie rapidly learned Apache, although many of the Chiricahuas spoke Spanish. He soon had lost his shirt, and went about with only a rag around his waist. Everybody in the Cochise camp was kind to him. He was an Apache boy, now. The Apaches never whipped their children, nor punished them in any way except by scolding.

The little children were made to help in the fields where corn and squash and beans and melons were raised; and went with their mothers to gather seeds and berries and acorns and mescal—for the Apaches ate curious things.

The girls played with dolls, and at housekeeping and tended to the babies, of which there were many. The boys of nine and ten, Jimmie’s age, and over, worked some, but they were encouraged to use the bow and arrow, and throw the lance, and practice at war and at the hunt, so as to train them as warriors and to strengthen their muscles.

The war game was the best sport. Some of the boys pretended to be Mexicans. The others remained Apaches. The “Mexicans” were given a head-start, into the brush and timber, and the “Apaches” set out to find their trail and to surprise them.

Although the “Mexicans” did everything they might think of, to conceal their tracks and to get away, they always were discovered. Then by running and sneaking and crawling flat with grass and cactus tied to their heads the “Apaches” proceeded to ambush the “Mexicans.” Then the “Apaches” yelled and shot fast with light arrows, and the “Mexicans” were killed or captured.

Turkeys were caught by running after them up hill and down until they were so tired that they could not fly, and were killed by a blow from a club on the neck. Rabbits were chased, too, and surrounded by a circle of boys armed with bows and clubs; and they, too, were killed.

All these sports made the Apache boys fleet of foot and quick of eye and arm, and very strong in lungs and legs.

The Apaches had curious customs as well as curious food.

“You must never ask a Tinneh (‘Tinneh’ was the Apache’s own title; it meant ‘man’) his name,” explained Nah-che. “Only somebody else may speak it. If he spoke it, he would have bad luck.”

And——

“You must never speak of the bear or the mule or the snake or the lightning unless you say Ostin Shosh (Old Man Bear), or Ostin Mule or Ostin Snake or Ostin lightning. It is not well to talk about them or the owl. They are medicine.”

And——

“After you are married you must not look upon the face of your wife’s mother. You must avoid meeting her or speaking to her. You must hide your face or turn your back, or you will be disrespectful.”

And——

“You must not eat fish meat, or the meat of the pig. They are bad.”

And——

“When anyone dies we give away everything of his that we don’t burn. If that was not done, then there might be persons of bad hearts who would wish a relative to die so that they would get his property.”

And——

“When I go on the trail as a warrior, for the first four times I must not touch my lips to water. I must drink through a hollow reed, or I will spoil the luck of the whole party. And I must not scratch my head with my fingers. I must use a scratch stick.”

War parties went out frequently, sometimes under Geronimo, sometimes under Cochise also. The warriors marched on foot, as a rule, because then they could climb and hide better. On foot an Apache could travel forty to seventy-five miles at a stretch, which was as much as a horse could do. No white man could equal an Apache, in covering rough country and desert country.

The parties were sent out mainly against the Mexicans of Mexico, to get plunder, although the Chiricahuas had no love for the Americans, either, Nah-che explained again.

He was sitting, pulling the hairs from his chin and cheeks with a pair of bone tweezers. It was unmanly for a warrior to have any hair on his face, and Nah-che expected to be a warrior after he had made four war-trails. Four was the lucky number, with the Apaches.

“We hate the Mexicans. They are bad,” said Nah-che. “They kill our women and children, and pay for scalps. With the Americans it is like this:

“When they first came into our country we were friendly to them. We saw that they were different from the Mexicans, and they had been at war with the Mexicans, too. They shot one of us, and offered to pay a little something, which was not punishment enough. Still we did not stay at war with them. Cochise made a camp near the American wagon-road at Apache Pass, where Camp Bowie is now, and traded, and sold wood. One time a Mexican woman and her baby were stolen by some bad Indians from an American, and the Chiricahua were asked to return them. We did not have them, or know anything about them, but Cochise and Mangas Coloradas of the Mimbreño Apaches and some other chiefs went with a white flag to meet a young American war chief at Apache Pass, and talk.

“When they got there the American chief surrounded them with his soldiers and told them that they would be kept shut in a tent until they sent and got the baby and woman. They decided they would rather be killed than be kept prisoners. So they drew their knives, and Cochise cut a hole through the back of the tent, and there was a fight. Several were killed. But Cochise and Mangas Coloradas escaped. Cochise was wounded in the knee by a gun knife (bayonet). The Americans hung his brother and five others, by the neck, and Cochise hung an American by the neck; and he and Mangas Coloradas called all their warriors and nearly captured the Americans. The young American captain had acted very foolish.

“After two or three years Mangas Coloradas (this was Spanish for ‘Red Sleeves’) grew tired of fighting. He was badly wounded, and he sent word that he would like to treat for peace. The Americans told him to come in with his people. Cochise had married his sister, and we and the Mimbreños often helped each other, and now Cochise advised him not to trust the word of the Americans. But Mangas Coloradas went to an American fort in New Mexico.

“Then they seized him and put him into a little house with only one window, high up. The soldiers scowled at him; so that when he was put into the little house he said to himself: ‘This is my end. I shall never again hunt through the valleys and mountains of my people.’ And that was so. This night while he was asleep somebody from outside threw a big rock down on his chest—or else a soldier guard punched him with a hot knife on the end of a gun. We do not know. Anyway, he was much frightened. He ran about, trying to climb out and fight with his hands and then the soldiers shot him many times, and he died.

“Now you see that the Chiricahua cannot be friends with the Americans any more than with the Mexicans, and it is so with other Tinneh. The Warm Springs are friendly, because Chief Victorio thinks that is wise; and the Sierra Blanca (White Mountains) have agreed not to fight. But they have not lost chiefs and brothers like we have.”

This was the way the Chiricahua Apaches thought. But of course there were two sides to the quarrel. Joe Felmer and Pete Kitchen and other pioneers had claimed that old Mangas Coloradas had been a regular bandit who never intended to stay at peace. He had tortured and killed men and women and children, and was determined to drive all the Americans out of the country. Once he had been captured by miners and tied up and whipped, which had made him worse.

He had lived to be seventy years old, and although even Pete Kitchen did not wholly approve of the manner with which he had been disposed of, it was a great relief to have him out of the way. Maybe he might have been educated to stay at peace, and maybe not.

But now that the Chiricahuas hated the Americans and Mexicans both, Jimmie saw little chance of escape.

Maria the Mexican boy had settled down to be an Apache. All his folks had been killed, and he said that he might as well live with the Apaches. He had plenty to eat and little to do; and he thought that he would marry an Apache girl, when he was old enough, and stay Apache.

The Red-head boy who lived with the White Mountain Apaches came in once or twice, to visit, while out hunting or just scouting around. He could not speak English. His father had been Irish and his mother Mexican, and Spanish had been the only language used in his home. Since the Apaches had captured him eight or nine years ago he had learned Apache, too.

“Are you going to stay Apache, Red-head?” asked Jimmie.

“Yes,” answered Red-head, in Apache. “I’ll stay with the White Mountains, but I don’t like the Chiricahua. It is no use for them to fight the Americans. Besides, they killed my father and mother. Are you going to be a Chiricahua, Boy-who-sleeps?”

Jimmie shook his head.

“No. I am American. I don’t want to be anything but American. I’m a white boy.”

“That is good,” approved Red-head. He was a snappy, energetic boy, built low to the ground, and with his red hair and freckled face and one bright blue eye looked very nervy. “I like the Americans. Some day I’ll be a scout with the American soldiers. The White Mountain Apaches are good Apaches. Chief Pedro is wise. He knows that it is no use to fight the Americans. It is better to live at peace with them, and raise corn, and hunt, and be given food and clothes. That is easier than fighting and starving and losing warriors. The Americans are too many, and are well armed. The Chiricahua have bad hearts and will all be killed. You ought to leave them.”

“I can’t,” replied Jimmie. “I don’t know where to go.”