Part 11

“Hurrah for Joe! Bully for Joe!” Even the Yavapais might have cheered――but Nan-ta-je had been just in time. Scarcely had the uproar of banging guns and howling warriors and shrieking squaws and wailing children been renewed, when down from above rushed a tremendous boulder, bursting like a bomb-shell upon the wall itself.

“Hooh!” ejaculated Micky, astonished.

The firing slackened, everybody outside looked up. On the very top of the canyon, right over the cave mouth, were many figures――soldiers――and Indians! Outlined against the sky, they appeared curiously small.

“By the great horn spoon, thar’s Burns!” exclaimed Joe Felmer.

Surely! Jimmie had forgotten about the Captain Burns and Lieutenant Thomas company, but here they were, soldiers and Pimas, crowding the rim of the cliff, and gazing over as far as they dared. They had returned from following the pony trail, and had heard the shooting. Several of the soldiers were hanging part way――waist far, that is――from the edge, and held in place by other soldiers behind them were aiming their revolvers. The cliff slanted back, above the cave, so that persons above might see its threshold, and the rampart before――and, of course, see the warriors between the two.

But that rock! Here came another! Watch out――soldiers had rolled a second great boulder to the rim――they gave it a final shove, and bounding, ploughing, hurtling, it brought an avalanche down the face of the precipice and landing truly in the mouth of the cave burst thunderously into a hundred pieces.

A third boulder followed immediately. Then two at once. The soldiers and scouts below were cheering and shouting and shooting again, but the crashing of the boulders was louder. The dust they made was denser than the powder smoke――the mouth of the cave could not be seen. But somewhere in that veil were the wretched Yavapais. Jimmie felt sick.

Even the death chant had ceased, across there. Anyway, it could not be heard amidst the other uproar. The Captain Burns men worked hard. The rampart was being crushed and buried. The Major Brown men were standing up while they fired; they were so excited. Jimmie and Micky were standing.

“Down, down with you!” bawled sergeant and corporal. “Wait till the chargin’ order!”

The fight continued, but it was becoming a very one-sided fight. Bombarded by the rock artillery from above, and by the carbines from in front, and held by the cave wall behind, the Apache-Mohaves were being literally wiped out of existence. They were replying not at all; their brave medicine-man had disappeared amidst the murk――the occasional rifts showed him no longer.

Still, it was dangerous, here in front of the cave, for the bursting boulders, piling up in the entrance and shattering the rampart there, sent their fragments flying like pieces of shell, causing the soldiers to duck and laugh as they plied their cartridges.

Now the trumpet sounded――“Cease firing!” The shots died away as Major Brown, standing, waved his arm at the Captain Burns company, on the rim of the precipice over the cave, to signal them to stop rolling down their boulders.

“Prepare to charge!” the orders were repeated, along the line below. The sun was high, marking noon. The battle had been going on for at least five hours!

“Prepare to charge!” Up sprang the line, and at the instant down bounded the last of the boulders, which the officers above had been unable to withhold. It gave one final tremendous jump, and landed well out in front of the cave――“Boom!” Something struck Jimmie――yes, a piece of it caught him as he blindly dodged――and whirling him around knocked him head over heels.

He tried to pick himself up, and a fierce pain stabbed him in the right leg, making him dizzy. He propped on one arm, among the rocks, while his eyes cleared a little. Already the line was running and scrambling forward, soldiers and scouts both; nobody now might pause to tend to _him_. He stared, blinking weakly. What would happen? Were the Yavapais away back in the cave, somewhere, and where they were waiting, to defend it?

There was Micky, scooting about; and Nan-ta-je, and Joe, and Jack Long, and Captain Taylor and Lieutenant Bourke, their carbines and revolvers poised, as they advanced at double-quick. Right up to the top of the huge pile of shattered rocks climbed the first man――Corporal Thomas Hanlon, he――and glared in; jumped down, out of sight, and over and around poured the others. But not a shot was fired. Evidently all the Yavapais were dead. Oh!

With that, Jimmie sighed, everything swam before him, and he must have fainted, because the next that he knew, Joe Felmer was sopping his face from a canteen, and Micky was squatting beside, grinning.

From the cave sounded the hum of voices; the soldiers and scouts were still busy there. The Burns soldiers and Pimas had come down.

“Hyar! You lie quiet,” ordered Joe. “You got a busted leg, I reckon, an’ you don’t want to see inside that cave, anyhow. Wish I hadn’t, myself.”

“Are they all dead, Joe?” quavered Jimmie, helplessly. Wow, how that leg hurt! But it had been bound up, after a fashion, probably by Joe.

“Ev’ry buck, includin’ the medicine man. Plumb shot through, or smashed; lots of ’em both. Some squaws an’ kids left,” grunted Joe. “It’s what you might call a massacree. Now, you stay hyar, till we’re ready to move ye. I’m needed yonder. Micky can nuss ye; both o’ ye ought to be back with the pack-train――’tain’t no place for boys――’speshully for one who can’t dodge rocks.”

Muttering, Joe (who really was kind-hearted) trudged away.

“Ah, I told you it would be a great fight, Boy-who-sleeps,” grinned Micky Free, as he squatted. “Black Beard is angry, because you are the only one of us wounded; but you will be a warrior, now.”

“Were you in the cave, Red-head?” asked Jimmie, also in Apache.

“Yes. It is very red. All the Yavapai warriors are dead. The medicine chief is dead, under a rock. One old man was partly alive, and he died soon. Some squaws and children hid behind large flat rocks, and under dead people. They will be captives. You will see them. Delt-che is not there; but he has lost his best warriors, and he never will make a good fight again. I am glad we came, Cheemie.”

“What are the Pimas doing, Red-head?” asked Jimmie. For the Pimas, with Chief Owl Ears in the center, were sitting in a bunch and wailing.

“Oh, those Pimas!” scoffed Micky. “They make medicine. They no good any more. They find their Pima who was killed, and now their medicine tells them they must not fight again till after they have mourned him by singing and bathing and not eating. That will take several days. But Apaches wait till they get home. I do not think much of the foolish Pimas. And the Maricopas are the same. All no good――stop fighting and make medicine. Huh!”

The soldiers and scouts worked fast, cleaning out the cave. The squaws 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.