Part 13

There was thud of hoofs below, a chorus of angry yells――“Whish-bang!” a bullet fanned his cheek――“Ping-bang!” another cut a large sliver from the pole close to his neck――“D,” “D,” “D,” he kept calling, even while he glanced aside.

The four Indians were into the road and tearing for him, rifles leveled upward――he saw smoke, heard the bullets――but the Thomas operator had answered.

“I――I D,” “I――I D.”

Now for the ten seconds’ grace!

“Injuns out. Big band――――”

Camp Thomas broke.

“Repeat. Who are you?”

“Too nervous. Steady, boy,” cautioned Jimmie, to himself. He was not an expert operator, anyway. But this was a crisis.

He hastily started to repeat. The four Indians were right at the foot of the pole, yelling at him.

“Get down, get down!” they ordered, furiously, in Apache. He gazed full into their upturned, painted faces――and into the muzzles of their rifles; and he grinned sickly and continued to send.

“Injuns out. Big band. Sig., Dunn. Injuns out. Big Band. Sig., Dunn. Injuns out. Big band. Sig., Dunn.”

Would Camp Thomas never O. K.? Would those muzzles below never belch their balls and rip him and hurl him headlong?

“No tiras (Don’t shoot)!” suddenly yelped one of the voices, from one of the painted faces.

Nah-che! And Chato (Flat-nose), too! The muzzles were lowered――the scowling Chato’s last of all.

“Come down, chi-kis-n,” ordered Nah-che.

But Jimmie only shook his head, while he worked his key.

“Come down or we shoot you down,” blared Flat-nose; and he drew a deadly bead.

But Thomas had broken in at last.

“O. K. Where?” ticked Camp Thomas.

“Ash Flats. Head east. Bronc’s and squaws.”

“O. K. Get off wire,” answered Camp Thomas.

“Bang!” sounded Chato’s rifle, and Jimmie’s little instrument flew into fragments. But Jimmie cared not, now. He went sliding painfully down; landed right in the midst of the four Indians, staggered――two of them were afoot, waiting for him――they sprang at him, and wrenched his revolver from its holster. They acted as though they were going to kill him, or take him along, when Nah-che interfered.

“No!” he ordered, while Chato scowled. But Nah-che was obeyed, because he was a grown warrior and son of Cochise. “What were you doing, chi-kis-n?” he demanded.

“I talked with Camp Thomas,” answered Jimmie, defiantly.

“What did you say?”

“I said that the Chiricahua were running away.”

The three other Indians murmured angrily. The two young bucks besides Nah-che and Chato Jimmie did not know. He had not seen Nah-che and Chato for several years, either. They had grown. Chato was ugly, because of his flattened nose, but Nah-che was supple and handsome.

“No matter,” said Nah-che, to his companions. “This is my brother. He did right. He is brave. He shall not be harmed. Give him his gun and let him alone. We are not afraid of the soldiers.” He addressed Jimmie. “Yes, chi-kis-n, we are running away――all the Warm Springs and Chiricahua except the Taza band. There are many of us, and we know there are not enough soldiers in Arizona to stop us. We can whip the Camp Thomas soldiers first, and whip the rest as they come. Geronimo is with us, and Loco, and one hundred warriors who belong to Juh and me.”

“Why are you running away, chi-kis-n?” asked Jimmie. “I thought you and Juh were already run away. People said you were in Mexico.”

“We were,” replied Nah-che. “We live in Mexico. That is the only place for us. Nana is there, too; and Chihuahua. Now Juh and I have come up to help Geronimo and Loco get away.” He began to talk hotly. “Why do we all run away? That is a foolish question. We will not be moved around so, and put in sickly places among Indians who don’t like us. We would have stayed at our home in the Dragoon Mountains, and have been happy. A few of us drank whiskey sold us by bad white men, and we all were blamed. The San Carlos is not a good place. The White Mountains tell false stories about us, the agents steal our rations from us and we go hungry. The white traders would rather sell things to us, and cheat us. So Juh and I ran away. Now there is talk that the white men want all the San Carlos country, because of mines, and that the Apaches will be taken away, many miles, to a strange land. Geronimo says he has been told to come to Camp Thomas, for a talk――and if he goes there, he will be put in prison again; maybe killed, like Mangas Coloradas was killed. We would rather die on the warpath than die in prison or in a strange land. So we all, the Chiricahua and the Warm Springs, except Taza’s squaw-people, will live in the Mexican mountains. There we can lead our own life. The Mexicans dare not fight us, we have plenty guns and plenty food, the American soldiers cannot cross the line, to follow us.”

“Don’t you fool yourself,” retorted Jimmie. “Crook will come, and he will go anywhere.”

“Cluke is a good man. If he had stayed, maybe there would be peace instead of war,” responded Nah-che. “There has been one other good man, at San Carlos. He was the soldier-captain Chaffee. Why does the White Father at Washington let us be cheated, like children, by dishonest agents? Why does he listen to bad tongues, that say we must not stay where we were promised we might stay? But good-by, chi-kis-n. Now there is war between us. The Chiricahua are never coming back to be cheated again. You have been chi-kis-n; but you are American and I am Apache, so when we meet in war, look out for yourself. It will be man to man. We are no longer boys.”

Nah-che wheeled his pony. With a whoop, away they four tore, flourishing their guns.

Jimmie gazed after only for a moment. Then he was aware that all his left shoulder and arm were red and paining. The bullet had slashed a furrow an inch deep through the muscles of the upper arm, but the blood was clotting and he did not pause to tie a bandage on.

He unstrapped his climbing irons, kicked them off as he stooped to pick up his revolver, and hobbled for his horse; mounted and raced for Camp Thomas.

Camp Thomas had only two reduced companies of the Sixth Cavalry. When he got there, the two companies were drawn up in column of twos in front of the adjutant’s office, as if ready to start out. Micky Free was here, with a party of White Mountain and Tonto scouts. The telegraph instrument was clicking rapidly.

“Hello, Cheemie!” intercepted Micky, gaily, in his Spanish. “You been fighting, what?”

“Not much,” panted Jimmie, pulling short. “When do you start?”

“Pretty soon, when the talking wire is done. They are telling what you said, to the other posts. You did good work, Cheemie. The wire from San Carlos is cut, but Tom Horn (he was a white scout and packer at San Carlos) brought more news by horse, and Sibi has been here. Now they are out, spying on the trail, and we will follow. It has been a big outbreak.”

“Were you there, Micky?”

“No; but I heard it, and the agency Indians have signaled, and Tom Horn was there. All the Chief Loco Warm Springs and the Geronimo Chiricahua have gone. They number seven hundred. The trouble was this. You know Stirling?”

Jimmie nodded. Mr. Stirling was chief of the agency police. These were not scouts, but Indians appointed by the agent as policemen.

“Some days ago Stirling tried to arrest a Chiricahua who had been making whiskey. The Chiricahua ran and Stirling missed him and hit a squaw. That turned the Chiricahua bad, although Stirling said he was sorry. They have been getting bad anyway, because there is talk that all the Indians are to be moved far away, so that the Americans can dig coal on the reservation. Last night Juh and Nah-che sent in word that they were near, waiting to help Loco and Geronimo. This morning the Chiricahua and Warm Springs began to pack up, and Stirling and Navajo Bill, a policeman, charged them alone, to break them up. The Chiricahua had been waiting for this. They shot Stirling one hundred times at once, and a squaw cut off his head and it was kicked about like a ball. He was a very brave man, that Stirling. Navajo Bill wasn’t hurt, but another policeman was killed, and one Chiricahua. Now the Warm Springs and Chiricahua are out――and I think they will keep right on going.”

“Yes,” answered Jimmie soberly. “I met Nah-che. He came while I was talking on the wire. He says that all the soldiers in Arizona cannot stop them.”

“That is true,” agreed Micky. “They have two hundred fine warriors, and better guns than the soldiers’ guns. They nearly all have those guns that shoot sixteen times, and lots of ammunition. The soldiers are scattered, and before we get together, and the New Mexico soldiers get together, Geronimo will be into Mexico. What was Nah-che doing on this side the river? The squaws and children cannot cross, with the horses. It is too high.”

“I think Nah-che brought a party over to drive me away or kill me. He had Chato with him, and two others. But he made them quit shooting at me. We are chi-kis-n.”

“That won’t count again,” warned Micky. “So watch out, next time. This is war, and long war. Now you’d better get your arm fixed, Cheemie. The Loco and Geronimo band will have to keep on, up the river, until they can cross. They will strike south, near New Mexico, until they cross the border. There are no soldiers, ahead in that country, to stop them; and they wouldn’t care if there were. But we’re to meet Sibi and follow and fight as well as we can, under the ugly long-nosed man.”

That was Lieutenant George Gatewood, of the Sixth Cavalry, at Thomas. He came in a hurry out of the adjutant’s office.

“All ready,” he barked, to the junior lieutenant, his second in command, and swung into the saddle.

“’Ten-_shun_! Column――march! Trot!”

The bugle sounded briskly, and away they went, in long column, the red and white guidons flapping, Micky and his scouts galloping to the advance.

Jimmie proceeded to have his arm bandaged, and to talk with the operator. Then he reported at headquarters, but he had little to tell that was not already known. He felt, though, that he had done his duty.

While his shoulder was healing, the troops of Arizona and New Mexico struck the hostiles several times, down at the border, but did not turn them.

XX

THE GRAY FOX RETURNS

“Crook is coming back! General Crook is coming back!”

That was the word at Camp Thomas, in this the early summer of 1882, a couple of months after the Geronimo outbreak.

The Third Cavalry already had arrived from its northern plains campaigns, and the Sixth was being stationed over in New Mexico. But the Sixth had done well, and the best news was that which bore the name of Crook. He had been ordered from the Department of the Platte to the Department of Arizona, again.

“Now we shall see the Chiricahua grow tired,” laughed Micky Free, when Jimmie met him. “Sibi is glad; the White Mountains are glad; everybody will be glad, except Whoa and Geronimo. Are you going to help fight, Cheemie, instead of riding all the time along the talking wire?”

“You bet I am, Micky,” declared Jimmie. “Hope Tom Moore’s coming, too. I reckon if my leg won’t let me scout I can join the pack-train.”

General Crook wasted no time. Scarcely had he announced himself at Fort Whipple, ere he was bound for San Carlos and Fort Apache, to straighten out these affairs first.

Jimmie rode over to the fort with a party from Thomas, to learn the latest. The general was there, with Lieutenant Bourke, now a captain. Wearing an ancient, smoked and scorched corduroy suit he had arrived on the same “Apache,” his mule. He looked rather older than when he had left, back in 1875. The campaigning in winter up north had been tough. But he acted as energetic as ever.

He held a council with the dissatisfied White Mountains.

“I want to have all that you say here go down on paper,” he addressed. “What goes down on paper never lies. A man’s memory may fail him, but the paper does not forget. I want to know from you all that has happened since I went away, to bring about this trouble between you and the white men. I want you to tell the truth without fear, and in few words.”

Old Pedro had listened attentively to the general through an ear-trumpet, for Pedro had grown quite deaf. He answered.

“When you were here, if you said a thing we knew that it was true. We cannot understand why you left us. The people who have come among us talk in one way and act in another. And I remember the other officers, too, who treated us kindly. I used to be happy; now I am all the time thinking and crying, and I say: ‘Where is old Colonel John Green, and Randall, and those other good men?’”

Alchisé spoke.

“When you left us, there were no bad Indians out. Everything was peace. But I think that all the good men must have been taken from us and only bad ones sent in. We did not mind having no rations, for we had learned to take care of ourselves. Then one day we were ordered to give up our fields and go down to the hot land of San Carlos to live. I have tried hard to help the whites, and they have put me in the guard-house. Where did you go? Why doesn’t Major Randall come back? Where is my friend Randall, the captain with the big moustache that he always pulled?”

The general was very patient with all who wished to talk. Then he took a pack-train and rode into the depths of the Black Canyon, where a number of the Apaches lived because they feared arrest.

The Apaches here, also, claimed that they had been mistreated. They had set a spy to watch the agent at San Carlos, and had caught him selling their rations. Then they had sent a man to tell the agent that he must not do this, and the man had been kept in jail for six months without any trial. They said that they had been getting only one cup of flour every seven days. One shoulder of a little cow had to last twenty persons for a week.

It was another long story, and the general promised that he would help them.

“I think there will be peace at Fort Apache and at the San Carlos,” Micky asserted, as he and Jimmie rode back after the council was over. “And if the Chiricahua will stay in Mexico and kill only Mexicans, you and I will have no fun, because the Gray Fox cannot make war in Mexico.”

“Maybe the Chiricahua will stay there.”

“No. After a time the young men will get tired of killing and robbing Mexicans, which is easy. They will want to win honor by robbing the Americans――and then, we shall see.”

At Camp Thomas Jimmie met the general face to face while crossing the parade-ground. He had small hopes that the general would remember him when he saluted――but something in the general’s keen, inquiring eye made him halt and stand expectantly.

“Well, my man,” blurted the general. “I seem to know your face.”

“Yes, sir. I’m Jimmie Dunn.”

“I remember. You still limp a little, I see. What are you doing now?”

“I’m a telegraph line-man, sir.”

“That’s good. You had a talk with Nah-che, when he was on his way out, last spring, didn’t you? Do you think he can be persuaded to come in peaceably?”

“He might if he knew you were back, sir. But he said the Chiricahua hadn’t been treated well――they were out to stay.”

“The Apaches have grievances. The worst of the outlaws are better than the whites who have been robbing them.”

The general was about to stride on, when Jimmie hastily spoke.

“But if you go against the Chiricahua, I’d like to go too, sir.”

“That will be a hard and maybe a long chase,” gravely said the general. “Probably into the Mexican mountains, with picked men. You can help by sticking to your present business. The telegraph and the railroad are very necessary.”

Jimmie, thinking it over afterward, almost decided likewise. His leg bothered him, and his shoulder was still tender. Chasing Geronimo through the Mexican mountains, with a leader who never rested, required nerve and strength both.

The general tried to hold a conference with the Geronimo runaways. From the border he sent a party of Apache scouts under Alchisé across, for a few miles, but they found no traces of the Chiricahuas.

Two Chiricahua squaws were captured while returning to San Carlos. They said that the Geronimo band had a strong hiding-place deep in the Sierra Madre Mountains several days’ travel below the border; were living off the Mexicans, and knew that the American soldiers could not come down there.

General Crook assigned Captain Emmet Crawford of the Third Cavalry (a broad-shouldered six-footer) to the military station at San Carlos, obtained permission from the Indian Bureau for the White Mountains to live upon the high, cooler lands near Fort Apache and to plant crops there, and from headquarters at Fort Whipple issued an order that said:

Officers and soldiers serving in this department are reminded that one of the fundamental principles of the military character is justice to all――Indians as well as white men――and that a disregard of this principle is likely to bring about hostilities, and cause the death of the very persons they are sent here to protect. In all their dealings with the Indians, officers must be careful not only to observe the strictest fidelity, but to make no promises not in their power to carry out; ...

As long as the Chiricahuas stayed out of the United States, there was not much more to be done. The Apaches on the reservations seemed content again; the border was being patrolled by one hundred and fifty Apache scouts, in the hope of catching the trail of any outlaws who might venture up; the telegraph was kept in fine working order, and the troops at the posts were given constant practice marches.

This fall and winter no word came from Geronimo. But in March (which was the year 1883) the expected news broke――and bad news it was.

Jimmie chanced to be in the telegraph office at Thomas when the message came. He took it off the wire as fast as the operator did. It was from Bowie, in the south.

“Band of hostiles crossed line raiding north through Whetstone Mountains. Heading west for New Mexico probably. More.”

“Where’s that adjutant?” barked the operator, tearing off his sheet. “Things are hummin’. Gee whizz, isn’t that man ever around when he’s needed?”

But the adjutant of course got the message at once.

“More” came thick and fast, from all directions. The Chiricahuas numbered only twenty-six warriors. They were under Chato, the Flat-nose. They had dodged the patrol, outwitted all the troops and volunteers, the telegraph and railroad did not stop them; on a circle of eight hundred miles, traveling at seventy-five miles a day they swung through Arizona and southwestern New Mexico, stealing fresh horses whenever needed, and killing miners and settlers.

“Picked men for the pursuit,” were the orders from the general at Whipple. This appeared to leave Jimmie, with his lame leg, out of scout service. Well, he might do some good in his regular job, anyway. But the last news was the worst news of all.

Near Silver City, southwestern New Mexico, a horrible act was committed by the Chato band. They overtook Judge H. C. McComas, driving on the main road with his wife and little boy, Charley; they tortured and killed the two grown-ups, and carried off Charley, aged six years.

This made soldiers and settlers alike furious. Jimmie could stand the strain no longer. He had been captured, once, himself. He threw aside his line-man position and rode over to Fort Apache, to find Frank Monach, pack-master.

“I want a job, Frank.”

“Thought you had one.”

“I had, but I’ve left. I’m too lame for scout work; I can pack, though. How about it?”

“Well,” drawled Frank, sizing him up, “the old man’s partic’lar. The pack outfits have got to be the kind that’ll keep agoin’. We’re due to follow those bronc’s till we get that boy back, even if we travel clear to the City of Mexico.”

“I know. That’s why I’m here,” retorted Jimmie. “I can pack and sit a mule.”

“All right. Old Jack Long’s watchin’ you, I reckon. He took a lot o’ stock in you. You’re hired. So get your war-bag an’ fall in.”

XXI

TO THE STRONGHOLD OF GERONIMO

“Fight to a finish, or a surrender, b’gosh,” announced Frank, to-day. “Chiricahuas can take their choice. But the old man’s goin’ after ’em. We’ll have no murderin’ an’ boy-stealin’ in this department. Everybody, man an’ mule, is ordered to meet him at Willcox, pronto (quick). So this outfit’ll hit the high places in the mornin’.”

Jimmie and the other packers at San Carlos, where they had been waiting prepared, gave a cheer. It was now the first week in April. The killing of Judge McComas and Mrs. McComas, and the stealing of little Charley, had occurred on March 28. Chato had escaped into Mexico again, having lost only one warrior, except――――

“Did you hear tell thar’s a Chiricahua buck been fetched in who claims he broke from the Chato bunch ’cause he wants peace?” queried Long Jim Cook.

“No. Where is he?”

“In the guard-house. They got him locked up till the old man talks with him. His name is ‘Peaches,’ or somethin’ like that.”

“Mebbe he brings some sort o’ word from Geronimo. You know the old man sent one of those squaws that he captured, back down, last fall, to tell the Geronimo band they’d better change their minds.”

Jimmie asked Micky Free.

“He is not a Chiricahua,” said Micky. “He is a White Mountain, but he married two Chiricahua squaws, so he had to live with the Chiricahua. His name is Pa-na-yo-tish-n (Coyote-saw-him). He does not like the Chiricahua, now. They are living in the mountains five days’ travel from Arizona. They have plenty wood, plenty water, plenty grass, plenty meat, and kill plenty Mexican soldiers with rocks because they must save cartridges. That is why Chato made his raid up north: to get cartridges. Pa-na-yo-tish-n ran away. He says he does not want to fight, and there are others who do not want to fight, but they are afraid of Geronimo. He knows the trail to Geronimo, and will lead the general straight. Then maybe we talk, maybe we fight. It will be a good fight, Cheemie. Geronimo has seventy men, and fifty big boys who can fight like men. Yes, if they have powder, and do not get starved, and the talk is bad, we will see much fun. I think that even the packers will better watch out sharp.”

Micky Free always had hopes. He was a regular fire-eater.

The cavalry from Fort Apache, and the pack-train, and about one hundred Apache scouts from the San Carlos and the White Mountain reservations marched across country to Willcox. Pa-na-yo-tish-n (whom the soldiers and packers called “Peaches”) was taken along, as a prisoner, in handcuffs.

Willcox, the nearest station on the Southern Pacific Railroad, just west of Railroad Pass over the Chiricahua Mountains, was overflowing.

The Camp Thomas troops had arrived; so had those from Fort Bowie, to the southeast. By train other troops, and horses and mules, and ammunition and supplies of all kinds were pouring in. The general and his staff were here. So were Charley Hopkins and “Short Jim” Cook and others of the old-time packers; and Archie MacIntosh and Al Sieber, the chief scouts; and Antonio Besias the interpreter; yes, and Maria Jilda.

It was a great reunion of Crook men.

Reports said that the United States and Mexico had arranged to pursue Indians into each other’s territory, but the United States troops were not to cross the boundary before May 1. In order to make certain that this was understood, the general traveled by the Mexican Central Railroad into the northern Mexican States and talked with the commanding officers there.

When he returned he talked again with “Peaches.” “Peaches” stuck to his story, and when the general directed that the irons be removed from him, “Peaches” said that he was willing to wear them until it was shown that he had spoken only the truth. But the irons were taken off anyway, because Alchisé and other scouts engaged to watch him very closely.