“That man,” asserted Tom Moore, “he cert’inly knows Injun. He said he’d nothin’ against the ’Paches; he wasn’t out to war on ’em, but to get ’em to live peaceably. They could see for themselves that the white people were crowdin’ into the country, and that pretty soon there wouldn’t be enough game to live on. So the ’Pache’d better decide to settle down and go to farmin’ on the land that was given him. He’d be protected from his enemies, and wouldn’t need to steal. The ’Paches who came in peaceful wouldn’t be punished; they’d be treated same as white people; but the bad ones who hung out would make trouble for the good ones, and he’d expect the good ’Paches to help him run down the bad ’Paches. That sounded like sense, and Pedro and the rest of ’em agreed.”
“He’s shorely got some pecul’ar idees,” commented old Jack Long. “For one thing, he says an’ Injun’s as good as a white man an’ some white men are wuss’n Injuns, ’cause they know better. But I reckon when he says ‘peace’ he means peace, an’ when he says ‘fight’ he means fight. He wanted mightily to ketch those two Tonto an’ talk with ’em—an’ when they threw arrers at him an’ skadoodled, blamed if he didn’t up an’ shoot ’em himself! Got the olive-branch in one hand an’ sword in t’other, he has.”
However, with only these two companies of cavalry and a small pack-train the general was now on his way to Fort Whipple, there to wait and plan; for when with all his force he had arrived at Camp Apache, he had received dispatches from the War Department directing him to quit until the Government Peace Commission had tried.
This Peace Commission had been formed in 1867, for the purpose of seeing that the Indians were being honestly treated, and of persuading them to live upon reservations. President U. S. Grant was much in favor of such a scheme. The Indians of Arizona never had been talked with, so the President was sending a Mr. Vincent Colyer, a patriotic and large-hearted New Yorker, to represent the Commission in the Southwest.
“That thar peace plan may work with some o’ those Eastern Injuns, but ’twon’t work with ’Paches,” grumbled old Jack Long. “They got too much country to travel ’round in, an’ war is meat an’ drink to ’em. They ain’t been licked yet, an’ till they’re licked they’ll think the whites are ’fraid of ’em. They won’t understand civilian peace talk, by a stranger. Some big white chief ought to do the talkin’. An’ now the soldiers an’ settlers got to sit back an’ be perlite, so’s not to stir up trouble, an’ Gin’ral Crook can’t make his words good an’ go get the bad lots. ’Pache’ll see ’tain’t any use to stay on a reservation if he can have more fun in the hills.”
Jimmie rather believed, himself, that Mr. Colyer or any stranger from the East, who was not used to Indians, would have hard times “catching” the Chiricahuas.
During the next few days General Crook proved to be a most remarkable man indeed. At first sight, nobody would take him for a general in the United States army. He wore no uniform—just a plain canvas suit; he rode a mule, and he preferred a shot-gun to a rifle. He was not above talking to anybody, as he chose. Only when you saw how straight and decisive he was, would you suspect him to be a soldier and an officer.
Nothing was too small for him to notice, and nothing too hard for him to do. He could talk in the sign language and he could read a trail. He could speak Snake and Spanish and some Apache; and he knew almost as much about Arizona as Tom Moore or Jack Long did. He was up in the morning, even by two o’clock, as soon as the cooks. All day, as he rode in the advance, he constantly asked the names of trees and bushes and flowers, and mountains and streams—and he never forgot. He was a tremendous hunter, and could stuff the beasts and birds that he killed, and he had studied wild animals until he could tell many curious things about them. He liked to explore by himself, with gun and fishing-rod, and never was lost. He drank only cold water—no tea or coffee. He could do without drinking at all, and without eating, either. In fact, Tom Moore and Archie MacIntosh agreed, he could “out-Injun the Injuns”!