2000 Pioneers Victims of Apaches.
How many breakers of the wilderness, hardy, fearless old-timers, were sent to their final rest by this early scourge of the desert, who can say! Some place their number at two thousand, some say more, others less. This does not include the soldier boy, whose profession it is to risk his life, and when necessary, his duty, its sacrifice. Of the number of these there is probably a record somewhere, but of the old pioneer, only an estimate. In the valley, on the mesa and the hillside, on the mountain-top and in the deep shadows of the canyon, everywhere this broad land is dotted with their unknown and unmarked graves.
Captain John G. Bourke, author of “On the Border with Crook,” and “An Apache Campaign,” who was with Gen. Crook, tells us that the Apache “is no coward, but that he has no false ideas about courage, that he would prefer to skulk like a coyote for hours and then kill his enemy, rather than by injudicious exposure receive a wound.” May we not attribute to the chivalrous spirit of Capt. Bourke, not to criticize a foe, his delicate way of putting this?
No, I do not recall that this early plague of the old pioneer ever “injudiciously exposed” himself unless driven to it. “Skulking like the coyote,” as Capt. Bourke so well expresses it, is my conception of his bravery. If forced to the open he would undoubtedly make a brave fight, but I have never heard of his voluntarily seeking that open, meeting his enemy on anything approaching equal terms.