At last, with about three hundred of his Chiricahuas, he went to the San Carlos. Geronimo agreed to go, too; but he and Chief Whoa, who had come in from Mexico, and old Nana, and Nah-che, and four hundred others, ran off into Mexico.
The next spring they returned to visit Victorio’s Warm Spring band at the Cottonwood Canyon reservation. Because of this, Chiefs Victorio and Geronimo were arrested, and all the Indians were started, under guard, for the San Carlos.
On the way Chief Victorio escaped, with forty warriors. After this he made war on the Americans until he was killed in 1880. He claimed that he had done no wrong, and that he never could trust the Americans again.
“The policy of concentration,” was what the Indian Bureau called its scheme to place all the Apaches upon the San Carlos reservation. “A policy of concentrated trouble,” Al Sieber said.
And that proved true.
Soon the San Carlos reservation contained about five thousand Indians, good and bad; some working, some lazy. There were Yavapais, Tontos, Coyotes, Apache-Yumas, Chiricahuas, Pinals, Arivaipas, Sierra Blanca (White Mountains), and even a few Hualpais. They had different habits. The Indian Bureau seemed to think that one Apache was just like another Apache, but General Crook had known better.
Whiskey was being smuggled in or manufactured; white miners and ranchers and prospectors were trespassing, and large sections of the reservation had been lopped off for other uses; the agents were accused of selling the Indians’ supplies outside, instead of distributing them properly or storing them; the Indians quarreled among themselves, and even some of the White Mountains had revolted.
So in the early morning of April, 1882, Jimmie Dunn, riding telegraph line up along the Gila River from Camp Thomas, had plenty to think about. Jimmie was a young man, now, with a limp (an honorable limp) but with a good hard head.