Geronimo made camp again about half a mile away, as before, and in a strong position. Everybody was ordered to keep away from it, so as to avoid trouble; but the lieutenant took Ka-e-ten-na and rode over.
When they returned, Ka-e-ten-na reported that Geronimo was still drunk, and he and another chief were riding around on one mule; and that Nah-che had shot his wife.
Now the ranch which had supplied the whiskey was near. Lieutenant Shipp took a detail over, to search the ranch and destroy the liquor.
Tom Moore, the old frontiersman, swore vigorously.
“It’s sure a dog-gone shame that for a few dirty dollars any man will throw the whole country open again to an Injun war. For that’s what it means, if those Chiricahuas lose their heads. When whiskey gets in, the brains go out.”
Concepcion said that the whiskey seller had been filling the Chiricahuas with lies also: he had told them that they were to be killed as soon as they reached Bowie. He did this, so that they would stay out and he might sell them more whiskey.
However, the night quieted the Chiricahuas in their camp. The lieutenant sent over, once, to investigate. The warriors were said to be sleeping.
But in the morning, which was March 29, while Jimmie was pulling on his boots before breakfast, he saw the lieutenant dash away, with Ka-e-ten-na, in the direction of Geronimo’s camp. In about an hour they returned. The lieutenant stopped here where Tom Moore was overseeing the unpacking of the pack-trains, for the day’s march. He looked oddly haggard, but spoke with a hard, quick accent.
“Geronimo, Nah-che and twenty men and thirteen women are gone. I’ll require a pack-train and several of your best men, to follow them with. You can report to Shipp. Faison will go on to Bowie.”
Tom’s jaw dropped, and for a moment he acted as if too full for utterance. This, then, was the outcome of all those other bitter pursuits—poor Captain Crawford’s death—the general’s painstaking methods!