When making his call upon the colonel, Freeman related the incident of his meeting with the Apaches, commenting upon it as a pleasing omen. The bronzed campaigner smiled and nodded his head.
“Such is probably the fact; I know the bucks, for they were here this morning; there is not a worse set of scoundrels on the reservation. One of them was the right hand of Cochise, before he became a good Indian, another was with Natchez, and the remaining three are murderers.”
“And yet they did not offer to molest me.”
The colonel shrugged his shoulders.
“No, times have changed mightily within the past year, and yet I cannot feel that this calm is sure to last.”
“Why should it not continue forever?”
“Because human nature is as it is; if the politicians would not interfere with our management of the Apaches, there would be no trouble. Those people, or rather the leaders, have had all the fighting they want. They would settle down and give no more trouble if treated right, but as long as politics are what they are, so long will there be the mischief to pay on the frontier.”
The officer had touched upon a phase of the question to which Freeman had not lately given much thought. The views of the colonel were those of an experienced and well-informed man and they impressed his listener.
“You know, captain,” he continued, “that the Indian doesn’t forget a wrong. He may seem to do so, but none the less he broods over the injustice he has suffered, and when he strikes the rule is that it is the innocent and not the guilty who suffer. When they have been plundered and robbed by the ‘ring,’ they turn upon and kill innocent men, women and children. They simply regard themselves the victims of the Caucasian and strike him wherever and whenever the chance offers.”
“But this thing cannot go on forever. I have been half inclined more than once to move out of the Sutra Valley, but my old friend, Captain Murray, my next door neighbor, dissuaded me. Do you think I have acted wisely?”