They all sat down: Al beside Pedro, but Jimmie and Micky a little way apart from them, as was correct when in the company of chiefs.
“The Gray Fox is talking with Major Randall,” said Al. “That was bad work at San Carlos, Pedro. You are a wise chief, and you know Apaches. General Crook wishes to do what is right by all the Apaches. He wishes peace, so that we may all live together and prosper. No one prospers long in war. What is the best course to follow with these bad Indians? Can they be made good?”
“Let us talk in Mexican, Sibi,” spoke Chief Pedro. “And if you or I use words that are not understood, the Red-head or maybe the short-leg boy will explain. This talk must be very clear. Now, there is no way to make those bad Apaches good, except to kill them. The bad Indians do not know what I know; they have not been to the cities of the Great White Father and seen how powerful he is. I will give Cluke one hundred and fifty of my warriors, smart fighters all. Let Cluke send them into the Gila Canyon. The Gray Fox is brave, and his white soldiers are brave, but the Chuntz people will go where his soldiers cannot follow; this is summer, and they know every spot in the canyon, and will hide.
“But my Apaches will find them, and kill some of them. Then my men will come home, and rest a while, and go out and kill more. By winter time there will be fewer of the mean Apaches; and if they do not all die during the winter, in the spring we will kill the rest of them. But if Cluke waits till winter, before that time the bad Indians will have made much more trouble at San Carlos, and perhaps among my White Mountains, and perhaps among the Chiricahua.”
“I will think on what you have said,” responded Al.
“It will be no use to send you or any other person into the canyon, to spend words on those people,” proceeded Pedro. “They will burn him, and will send back an old woman to tell Cluke to give them more of his men, to burn. Now I am done, Man of Iron. I cannot read from paper, but I can look at the actions of a bad Indian, and can read how he feels and what he will do.”
“Humph!” mused Al, as with Jimmie and Micky he rode away. “I believe old Pedro is right.”
The next afternoon the general held a talk at the San Carlos agency with Es-kim-en-zin, of the Arivaipas, and with those Tonto and Yavapai chiefs who had not joined Chuntz.
The San Carlos agency was seventy miles southwest from Camp Apache, where the San Carlos River emptied into the Gila. This San Carlos reservation was really an addition to the southern boundary of the White Mountain reservation. It was sixty miles wide and extended clear to the New Mexico line, one hundred and twenty miles. The eastern half was rough and mountainous, but the western half, along the Gila River, was flatter and more open—especially around the agency, where the Indians were supposed to live.
The majority of the Apaches did not like it. They said that it was low, hot and unhealthful.