"'Why not?' I demands.
"'If I tell,' he says, 'they no believe. They think it all heap lie.'
"Son, consider what a example to travellers is set by that ontootered savage? That's what makes me say thar be traits possessed of Injuns, personal, which a paleface might improve himse'f by copyin'.
"Bein' white myse'f, I'm born with notions ag'in Injuns. I learns of their deestruction with relief, an' never sees one pirootin' about, full of life an' vivacity, but the spectacle fills me with vain regrets. All the same thar's a load o' lies told East concernin' the Injun. I was wont from time to time to discuss these red folks with Gen'ral Stanton, who for years is stationed about in Arizona, an'—merely for the love he b'ars to fightin'—performs as chief of scouts for Gen'ral Crook.
"'Our divers wars with the Apaches,' says Gen'ral Stanton, 'comes more as the frootes of a misdeal by a locoed marshal than anything else besides. When Crook first shows up in Arizona—this is in the long ago—an' starts to inculcate peace among the Apaches, he gets old Jeffords to bring Cochise to him to have a pow-wow. Jeffords rounds up Cochise an' herds him with soft words an' big promises into the presence of Crook. The Grey Fox—which was the Injun name for Crook—makes Cochise a talk. Likewise he p'ints out to the chief the landmarks an' mountain peaks that indicates the Mexican line. An' the Grey Fox explains to Cochise that what cattle is killed an' what skelps is took to the south'ard of the line ain't goin' to bother him a bit. But no'th'ard it's different; thar in that sacred region cattle killin' an' skelp collectin' don't go. The Grey Fox shoves the information on Cochise that every trick turned on the American side of the line has done got to partake of the characteristics of a love affair, or the Grey Fox with his young men in bloo—his walk-a-heaps an' his hoss-warriors—noomerous as the grass, they be—will come down on Cochise an' his Apaches like a coyote on a sage hen or a pan of milk from a top shelf an' make 'em powerful hard to find.
"'Cochise smokes an' smokes, an' after considerin' the bluff of the Grey Fox plenty profound, allows he won't call it. Thar shall be peace between the Apache an' the paleface to the no'th'ard of that line. Then the Grey Fox an' Cochise shakes hands an' says "How!" an' Cochise, with a bolt or two of red calico wherewith to embellish his squaws, goes squanderin' back to his people, permeated to the toes with friendly intentions.
"'Sech is Cochise's reverence for his word, coupled with his fear of the Grey Fox, that years float by an' every deefile an' canyon of the Southwest is as safe as the aisles of a church to the moccasins of the paleface. Thus it continyoos ontil thar comes a evenin' when a jimcrow marshal, with more six-shooters than hoss sense, allows he'll apprehend Cochise's brother a whole lot for some offense that ain't most likely deuce high in the category of troo crime. This ediot offishul reaches for the relative of Cochise; an' as the latter—bein' a savage an' tharfore plumb afraid of captivity—leaps back'ard like he's met up with a rattlesnake, the marshal puts his gun on him an' plugs him so good that he cashes in right thar. The marshal says later in explanation of his game that Cochise's brother turns hostile an' drops his hand on his knife. Most likely he does; a gent's hands—even a Apache's—has done got to be some'ers.
"'But the killin' overturns the peaceful programmes built up between the Grey Fox an' Cochise. When the old chief hears of his brother bein' downed, he paints himse'f black an' red an' sends a bundle of arrows tied with a rattlesnake skin to the Grey Fox with a message to count his people an' look out for himse'f. The Grey Fox, who realises that the day of peace has ended an' the sun gone down to rise on a mornin' of trouble, fills the rattlesnake skin with cartridges an' sends 'em back with a word to Cochise to turn himse'f loose. From that moment the war-jig which is to last for years is on. After Cochise comes Geronimo, an' after Geronimo comes Nana; an' one an' all, they adds a heap of spice to life in Arizona. It's no exaggeration to put the number of palefaces who lose their ha'r as the direct result of that fool marshal layin' for Cochise's brother an' that Injun's consequent cuttin' off, at a round ten thousand. Shore! thar's scores an' scores who's been stood up an' killed in the hills whereof we never gets a whisper. I, myse'f, in goin' through the teepees of a Apache outfit, after we done wipes 'em off the footstool, sees the long ha'r of seven white women who couldn't have been no time dead.
"'Who be they? Folks onknown who's got shot into while romancin' along among the hills with schemes no doubt of settlement in Californy.
"'With what we saveys of the crooelties of the Apaches, thar's likewise a sperit of what book-sharps calls chivalry goes with 'em an' albeit on one ha'r-hung o'casion I profits mightily tharby, I'm onable to give it a reason. You wouldn't track up on no sim'lar weaknesses among the palefaces an' you-all can put down a stack on that.