The terrible scourge that had so long desolated the Southwest was gone, and all would have been well but for the vicious "Indian Ring" in Washington, or, as it was more popularly known, the "Tucson Ring," who secured legislation by which the 6,000 Apaches were ordered to leave the reservation and go to that of San Carlos, where the soil is arid, the water brackish, and the flies make life intolerable. As was inevitable, the Indians were exasperated and revolted. They preferred to be shot down while resenting the injustice than to submit quietly to it. Again the reign of terror opened, and the blood of hundreds of innocent people paid for the villainy of the rapacious miscreants who were beyond reach.
GERONIMO, THE FAMOUS APACHE CHIEF.
The most famous chief of the Warm Spring Apaches was Geronimo. Another hardly less prominent was his cousin Chato, who joined the whites in their attempts to run down Geronimo. They professed to hate each other, but there is ground for believing the two were secret allies, and kept up continual communication by which Geronimo was able to avoid his pursuers and continue his fearful career.
General Crook took the saddle again, when Geronimo escaped from Fort Apache in May, 1885, with a band of more than a hundred warriors, women, and children. They traveled one hundred and twenty miles before making their first camp. Try as they might, the cavalry could not get within gunshot, and, though the chase was pressed for hundreds of miles, the fugitives placed themselves beyond reach for a time in the Sierra Madre Mountains.
But Crook never let up, and finally corralled Geronimo. He held him just one night, when he escaped. The wily leader stole back to camp the next night, carried off his wife, and was beyond reach before pursuit could be made.
There was an agreement between the United States and Mexico by which the troops of the former were allowed to follow any marauding Indians beyond the Rio Grande when they were seeking escape by entering Mexico. General H.W. Lawton (who won fame in Cuba during our late war with Spain and still more in the Philippines) took the field with the Fourth Cavalry, May 5, 1885. Lawton is a giant in stature and strength, with more endurance than an Indian, absolutely fearless, and he was resolute to run down the Apaches, even if compelled to chase them to the city of Mexico.
And he did it. Geronimo was followed with such untiring persistency, losing a number of his bucks in the attacks made on him, that in desperation he crossed the Rio Grande and headed again for the Sierra Madre. A hot chase of two hundred miles brought the Apaches to bay, and a brisk fight took place within the confines of Mexico. The Indians fled again, and Lawton kept after them. The pursuit took the troopers 300 miles south of the boundary line, the trail winding in and out of the mountains and cañons of Sonora, repeatedly crossing and doubling upon itself, but all the time drawing nearer the dusky scourges, who at last were so worn out and exhausted that when summoned to surrender they did so.
Geronimo, one of the worst of all the Apaches, was once more a prisoner with his band. But he had been a prisoner before, only to escape and renew his outrages. So long as he was anywhere in the Southwest, the ranchmen felt unsafe. Accordingly, he and his leading chiefs were sent to Fort Pickens, Florida, the others being forwarded to Fort Marion, St. Augustine. Their health after a time was affected, and they were removed to Mount Vernon, Alabama. The prisoners, including the women and children, number about 400. A school was opened, whither the boys and girls were sent to receive instruction, and some of the brightest pupils in the well-known Indian School at Carlisle were the boys and girls whose fathers were merciless raiders in Arizona only a few years ago, and who are now quiet, peaceful, contented, and "good Indians." The Apaches have been thoroughly conquered, and the ranchmen and their families have not the shadow of a fear that the terror that once shadowed their thresholds can ever return.
PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 1888.