Part 1

Produced by Annie R. McGuire

Copyright, 1896, by HARPER & BROTHERS. All Rights Reserved.

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PUBLISHED WEEKLY. NEW YORK, TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 1896. FIVE CENTS A COPY.

VOL. XVIII.--NO. 889. TWO DOLLARS A YEAR.

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RECAPTURED.

A STORY OF THE APACHE DAYS IN ARIZONA.

BY CAPTAIN CHARLES KING, U.S.A.

There was a boy at old Camp Sandy once upon a time when white men were scarce in Arizona, and from the day he was ten years old this boy's consuming desire was to help "clean out," as he heard the soldiers express it, a certain band of mountain Apaches that had surprised and slaughtered a small party of people in whose welfare he felt especial interest, for the reason that there was with them a little fellow of his own age. They had sojourned at Sandy only three days, and then, deaf to remonstrance, had gone on their way up into the mountains "prospecting"; but during those three days the two youngsters had been inseparable. "Sherry" Bates, the sergeant's son, had done the honors of the post for Jimmy Lane, the miner's boy; had proudly exhibited the troop quarters, stables, and corrals; had taken him across the stream to the old ruins up the opposite heights, and told him prodigious stories of the odd people that used to dwell there; had introduced him personally to all the hounds, big and little, and had come to grief in professing to be on intimate terms with a young but lively black bear cub at the sutler's store, and was rescued from serious damage from bruin's claws and clasping arms only by the prompt dash of by-standers. It took some of Sherry's conceit out of him, but not all, and the troopers had lots of fun, later on, at the corral, when he essayed to show Master Jim how well he could ride bare-back, and mounted for the purpose one of Mexican Pete's little "burros" by way of illustration. All the same, they were days of thrilling interest, and Sherry wept sorely when, a week later, a friendly Indian came in and made known to the officers, mainly by signs, that the party had been killed to a man, that their mutilated bodies were lying festering in the sun about the ruins of their wagon up near Stoneman's Lake in the pine country of the Mogollon.[1] The Major commanding sent out a scouting party to investigate, and the report proved only too true. The bodies could no longer be identified; but one thing was certain: there were the remains of four men, hacked and burned beyond recognition, but not a trace of little Jim.

[1] Pronounced Mogol_yone_.

"It was Coyote's band beyond doubt," said the Lieutenant who went in command, and for Coyote's band the troopers at Sandy "had it in," as their soldier slang expressed it, for long, long months--for over a year, in fact--before they ever got word or trace of them. They seemed to have vanished from the face of the earth. Meantime there had been chase after chase, scout after scout. General Crook had been transferred long since to an Eastern field, and was busy with the Sioux and Cheyennes. Another commander, one who lacked Crook's knowledge of Indian tricks and character, had taken charge in Arizona, and the Apaches had quickly found it out. They made it lively for small parties, and easily kept out of the path of big ones. And this was the way things were going when, one autumn night, signal fires were discovered ablaze away up in the Red Rock country, and Major Wheeler sent a troop post-haste to see what it meant; and with this troop went Sergeant Bates, and on its trail, an hour later, unbeknown to almost everybody, went Sherry.

Indians rarely ventured into the deep valley of the Sandy. The boy had hunted jack-rabbits and shot California quail and fished for "shiners" and other inconspicuous members of the finny tribe along its banks, and he knew the neighborhood north, south, and west for miles. Eastward, out of sight of the flag-staff he had never ventured. That was towards the land of the Apache, and thither his father had told him no one was safe to go. An only son was Sherry, and a pretty good boy, as boys go, especially when it is considered that he had been motherless for several years. The old sergeant, his father, watched him carefully, taught him painstakingly, and was very grateful when any of the officers or their wives would help with the lessons of the little man. He had had a pony to ride, but that pony was old when his father bought him from an officer who was ordered to the East, and Sherry soon declared him too old and stiff for his use. What he craved was a horse, and occasionally the men let him mount some of their chargers when the troop went down to water at the river, and that was Sherry's glory; and on this particular October night he had stolen from his little bed and made his way to the corral, and had got Jimmy Lanigan, the saddler sergeant's son, now a trumpeter in "F" Troop, to saddle for him a horse usually ridden by Private McPhee, now sick in hospital of mountain fever. As Mac couldn't go, his horse would not be needed, and Sherry determined to ride in his place.

But some one gave old Bates the "tip," and he caught the little fellow by the ear and led him home just before the troop started, and bade him stay there; and Sherry feigned to be penitent and obedient, but hugged his father hard, and so they parted.

But boys who own dogs know the old dog's trick. Sometimes when starting for a day's pleasuring where Rover would be very much in the way, the master has sternly ordered him home when, with confident joy, the usually welcome pet and companion came bounding and barking after. You have all seen how sad and crestfallen he looked, how dumbly he begged, how reluctantly he skulked homeward when at last he had to go or be pelted with stones; and then, time and again, he finally turned and followed, a long distance behind, never venturing to draw near, until, so very far from home that he knew he couldn't be sent back, he would reappear, tail on high and eyes beaming forgiveness and assurance, and the battle was won.

And Sherry had learned Rover's little game, and he lay patiently in wait until he knew the troop was gone, then over to the corral he stole, easily coaxed the stable sentry into giving him a lift, and in half an hour he was loping northward along the winding Sandy under the starry skies, sure of overtaking the command before the dawn if need be, yet craftily keeping well behind the hindermost, so that his stern old father could not send him back when at last his presence was discovered.

For, long before daybreak, the soldiers were trailing in single file, afoot and leading their horses up the steep, rocky sides of the Mogollon, taking a short-cut across the range instead of following the long, circuitous route to Stoneman's Lake, and only a hundred feet or so behind the rear-most of the pack-train followed keen-eyed, quick-eared little Sherry, still clinging to his saddle, for his light weight made little difference to such a stocky horse as McPhee's Patsy, and trusting mainly to Patsy's power as a trailer to carry him unerringly in the hoof-prints of the troop.

When at last the sun came peering over the pine crests to the east, the little command was deep down in a rocky cañon, and here the Captain ordered halt, lead into line, and unsaddle. The horses and the pack-mules were quickly relieved of their loads, and the men were gathering dry fagots for little cook-fires--fires that must make no smoke at all, even down in that rocky defile, for Indian eyes are sharp as a microscope; but before marching on again men and horses both had to have their bite and the men their tin mug of soldier coffee, and here it was that some one suddenly exclaimed,

"Well, I'm blessed if here ain't Sherry!"

It was useless for the old sergeant to scold now. The officers promptly and laughingly took the boy's part and declared him "a chip of the old block," and bade the sergeant bring the boy along. It was safer, at all events, than sending him back.

And so, secretly proud of him, though openly declaring he would larrup him well the moment they got back to the post, Sergeant Bates obeyed his Captain, and thus it happened that Master Sherry was with "F" Troop the chill October morning, just at dawn, when they found out, entirely to their satisfaction, just what those signal-fires meant.

They were not visible from Camp Sandy, you must understand. Indians are too sharp for that. They were started in certain deep clefts in the Red Rocks which permitted their glare to be seen only from the southeast or the east, the direction from which the roving bands approached when seeking to steal their way back to the old reservation after some bloody foray, sure of food and welcome at the lodges of their friends and fellow-savages, provided they came not empty-handed. Coyote's band had not been near the reservation since their exploit of the year before. A price was on the leader's head, but scouting parties away down to the southeast in the Chiricahua country had learned that recently Coyote with some forty followers had crossed to the north of the Gila, and seemed to be making his way back to his old haunts in the Mogollon. All this was wired to Major Wheeler, and Wheeler sent some trustworthy Apache-Mohave scouts out towards the head-waters of Chevelon's Fork to the east, with orders to watch for the coming of Coyote. It was one of these runners who brought in the tidings that the signal-fires were burning, and that meant, "Come on, Coyote; the coast is clear."

And Apache confederates, watching from the reservation, twenty miles up-stream, would have said the coast was still clear, for the road to Stoneman's Lake was untrodden. A day later, to be sure, they got word that a whole troop of horse had gone by night up into the mountains, but it was then too late to undo what they had done--lured Coyote many a mile towards his enemies. They sent up "smokes" in the afternoon to warn him, but by that time Coyote's people, what was left of them, knew more than did their friends at the reservation.

For, early that morning, just at dawn, while some of them were sound asleep in their brush shelters, or "wicky-ups," away on top of a rocky pinnacle that overlooked the country for miles, this is what happened:

Following the lead of three or four swart, black-haired, beady-eyed Apache scouts, the soldiers came stealthily climbing the steep. Away down in a rocky cañon they had left the horses and pack-mules, their blankets and, many of them, their boots, and in moccasins, or even stocking feet in a few cases, they noiselessly made their way. Officers and all carried the death-dealing little brown cavalry carbine, and thimble belts of copper cartridges were buckled about their waists. "Find um top," the leader of the little squad of scouts muttered to the Captain, as he pointed the evening before to this distant peak, and well he knew their ways, for only three years before he himself had been a "hostile," and was tamed into subjection by General Crook. And so it proved. Relying on the far-away night fires, Coyote and his weary band had made their brush shelters on the old Picacho. The few squaws with them had filled their water-jars at the cañon. Two trusty runners had gone on westward to the reservation, and the rest to sleep. Coyote thought the white soldiers "too heap fool" to think of making a night march through the mountains instead of coming away around by the old road. With the troop-horses was left a small guard, and with the guard a little boy--Master Sherry Bates--fretting and fuming not a little as he lay there among the rocks, wrapped in his father's blanket, and listening with eagerness unspeakable for the crash of musketry away up on that dimly outlined peak that should tell that his father and the boys had found their foemen and the fight was on. Presently, as the eastern sky began to change from crimson to gold, the lofty summit seemed slowly to blaze with glistening fire. The light, still dim and feeble in the jagged ravine, grew sharp and clear along the range, and one of the guard, peering through the Captain's binocular, swore he could "see some of the fellers climbing close to the top"; and Sherry, though shivering with cold and excitement, rolled out of his blanket and scrambled to his feet. An instant more and, floating on the mountain breeze, there came the sudden crash and splutter of distant musketry, and Sherry could control himself no longer. Mad with excitement, he began dancing about the bivouac. The men were all listening and gazing. The horses were snorting and pawing. There was no one to hinder the little fellow now. Half shrouded by the lingering darkness in the gorge, he stole away among the stunted pines and went speeding as though for dear life up the cañon.

The fight itself was of short duration. Surprised in their stronghold, the Indians sprang to their arms at the warning cry of one haplessly wakeful sentinel. It was his death-song, too, for Sergeant Bates and the veteran corporal at his side, foremost with the guides, drove their almost simultaneous shots at the dark figure as it suddenly leaped between them and the sky, tumbling the sentry in his tracks, and then, before the startled band could spring to the shelter of surrounding bowlders, the soldiers with one volley and a ringing cheer came dashing in among them. Some warriors in their panic leaped from the ledge and were dashed upon the rocks below; some, like mountain-goats, went bounding down the eastward side and disappeared among the straggling timber; some, crouching behind the bowlders, fought desperately, until downed by carbine butt or bullet. Some few wailing squaws knelt beside their slain, sure that the white soldiers would not knowingly harm them; while others, like frightened doe, darted away into the shelter of rock or stunted pine. One little Indian boy sat straight up from a sound sleep, rubbing his baby eyes, and yelling with terror. Another little scamp, with snapping black eyes, picked up a gun and pulled trigger like a man, and then lay sprawling on his back, rubbing a damaged shoulder, and kicking almost as hard as the old musket. And then, while some soldiers went on under a boy Lieutenant in charge of the fleeing Indians, others, with their short-winded Captain, counted up the Indian losses and their own, and gave their attention to the wounded; and all of a sudden there went up a shout from Sergeant Bates, who was peering over the edge of a shelf of rock.

"Here's more of 'em, sir, running down this way!" followed by a bang from his carbine and a yell from below, and men who reached his side were just in time to see a brace of squaws, dragging two or three youngsters by the hand, darting into the bushes, while their protecting warriors defiantly faced their assailants, fired a shot or two, and then went plunging after. "I know that Indian," almost screamed old Bates. "It's Coyote himself!"

"After 'em, then!" was the order, and away went every man.

Two minutes later, out from under a shelving rock came crawling a trembling squaw. Peering cautiously around, and assuring herself the troopers were gone, she listened intently to the sound of the pursuit dying away down the mountain-side; then in harsh whisper summoned some one else. Out from the same shelter, shaking with fear, came a little Apache boy, black and dirty, dragging by the hand another boy, white and dirtier still, and crying. Seizing a hand of each, the woman scurried back along the range, until she reached the narrow trail by which the troopers had climbed the heights; then, panting, and muttering threats to the urchins dragging helplessly after, down the hill-side she tore; but only a hundred yards or so, when, with a scream of fright and misery, she threw herself upon her knees before the body of a lithe, sinewy Apache just breathing his last. And then, forgetting her boy charges, forgetting everything for the moment but that she had lost her brave, she began swaying to and fro, crooning some wild chant, while the boys, white and black, knelt shuddering among the rocks in nerveless terror.

And this was the scene that suddenly burst upon the eyes of Sherry, the sergeant's boy, as he came scrambling up the trail in search of his father. And then there went up a shrill, boyish voice in a yell of mingled hope and dread and desperation, and the dirty little white savage, screaming "Sherry! Sherry!" went bounding to meet the new-comer. And the squaw rose up and screamed too--something Master Sherry couldn't understand, but that drove terror to the white boy and lent him wings. "Run! run!" he cried as he seized Sherry by the hand, and, hardly knowing where they were going, back went both youngsters tearing like mad down the tortuous trail.

Five minutes later, as some of the men, wellnigh breathless, came drifting in from the pursuit, and Corporal Clancy, running up from the cañon in pursuit of the vanished "kid," both parties stumbled suddenly upon this motley pair, and the rocks rang with Clancy's glad cry.

"Here he is, sergeant! all right, and Jimmy Lane wid him."

And that's why Sherry didn't get the promised larruping when they all got back to Sandy.

DEPORTMENT.

Half this windy day I've watched them, In the breeze, Those long slender tasselled branches On the trees, Bowing, courtesying politely, Doing their deportments rightly, As modestly, as brightly As you please.

Why, I never saw such manners, Not till now, Such beautiful deportment; But I vow All the people that I see Are as rude as they can be, Not to stop before each tree And make a bow.

ARTHUR WILLIS COLTON.

The following morning we left the village at daylight, each one carrying about twenty pounds of boiled smoked elephant meat. We were soon in the forest, and tramped and tramped along without seeing any game. Towards four o'clock we met a great many fresh elephant tracks. The animals seemed to be just ahead of us. The footprints after a while began to be so plentiful that evidently there had been several herds of elephants. At about five o'clock we came to a beautiful prairie which seemed like a lovely island on that big sea of trees. There were many fields of plantain-trees along the borders of the forest, growing in the midst of trees that had been felled and burned.

Okili said to me: "We have seen, Moguizi, many elephants' tracks on our way here. I am almost certain they will come here to-night, for they are fond of plantains."

So we resolved to go no further that day, for we were on good elephant-hunting ground, and made preparations to spend the night on the border of the forest and wait for the huge beasts. We only spoke in whispers, for we thought the elephants might not be far off.

Okili then said, pointing to a spot where the forest advanced on the prairie, forming, so to speak, a cape:

"It would be wise, I think, for some of us to go to that place, for there also is another large field of plantain-trees, and the chances are that some of the elephants will go there, for there are very many."

Then Ogoola, pointing to another field of plantain-trees south of us, said, "To make sure, some of us ought to go there also."

We all assented.

"We have chosen," said I, "three places where we are going to lie in wait for elephants, so we must divide ourselves into three parties."

I had hardly said these words than they all cried with one voice, "I am going with you, Moguizi."

I replied, "Hunters, if you all go with me, then there will be only one party, and we will be too many together."

"That is so," they all answered. There was a pause.

Okili got up and said, "The Moguizi, Okili, and Niamkala will make one party. You know that the King said that I must be always by the side of the Moguizi."

"Yes," they all answered. "The King said so."

Then Okili spoke again, and said, "Obindji, Mbango, and Macondai will make the second party. Ogoola, Makooga, and Fasiko will make the third party."

Okili, who had much experience in hunting elephants, said, "Now listen to what I am going to tell you, and act accordingly. The great thing in elephant-hunting is for one to have a cool head, otherwise he had better stay at home. Often elephants, when wounded, charge those who fire at them. In that case, if the hunter runs away, he is lost, for the elephant is sure to overtake him, tramp over him, and one of his feet upon the hunter's body is quite enough to kill him instantly. The elephant may prefer to impale him on one of his tusks, or seize him with his trunk and dash him to the ground or against a tree.

"The only way to escape the elephant when he makes his furious charge upon you is to keep perfectly calm, then when you are sure of the direction of the huge beast, instead of facing him, move sideways; then when he is five or six yards from you, take three steps backward as quickly as you possibly can. His pace is then so rapid that he cannot deviate from his course, and he passes by you, and you are safe."

"Yes, Okili, you are right," I said. "I have been three times in the same predicament, and I did exactly what you tell us to do, and there are no other ways to escape the fury of the elephant."

"We will do so," all the hunters said, with one voice, "but we hope to kill the elephants on the spot," and as they said this they looked at the charms which hung on their guns.

We separated, as we had agreed, into three separate parties, but not before we had taken our dinner of elephant meat. Each party went into the prairie to reach the fields, and one and all disappeared in the midst of them.

I had just looked at my watch for the tenth time, which marked one o'clock, when lo! I saw through the dim moonlight, emerging from the forest on the opposite side of the prairie, something like a big black spot, which was moving. Soon I saw it was a huge bull elephant. He walked for a while, then stood still and looked all around, as if to see if there was danger ahead.

Okili and Niamkala had their backs turned to me, and were watching in another direction. I gave the cluck of danger--cluck, cluck! They turned toward me, and I pointed the bull elephant to them. Then the big bull gave a shrill, piercing trumpeting, which evidently meant there was no danger, for immediately afterwards elephant after elephant emerged from the forest into the prairie. I counted one, two, five, seven, ten, thirteen, seventeen, twenty, twenty-three, twenty-seven, when appeared behind them all a cow followed by a baby elephant. No more elephants came out of the forest; the herd was all there. They all came by the bull elephant and stood still in a bunch. Were they mistrustful of danger, or were they taking counsel together before moving?

Fortunately for us the wind blew in the right direction; it blew from the elephants towards us, so they could not possibly detect our scent.

After a while the herd nearest to us, headed by the big bull, marched in our direction. Their keen eyes had evidently detected the plantains. They walked slowly. We could hear their heavy footsteps.

Soon they entered the plantation not one hundred yards from us, and then the destruction began. Plantain-tree after plantain-tree was brought down by them. They were making such a havoc!

Before we moved from our hiding-place we waited until they were so far in among the trees that they could not possibly see us when we crossed that bit of the prairie that stood between us.