Part 15

“Hi! I said he had somethin’ up his sleeve,” chuckled Long Jim Cook. “Where they gone? After plunder, I bet you!”

“Of course,” declared Archie. “And the general’s raising Cain. He says to Geronimo: ‘Those bucks of yours are riding south to steal horses and cattle from the Mexicans.’ And Geronimo, he just smiles and says: ‘Oh, they wouldn’t rob anybody. They’re looking for some of our own horses and cattle that we’ve left.’ And the general says: ‘I won’t allow you to take any stolen stock across the border. I’d be court-martialed for it.’ And Geronimo says: ‘Don’t bother with that. All those Mexicans are good for, is to grow horses and cattle for the Apaches. We will ride on slowly. But if there is any trouble with the Mexicans, you have promised to protect us. Besides, it will be several days before my men come to join us.’ So the general, he’s regularly up a stump.”

And that was true. For the time being the wily Geronimo had outwitted him. Without doubt most of the able-bodied warriors had ridden away for the purpose of making one last raid, and returning to the reservation, rich!

The march north was begun. The procession stretched for more than a mile――the old men and old women, the wounded, and the little children riding upon ponies, the women afoot packing great bundles, and many carrying cottonwood boughs to shield their heads from the fierce sun.

Soon the Chiricahuas numbered three hundred, the majority women and old men and children. The herd of horses and cattle steadily grew. Near the border a dozen warriors caught up, at night; they brought fifty horses. But at the camp across the border the warriors, driving herds of stock, joined in streams, and the general found that he had three hundred and sixty-three Chiricahuas and over one thousand horses and mules and cows bearing Mexican brands!

“Every one of those must be turned back into Mexico,” he ordered.

“No,” replied Geronimo. “They belong to us. We bring them, so that we can go to farming, as you ask us to do. Who cares what a lot of howling Mexicans say?”

Mexicans, lawyers and angry ranchers claiming horses and cows were threatening to sue the United States, and General Crook, for helping to steal Mexican stock. But many of the brands had been changed over, and there were disputes without end, the Mexicans and the Chiricahuas both claiming all the cattle.

So the only way out of the muddle was, to drive the stock to San Carlos, and sell it, and send the money to the United States treasury. Then the Mexicans who could prove their claims should be paid.

This did not please Geronimo.

“The Chiricahua will not understand, and they will not forget,” said Maria Jilda, who was at the border camp. “You will chase Geronimo and Nah-che again, Jeemie.”

“Well, I shorely hope not,” quoth Frank Monach. “Hope we get a chance to rest up, anyhow. The general and Sieber look about tuckered.”

And that was so. After five hundred miles of travel through the roughest of mountain country, in heat and cold and dry and wet, even General Crook seemed to be worn out.

He kept his word with the Chiricahuas. Geronimo and the other chiefs were permitted to choose their own lands, and settled with their people, five hundred and twelve in number, south of Fort Apache. It was a fine country, too, on the head-waters of Turkey Creek.

The general obtained orders from Washington that all the Chiricahuas should be placed under his control. This was thought by Arizona to be a very good plan, because the Chiricahuas, like the other Apaches, had much faith in “Cluke.”

As the governor said, in an annual message to the legislature: “The Indians know General Crook and his methods, and respect both.”

Jimmie stuck at Fort Bowie. He had been appointed pack-master, there, and this was quite a job for a boy scarcely twenty-one years old. But he felt as though he had grown up in the service; and old Jack Long had started him off well.

Captain Crawford was in military charge of the San Carlos reservation. Micky Free was over there, too, as a sergeant of the Indian police. Lieutenant Gatewood was stationed in the Chiricahua camp at Turkey Creek, just as the general had promised. Maria Jilda took up a ranch; he said that he was tired of scouting and interpreting. Al Sieber, as chief of scouts, divided his time between San Carlos and Fort Apache; and where Archie MacIntosh went, Jimmie did not know.

But there was no opportunity for being lonesome at Fort Bowie. Pack-train duties kept a fellow hopping, if he tried to have a crack outfit――and the only outfits tolerated by the quarter-master’s department under General Crook were crack ones. Supplies had to be packed in from the railroad, fifteen miles, and there were scoutings and practice marches.

For the remainder of 1883 everything seemed to be quiet. Reports stated that Geronimo and all the Chiricahuas were farming and doing famously, and that the White Mountains, on the other side of Fort Apache, were getting rich by selling their barley and hay to the post and to the towns.

Then, as the months of 1884 rolled by, troubles appeared on the surface. The military and the Indian Bureau employes did not agree. The military officers, like Captain Crawford and Lieutenant Gatewood, had charge of the Chiricahua prisoners, but the Indian agent had charge of the other Indians. The military was obliged to keep order at San Carlos and the Fort Apache reservation, both, but the Indian agent had the authority to direct the farming. The Chiricahuas had been encouraged by General Crook to mingle with the peaceful White Mountains, and all the Indians preferred the soldiers to the civilians.

The White Mountains and Chiricahuas complained that they were not getting their rightful amount of meat from the agent. The man sent out to see, reported that they were getting everything.

Captain Crawford did not agree with the report. The Indian Bureau asked that he be removed. He demanded a court-martial. The court-martial found that he was honest and correct; and that the Apaches, instead of getting one thousand cows, had been assigned only six hundred poor ones, with the promise that the rest should be delivered “when required.”

But Captain Crawford was powerless in the matter, and the Apaches could not understand why there should be two fathers over them.

In May young chief Ka-e-ten-na went “bad.” He was the Mexican Apache chief who had surrendered; now he made ready to run away, with a band of other restless Chiricahuas, into Mexico again.

General Crook was at West Point, to address the graduating class there. However, Ka-e-ten-na was arrested by his own people, and was tried the same as a white man, and sentenced to be “shut up till he learned sense.” He was sent to the United States military prison on Alcatraz Island, in San Francisco Bay, for a year; and this proved a very good plan, the same as the cases of Santos and Pedro and old Miguel; because after he had seen how powerful the Americans were and what a great city they had, he was cured of wishing to live wild.

“He is only one, though,” said Micky Free, this fall, while at Bowie on a scouting trip with Tom Horn who was Al Sieber’s right-hand man. “Sibi thinks that all the Chiricahua would better be sent to prison. So does Tom. They have had a talk with Geronimo, and the only way to do is to send all the Chiricahua out of Arizona, quick.”

XXIV

PACK-MASTER JIMMIE MEETS A SURPRISE

“Will there be trouble again, Micky?”

“Of course,” laughed Micky scornfully. “Everybody in Arizona knows that. You see it yourself, Cheemie. You read the talking papers. The talking papers of Mexico say that the Chiricahua from Arizona are sneaking down there and stealing cattle. That is true. Even Gatewood is getting afraid. He is losing Chiricahua all the time; they go somewhere and his counts are always different. I think he will move to Fort Apache. It is only twelve miles, and he will be safer.

“The Geronimo Chiricahua see that the San Carlos Apaches and the White Mountains are unhappy, with two fathers bossing them. So they trade their goods for whiskey and guns. Sibi went to Geronimo and asked him what he was planning to do. Geronimo said: ‘It is no use to lie to you, Sibi. You read my thoughts. The truth is this: When my men came up with Cluke from Mexico they expected to go back every little while, to get horses and cows. There is no harm in stealing cattle from those Mexicans. Besides, Cluke took away the cattle that we first brought up. If my men are not allowed to do that, they would rather live in Mexico and act as they please. It is only my talk that holds them, and some day they won’t listen.’

“To hear Geronimo pretend peace talk would make a mule laugh,” concluded Micky. “Now because Cluke is in Washington we have come down here with Tom Horn, and Sibi who has a lame leg is coming in a wagon. They will talk with Bourke. Sibi says to capture all the Chiricahua and send them far away. That will end war. But I guess it won’t be done.”

Captain Bourke――who had been promoted to major――was at Bowie, waiting for the general to return from Washington. The general had gone to Washington in the hopes of getting more authority to deal with the Apaches.

He did not succeed. All this fall and winter of 1884 the War Department and the Interior Department could not agree upon the control of the reservations.

The officers at San Carlos staked out an irrigating ditch for the Apaches to dig, and the agent declined to permit the digging. The Indians believed nobody. Captain Crawford asked to be transferred to his regiment, the Third Cavalry, and Captain F. E. Pierce, of the First Infantry, was assigned to the military charge of San Carlos. He had lost an eye in the Civil War.

In February of 1885 Major-General John Pope, who commanded the Military Division of the Pacific, from San Francisco announced, to Washington:

If General Crook’s authority over the Indians at San Carlos be curtailed or modified in any way, there are certain to follow very serious results, if not a renewal of Indian wars and depredations in Arizona.

Consequently, with matters at sixes and sevens, the outlook at Fort Bowie was very gloomy.

In the middle of May Jimmie rode down toward the border, to see how some of the pack-mules in pasture upon a ranch were getting along. There was likely to be need of them soon, for the Indians certainly were going to break out.

It was an all-day ride. The pasture was in some bottoms among the hills, where there was good water and grass; so he cooked his own supper and prepared to sleep out, beneath the stars.

He was just about to turn in, under his blanket, when he heard Chiquito snort. Chiquito was his horse, picketed out to graze. The snort might mean mountain lion, Mexican leopard, wolf, deer, or――――!

“What is it, Chiquito?”

Chiquito’s head was up, his ears pricked, he was staring into the south. He knew a heap, Chiquito did.

Jimmie gazed, too, in the same direction. And there, far to the southwest, across the Mexican line, he saw a red gleam on a high hill. A signal fire, sure: Indian signal!

Jimmie scrambled to his feet and stood peering intent. Presently the gleam was broken――and then repeated. Indians down there were signalling for other Indians to answer. That was plain. Even Chiquito had known. He was Indian wise.

Jimmie swept the dark horizon again and again, to catch the answer, but none appeared. His view from the camp was not very good; but he must find out what was going on; accordingly he snatched up his blanket and ran through the brush to the crest of the slope above him.

Here he found the right spot, and squatted, with his blanket wrapped around him, to wait. He did not dare to build a fire, lest it be seen.

This was a long, cold wait.

The fire in the southwest flared regularly at intervals of about an hour. “Answer,” it kept saying. “Answer.” Jimmie eyed the north as well as the south――and at midnight the expected happened. The signal in the south had been answered, for it suddenly broke into a message.

There were one long flash and several shorter ones. Then, quickly following, two flashes, and an interval, and two more.

As anybody ought to know, this spelled: “All right. We will wait two days.”

The fire died. That was the end. Jimmie jumped to a conclusion. There had been only the one fire in the south; so the answer had come from the north, and he had somehow missed it. But the Indians in Mexico had signalled to some Indians in Arizona, and were to wait two days!

The Chiricahuas had arranged to run away! Probably they already were out, making for Mexico, to join runaways already there. Whew! Great Scott!

Well, all that he could do was to wait until daylight, and then make for Bowie. And the sooner the better, because he was right in the track of runaways.

He went down to his camp, and got a half night’s sleep. In the morning he did not wait to gather his mules; he saddled Chiquito at daylight and struck out by the shortest way.

The country all seemed peaceful. Who might have foretold that he would bump right into the hostiles? But that is precisely what happened. He was loping up a shallow draw fringed by rocks and stunted pines――had been riding two hours――when as he rounded a shoulder, on a sudden here there came at headlong gallop a dozen steers.

He wheeled Chiquito to one side, quick; barely had time to get out of their way――didn’t have time to get out of the way of the three young bucks chasing them full tilt; and before he could spur Chiquito up the flank of the draw, for cover, he was a “goner.”

With a yell and with guns leveled the three bronc’s had charged him; a bullet sang by his ear; and he raised his hand for a talk. They arrived instantly, reined short, around him. He didn’t know them, and they appeared not to know him.

“Chi-kis-n,” he attempted. But they only scowled and talked among themselves in Apache.

“Shall we kill him here?”

“That is best.”

“Stick him with your lance.”

“You talk foolish,” retorted Jimmie boldly, in good Apache. “There’s no sense in killing me. You’ll only get in trouble by it. Take me to your chief.”

“Who are you, that speaks Apache?”

“Never you mind who I am,” retorted Jimmie. “You take me to your chief. If he says kill me, all right. But you’d better wait till he does say so. You’re only warriors.”

“Where are the rest of your party, white man?”

“I’m alone.”

“What is your business?”

“I herd mules.”

“Where are you going?”

“To Fort Bowie.”

“We ought to kill him. He will tell on us if we let him go,” said one, aside.

“No. We’ll have to take him back,” said the oldest boy. “There is plenty of time to kill him later.”

They snatched his rifle and revolver from the holsters, and on either side and behind jostling him along, drove him up the draw. For the next five minutes Jimmie figured that his chances were about one in one hundred.

They rounded the turn; and here, in a little hollow, was a group of twelve or fifteen men and women kneeling over two cow carcasses, and butchering them. Several of the figures looked to see who was coming. One of them was Nah-che. Jimmie’s heart beat less rapidly. His chances were increased.

However, Nah-che, standing erect, was not at all pleased to see him.

“Why are you in here?” demanded Nah-che.

“I came down from Bowie to look at some mules. Now I was going back to Bowie.”

“Did you know that some of us are off the reservation?”

“Yes. I saw a signal fire last night, in Mexico, and I read what it said.”

“What did it say?”

“It said that they would wait two days.”

“That is right,” replied Nah-che. “I am sorry we met you, chi-kis-n, because now you will be killed.”

“That may be so. But why do you kill me, chi-kis-n?” challenged Jimmie. “I have done you no harm.”

“No; we fought against each other, but that was understood. If you will promise me not to say a word about us at Fort Bowie I will let you go.”

“You know very well that I would not be a man if I gave any such promise,” retorted Jimmie. “I shall not lie to you.”

“If white men never lied to us, then everything would be all right,” said Nah-che. “They do lie to us, so you must die. I am sorry, but――――”

“No! No!” One of the squaws had rushed up. She was Nah-da-ste! “This is the Boy-who-sleeps. I remember him well. He has slept in my lodge and eaten my food. I won’t have him killed. You had better let him go. He cannot harm us.”

“No. Fort Bowie is a long way off,” reminded Jimmie. “Besides, if you are off the reservation, that is known by this time.”

“Maybe not. We cut the talking wire,” answered Nah-che. “But it is true that Fort Bowie is a long way off. Anyway,” he added, “I don’t want to kill you, and I cannot argue with women. You can go, chi-kis-n. By the time you tell what you know, we shall be far in the other direction. So go as fast as you please, but keep going straight, for you might not find a chi-kis-n among other Chiricahua.”

“Good,” grunted Jimmie, as his rifle and revolver were passed to him. “I ask one word. Tell me why you are leaving the Fort Apache country. I wish the truth.”

“Everybody but Cluke is our enemy. We are lied about. Even Chato tell lies on us, and gives us a bad name, because he hates Geronimo. If we stay we will be locked up. That is what is said. Now go, for I will talk no more.”

Jimmie took the hint, and spurred away. He knew better than even to look back.

XXV

ON THE JOB WITH CAPTAIN CRAWFORD

One hundred and twenty Chiricahuas under Geronimo, Chihuahua, old Nana and Nah-che were the ones who had run away. Chato had persuaded the three hundred other Chiricahuas to stay. He did not approve of Geronimo and Nah-che, or of further war.

The outbreak had occurred on the night of May 17. The Chiricahuas had left in parties of twenty or so, to meet again across the border. Lieutenant Britton Davis, of the Third Cavalry, had been in charge at the reservation. As soon as he had discovered the loss, he had tried to telegraph General Crook; but the “talking wires” had been damaged. Before the message got through, the Chiricahuas were beyond the railroad, with a clear field ahead.

Nah-che had spoken truly when he said to Jimmie that they ran away because they feared being locked up. They knew that they were watched. And in defiance of the general’s complaints that liquor was manufactured upon the reservation, they had obtained a quantity of it and drunk it――which of course made them liable to punishment.

The general came over to the reservation too late; but flying columns had been sent out at once, from Apache and Thomas and Grant and Bowie. Two hundred scouts from all the reservation bands were enlisted for six months. Chato himself volunteered.

The columns dispatched were mainly for the purpose of keeping the Chiricahuas away from the border until it might be patrolled, and the principal band located by either the American or the Mexican troops.

Meanwhile as a crack pack-master Jimmie was decidedly busy at Fort Bowie. Bowie had waxed to a bustling supply depot, and was likely to be headquarters field base.

Tom Moore, who had been up north in the Department of the Platte, was sent for by the general to be chief packer again in the Department of Arizona. He brought down from Cheyenne, Wyoming, the best of the Platte pack-mules, and was given a great welcome at Bowie by Jimmie and the other “old-timers.”

The country was being scoured for good mules. These had to be broken, some of them, and distributed. Troops were pouring in, until the general had at his disposal forty companies of infantry and the same of cavalry.

He was planning surely. He directed that heliograph stations, for the purpose of telegraphing by mirrored sun-flashes, be established upon hill-tops all along on both sides of the border. Then he went to Washington, to get a better agreement with Mexico regarding a joint campaign against the Apaches.

There was a brief period of quiet, except for hard work that kept Jimmie, as well as others, on the move. The final break came about the middle of October.

Jimmie saw the heliostat flashes which spread the news. He was riding back to Bowie from a long trip down to a supply camp at the border. Chancing to turn his head, when only a little way out from the camp, he caught the flash of a message from a station in the south.

The regulation Morse dots and dashes (long and short flashes) were used by the stations. Now he paused, to read. The station was at least ten miles distant. The air was very clear, and his eyes were good eyes.

What was that? No practice message, this, or ordinary routine. The first word――even the first three letters――stiffened him intent.

“H-o-s-t-i-l-e b-a-n-d h-e-a-d-g (heading) n-o-r-t-h f-o-r D-r-a-g-o-o-n c-o-u-n-t-r-y. Q-u-i-c-k.” Signed.

Hah! “Wake up, Chiquito! Gwan with you!” The message read like business, and stirring business. Evidently the Chiricahuas were getting bold. But it did not seem possible that with all these troops, and the railroad, and the telegraph, and the helio stations, and the armed and watchful settlers, a raid could amount to much.

The helio stations were twenty or twenty-five miles apart. A message had been sent from Nacori, in the mountains of northern Mexico, two hundred miles to Fort Bowie, in an hour. But so fast moved this band of raiders, and so cleverly they chose their trail, that by the time Jimmie arrived at Bowie they not only had crossed the line but had disappeared somewhere in Arizona!

Already the troops were in motion, trying to close in and head the raiders off. It was reported that there were eleven warriors. They were not even sighted again, until, suddenly, they struck the White Mountain reservation itself――surprised a camp of the White Mountains, killed twelve and carried away six women and children.

That, then, had been the object of the raid: to take revenge upon the reservation Apaches for sending scouts against the Chiricahuas!

The White Mountains succeeded in killing one raider, during the fight. He was Hal-zay, Nah-che’s half-brother. They cut off his head, for a trophy. But the ten others completed their bold circuit, and in spite of soldiers, settlers, telegraph, heliostat and railroad escaped back into Mexico.

“I never would have believed it!” declared Chief Packer Tom Moore, to Jimmie at Bowie. “It beats the Dutch! The general’s got every waterhole covered, and every pass watched. Anyhow, now there’s a fresh trail, for back-tracking on, where they came up by the shortest way. Crawford and Cap’n Davis are going right down after the bacon, to stay till they get Geronimo or his scalp. I’ve picked you for assistant chief packer with one of ’em. Which do you say? Chances are even. You’re the boss.”

“Guess I’ll throw in with Crawford, Tom, if you put it up to me,” promptly said Jimmie. Assistant chief packer! Wow!

Captain Crawford and Captain Wirt Davis were both good men, but as Tom Horn, acting chief of scouts, had remarked: “Crawford’s my style of fighter: the go-get-’em kind with a wolf jaw!”

“You’d better be makin’ up your best trains, then,” counseled Tom, to Jimmie. “Three, I reckon. Crawford won’t wait on sore backs or sore feet; and he’d rather bust every man and every mule and go on by himself, than let Davis outdo him.”

When Captain Crawford arrived with his column at Bowie, from Fort Apache, on November 15, Jimmie the assistant chief packer was ready for him. The Captain Wirt Davis column was to be composed of cavalry and scouts both; but Captain Crawford was taking only scouts.

These were one hundred Chiricahuas, White Mountains and Warm Springs, from the Fort Apache reservation; but mainly Chiricahuas, with Chato as their chief, and Ka-e-ten-na the traveler included. Micky Free was going with the San Carlos scouts and Captain Davis. Captain Crawford had selected so many Chiricahuas because his goal was the Sierra Madre Range again, and the Chiricahuas knew all that country well.