“I am sorry to hear that there are bad hearts at work among you,” spoke the general. Concepcion Equierre translated. “They have deceived you into believing that the white people might be killed, and that the Apaches might be free to rob and murder again. Now the innocent have suffered. Lieutenant Almy, one of your best friends, has been killed, and you all are prevented from going about on hunts and visits.
“I want you all to live as free as the white men. I do not expect you to stop being red men. I want your women to gather mescal and seeds and roots, and your men to hunt deer and turkeys without fear; for these things are good to eat. But you cannot do this without fear, when there is war.
“Now about these Chuntz and Long-ear bad men. I have thousands of soldiers, and many Apache scouts, and they are enough to give the bad Apaches no rest. But I want you to punish your own bad people. You must send out your own warriors, and keep sending them out until Chuntz and Long-ear and Cochinay are killed or captured, and their people surrender. It is not right that a few bad men should work so much harm to everybody. I hope that you will consider what I have said. I am done.”
All that summer of 1873 and into the next summer the San Carlos and White Mountain police, assisted by cavalry and infantry detachments patrolling the hills, harassed the outlaws. Wherever the Chuntz people moved, in the Canyon of the Gila, the reservation Apaches were ferreting them out.
Some of the outlaws sent in word that they were ready to surrender. They were told that they might come in if they brought Chuntz, Long-ear and Cochinay. Finally the outlaws were hunting their chiefs.
Cochinay was killed on May 26, 1874; Long-ear was killed on June 12; Chuntz the villain was killed on July 25. A whole sackful of heads was spilled by the Apache police upon the ground in front of Major John B. Babcock’s headquarters, at San Carlos, to prove that “peace” was being made!
Over at Verde, Delt-che had broken out and had been killed, in July.
So by mid-summer of 1874 the bad-hearted chiefs seemed all out of the way, at last. Old Cochise, also, had died, in June, on the Chiricahua reservation, and Taza was the head chief. He could be depended upon, for peace.