“I got it from Maria Jilda, the Mexican who was captured when you were captured. He came up to Camp Apache from the Apache Pass where Camp Bowie is. He escaped from the Chiricahua, and now he is an interpreter at Camp Bowie. Yes, Cheemie; Cochise and Geronimo and all that band have gone to live with their brothers the Warm Springs and the Mimbreños at the Cañada Alamosa on the Rio Grande River in New Mexico. But,” added Micky, wisely, “they will not stay.”
“Don’t they want peace?” queried Jimmie. “Did they listen to the words of the white peace man?”
“That white peace man in the black clothes?” demanded Micky scornfully. “No. The Apaches laugh at that white peace man. It is easy to lie to him. The wild Apache think he promises so much because the Americans are afraid of them. The Cochise people are hungry and winter is near and the soldiers have been fighting them hard. They hear that Victorio is being fed and has plenty of clothes and guns. They can rest there until they are ready to take the trail again. What are you doing, Cheemie? Do you like the new American general? I saw him shoot that Tonto. He is a good shot. Afterwards I found the Tonto. He was dead. Then I went to the White Mountains, at Camp Apache.”
“I am living with Joe Felmer, on his ranch. He is a scout, and he works at the post, too,” informed Jimmie. “The general sent me home, but he told me to learn all the soldier ways I could, and not to forget Apache talk. If I’m not old enough to be a scout, I can help with the pack-trains.”
“I shall be a scout,” nodded Micky. “That is why I have come out with the runners: to learn the country. He is a great general, that man Crook. Chief Pedro and old Miguel liked his talk. It is true that if some of the Apaches stay bad, the good Apaches will suffer by it. They will be watched closely and cannot do things they would do if all the Apaches were trusted. So Chief Pedro and the White Mountains will help the new general who talks straight. It is this way, Cheemie—I have heard Pedro and old Miguel and Pi-to-ne and all, say so: As long as there are any wild Chiricahua and Tonto, there will be trouble between the red men and the white men, in Arizona. We must kill the bad Apaches. Then the good Apaches can live at peace and get rich. In the spring the new general must begin to fight, because by then the Chiricahua will be rested up.”
The two Apache runners or dispatch-bearers came back from the adjutant’s office. Their names, as told by Micky, were Alchisé (Alchisay) and Nah-kay-do-klunni. They both were Sierra Blanca—White Mountain Apaches. They and Micky were taken by Antonio Besias the interpreter to be given coffee and bread; and as there was nothing more to be said, Jimmie went about his own business. He knew that he would see Micky Free again, somewhere. Micky was that kind.
Although Chief Cochise and War-Captain Geronimo had moved with their band of Chiricahuas upon the Cottonwood Canyon reservation near Fort Craig in southwestern New Mexico, and Commissioner Colyer had been so confident that all his Indians were about to gather upon their reservations, the white people of Arizona had no faith in this peace policy.
Almost every copy of the Tucson Citizen and the Prescott Miner received by Joe Felmer or at Camp Grant contained accounts of Apache attacks upon settlers and miners and soldiers, by the Tontos and the Apache-Mohaves, and the Chiricahuas raiding up from Mexico.
The Miner published a list of three hundred Americans and Mexicans who had been killed by the Apaches from 1864 to the present time, October 14, 1871.
Toward the end of November the worst news yet, arrived. A band of “Colyer’s babes,” thought to be Apache-Mohaves, had attacked the stage near Wickenburg, south of Prescott, and murdered the driver and five passengers. Three of these passengers were members of the Government surveying expedition which, under Lieutenant George Wheeler, of the U. S. Engineers, had been exploring through Nevada and Arizona, getting facts upon the mines and the country. The name of one was Fred Loring—a well-educated, especially fine young surveyor, from Washington.