They left Lieutenant Almy’s little detachment starting onward, and old Jack grumbling as he signaled his pack train to “march.”
XI
IN THE STRONGHOLD OF COCHISE
Riding on beside Maria, Jimmie learned more about General Howard and the Chiricahuas.
The general had returned as far as the Warm Spring reservation in New Mexico, with Pedro and Miguel and Santos and the other delegates to Washington. Then he had engaged two Warm Spring guides—young Chie, son of Mangas Coloradas, and Ponce, son of another of Cochise’s old-time friends; and with them, and Captain Sladen his aide, and Tom Jeffords, a red-haired, red-bearded American trader whom the Chiricahuas never harmed, he had proceeded right on west, into the mountains, to find Cochise.
The rest of his party he had dismissed, to wait for word from him, at Bowie.
It had been anxious waiting, for who might foretell what Cochise would do? But suddenly, one day, the general had appeared again, at Bowie, with only Chie as companion. He had met Cochise, in the Stronghold; had talked with him, as man to man; and now he was here, in order that the word should be sent out all along the line: “The Cochise Chiricahuas have promised peace. Do not interfere with them.”
With that, he had immediately returned to the Stronghold; and now Captain S. S. Sumner, commanding Camp Bowie, and several of his officers and a few civilians, were outward bound, to be present at the council.
“Do you think that the Chiricahua have quit forever, Maria?” asked Jimmie, as they jogged along.